DEFYING SILENCE

IS RABBI LERNER A ZIONIST

2012-01-27T19:07:00.001-05:00

By GulamhuseinAbba

“The conflict is due toJewish nationalism- Zionism, which pre-dates the holocaust ….. my relatives who weremurdered by the Nazis did not die to give cover to Zionist crimes inPalestine, and did not die to give him (Lerner) his ridiculous argument”….Rich Siegel

Rabbi Michael Lerner's book discussionevent on January 22 for his new book, "Embracing Israel/Palestine” wenthorribly wrong when it took a completely unexpected and shocking turn near theend.

Sponsored by Riverside ChurchIsrael/PalestineTask Force, and Co-Sponsored by: Brooklyn For Peace, JewishVoice For Peace,Tree of Life Education Fund, NY, Friends of Sabeel, North America, NY, and The Israeli Committee Against HouseDemolitions, USA, it was meant to be a dialogue between Rabbi Lerner and DavidWildman, with a Special appearance by Rich Siegel, a former Zionist turned a peace activist, singing songs fromhis new CD “The Way to Peace”.

Everything went smoothly as planned. Rich sangone of his songs. Rabbi Lerner and David Wildman discussed the book and theopics it dealt with.

RichSiegel

Wildman, fhe executive secretary for HumanRights & Racial Justice with the UnitedMethodist Church's General Board of Global Ministries, very well versed on thesubject, interviewed Rabbi Lerner,

Lerner talked about the conflict being due totwo traumatized people, the Jews traumatized by the holocaust, the Arabstraumatized by colonialism. He also mentioned Arab intolerance of Zionistsettlement.

After the discussion Rich was scheduled tosing another song. He stepped up to do so. This is where things changed dramatically.

Rich,to everyone’s surprise, launched into an unscheduled impromptu speech of hisown.

According to Rich, Rabbi Lerner is basicallyan apologist for Zionism pretending to be a peace activist. In his mini speech,Rich called Lerner on his “ridiculous” claims and stated firmly that theconflict in Palestine is due solely to Jewish nationalism, Zionism, which, hepointed out, predates the holocaust.

Becoming emotional, he said that his relatives, whowere murdered by the Nazis, did not die to give cover to Zionist crimes inPalestine, and did not die to give Lerner his “ridiculous” argument.

According to reports, Lerner wanted to walk out but Wildmanencouraged him to stay, and he did- through Rich’s speech and his songafterwards.

The whole program was videotaped. The organizers of the eventand/or the videographer should put it on the internet. It would make instructiveand interesting viewing.

RabbiMichael Lerner is editor of TikkunMagazine, considered tobe one of the most respected intellectual/cultural but also the mostcontroversial magazines in the Jewish world.

He ischair of the interfaith Network ofSpiritual Progressives, rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in Berkeley, Ca. and authorof eleven books, most recently the national best-seller The Left Hand of God:Taking Back our Country From the Religious Right.

His books include: The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right; The Geneva Accord and OtherStrategies for Middle East Peace; collection of Best Contemporary Jewish Writing; Spirit Matters: Global Healingand the Wisdom of the Soul; The Socialism of Fools: Anti-Semitism on the Left; Jews and Blacks: Let the Healing Begin (with Cornel West); The Politics of Meaning; Surplus Powerlessness

Extensivebiography at http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/biographical-notes-on-rabbi-lerner

David Wildman is the executive secretary for Human Rights &Racial Justice with the United Methodist Church's General Board of Global MinistriesHe visits Afghanistan and the Middle East regularly, serves on the board of the National FarmWorker Ministry and is active in corporate accountability work withthe Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.

Biography at: http://www.iwj.org/detail/person.cfm?person_id=142

Rich Siege,an accomplished pianist/vocalist/songwriter, He was brought up in aconservative Zionist family but, after educating himself about the history ofZionism, the events that lead to the establishment of Israel and the policy andactions of the Israeli government towards the Palestinians, became a peace activistspeaking out for justice to thePalestinians.

He has made a veryemotional video about the Children dying in Palestine. In it he mentions someof the myths that Zionists repeat ad nauseum . In the original CD, after thesong Rich and his fellow song-writer DaveLippman speak their feelings about what is happening in Palestine and whatjustice demands. Rich makes out a cogent case for a single secular statesolution where the Jews, Christians and Muslims live amicably together.

These can be seen on twoseparate videos on the YouTube at http://youtu.be/1x2axqjhI6g

And at http://youtu.be/ojv1FWFGCgw

Rich carries out hisactivism through music, singing in bars, at peace events and other gatherings.

He has just released a new CD “The Wayto Peace”, featuring Gilad Atzmon (woodwinds), Eugene Moye(cello), Gary Ciuci (guitar), Cameron Brown (bass), and Anthony Pinciotti(drums). This CD features vocals in English, Spanish, Arabic, and Hebrew andfeatures a new cello arrangement of “In Palestine.”

(Details at http://palestineonlinestore.com/shop/the-way-to-peace-by-rich-siegel/)

EXCHANGING ONE PRISON FOR ANOTHER

2012-01-19T17:14:00.000-05:00

Shocking revelations

Editor’s note: This article waspublished in the German magazine Online Spiegel on January 19, 2012. In this version, someof the photographs that were made available with the article have been insertedinto the body of the article. The original can be seen at:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,810072,00.html

A Contribution by SeemaSaifee

The prison camp at Guantánamo in Cuba wasset up by the US in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in New Yorkand Washington D.C. President George W. Bush designated prisoners taken in thewar on terror as "unlawful enemy combatants." They were held inGuantánamo for years with no recourse to legal assistance

Getty Images

Ahmad Tourson spent eight years in Guantánamo as an innocent man. Then, in 2009, he was shipped off to the tiny island nation of Palau. His new situation, though, is untenable -- but the US government seems unwilling to do anything about it.

On her sixth birthday, Muslima had one wish:to see her dada. On that day, Ahmad Tourson, her father, was trying tosleep. But slumber was a luxury in the windowless metal box to which he wasconsigned for 22 hours a day, sometimes 24. On Muslima's sixth birthday, Ahmadwas imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He had been there for her last fivebirthdays as well.

Not long after her birthday, though, it looked as though Muslima'swish would come true after all. In June 2008, sunlight shone on the steel vaultto which Ahmad was confined. Over six years of courtroom battles and cruelconditions of confinement later, the hundreds of men the US executive claimedthe power to hold indefinitely won the right to petition for a writ of habeascorpus to challenge the lawfulness of their detention. Ahmad's case was tobe heard by a US federal judge

In consequence, the US government withdrewany pretense that Ahmad was an "enemy combatant," admitting it had nobasis to hold the man and his 16 Uighur countrymen, all from China. With thecase thus abandoned, remedy was the sole question remaining. The Uighurs soughttheir only possible remedy: freedom in the United States.

On the day of the hearing, US DistrictJudge Ricardo Urbina decried assertions by then-President George W. Bush's toplawyers that executive discretion was almighty. He invited the president'slawyers -- several times -- to explain what the security risk would be to thenation should the Uighurs be freed in the US. "You've had seven years tostudy this issue," the judge admonished. The US government could notproduce one single example.

At Liberty's Doorstep

JudgeUrbina concluded that the detention of the Uighurs was illegal. Understandingthat the men could not be returned to their native China, which may havetortured, or even executed, the members of the minority ethnic group, and thatdiplomatic efforts to lobby (and re-lobby) nearly 100 countries for theirhumanitarian resettlement had failed, Judge Urbina ordered the 17 men freed tothe United States. Release was mandated within 72 hours.

The prospect of freedom, once outside hisreach, was now within Ahmad's grasp. The Uighurs, whose young faces haddeveloped wrinkles from years of indefinite detention, imagined boarding aplane to freedom. A contingent of US marshals flew to Guantánamo to escort themen to their new home. Ahmad was at liberty's doorstep.

But 42 hours before Ahmad's scheduledrelease, the US government won an emergency stay to shelve the Uighurs' releaseuntil the case could be reviewed by a higher court. On appeal, the D.C. CircuitCourt of Appeals ruled that US federal courts exercising habeasjurisdiction were impotent to release men at Guantánamo whose confinement wasadmittedly unlawful. The Great Writ was defiled. Liberty, said the D.C.Circuit, had no guardian.

Ahmad embarked on his eighth year ofindefinite detention because US judges concluded they did not have the power toend it. And two presidents agreed. In Guantánamo's Orwellian land ofdoublespeak, Ahmad was not detained, said Bush; the U.S. military was"harboring" him (inside a chain-link fence surrounded by barbed wire)because he "chose" not to return to China (a country whose governmentwould have put a bullet in his head), and the president would honor this choiceout of executive grace (as the US claimed it had no legal obligation not to refoulehim to a country that tortures), until a safe nation granted him refuge (solong as that nation's president did not reside on Pennsylvania Avenue). And,once he entered office, President Barack Obama spun the same tale.

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Here, Ahmad (left) is seen with other Uighurs who were resettledto Palau in 2009. Their resettlement to Palau was originally intended to beonly temporary. But so far, no third country has come forward to offer them apermanent home.

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Not a Durable Refuge

In the summer of 2009, the US State Departmentnegotiated Ahmad's resettlement with the Republic of Palau, an isolated,impoverished island in the middle of the South Pacific. After multiple years ofshopping Ahmad to foreign sovereigns, the US found a remote island, the onlynation, it said, to offer him refuge. (Any nation that previously consideredgranting Ahmad asylum quickly reneged when Chinese diplomats threatenedcessation of economic ties. Palau, however, is one of a small contingent ofcountries that maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan.)

The US and Palauan governments acknowledgedthat the remote island was not durable as a long-term refuge. Ahmad'srelocation there, they said, was intended as a way station, a means to leaveGuantánamo, a temporary solution until another country offered him sustainableresettlement. Ahmad thus accepted his only opportunity to leave Guantánamo,with the hope, one day, of finding a permanent refuge.

That hope has shriveled. Today, two yearssince his release and 10 years since he was sold into US custody, Ahmad remainsin limbo in Palau. Despite his and the US State Department's assiduous efforts,he has no reasonable prospect of future resettlement. And the remote island isfar from paradise.

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The Uighur prisoners were not the only innocent prisoners in theGuantánamo prison camp. This is an old image of Lakhdar Boumediene -- takenbefore he was arrested in Sarajevo. Born in Algeria, he held a senior positionin an aid organization operating in Bosnia. He was arrested on Oct. 19, 2001because he had allegedly planned a bomb attack on the US Embassy. Although aBosnian court found him not guilty, he was kidnapped by US agents and taken toGuantánamo

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Ahmad holds a diploma from atechnical college in China. He has experience as a management technician at anoil refinery and as a restaurant owner. He has advanced English languageskills. But, in Palau, Ahmad cannot find work that provides a living wage. Heis excluded, under Palauan law, from access to the same job opportunitiesavailable to Palauan citizens. What is more, he is not covered by Palau'sminimum wage law, which is, itself, a trifling $2.50 an hour. Ahmad has no pathto citizenship; under Palau's constitution, citizenship is conferred only toindividuals with native Palauan ancestry. Even if Ahmad could access gainfulemployment, Palauan employers have refused to hire him. Many raise concernsabout losing customers; others call the men terrorists. With a population ofjust 20,000, the entire island knows the Uighurs. The men cannot blend in; theysuffer a unique prominence they would not face in most nations.

Seeking Refuge in Kabul

The scale tips further. Ahmad is atranstibial amputee. Prior to being sent to Guantánamo, Ahmad had been livingas a refugee in Kabul. Uighurs have been subjected to torture and arbitraryarrest in China and Ahmad says he was lashed with electric sticks and his wifewas threatened with a forced abortion. With modest resources, he sought asylumin neighboring countries, but most Central Asian nations had deals to deportUighur refugees to China.

But Afghanistan did not forcibly repatriateUighurs. Thus, in 2000, Ahmad along with his two-year-old son and pregnant wifetook refuge in Kabul, one year before the US and NATO began combat operationsin Afghanistan. US cargo planes dropped leaflets offering significant rewardsto locals for catching "enemies" -- and Ahmad was traded to US forcesfor $5,000. He was taken to an Afghan prison where his left leg was shatteredin a bombing run. Once in Guantánamo, his leg was amputated below the knee andAhmad, a young man in his early 30s, was forced to use a walker.

Amputees require lifetime prosthetic care,routinely available in many nations. But no level of prosthetic careexists in Palau. Indeed health care is so limited that Palauan nationals musttravel overseas to obtain specialized or emergency care. But Ahmad is unable totravel outside Palau -- even for medical care. He has no reasonable means ofprocuring travel documents or permission to enter another nation. According toorthopedists, without access to this essential prosthetic care, Ahmad will notachieve full mobility and is unlikely to find gainful employment. Life on theisland is, and will remain, untenable.

Stranded in Palau

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)Handbook, resettlement as a durable solution must be accompanied by ameaningful prospect of local integration, which involves more than safety from refoulement.Local integration includes the enjoyment of legal, economic, medical, andsocial rights, none of which are available to Ahmad in Palau. Indeed, thelimitations of the conditions in Palau are precisely the reason the island wasnot proposed as a durable solution and why relocation there was intended to betemporary only.

Ahmad wants to forget the years he spentwithout being charged at Guantánamo, but he can't. The sheer isolation ofPalau, which has no Uighur or refugee population of any kind, reminds himhauntingly of Guantánamo. And one memory he can never forget is that of the 171men who remain at Guantánamo, including five of his countrymen.

Ahmad's only ray of dawn during this darkdecade came in 2010, when he was reunited with his family. Muslima, who wasborn after Ahmad's capture, embraced her dada for the first time shortlybefore she turned nine. But the rosy-cheeked girl, whose radiant smile hardshiphas not obscured, is stateless. She has been mandated as a refugee by theUNHCR. But with no reasonable prospects of resettlement in another nation, shemay remain stranded in Palau for the rest of her life.

About SeemaSaifee

Seema Saifee is a lawyer in New York. She representsfour Uighurs who spent seven years in the US prison at Guantánamo Bay: AhmadTourson, Abdulghappar Abdulrahman, Adel Noori and Abdulrazaq. No proof of theirguilt has ever been offered. Three of them were resettled in Palau in 2009 withAbdulrazaq and four other Uighurs still being held in Guantánamo

RelatedTopics

Afghanistan War

United States

Barack Obama

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Bush's Tragic Legacy: How 9/11 Triggered America's Decline

NONVIOLENT GLOBAL MOVEMENT LAUNCHED

2012-01-16T12:34:00.001-05:00

A report by Robert J. Burrowes

(Editor’s note: You can read 'ThePeople's Charter to Create a Nonviolent World' and, if it feels right to you,sign the pledge at http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com)

On 11 November 2011, the 93rd anniversaryof the armistice of World War 1,a new movement to end human violence was launchedaround the world. 'The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World' waslaunched simultaneously in Australia, Malaysia, the Philippines and the UnitedStates and has already gained signatories in twenty-two countries.

The aim of the Nonviolence Charter is to create aworldwide movement to end violence in all of its forms. According to AnahataGiri, the Charter gives voice to the millions of ordinary people around theworld who want an end to war, domestic violence, oppression, economicexploitation, environmental destruction, and violence of all other kinds. TheCharter is also designed to support and unite the courageous nonviolentstruggles of ordinary people all over the world.

People who wish to join the movement are invited to signa pledge to take personal action to progressively eliminate the violence theyinflict on themselves, others and the Earth, and to engage in acts ofnonviolent resistance and/or creation to bring about a nonviolent future.

USA (Seattle)

A report from a launch organizer in the United States,Tom Shea, included photos taken by fellow organizer Leonard Eiger. The launch,which took place in Seattle, involved several groups: the Ground Zero Centerfor Nonviolent Action, the Puget Sound Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Declaration, SeattleVeterans For Peace Chapter 92, Collective Voices for Peace USA, CollectiveVoces Ecologiacas Panama, and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship Seattle Chapter.Tom reported that it was a great gathering.

After a moment of silence at Seattle’s Wall ofRemembrance (which lists the names of Washington State military killed in majorUS Wars), Tom reported, 'we began our spoken presence'. Even amid a cold rain,over twenty people representing a broad variety of peace people assembled. Theseincluded four from Occupy Seattle (two of whom were dressed in military garb),the Colgans – who’ve been holding a vigil in front of the Seattle FederalBuilding every Tuesday since 2004, in honor of their son killed in Iraq – a womanin a wheelchair and the Buddhist chair of the Seattle Peace Team (a group thatdoes training and is active as peacekeepers in places of conflict in town). 'Wespoke briefly about The Charter, how individuals can participate ... and sharedinformation about six of the groups present.'

Malaysia

The launch in Malaysia was organized by the InternationalMovement for A Just World (JUST International) and was held as part of the Inter-civilizationalYouth Engagement Program (IYEP) 5 held at the Shah’s Village Hotel in PetalingJaya, Selangor. It was organized by Professor Chandra Muzaffar, Helen Ng andNurul Haida Dzulkifli.

On arrival, guests were welcomed, shown the video 'Do untoothers' and given hand-made poppies. This was followed by dance performances ofthe Indonesian 'Thousand Hands Dance' and the Korean 'Sorry Sorry', the music video'Wonderful World', and the poem 'I Want to See What I Saw Again'. Guests thenheard a talk by Dato Dr. Shad Saleem Faruqi on 'The Violence of CapitalPunishment', a guitar performance of 'That’s Why I Love You', a dramaperformance of '500 Days of Violence', a talk and video by Mr.Khampi on theZomi Education Centre for Myanmar Refugees, before the song 'We Are The World'.Finally, 'The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World' was read out, withthe dramatization of selective clauses, the pledge was taken, the Charter wassigned and poppies were placed on a 'field' on their Charter banner.

Phillipines

In the Philippines, the launch took place in ten barangay(village) halls in Quezon province and involved the praying of the rosary andlighting of eleven candles. It was organized by Dr. Tess Ramiro who is Directorof the main nonviolence organization in the Philippines, Aksyon para sa Kapayapaanat Katarungan (Action for Peace and Justice) – Center for Active Nonviolence,at the Pius XII Catholic Center in Manila. In her report, Tess indicated that,according to the base groups, the activity was very successful. One base groupalone reported an attendance of 100 persons and the event was supported by theparish priest.

Australia (Melbourne)

The launch in Melbourne, Australia, was organizedby Anahata Giri, Anita McKone and myself. Eight ordinary people spoke about whythey are going to work to end human violence and what they are going to bedoing differently from now on.

The speakers included a diverse range of people fromvarious ethnic and religious backgrounds including Samah Sabawi, a Palestinianborn in Gaza; Kijana Majok Piel, a Sudanese Muslim who spent 17 years living ina refugee camp in Kenya; Karen Thompson-Anderson, who teaches nonviolentcommunication; Frank Ruanjie, a Chinese pro-democracy activist now exiled inAustralia; Tenzin Lobsang, a Tibetan Buddhist who fled Tibet as a child; JohnMcKenna who relies on a wheelchair for his mobility and works

with intellectually disabled people; Isabelle Skaburskis,a Canadian woman who did rehabilitation work (yoga therapy) with women andchildren who had been sexually trafficked in Cambodia; and Annie Whitlocke, awoman of Jewish heritage who has suffered much violence throughout herchildhood

and married life.

The launch also featured Samah Sabawireading her evocative poems 'The Liberation Anthem' and 'A Confession' (whichwas accompanied by sound effects, including a recording of the Israeli bombingof Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, managed by her nephew Omer Elsaafin).Tenzing Yeshi sang his powerful song 'Cho Sum Mirik' about the life of HisHoliness 14^th Dalai Lama of Tibet. Anita and Anahata sang 'Freedom forPalestine/Everyone', and 'We Sing Nonviolence' written by Anita specificallyfor the Charter launch.

My own talk, explaining the purpose of the NonviolenceCharter, included the following words:

'So what is unique about "The People’s Charter toCreate a Nonviolent World"? The People’s Charter is an attempt to put thefocus on human violence as the pre-eminent problem faced by our species, toidentify all of the major manifestations of this violence, and to identify waysto tackle all of these manifestations of violence in a systematic and strategicmanner. It is an attempt to put the focus on the fundamental cause – theviolence we adults inflict on children – and to stress the importance ofdealing with that cause. (See 'Why Violence?' http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence)It is an attempt to focus on what you and I - that is, ordinary people - can doto end human violence and "The People’s Charter" invites us to pledgeto make that effort. It is an attempt, as Anahata said to me the other day, tocombine the deeply personal with the deeply global: to listen to our deep innerselves to restore humanity. And it is an attempt to provide a focal pointaround which we can mobilize with a sense of shared commitment with people fromall over the world. In short, as of tonight, it is a new, worldwide movementand its specific focus is ending human violence....

'So, together with people in Malaysia, the Philippinesand the United States, tonight many of us will choose to pledge ourselves to anew, concerted and worldwide effort to end human violence, in all of its

manifestations, for all time.

'This is undoubtedly a monumental endeavor. Perhaps, itis the greatest endeavor in human history. I feel privileged to share it withyou all. And I love you all for making that endeavor....

'We are committed to leave here tonight to struggle toend human violence. In my view, there can be no greater calling than this.Whatever our differences, ending human violence is our compelling and unifyingdream.'

Robert J. Burrowes flametree@riseup.net

In search of Palestine. BBC documentary

2012-01-12T00:21:00.001-05:00

In search of Palestine. BBC documentary
Follow my videos on vodpod

This is a MUST SEE documentary which brings to light the reality in Palestine, demonstrating visually the the injustices being inflicted on the Palestinians on a daily basis by the Israelis while the world watches indifferently, some of them embracing the perpetrators of all this misery.

2011-12-16T15:42:00.007-05:00

A call to Christians
at Christmas 2011

Virginia Tilley
14 December 2011

A Call to Christians at Christmas 2011

By Virginia Tilley

Introduction: Finally, we have someone prepared to call the

Christian Churches out on their feeble caution and empty

prayers on Palestine. Virginia Tilley does it with the razor

sharpness of one who knows her business - not prepared to

mince words or pay lip service to mealy-mouthed assurances

of Christian concern for Palestinian suffering while doing
nothing to hold Israel to account. It is long overdue as one

denomination after another pussyfoots around Israel too

afraid to call a spade a spade. In recalling the 1985 Kairos

document composed by Archbishop Tutu during South

Africa’s anti-Apartheid struggle, Virginia Tilley says it should

be read “just to show how clear-headed Christian activism can

get when it truly girds its loins. The 1985 Kairos had no truck

with empty talk of ‘peace’, ‘reconciliation’ and ‘dialogue’.”

Tilley’s article is an important expose of how the Christian

church, for all its efforts in giving succor to the Palestinians,

has been woefully lacking in moral fortitude. As Tilley says
so eloquently, “the tasks in Palestine have long been plain.

The evangelical Christian right must be approached about its

gullible equation of a modern military state with spiritual

rebirth. Israel’s instrumental deceit about Jewish life in the

Holy Land constituting a path to Christian salvation must be

exposed. The sins of ethnic cleansing and state-sponsored
bigotry must be confronted. The malevolent whispers

circulated by Zionist plants in Jerusalem and Palestine, which

attempt to demonize Islam for Christians and Christianity for

Muslims, must be openly and unanimously denounced. In the

spirit of the 1985 Kairos, the true meaning of Christian love

must show its moral fist to reject false symmetry and the sinful

notion of reconciliation with oppression.” It is something to

think about as we gear up for the usual Christmas festivities

celebrating the birth of Jesus more than 2000 years ago in

Bethlehem, long before walls, barbed wire and checkpoints

imprisoned the city from the rest of Palestine. Perhaps it will
make for more sober reflection about the part we all have

played in perpetuating the intolerable Palestinian predicament.

At five minutes to midnight, it is really time for the Christian

church to “gird its loins” and call for true justice for the

Palestinians.

Sonja Karkar
Editor
http://australiansforpalestine.com

***********************

The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that the Arab Spring is threatening the safety of Christian communities in the Middle East. He did not realise it, but this public warning—much as President Obama’s UN speech in September struck the death knell for US credibility in the Middle East—has dealt still another fatal moral blow to other central Middle East actors: the world’s Christian Churches, already suffering from a wobbly posture regarding ethnic and religious relations in the Middle East. For those within the faith, it impels a collective “j’accuse” to Christian leaderships and an unqualified call for principled action. For it must now be said plainly, and confronted honestly: it is morally unacceptable for the Christian churches to continue to dither and wander morally on sectarian relations in the Middle East by ducking the question of Palestine.

Anyone familiar with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict knows the painful back story to the Archbishop’s concerns. The Middle East is a pastiche of religions and sects which have coexisted mostly peacefully through the millennia, except when some exogenous factor stirred things up. Invading empires and crusades occasionally have done so, from the Persians through the infamous US interventions in Iran (1953) and Iraq. But one such sin has stood for the past century as a seeping sore, aggravating sectarian tensions and provoking religious polarisation throughout the region. That is the creation of Israel as an ethnic state in the Levant and the resulting Palestinian-Israeli conflict which springs from explicitly religious bigotry. For a Church leader of the Archbishop’s stature to pretend that this conflict does not enter the Arab Spring equation is both disingenuous and unacceptable.

For decades, it has been a quiet scandal that individual Christians and Christian projects regarding the Palestine-Israel conflict, labouring on doggedly with courage and principle, have been consistently crippled by pabulum statements, strategic over-caution or sheepish silence by the major Church leaderships. This silence has not reflected any lack of information. It’s certainly no secret to Christian Palestinians, and therefore the Church leaders to whom they report, that Israel has deliberately sabotaged the ancient Christian axis of pilgrimage between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Thus shattering Christian community and impoverishing the old Christian mercantile sectors, Israel has also systematically and deliberately stoked tensions between Muslim and Christian Palestinians over the years. The combination has impelled steady Christian emigration in recent decades, reducing the once-formidable and culturally rich Christian community from some nineteen percent of Jerusalem’s population in 1944 to just over two percent today. As a package, Israel’s policies have indeed brought Christian Palestinians in the occupied territories under a sense of local siege and threat they have not experienced for centuries, while aggravating sectarian tensions with their Muslim neighbours in ways that have polarised and poisoned sectarian sentiments throughout the Middle East. Cries of alarm about this trend have issued from Christians in Palestine for decades and with increasing desperation, yet the Church leaderships have remained reticent and Israel’s suffocating compression continues.

It has further agonised those faithful who treasure Palestine’s awe-inspiring biblical landscape to see the Christian Churches stand silent while Israeli settlements and security installations pave that landscape over. Just twenty years ago, Christian pilgrims could still walk to the old city of Jerusalem or Rachel’s Tomb on ancient trails laid down over five thousand years among the rocky hills of Judea, following the footpaths of prophets and disciples that wove among the springs and valleys of biblical legend. Just twenty years ago, shepherds still tended their flocks by night around the hills of Bethlehem, playing on wooden flutes. Now these sacred landscapes are paved over, blocked off, and the West Bank is an uglified mess of four-lane highways, broken up by hideous concrete barriers and electrified fences, the old olive terraces crushed and buried under acres of monolithic Jewish-only apartment blocs. The shepherds are arrested, harassed and gone. The ancient trails are gone forever. Millennia of humanity’s historical heritage, razed and effaced in a scant few decades, to serve not natural population growth but an artificial state-sponsored project to take over land in the name of an exclusive ethnic nationalism. The loss is heartbreaking on so many levels that it cannot be expressed.

And the world’s great Churches, whose cathedrals are nested in all this? To Israeli authorities, quiet pleas, in stiff meetings behind closed doors, tactical manoeuvres to keep privileges and access. To the world, silence or token gestures, even as Israel’s construction and archaeological excavations press up against their churches’ very walls.

Some may quickly protest that the Christian Churches have not been silent. The World Council of Churches has regularly met, denounced, and called for action on Palestine. The Catholic Church has expressed concern in various ways. The Presbyterian Church launched some broad discussions. The Evangelical Lutheran Church has called for prayer, investment and education. Yes, yes. But a close read of Church statements finds in most of them a disturbing vagueness, language calculated not to offend, punches consistently pulled. The net effect? Complicity, and a spiritual crisis.

Examples of this net effect are myriad, but two will illustrate the problem: first, a small one, the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum’s It’s Time, which, despite a bold title, manages never to bruise the toes of the Israeli government. Take, for example, its gentle idea that “It’s time to assist settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to make their home in Israel” while not saying why or how. Or, “It's time for people who have been refugees for more than 60 years to regain their rights and a permanent home,” yet carefully not specifying where those homes should be. At some point, It’s Time slips into morally offensive symmetry that also violates common sense: e.g., “It's time for both sides to release their prisoners and give those justly accused a fair trial.” While adopting the profile of a call for action, the whole piece leaves one spiritually anaesthetised and bemused, as the illusion of real spiritual fortitude is derailed into vaporous ideals amounting to non-action. Over-all, the effect is like reading one of those pastel Sunday-school pamphlets.

Or, for a far more influential example, take the 2009 Kairos Palestine, which has drawn thousands of Christian signatures and the endorsement of some Christian world leaders, including Archbishop Tutu. Composed by a formidable line-up of theologians, it does offer some firm statements: e.g., “the military occupation of our land is a sin against God and humanity”. But the first warning flag arises in the first sentence of the preface, which refers blandly to “difficult times that we still experience in this Holy Land” and other vapid calls to “stand by” the Palestinians without saying much about how. Otherwise, it gives the bad impression of a co-written document whose moral momentum was curtailed by some timid gatekeepers. The bulk of Kairos Palestine is a recital of Israeli human rights abuses and a long-winded theological treatise on “hope”, “love” and “mission”. Alas, the journey thus suggested never gets anywhere. For example, under the subsection, “word to the Churches of the world”, we find an appeal: “We ask our sister Churches not to offer a theological cover-up for the injustice we suffer, for the sin of the occupation imposed upon us.” But instead of a clear call for action and an incisive statement of principle, this passage then waffles away to drain all but the mildest energy: “Our question to our brothers and sisters in the Churches today is: Are you able to help us get our freedom back, for this is the only way you can help the two peoples attain justice, peace, security and love?” The call to “Jewish and Muslim religious leaders” is equally void: “Let us together try to rise up above the political positions that have failed so far and continue to lead us on the path of failure and suffering.” But “rise up” how? And what action is urged regarding Jerusalem, which is affirmed to be “the foundation of our vision and our entire life”? None at all, except to urge that Jerusalem be “the first issue to be negotiated”. After a page or two of this fog, the mind numbs over and moral energy fades and turns inward to prayer circles and polite discussion groups.

Lest it seem rude to denounce so well-meaning an effort, consider that the 1985 Kairos, composed by South African pastors and theologians in South Africa, targeted precisely this kind of slippery religious language as deployed by the major South African churches and the state to defend apartheid. For real Christian inspiration regarding Palestine, this famous Christian document from South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle should be reread in full, but a selection is worth reproducing here just to show just how clear-headed Christian activism can get when it truly girds its loins. The 1985 Kairos had no truck with empty talk of “peace”, “reconciliation” and “dialogue” and its reasoning on this point is worth quoting at length (readers are encouraged to substitute “Palestinians” for “South Africans” to suggest the comparison):

In a limited, guarded and cautious way [mainstream Church Theology in South Africa] is critical of apartheid. Its criticism, however, is superficial and counter-productive because instead of engaging in an in-depth analysis of the signs of our times, it relies upon a few stock ideas derived from Christian tradition and then uncritically and repeatedly applies them to our situation. The stock ideas used by almost all these Church leaders that we would like to examine here are: reconciliation (or peace), justice and non-violence. ...

Church Theology' takes 'reconciliation' as the key to problem resolution. It talks about the need for reconciliation between white and black, or between all South Africans. 'Church Theology' often describes the Christian stance in the following way: "We must be fair. We must listen to both sides of the story. If the two sides can only meet to talk and negotiate they will sort out their differences and misunderstandings, and the conflict will be resolved." On the face of it this may sound very Christian. But is it?

The fallacy here is that 'Reconciliation' has been made into an absolute principle that must be applied in all cases of conflict or dissension. But not all cases of conflict are the same. We can imagine a private quarrel between two people or two groups whose differences are based upon misunderstandings. In such cases it would be appropriate to talk and negotiate to sort out the misunderstandings and to reconcile the two sides. But there are other conflicts in which one side is right and the other wrong. There are conflicts where one side is a fully armed and violent oppressor while the other side is defenseless and oppressed. There are conflicts that can only be described as the struggle between justice and injustice, good and evil, God and the devil. To speak of reconciling these two is not only a mistaken application of the Christian idea of reconciliation, it is a total betrayal of all that Christian faith has ever meant. Nowhere in the Bible or in Christian tradition has it ever been suggested that we ought to try to reconcile good and evil, God and the devil. We are supposed to do away with evil, injustice, oppression and sin--not come to terms with it. We are supposed to oppose, confront and reject the devil and not try to sup with the devil.

In our situation in South Africa today it would be totally un-Christian to plead for reconciliation and peace before the present injustices have been removed. Any such plea plays into the hands of the oppressor by trying to persuade those of us who are oppressed to accept our oppression and to become reconciled to the intolerable crimes that are committed against us. That is not Christian reconciliation, it is sin. It is asking us to become accomplices in our own oppression, to become servants of the devil. No reconciliation is possible in South Africa without justice.

The 1985 Kairos is especially clear-headed about the true meaning of peace: “It would be quite wrong to try to preserve 'peace' and 'unity' at all costs, even at the cost of truth and justice and, worse still, at the cost of thousands of young lives. As disciples of Jesus we should rather promote truth and justice and life at all costs, even at the cost of creating conflict, disunity and dissension along the way.” And where Kairos-Palestine, It’s Time and other Christian Church resolutions skid around in “both sides’ language, the 1985 Kairos explicitly rejects any false symmetries and focuses on the central issue of oppression:

It would be quite wrong to see the present conflict as simply a racial war. The racial component is there but we are not dealing with two equal races or nations each with their own selfish group interests. The situation we are dealing with here is one of oppression. The conflict is between an oppressor and the oppressed. The conflict between two irreconcilable causes or interests in which the one is just and the other is unjust. ... This is our situation of civil war or revolution. The one side is committed to maintaining the system at all costs and the other side is committed to changing it at all costs. There are two conflicting projects here and no compromise is possible. Either we have full and equal justice for all or we don't.

With this noble language before us, we must finally see the truth and drop the charade. Most Christian Church statements regarding Palestine are embarrassing fluff by comparison.

Why the weak and woolly stance by Church leaderships in Palestine, where the moral issues are so stark and Christian concerns so keen? The reasons are too well known. The world’s major Churches have long walked on eggs with Israel. Some of this caution reflects well-warranted (if confused) guilt about centuries of anti-Semitism. Local churches may restrain themselves out of kindly and principled concern not to offend and ruffle relations with Jewish neighbours. Less noble motives include conservative concerns to preserve Church real estate and privileges in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the Galilee and other Biblical sites, where an irate Israel can sever Christian access in an instant. It is also Not Done to criticise other Christian denominations, so even those Churches who view Israel’s practices as abhorrent will still avoid challenging the whole Zionist project, as this would insult the Zionist theology of evangelical churches that have fallen for Israel’s (cynically deployed) story of collective Jewish redemption of the Holy Land. Given that actual Christian life in Palestine is being graphically destroyed, however, one does not have to be a 666-er to see that Zionist propaganda has “led Christians astray” by successfully attaching Jewish state-building in Palestine to misty visions of Jewish life in a Biblical landscape and confusing Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians (even Christian ones) with messianic prophecies about the End Times.

Some historically minded cynics might object here that Christian timidity and confusion about the conflict in Palestine should not be singled out. Courageous priests and Christian activists have always stood forth in the world’s conflict zones in selfless and sometimes martyred defence of the weak, and do so in Palestine, but the uncomfortable truth is that these heroic figures and groups have always been outliers. Overwhelmingly, over past centuries the major Christian churches have either linked their futures and finances to whatever states they operated within or simply operated in an illusory sphere of detached spiritual practice where they absolved themselves of moral responsibility for the suffering around them, except by offering spiritual solace to endure it. Here one might recall the old state-church alliance in Latin America, a system of totalitarian social control that has stood for five centuries as the edifice glowering over those grassroots liberation-theologians whose courage is always cited as the Church’s redeeming example, yet whose noble work the last Pope outlawed. Hence, for long-time observers of the conflict, it has been no surprise but still a bitter pill that the Archbishop of Canterbury, like most Church leaders, has been conspicuously silent, vague or reserved about Israel’s physical ruin of the Holy Land landscape and its progressive decimation of Christian community in Palestine.

Yet it is really too much that this same Archbishop now blames the Arab Spring, of all things, for an anti-Christian tilt that his own Church has, through neglect and caution of the Palestinian problem, systematically aggravated. For it is indeed a bitter scandal that the official Churches in Palestine, with their great properties embedded in the Jewish state and their slumbering but immense moral authority on the world stage, who could delegitimize and end Israel’s occupation overnight with one unified public denunciation, instead have opted—from timidity, caution, conservatism, internecine rivalries or merely a sloppy moral compass—to enable it. That this choice has fed heavily into the present sectarian mess in the Middle East is a given. The Archbishop may well worry that Christians in Egypt and elsewhere now feel “exposed and uncertain”, but he would do well to consider how much responsibility for those fears traces to his own desk.

It is up to the entire Christian community to end this confusion, abandon feeble caution and unintended hypocrisy, and reconsider the example of Jesus as set forth in the 1985 Kairos and in the Gospels themselves. The tasks in Palestine have long been plain. The evangelical Christian right must be approached about its gullible equation of a modern military state with spiritual rebirth. Israel’s instrumental deceit about Jewish life in the Holy Land constituting a path to Christian salvation must be exposed. The sins of ethnic cleansing and state-sponsored bigotry must be confronted. The malevolent whispers circulated by Zionist plants in Jerusalem and Palestine, which attempt to demonise Islam for Christians and Christianity for Muslims, must be openly and unanimously denounced. In the spirit of the 1985 Kairos, the true meaning of Christian love must show its moral fist to reject false symmetry and the sinful notion of reconciliation with oppression.

Each Christmas, it has become a seasonal ritual for Christians to call for new care and action on Palestine. Each subsequent year, the same empty, circumscribed, ineffectual gestures result. The courage of the Arab Spring exposes this shameful ritualised cycle of moral failure as a spiritual imperative. This year’s Christmas must be a time for spiritual renewal, frank self-examination, fresh insight, and new courage to set aside sanitised pleas and empty prayers, stop listening to the internal gatekeepers, reject Israel’s manipulation of Christian theology to serve militaristic ends, and demand that all Church leaderships, with one clarion voice, call for true justice in Palestine. If the teachings of Jesus mean anything today, surely they mean this: the salvation of all three Abrahamic faiths from the false gods of mutual fear and the scourge of oppression. The alternative is to stand before the Cross at Christmas 2012 with a deepening and well-earned sense of shame.

Virginia Tilley is associate professor and Director of the Governance graduate program at the University of the South Pacific. As Chief Research Specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa, she convened and edited a major legal study of whether Israel’s practices in the occupied Palestinian territories are consistent with colonialism and apartheid, to be published in 2012 with Pluto Press. She is author of “The One-State Solution” (London Review of Books, 6 November 2003), The One-State Solution (U. of Michigan Press, 2005) and numerous articles and essays on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Email: virginia.tilley@gmail.com.

IS HYPOCRICY SANCTIFIED

2011-11-30T23:01:00.005-05:00

By: Mazim Qumsiyeh

( for original: http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2011/11/is-hypocrisy-sanctified.html)

Is hypocrisy ignored?
As children of lesser gods cleansed!
While colonial settlers from Europe enriched
and 7 million Palestinian refugees created
dozens of massacres committed
And 540 villages and towns depopulated
putting us here them there as planned!
While speaking of security not for the colonized
And Safety not for the occupied

Is hypocrisy sanctified?
When big brown eyes teared
As Mother was gunned
And Americans mourned
for Rachel bulldozed
While soldiers celebrated
a mission accomplished
and we, who were not chosen or selected
our dead we buried
our wound we licked
or in our drinks we drowned
even shopped while silenced
or behind closed doors muttered
or news on TV cursed
to the world as it is adapted

Is hypocrisy unquestioned?
When rich Abe Foxman "feels" discriminated
and the new Goebles called Regev worried
and Friedman in his column squeaked
Netanyahu hugging racists demanded
and a bar bouncer minister bellowed
and they all told us to be silenced
for only Jewish suffering was allowed
and apathy on today's atrocities encouraged
as the altered school curricula deemed
a whole history manufactured
bible myths promoted
while archeology ignored
and conflicts promoted
to fulfill prophecies
Hope diminished
Love massacred

Is hypocrisy worshipped?
When some Palestinian politicians adapted?
Their revolutionary spirit long quenched
And with VIP cards in 5 star hotels dined?
And their European-funded studies accumulated
While even prayers in churches and mosques were stopped
and a thousand year old tree was uprooted
And an old man became partially blind
for his olives behind the fence withered
and after a second stroke he was buried
But not in his land….
his neighbor said "with no choice I worked"
So that "with shekels from occupiers I was paid"
But others in suits in front of cameras their mouth opened
And to the dry hot dusty air contributed!

Is hypocrisy normalized?
When, not Bahrain but Syria sanctioned!
And not Yemen, but Libya attacked!
Belligerent Israel with its nukes supported
While Iran, attacking no one, is bullied
And so what if western politicians lied?
After they took the paid junkets and were bribed?
Isn't it normal for prostitutes to be sold?
And keep millions in apartheid?
While to millions the truth denied?
And poor Americans lose their homes?
While billionaires get more enriched?

Is hypocrisy easily digested?
When 20 racist laws are codified
In an apartheid country supposedly democratized
Or when an Israeli soldier's life is venerated?
While Thousands of Palestinian chained…
A hundred thousand Injured…
With high walls Surrounded….
In Bantustans warehoused….
Millions ghettoized…
And graves of hundreds of children overflowed…
And as collateral damage justified
an army with a state is called moralized!

Is hypocrisy elevated?
When on Yom Kippur they pledged
Sins and lies to be purified
And their US made F-16s bombed
refugee camps with explosives obliterated
While an old woman in Silwan evicted
And humanitarian ships pirated
Peace Activists on the deck executed
As the dreaded word "bitachon" regurgitated
And again and again Al-Araqib demolished

Is hypocrisy deified?
When monotheistic religions distorted:
Jacob with Elohim/El-lah struggled
And in triumph Isra-El renamed!
When idols like Zionism worshiped
and can't be challenged
by inferior gentiles who can't understand
and by us the native "roaches drugged"
Yahweh gave the deed to the land
to those who can create gods from Gold
and gold from hasbara as they lobbied
for yet another war and got readied

Is hypocrisy venerated?
When myths are believed
Jewishness and Zionism worshipped
And ashes of murdered Jews used
Even as living survivors screamed:
not in our name can history be politicized
and "never again" must not be Judaicized

Is hypocrisy exalted?
Or a global intifada launched
London to San Francisco echoed
Wall Street to Sidney "occupied"
our unity in humanity finally emerged
hypocrisy exposed!
Humanity reclaimed!
Love ascertained

Mazim Qumsiyeh: Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh teaches and does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities in occupied Palestine. He serves as chairman of the board of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and is coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour. He is author of "Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle" and “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and Empowerment”

Pakistan: Reversing the Lens

2011-10-28T17:14:00.000-04:00

By Conn Hallinan, October 26, 2011

Conn Hallinan

Since the United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, Pakistan has lost more than 35,000 people, the vast bulk of them civilians. While the U.S. has had slightly over 1800 soldiers killed in the past 10 years, Pakistan has lost over 5,000 soldiers and police. The number of suicide bombings in Pakistan has gone from one before 2001, to more than 335 since.

“Terrorism,” as Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari says, “is not a statistic for us.”

For most Americans, Pakistan is a two-faced “ally” playing a double game in Central Asia even as it siphons off tens of billions of dollars in aid. For Pakistanis, the spillover from the Afghan war has cost Islamabad approximately of $100 billion. And this in a country with a yearly GDP of around $175 billion and whose resources have been deeply strained by two years of catastrophic flooding.

Washington complains that its $20.7 billion in aid over the past nine years has bought it very little in the way of loyalty from Islamabad, while Pakistan points out that U.S. aid makes up less than 0.3 percent of Pakistan’s yearly GDP.

Both countries’ opinions of one another are almost mirror images. According to a U.S. poll, 74 percent of Americans do not consider Pakistan to be an ally, while the Pew Research Center found that six in 10 Pakistanis consider the Americans an “enemy” and only 12 percent have a favorable view of the United States.

This mutual distrust in part results from mistakes and misjudgments by both countries that date back to the 1979-89 Russian occupation of Afghanistan. But at its heart is an American strategy that not only runs counter to Pakistan’s interests, but will make ending the war in Afghanistan a far more painful procedure than need be.

Pakistani Interests

If Pakistan is a victim in the long-running war, it is not entirely an innocent one. Pakistan, along with the United States, was an ally of the anti-Communist, right-wing mujahideen during the 1980s Afghan war.

Pakistan’s interest in Afghanistan has always been multi-faceted. Islamabad is deeply worried that its traditional enemy, India, will gain a foothold in Afghanistan, thereby essentially surrounding Pakistan. This is not exactly paranoid, as Pakistan has fought—and lost—three wars with India, and tensions between the two still remain high.

Over the past six years, India has conducted 10 major military exercises along the Pakistani border. The latest—Viajyee Bhava (Be Victorious)—involved 20,000 troops. India has the world’s fourth largest army, Pakistan the 15^th.

By aligning itself with Washington during its Cold War competition with the Soviets in Afghanistan, Islamabad had the inside track to buy high-performance American military hardware to help it offset India’s numerical superiority. Indeed, it did manage to purchase some F-16s fighter-bombers.

But when Pakistan allied itself with the Taliban, India aligned itself with the Northern Alliance, composed of Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras who opposed the Pashtun-dominated Taliban. Pashtuns are a plurality in Afghanistan’s complex mix of ethnicities, and traditionally they dominated the Kabul government.

Islamabad has always been deeply concerned about the Pashtuns, because a long-time fear of Islamabad is that Pakistani Pashtuns could ally themselves to Afghani Pashtuns and form a breakaway country that would fragment Pakistan.

From Islamabad’s point of view, the American demand that it corral the Taliban and the Haqqani Group that operate from mountainous Northwest Frontier and Federally Administrated Tribal Areas of Pakistan could stir up Pashtun nationalism. In any case, the task would be beyond the capabilities of the Pakistan military. In 2009, the Pakistani Army used two full divisions just to reclaim the Swat Valley from local militants, a battle that cost billions of dollars, generated two million refugees, and inflicted heavy casualties.

Diverging Objectives

Current U.S. strategy has exacerbated Pakistan’s problem by putting the Northern Alliance in power, excluding the Pashtuns from any meaningful participation, and targeting the ethnic group’s heartland in southern and eastern Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai is a Pashtun, but he is little more than window dressing in a government dominated by other ethnic groups. According to Zahid Hussain, author of a book on Islamic militants, this has turned the war into a “Pashtun war” and has meant that “the Pashtuns in Pakistan would become…strongly allied with both al Qaeda and the Taliban.”

The United States has also remained silent while India moved aggressively into Afghanistan. On October 4, Kabul and New Delhi inked a “strategic partnership” that, according to The New York Times, “paves the way for India to train and equip Afghan security forces.” The idea of India training Afghan troops is the equivalent of waving a red flag to see if the Pakistani bull will charge.

One pretext for the agreement was the recent assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, head of the Afghan High Peace Council, killed by the Taliban under the direction of the Pakistani secret service, the ISI, according to Karzai government claims. But evidence linking the Taliban or Pakistan to the hit is not persuasive, and the Taliban and Haqqani Group—never shy about taking the credit for killing people—say they had nothing to do with it.

Pakistan’s ISI certainly maintains a relationship with the Afghan-based Taliban and the Haqqani Group, but former Joint Chiefs of Staff head, Admiral Mike Mullen’s charge that the latter are a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s ISI is simply false. The Haqqanis come from the powerful Zadran tribe based in Paktia and Khost provinces in Afghanistan and North Waziristan in Pakistan’s Tribal Area.

When their interests coincide, the Haqqanis find common ground with Islamabad, but the idea that Pakistan can get anyone in that region to jump to attention reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the deeply engrained cultural and ethnic currents that have successfully rebuffed outsiders for thousands of years. And in the border region, the Pakistan Army is as much an outsider as is NATO.

Dealing with the Mess

There is a way out of this morass, but it will require a very different strategy than the one the United States is currently following, and one far more attuned to the lens through which most Pakistanis view the war in Afghanistan.

The United States and its allies must first stand down their military offensive—including the drone attacks—against the Taliban and Haqqani Group, and negotiate a ceasefire. Then the United States must open immediate talks with the various insurgency groups and declare a plan for the withdrawal of all foreign troops. The Taliban—the Haqqanis say they will follow the organization’s lead—have indicated that they will no longer insist on a withdrawal of troops before opening talks, but they do want a timetable. Any government in Kabul that emerges from such negotiations must reflect the ethnic make-up of the country.

Pakistan’s concerns over Indian influence must also be addressed, including the dangerous issue of Kashmir. President Obama ran on a platform that called for dealing with Kashmir, but he subsequently dropped it at the insistence of New Delhi.

Pakistan and the United States may have profoundly different views of one another, but on at least one issue they agree: slightly over 90 percent of Pakistanis would like U.S. troops to go home, and 62 percent of Americans want an immediate cut in U.S. forces. Common ground in this case seems to be based on a strong dose of common sense.

Conn Hallinan is a Foreign Policy In Focus columnist. His writings can be read at: dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and middleempireseries.wordpress.com

recommended citation:

Conn Hallinan, "Pakistan: Reversing the Lens" (Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, October 26, 2011)

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Back to basics in Palestine –

2011-10-25T15:46:00.243-04:00

Time for unity, synergy and mobilization

by Susan Abulhawa

The Palestine Chronicle
October 2011

(The following is a condensed version of Susan Abulhawa’s speech at the Al-Awda Center grand opening. It is reproduced her by courtesy of The Palestine Chroinicle and Sonja Karka, Editor, Australians for Palestine )

Summary: Susan Abulhawa presents an argument to abandon all negotiations with Israel and to abandon calls for the One State and Two State solutions; and in fact, to abandon academic debates on a political construct in favor of embracing the basic calls of Palestinian civil society for essential human rights. This strategy includes the need for a consensus and unified call originating from Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and agreed upon with the various Palestinian communities that make up the Palestinian
Nation, including: Palestinians of the West Bank, Jerusalem, Gaza, refugee camps outside of Palestine, the worldwide Diaspora and Palestinians of 1948. She argues that the greatest and unstoppable power available to Palestinians lies in their roots, the moral authority of their struggle for freedom. Harnessing that power, to which Israel has no real defenses, is the most practical path forward and it is rests on the need for 1) a unified call for freedom and the full range of human rights and dignities 2) a point of synergy among the multitude of internal and external movements which
include direct action and solidarity activities inside Palestine and around the world and 3) sustained mobilization from the bottom up, hopefully with the assistance of the Palestinian Authority, but at least without interference from them.

To try to comprehend the PA’s UN bid for statehood and to figure out what the ramifications are on many fronts, it behooves us to take a look at history because, this is, after all, not the first time that a Palestinian state was formally declared. I know there are legal differences between the
declaration of state in the 1980s and the current application for recognition, but for all intents and purposes, they are both attempts to achieve statehood by seeking international recognition, which, I feel, is the wrong approach for our struggle at this moment in history and, in my opinion is also probably a cynically calculated move that has little to do
with actually achieving statehood.

The First Intifada & Declaration of Statehood

In 1988, the PLO formally declared the State of Palestine, and the designation “Palestine” for the PLO was adopted by UN in acknowledgement of that declaration, even though we had no formal status at the UN as a state. At that time, as with the present, we had overwhelming popular support in the General Assembly. Also at that time, as in the present, the US did everything it could to prevent any kind of recognition or international legitimacy for Palestine.

The more important and striking similarity between the declaration of statehood in 1988 and in the present UN bid is the presence of a persistent nonviolent movement with growing international solidarity.

In 1987, the first Intifada began as a popular, spontaneous, and grassroots uprising that moved the Palestinian struggle away from guerilla warfare. It changed the way the world saw Palestinians and began to reveal the brutality of the occupation. The first intifada was nonviolent, marked by mass civil disobedience, boycotts, refusal to pay taxes, disruption of power and sewage going to illegal colonies and more of the like. Throwing rocks against tanks and armored Israeli vehicles was symbolic and few in the international
community bought Israel’s claims that these rocks constituted serious violent threats.

As a result, the first intifada began to capture the imaginations and inspire civil societies everywhere, despite Israel’s best PR and hasbara campaigns. Popular international solidarity was growing and there was a burgeoning awareness of who we are and what we had suffered for decades under occupation. And for the first time, there was open public criticism of Israel in places that would not have dared to do so before. Simply, the moral authority of our cause could not be ignored.

Even though Israel was committing unspeakable war crimes to suppress the intifada, the movement only intensified and caused power to shift to the Palestinian street, for the first time. That shift was also changing world opinion, which was a major threat to Israel because it hit at their greatest weak point: their image, and I’ll touch on that more shortly.

But the first intifada didn’t just threaten Israel, it was also a threat to the Palestinian leadership, which was outside of Palestine at the time. The persistence of the first intifada spawned local leaderships that were not directly affiliated with the PLO, and although the PLO had nothing to do
with the first intifada, they quickly positioned themselves at the forefront and began to take control as much as possible from the outside. The PLO’s efforts to control extinguished the intifada’s fire and culminated in the Madrid Conference followed by the Oslo Accords.

In essence, here’s what happened: after decades of suffering at the hands of a brutal military occupation whose only purpose was to displace or subjugate Palestinians under their control, we had the first bottom up movement that was full of solidarity, full of hope. And, more importantly, it was full of
promise. It promised to grow and spread. It promised a path of successful nonviolent resistance with growing international attention at the levels of civil society, mainstream media, and government leaderships. This promise was seized by the Palestinian leadership. They took ownership of the movement when it started to gain momentum on the ground and abroad, they grabbed the reigns of it, and then they steered us into what turned out to
be more slaughter and more wholesale theft of our lands and properties, all under the auspices of a negotiated settlement called the “Peace Process”.

Today we find ourselves in a situation bearing many of the same hallmarks and a reaction by the Palestinian leadership that looks too much like their reaction then.

The Second Intifada & UN Bid for Statehood

Although the second intifada’s early days saw violent Palestinian reactions to Israel’s sustained terrorism, it has morphed into a nonviolent struggle that is taking roots not only in Palestine, but throughout the world. The change in the 2nd Intifada’s character has spurred many to declare it over, but this is not an accurate statement. The second intifada is alive and well and growing.

Perhaps the earliest manifestations of the active nonviolent resistance came from the activites of the International Solidarity Movement. Construction of the Apartheid Wall spawned more local heroes who began leading unrelenting
and regular demonstrations. The call from Palestinian Civil Society for international Boycott Divestment and Sanctions against Israel was launched was launched in 2005, pushing the movement in new directions and far outside of Palestine, whereby solidarity groups all over the world joined and have
been implementing creative nonviolent resistance actions.

The results have been impressive and nonviolent resistance is once again taking hold in the occupied territories and around the world. It’s happening on an even greater scale internationally, thanks to the current communication technology that was not available in the 1980s. Among the
many victories of BDS abroad, several major corporations have had their hands forced by activists. Thanks in large part to BDS affiliate, CodePink, AHAVAs flagship store in London was forced to close. Veolia, the French multinational corporation lost billions of euros worth of municipality
contracts for its involvement in building infrastructure to illegal Israeli settlements and it is now facing financial meltdown. Most recently, Agrexco, a major Israeli exporter of produce, that come primarily from illegal Israeli farms on stolen Palestinian land, has been forced to liquidate its assets after being unable to pay its creditors thanks to the efforts of BDS.

These are just a few examples of the results of cooperation between civil society everywhere who have heeded the calls of BDS. This popular movement is taking a life of its own and is accompanied by similar movements, like the International Solidarity Movement that I mentioned before, the Free Gaza
Movement, the flotillas, and the Russell Tribunals, to name a few. Important international figures across the world have signed on and taken action against Israel’s apartheid. These are prominent individuals in their fields – literary figures, musicians, clergy, military personnel, activists, journalists, and more – who have taken very public stands against Israeli
Apartheid.

This is huge! It’s importance and impact should not be underestimated.

It hits right at what I said was one of Israel’s weakest points. Israel pours billions of dollars into creating and maintaining the image of civilized and enlightened country, and they panic when the world starts to see the reality of their ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing; And they panic even more when they’re called out on it.

That’s why they’ve been so freaked out lately passing one fascist law after
another to try to police what people say, what they publicly remember [anti-Naqba law], or what they choose to buy or not buy [anti-boycott law]. They’re freaked out by internationals bearing witness to their war crimes; so they’ve passed a series of laws to prevent non-Palestinians from going into the West Bank and Gaza. Then there’s the racist loyalty oath – the list goes on. They are absurd, fascist laws that only show how scared Israel has become of our growing solidarity movement, BDS, and nonviolent actions inside Palestine.

This ground swell should not be minimized!

Then came Arab Spring!

It caused a seismic shift in power away from the ruling elite toward the people and toward popular action and democracy throughout the Arab World. Arab Spring inspired and galvanized our movement even more. Arab Spring is now going global, as it’s not a stretch to make a connection between the demonstrations in Tahrir Square and the ongoing Occupy Wall Street in New York.

Against this backdrop of people power, the Palestinian Authority, unilaterally [and I don't mean 'unilaterally' in that it excluded Israel; but 'unilaterally' in that it excluded Palestinians] decided to make a bid for statehood at the UN. At no time did Mahmoud Abbass address the people
he supposedly represents. Even at the UN, when he made the bid for statehood, he was still speaking to everyone except us. That, to me, is a bad sign that history could be repeating itself here. It looks too much like the past, particularly when we see images of Palestinians giving Abu Mazen a heroes welcome home; it reminds me of the fanfare of the PA’s arrival in the West Bank after Oslo, which is clear to everyone in retrospect to have been nothing more than a ruse to quiet popular nonviolent action in order to give Israel the time it needs to continue its colonial endeavors in the occupied territories.

I would also add that the timing of this UN bid is uestionable, as it comes when the PA is severely weakened by the damning revelations of the Palestine Papers leaked on Al Jazeera. Why, after 20 years of negotiations, does the PA make this move? I’m sure it didn’t just dawn on them that Israel was only ever just trying to buy itself time to create facts on the ground. They’re not stupid and they understood Israel’s colonial expansion and goal to take everything they could. The truth is that the PA was scared. Their power was threatened by Arab Spring and by the fadeeha el kobra (the great scandal) of the Palestine Papers. So, this move may well have been just a cynical calculation to restore the power of the PA. I hate to think the worst – that it was actually orchestrated with Israel and the US for the same purpose and what we’re witnessing is theatre.

Caution to the PA/PLO

So, I’m worried about this UN bid. However, I also think, that if certain conditions are met and the same mistakes of the past are not repeated, it can still be salvaged as a good thing. For that to happen, the PA (or PLO, it’s hard to know who is who anymore) must ensure that the following happens:

1. They must go forward full force with what they started, without compromise.

I hear that at least one Security Council member is trying to get the PA to alter the text of the UN bid, in exchange for voting in favor of statehood, so that it excludes the ability to take any retroactive grievances to the International Court of Justice.

If this happens, it would be a disaster for us because it would be a back-handed way for the PA to abdicate the Right of Return (which they have no right to do) under the cover of statehood.

We cannot let them do that and I think, Zahi, it’s time for another petition with 600,000 signatures to deliver to Abbass like the one Al-Awda delivered to Arafat when he was considering the same thing. The second part of going full force forward is to take the bid to the General Assembly once the SC sends it back with the promised US veto. I’m very happy to see that the PA has been pushing for Palestine membership in various UN bodies, including, most recently, UNESCO.

2. Don’t stand in the way of popular movements. Already the PA is sending police to bust up peaceful anti-occupation protests, in essence, working for the occupier. This has to stop. The PA cannot be allowed to seize the power on the ground and tamp out the spread of nonviolent resistance.

3. Become a force that creates synergy among our various efforts to achieve our rights; make the UN bid into something that adds to the ongoing efforts instead of something that stifles them. For example, the UN bid can open up legal avenues for a whole new arena for our struggle, but don’t let that come at the expense of tamping a growing nonviolent resistance movement.

4. They should become a force of unity; not only between Gaza and the West Bank, but also among Palestinians of 1948; Palestinians still in refugee camps in other nations; and Palestinians in the Diaspora, whether in Arab nations, the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and other parts of the world.

5. Finally, they should not assume that they will maintain power without popular blessing, which will not remain if this UN bid stifles our efforts or gives away an iota of our Right to Return.

This is a warning to the PA that accepting statehood at the expense of retroactive grievances (i.e. everything we’re fighting for, including the Right of Return) will have terrible consequences for us all.

Time to abandon calls for Two-State Solution AND the One-State Solution

That said, I want to emphasize why I think we are living in the most opportune time we’ve had in the history of this conflict.

The kind of bottom up power we’re witnessing is fertile ground for us. This is the arena in which we are more powerful. This is the field where we win because Israel has no real defenses against us in this arena. Our greatest power lies in the moral command of our cause – we are the indigenous people fighting for freedom, struggling to live dignified lives in our own homeland. We didn’t come from Poland or Russia, or France, or Germany, or any other place. We are the natives of the Holy Land in ever sense of the word “native” – historically, ethnically, culturally, legally, and even genetically, we are the natives. If you take samples of our DNA, the results will show genetic markers specific to that region of the world. Our strength is in our roots.

It is no accident that Israel is so often so busy uprooting our olive trees or unearthing our cemeteries to cover them over with new structures. Because the truth is that there is no forensic evidence linking most Israelis to the land. So, they have been busy either destroying traces of our existence or trying to claim it as theirs. But that is really an impossible task, now matter how much they’ve already destroyed. Palestine is passed down from one generation’s hearts and memories to another. Ben Gurion could not have been more wrong when he predicted that “The old will die and the young will forget”.

But we are where we are now and they are here with us, whether we or they like it or not.

And the bid for statehood has been made, regardless of how we feel about it.

So what is the path forward?

Before we answer that, we have to decide what is the end game. What is the result we want to achieve. Unfortunately, and after 65 years of this struggle, we still do not have a truly unified call.

People often ask me which proposal do I support, the one state or the two state. It seems those are the only two proposals in people’s mind. That it has to be one or the other and we end up struggling for one or the other. We waste precious time and energy debating the merits of one over the
other. Which is better, we ask: The Two State Solution – ostensibly based on the 1967 borders; or the One State Solution – which would presumably include all of Palestine for all her inhabitants.

The fundamental problem with both of these proposals is that they are concentrating on the political construct and of statehood. And I think that is the wrong approach.

If we drill down to what we really want, what we all want and all can agree on: it is to live dignified lives in our own homeland, with full human and civil rights accorded to everyone there equally regardless of religion.

I know this sounds a lot like the One State proposal; but it differs in that it is simply a call for basic rights. It is not a call for a particular political construct because frankly, it doesn’t matter what the political construct looks like, as long as all our basic human rights are upheld, and that includes our natural right to return and live in our own homeland.

This, in my opinion, is what we should be working toward. Calling for our natural rights as human beings and as an indigenous people is what unifies us all. To be accorded human rights is our rightful inheritance. It is the rightful destiny of human beings not to be subjugated, expelled or
oppressed. The call from Palestinian Civil Society, which originated inside the occupied territories, is the best starting place framework. In any event, we are in great need of a consensus for a unified and uncompromising call founded on the goal of human dignity. This can form the frame of reference for whatever actions we take.

So, I would say, do NOT think in terms of a political construct; but to think in terms of human rights. In terms of human dignity and human worth that is not measured by religion. This is a goal that will unify us and will strengthen our collective efforts that pour into the same movement for
freedom.

Palestinian Resistance: Failures of the past and why it’s time to abandon negotiations

For the most part, Palestinian resistance has been allowed to develop on two major fronts, and mostly exclusive fronts. 1. Armed resistance.

Although we have the right to resist foreign occupation by any means available to us, including armed resistance, I think this is not an effective strategy for us.

For starters, rocks, moltov cocktails, or even homemade ockets, don’t stand a chance against armoured tanks, warplanes and some of the most sophisticated death machines known to man. This is simply not an arena where we can gain any ground because here we are weak in this regard. We do not have a military or any necessary hardware to change this fact.

More importantly, armed resistance ultimately erodes the singul most important power we have. As I already mentioned, it is the moral superiority of the cause of justice and human rights, against their cause, which is the desire for power and an ethnoreligious pure society.

2. The second main path that the Palestinian leadership has taken us has been negotiations. This too is and always was a fundamentally flawed and moral unsound approach, because it assumes a very denigrating assumption:

That our basic rights as human beings, our rights as the indigenous people of the Holy Land, and our freedom, are things to be negotiated for; as if our rights, enshrined in all tenets of international law, and our freedom are mere bargaining chips to be traded for clean water or bread.

And yet, the PA has continued along in what every one of us knows is a sham. This peace process was never designed to lead to a life of dignity for Palestinians. It was never meant to lead to a viable Palestinian state. Netanyahu’s speech made that clear. Israel’s actions for the past twenty years have made that clear. Why else would they continue, on a daily basis,
to expropriate Palestinian land and turn it over for the exclusive use of Jews being invited from all over the world to come and take what is not theirs? Why else would they continue their policy of home demolitions unabated? The Peace Process was always a ruse to buy Israel more time to
take more and more and more and ultimately wipe us off the map.

You only need to look at how the map has changed over time to see the truth in that statement.

The current map proves that. How could this not be apparent to the PA? In fact, even as he submitted the bid for statehood, Mahmoud Abbas made the mind boggling statement that there was no substitute for negotiations.

He is, in fact, very wrong. In fact, there is no other instance in history where an occupied and oppressed people has been expected to actually negotiate with their oppressors for freedom and for basic human rights.

When Nelson Mandela was in prison and change began to sweep over South Africa, some of his comrades were being released from prison. Nelson Mandela too was offered a deal for his freedom. P. W. Botha offered him freedom if he would renounce violence. Mandela refused the offer, and his now famous letter, he explained that “Only free men can negotiate.”

He was the only one of his comrades to remain in prison by the end of the 1980s. His uncompromising insistence on implementing the full range of human rights and freedoms to Blacks equal to Whites inspired us all and eventually culminated in bringing Apartheid to it’s knees.

Likewise, Rosa Parks did not negotiate with the white driver or white passengers to take her rightful place among the rest of humanity on that bus. She stayed put with all the force she could muster. Her insistence on being recognized as fully human, fully worthy, inspired the Civil Rights Movement.

Martin Luther King and Malcom X didn’t enter into negotiations to beg the government to let Black folk use a few more water fountains, or to be allowed to buy a house in just a few white neighborhoods.

Yet that is precisely the indignity we are accepting upon ourselves by engaging in these negotiations. By continuing to negotiate for basic rights, we are accepting the premise that we cannot be fully worthy human beings unless Israel says so.

This is Our Time

With Arab Spring, with BDS, ISM, Free Gaza, and the massively growing international solidarity, this is our time!

It’s our time to say that only free people can negotiate. It’s our time to take our seat on the bus and refuse to get up for anyone. It’s our time to boycott. To divest. To proudly link arms with every human being willing to stand with us, no matter who they are – be they Jewish, Christian, Muslim,
gay or straight, Black or White or any color in between. And to remember the solidarity shown to us, as our beloved Edward Said once said.

If we continue on the path of nonviolent resistance that we started in the occupied territories and throughout the world, and with the solidarity of justice-seeking people everywhere, I believe with all my being, that we will eventually be in a position to say to the Israelis in no uncertain terms, and with a force they will have no choice but to listen to, that they are
welcome to stay as our equals, but not as our masters.

You may think that that day is unrealistic. You might say that because we’ve been conditioned to see our weakness. To see how outgunned we are. How outmaneuvered we’ve been. Or how little clout we have in the halls of power compared with the intense influence that Israel wields on the most
powerful countries. But focusing on these things obscures how powerful we really are.

I read an article recently by someone I very much admire and whose words I often like to read; but this particular article was one that I disagreed with because it reinforces this sense of powerlessness, which is quite harmful. The article was written when everyone was speculating whether the PA would follow through with the UN bid and the premise of the article was that no matter what happens, Israel will win, whether Abbas follows through or not.

I not only disagree with the premise, but I think that this kind of defeatist outlooks really hurts us. Yes, I know it’s true that Israel can make any US President jump when they say jump; but I don’t think Israel is feeling much like a winner right now.

How triumphant do you think Israel feels with the world turning against them? Peoples of the world are seeing them for the apartheid state that they are and their growing isolation surely doesn’t feel very triumphant to them. It surely doesn’t feel triumphant to them to essentially lose their
two major allies in the region, Egypt and Turkey, within the span of one year.

And by believing that we are powerless, we’ve allowed every Israeli to think they can dictate our destiny to us. Just take for example Benny Morris, who said on Cross Talk a few weeks ago, quote:

“I wish the Palestinians would return to the negotiating table to which they had been invited repeatedly, and do so seriously in good faith and negotiate in good faith. If they don’t want to do that, the Palestinians will continue to suffer.” Translation: “Do as Israel wants or you will continue to be bombed, killed, deprived, oppressed, and systematically robbed.” In fact, that is happening even when we do negotiate as Israel wants; but the point is that you can see from this statement the level of arrogance that pervades
every sector of Israeli society.

We Are Powerful & History is on Our Side

While it is true that we don’t have the military capabilities nor do we have anywhere near Israel’s clout among the ruling elite of powerful nations, we are not powerless.

In fact, we are unrivaled in our power on the ground level internationally. Our struggle for freedom is the longest running and best known around the world. Harnessing that advantage is the path we must continue to take.

Taking our case, not to the UN or the US State Department or to the UK or France; but to the populations of the world is where our energy should be focused.

- It’s to the universities that have been signing onto the academic boycotts; - To consumers who do not want to buy blood products;

- To the churches and synagogues and other religious institutions that understand the ungodliness of ethnic cleansing and who are making sure that their trusts are not invested in Israel’s war crimes

- To the municipalities and the labor unions who are divesting their pensions from Israel in order to affirm their belief in universal human dignity regardless of ones religion

- To the artists and musicians and writers and filmmakers who do not want their names or creations associated with Israel’s Apartheid

- To our fellow US citizens who do not want their tax dollars spent in support of ethno-religious entitlement and exclusivity, especially when our school districts are teetering on bankruptcy and the unemployment is knocking on the door of 10%.

We cannot lose on this path. You don’t need to take my word for it. History is replete with examples that prove what I’m saying. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

And we don’t need to continue down a path of denigrating and racist negotiations. We are a native people who deserve to live in their native homeland with full human rights. It’s that simple.

And so to the new sound bite that Israel issued (which is being parroted by the Obama administration, Congress, and nearly all mainstream media commentators): “there are no shortcuts to peace”, I would like to offer these truths:

“Palestinian freedom is non-negotiable” and “Human Rights are non-negotiable”.

Our message will resonate – maybe not with the ruling elite, but certainly with civil society and ordinary people who adhere to principles of justice and fair play. Because:

Our demands are self-evident truths that we should pursue without apology, without negotiations, without compromise, and without fear.

That’s how every freedom movement achieved its goal before us, and that is how we will achieve ours. THAT is our most effective path forward, not negotiations.

Susan Abulhawa is the author of Mornings in Jenin and founder of Playgrounds for Palestine. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com

LINK: http://www.australiansforpalestine.net/53083#more-53083

ORIGINAL LINK: http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=17181

Israel and those "real democratic" rights

2011-10-10T16:14:00.001-04:00

by Lawrence Davidson
(courtesy of Sonja Karkar, Editor, Australians for Palestine)

9 October 2011

Part I – What “Real Democratic Rights”?

In his speech to Congress on 24 May 2011 Prime Minister Netanyahu boasted
that “Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only
Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights.” This is, of course, a
variation on the oft cited claim that Israel is “the only democracy in the
Middle East.” Leaving aside places like Lebanon and now potentially Tunisia
and Egypt, one can ask just how “real” are these democratic rights the Prime
Minister claims for Israel’s Arabs? Here is some recent evidence that speaks
to this question.

1. At the end of September 2011 the Israeli government announced “a plan to
displace 30,000 native Bedouin Arabs [all of whom are Israeli citizens]…from
their homes [in the Negev].” This would constitute “the biggest
dispossession plan of Palestinians issued by Israel since 1948. It would
forcibly relocate about half of the Bedouin population from their existing
villages, which are older than the State of Israel itself….”

Why should Israel do this to the Bedouin? Is it to facilitate their
enjoyment of their “real democratic rights”? Well not quite. According to
head of the Regional Council of Ramat Ha-Negev, a Zionist settlement in the
region, the reason goes like this, “I want the Negev to be Jewish….Jewish
settlement must grow, must continue…..What do you mean by ‘they [the
Bedouin] also have rights’! You know what–after all this it is no longer
possible to conceal the core problem, which is the struggle over the land.
Who does this land belong to–us or them?”

2. At the Beginning of October 2011 leaders of the Jewish settler movement
announced their intention “to turn Palestinian population centers into
another Srebrenica.” This was their reaction to the prospect of
international recognition of a Palestinian state. Initiating Balkan style
killing fields would represent a marked escalation of ongoing lower level
terror tactics which have seen the destruction of Palestinian crops, the
harassment of Palestinian adults and children, the practice of arson against
mosques, and the occasional outright murder. While this threat was directed
mainly at the Palestinians of the West Bank, the Israelis are bound by
international law to see to their civil rights as well. And since
Netanyahu’s vaunted claim implies Israel’s civilized, law-abiding status
relative to the Arab states, that Palestinian population must be taken
account of.

To show the extent of their respect for the rights of the Palestinians,
settler rabbis have evoked the memory of their American-Israeli “saint and
hero,” Barach Goldstein, whose claim to lasting fame is the massacre of
Muslims at prayer in Hebron back in 1994. And, there has been much
recapitulating of the message delivered in October 2010 by “the spiritual
leader of Shas, the powerful religious political party….that the status of
non-Jews is similar to that of beasts of burden….” And just how many “real
democratic rights” do the animals of Israel have?

3. Just in case you think that these threats are hyperbole, take a look at
reports and video on the recent pogrom-like violence near the settlement of
Anatot. On 30 September 2011 Palestinians along with Israeli allies came to
help a Palestinian farmer plant trees on land he owns near the settlement.
They were attacked and beaten by settlers some of whom were armed policemen.
The attackers have been accurately described as “nearly a lynch-mob.” Then
on 3 October 2011 a mosque in the upper Galilee village of Tuba -Zangariyye
was set on fire by arsonists who left behind the message “Price Tag.” This
is a terrorist tactic used by Israeli right wing extremists. Every time the
Israeli government gets in the way of their racist and expansionist
ambitions (which really is not often enough) they retaliate with acts of
terror against Palestinians.

Part II – Woeful Ignorance

The truth is that Arab-Israelis have always been second-class citizens,
suffering systematic and state sanctioned discrimination. Most of them are
effectively segregated out from the majority Israeli Jewish citizenry. In
this way their “real democratic rights” are rendered largely symbolic. The
only reason they are allowed to vote is because their votes cannot change
the system that discriminates against them. The Palestinians in the Occupied
Territories are even more vulnerable. They are not citizens at all and, even
if Israel annexes the West Bank they never will be. This is because making
them citizens would greatly enhance the likelihood that Arab-Israeli votes
might, in fact, become sufficient to alter the system. The Zionists will
never let that happen. If the choice is between democracy and keeping Israel
a Jewish state, the Israeli establishment will jettison democracy without
thinking twice. In fact, there is a portion of Israeli Jews who have already
jettisoned any regard for “real democratic rights,” even for themselves.

It is interesting to note that 95% of the U.S. Congress seems oblivious to
all this. Indeed, a good number of them recently went off on an all expenses
paid (illegal) junket to Israel which objective observers might consider the
equivalent of giving material aid to a terrorist organization. There is good
reason to believe that this oblivious state of mind is not shared by many of
their constituents, who are slowly but surely being educated about the
criminal nature of Israeli behavior. Unfortunately these constituents have
not, as of yet, made their representatives’ slavish attachment to Zionist
lobby money and influence a voting issue. When will they do so? Perhaps soon
after it is brought home to them that Israel, the “democracy,” has an
unsavory resemblance to Alabama or Georgia in the 1930s and 1940s. If the
settler rabbis have their way this likeness will grow rapidly and thus
become harder to hide. Through their sacrilegious misreading of the Talmud,
these holy men appear anxious to bless lynching on all days of the week
except the Sabbath.

It is not only American Congressmen who are ignorant of Israel’s
deteriorating national character. One might ask just how many Israeli Jews
know how close they are to the precipice of pogrom violence or worse. Some
of course do. In a 14 June 2011 piece by Ilan Peleg and Dov Waxman they tell
us “We believe that unless immediate, serious and dramatic action is taken
to improve the situation of the Arab minority and majority-minority
relations, great dangers are in store for Israel. It is no exaggeration to
say that domestic stability, Israeli democracy and future
Israeli-Palestinian peace could all be undermined by a continued
deterioration in Arab-Jewish relations in Israel.” But polls of Israelis
show that the majority, caught up as they are in the dominant culture of
victimhood and fear of the Arabs, are either ignorant of or unconcerned
about the dangers of which Peleg and Waxman warn. Indeed, most of them want
the Arabs segregated or just kicked out and therefore have no problem with
their society’s deteriorating majority-minority relations.

Part III – The National Skinner Box

All of this raises some serious issues:

1. For most citizens the national environment is like a great big Skinner
Box. In other words it is a hothouse of indoctrination. Americans were
taught to hate and fear communists, Russians were taught to hate and fear
capitalists, and Israeli Jews are taught to hate and fear Palestinians.
Nation states do a good job at such indoctrination–making it part and parcel
of the acculturation process. And, under the right circumstances, whole
populations can easily move from hatred and fear to actual mayhem.

2. This sort of deep seated indoctrination results in nationwide habits of
thought that are remarkably hard to change. Think of the inertia of a large
body, say a planet, moving through space. It is going to take a lot of force
to overcome that inertia, usually force of catastrophic intensity. To put it
another way, whole populations trained to seeing the world one way, usually
do not shift perceptions unless something really bad happens to them. That
something can be military defeat, deep and unbridgeable societal divides
leading to civil war, or the severe costs of isolation and economic boycott
visited on them by the outside world. The severity of these forces are
testimony to just how stubborn indoctrinated populations can be.

Any way you look at it, the situation for those Palestinians under Israeli
domination is likely to get worse before it gets better. And it is going to
take a force of catastrophic intensity to really change Israeli behavior. My
money is on BDS – Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

Dr. Lawrence Davidson is the co-author of “A Concise History of the Middle
East and author of “America’s Palestine: Popular and Official from Balfour
to Israeli Statehood”. He is a member of West Chester University’s history
faculty since 1986. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University
and completed his master’s and Ph.D. degrees from Georgetown University and
the University of Alberta in Canada, respectively. ldavidson@wcupa.edu,
www.tothepointanalyses.com

Abbas's High-Stakes Gamble in the UN

2011-10-05T18:36:00.000-04:00

Graham Usher
September 28, 2011
United Nations

It’s easy to see who won the great debate that captivated the United Nations last week. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas made an eloquent case that after twenty years of a futile “peace process,” the time had come to end Israel’s occupation and for the UN to admit his country as a full member state.

Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu called for peace talks “without preconditions”—only to inject such preconditions (like the PA recognizing Israel’s “Jewish character”) that would make talks a nonstarter. Abbas was received rapturously; Netanyahu, coolly.

But the villain was Barack Obama, at least for those peoples in a region where Israel’s occupation is becoming the permafrost on the Arab Spring. The United States had long made it clear it would veto any Palestinian bid for full membership. But President Obama didn’t just rehearse Israeli arguments against the move; he adopted Israel’s narrative on the conflict. “Let’s be honest: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it,” he said.

Obama made no mention of the occupation, Jewish settlements or even that, since 2002, those neighbors have offered Israel a full peace in return for a full withdrawal from occupied Arab land. It was the most pro-Israeli speech ever made by a US president at the UN, said a veteran Jewish American commentator. It’s “the reason we are going to the UN,” seethed Palestinian delegate Hanan Ashrawi.

The task there is herculean. The PA faces obstruction not only from Washington but from supposed allies like the European Union, the UN and even Russia, the three other members of the so-called Quartet. No sooner had Abbas submitted his bid to the Security Council than all four united to contain it, alarmed that a US veto would inflame anti-Western passions across the Middle East. The Quartet called for the two sides to resume negotiations in a month and reach a peace agreement in a year.

That proposal has been tried in the past. It will tank this time too. Abbas says there can be no return to talks unless they are accompanied by a freeze on settlement-building and are based on the 1967 armistice lines as the border between Israel and a future Palestinian state. The Quartet statement specifies neither.
As of now, six of the Security Council’s fifteen members are backing the PA’s bid. It needs nine to force a vote. If it fails to get a vote, that would suit the United States and, it seems, the Quartet.

Abbas’s dilemma is acute. If he accepts the Quartet’s terms, he would undo all the kudos he has gained for his refusal to bend under US pressure. But if he rejects them, he risks alienating the EU, the UN and Russia, the powers he thinks are needed as a counterweight to Washington’s pro-Israel bias. This dilemma exposes the weakness at the heart of the UN gambit.

There have been two camps behind the UN bid in the PA leadership. Both agreed that for domestic reasons, the Obama administration will not be able to broker even partially fair negotiations this side of the 2012 presidential elections. But one camp, led by Abbas, believes the US abdication could be offset by upgrading Palestine’s status at the UN and internationalizing the negotiations to include the EU, the UN and Russia. The aim was never to end Oslo’s model of bilateralism per se but to freight it with more favorable conditions.

The other camp says Oslo is dead, and argues that an upgrade in UN status—either as a full member or the lesser non-member observer state—would strengthen the PA legally and politically as a “state under occupation.” It may even allow for prosecution of Israel at the International Criminal Court.

The problem is that both camps are reliant on others to further their diplomacy. And currently they are up against a US-EU bloc with two aims. The main one is to spare the United States the shame of a veto at the Security Council. But another is to slow Palestine’s becoming a non-member observer state at the General Assembly, a move the Quartet believes could end all hope of negotiations and trigger Israeli-US sanctions against the PA.

There are other flaws in the PA’s strategy. Abbas received a rousing welcome when he returned to Ramallah. But the largely stage-managed rallies there contrasted poorly with the minuscule gatherings in support of the UN bid in occupied East Jerusalem, among Palestinian citizens of Israel and in the diaspora, let alone the zero demonstrations in Hamas-ruled Gaza. This is testimony of the PA’s failure to ground its UN strategy in a genuine national consensus.

Abbas also said the UN bid was “the Palestinian spring.” Yet in New York he paid only lip service to those democratic movements and states most associated with the Arab uprisings. When Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed the UN, not a single Palestinian delegate was present.

Erdogan has been the regional leader who has made Palestinian independence a cornerstone of a new Middle East. Used correctly—by inscribing the Palestinian narrative of self-determination in the Arab narrative of freedom—the Arab uprisings could be marshaled by the PA as a powerful counterweight to the forces facing them at the UN, especially since the only reason the Quartet has become engaged, admitted one EU diplomat, is out of fear that “the Israel-Palestine conflict could become an issue on the Arab street.”

Time will tell whether Abbas turns to the region to bolster the UN bid or remains ensnared by it. By temperament he prefers diplomacy to revolutionary change. Last week’s defiance of US power may have been his finest hour in the eyes of his people, but it also marked the failure of an Oslo model he owned for more than eighteen years. “I don’t know what to do when I return,” he confided to a friend in New York.
Another Palestinian official was even blunter about the absence of a Palestinian strategy. What comes after September, he was asked. “October,” he said.

About the Author: Graham Usher is a writer and journalist who has written extensively about the Arab world and South Asia.

The dead begin to speak un in India

2011-10-05T16:29:00.000-04:00

Kashmir is one of two war zones in India from which no news must come. But those in unmarked graves will not be silenced

By:Arundhati Roy

Editor’s note: For too long I have ignored other issues, including Kashmir. I plead guilty. The only reason is lack of time. However, I will try and cover what I have neglected so far. As a starter, I am reproducing here an important article by the indefatigable and fearless crusading journalist and writer Arundhati Roy.

This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 19.01 EDT on Thursday 29 September 2011. A version appeared on p52 of the Main section section of the Guardian on Friday 30 September 2011. It was last modified at 05.28 EDT on Monday 3 October 2011.

***********************

A Kashmiri farmer walks past unmarked graves in Bimyar, west of Srinagar, in 2009. Photograph: Mukhtar Khan/AP

At about 3am, on 23 September, within hours of his arrival at the Delhi airport, the US radio-journalist David Barsamian was deported. This dangerous man, who produces independent, free-to-air programmes for public radio, has been visiting India for 40 years, doing such dangerous things as learning Urdu and playing the sitar.

Barsamian has published book-length interviews with public intellectuals such as Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Ejaz Ahmed and Tariq Ali (he even makes an appearance as a young, bell-bottom-wearing interviewer in Peter Wintonick's documentary film on Chomsky and Edward Herman's book Manufacturing Consent).

On his more recent trips to India he has done a series of radio interviews with activists, academics, film-makers, journalists and writers (including me). Barsamian's work has taken him to Turkey, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Pakistan. He has never been deported from any of these countries. So why does the world's largest democracy feel so threatened by this lone, sitar-playing, Urdu-speaking, left-leaning, radio producer?

Here is how Barsamian himself explains it:"It's all about Kashmir. I've done work on Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Narmada dams, farmer suicides, the Gujarat pogrom, and the Binayak Sen case. But it's Kashmir that is at the heart of the Indian state's concerns. The official narrative must not be contested."

News reports about his deportation quoted official "sources" as saying that Barsamian had "violated his visa norms during his visit in 2009-10 by indulging in professional work while holding a tourist visa". Visa norms in India are an interesting peep-hole into the government's concerns and predilections. Using the tattered old banner of the "war on terror", the home ministry has decreed that scholars and academics invited for conferences and seminars require security clearance before they will be given visas. Corporate executives and businessmen do not.

So somebody who wants to invest in a dam, or build a steel plant or a buy a bauxite mine is not considered a security hazard, whereas a scholar who might wish to participate in a seminar about, say, displacement or communalism or rising malnutrition in a globalised economy, is. Terrorists with bad intentions have probably guessed that they are better off wearing Prada suits and pretending they want to buy a mine than admitting that they want to attend a seminar.

David Barsamian did not travel to India to buy a mine or to attend a conference. He just came to talk to people. The complaint against him, according to "official sources" is that he had reported on events in Jammu and Kashmir during his last visit to India and that these reports were "not based on facts". Remember Barsamian is not a reporter, he's a man who has conversations with people, mostly dissidents, about the societies in which they live.

Is it illegal for tourists to talk to people in the countries they visit? Would it be illegal for me to travel to the US or Europe and write about the people I met, even if my writing was "not based on facts"? Who decides which "facts" are correct and which are not? Would Barsamian have been deported if the conversations he recorded had been in praise of the impressive turnouts in Kashmir's elections, instead of about daily life in the densest military occupation in the world (an estimated 600,000 actively deployed armed personnel for a population of 10 million people)?

David Barsamian is not the first person to be deported over the Indian government's sensitivities over Kashmir. Professor Richard Shapiro, an anthropologist from San Francisco, was deported from Delhi airport in November 2010 without being given any reason. It was probably a way of punishing his partner, Angana Chatterji, who is a co-convenor of the international peoples' tribunal on human rights and justice which first chronicled the existence of unmarked mass graves in Kashmir.

In September 2011, May Aquino, from the Asian Federation against Involuntary Disappearances (Afad), Manila, was deported from Delhi airport. Earlier this year, on 28 May, the outspoken Indian democratic rights activist, Gautam Navlakha, was deported to Delhi from Srinagar airport. Farook Abdullah, the former chief minister of Kashmir, justified the deportation, saying that writers like Navlakha and myself had no business entering Kashmir because "Kashmir is not for burning".

Kashmir is in the process of being isolated, cut off from the outside world by two concentric rings of border patrols – in Delhi as well as Srinagar – as though it's already a free country with its own visa regime. Within its borders of course, it's open season for the government and the army. The art of controlling Kashmiri journalists and ordinary people with a deadly combination of bribes, threats, blackmail and a whole spectrum of unutterable cruelty has evolved into a twisted art form.

While the government goes about trying to silence the living, the dead have begun to speak up. Perhaps it was insensitive of Barsamian to plan a trip to Kashmir just when the state human rights commission was finally shamed into officially acknowledging the existence of 2,700 unmarked graves from three districts in Kashmir. Reports of thousands of other graves are pouring in from other districts. Perhaps it is insensitive of the unmarked graves to embarrass the government of India just when India's record is due for review before the UN human rights council.

Apart from Dangerous David, who else is the world's largest democracy afraid of? There's young Lingaram Kodopi an adivasi from Dantewada in the state of Chhattisgarh, who was arrested on 9 September. The police say they caught him red-handed in a market place, while he was handing over protection money from Essar, an iron-ore mining company, to the banned Communist party of India (Maoist). His aunt Soni Sori says that he was picked up by plainclothes policemen in a white Bolero car from his grandfather's house in Palnar village.

Interestingly, even by their own account, the police arrested Lingaram but allowed the Maoists to escape. This is only the latest in a series of bizarre, almost hallucinatory accusations they have made against Lingaram and then withdrawn. His real crime is that he is the only journalist who speaks Gondi, the local language, and who knows how to negotiate the remote forest paths in Dantewada the other war zone in India from which no news must come.

Having signed over vast tracts of indigenous tribal homelands in central India to multinational mining and infrastructure corporations in a series of secret memorandums of understanding, the government has begun to flood the forests with hundreds of thousands of security forces. All resistance, armed as well as unarmed has been branded "Maoist" (In Kashmir they are all "jihadi elements").

As the civil war grows deadlier, hundreds of villages have been burnt to the ground. Thousands of adivasis have fled as refugees into neighbouring states. Hundreds of thousands are living terrified lives hiding in the forests. Paramilitary forces have laid siege to the forest, making trips to the markets for essential provisions and medicines a nightmare for villagers. Untold numbers of nameless people are in jail, charged with sedition and waging war on the state, with no lawyers to defend them. Very little news comes out of those forests, and there are no body counts.

So it's not hard to see why young Lingaram Kodopi poses such a threat. Before he trained to become a journalist, he was a driver in Dantewada. In 2009 the police arrested him and confiscated his Jeep. He was locked up in a small toilet for 40 days where he was pressurised to become a special police officer (SPO) in the Salwa Judum, the government-sponsored vigilante army that was at the time tasked with forcing people to flee from their villages (the Salwa Judum has since been declared unconstitutional by the supreme court).

The police released Lingaram after the Gandhian activist Himanshu Kumar filed a habeas corpus petition in court. But then the police arrested Lingaram's old father and five other members of his family. They attacked his village and threatened the villagers if they sheltered him. Eventually Lingaram escaped to Delhi where friends and well-wishers got him admission into a journalism school. In April 2010 he travelled to Dantewada and escorted villagers to Delhi to give testimony at the independent peoples' tribunal about the barbarity of the Salwa Judum and the police and paramilitary forces. In his own testimony, Lingaram was sharply critical of the Maoists as well.

That did not deter the Chhattisgarh police. On 2 July 2010, the senior Maoist leader, Comrade Azad, the official spokesperson for the Maoist party, was captured and executed by the Andhra Pradesh police. Deputy Inspector General Kalluri of the Chhattisgarh police announced at a press conference that Lingaram Kodopi had been elected by the Maoist party to take over Comrade Azad's role (it was like accusing a young school child in 1936 Yan'an of being Zhou Enlai). The charge was met with such derision that the police had to withdraw it. Soon after they accused Lingaram of being the mastermind of a Maoist attack on a congress legislator in Dantewada. But oddly enough, they made no move to arrest him.

Lingaram remained in Delhi, completed his course and received his diploma in journalism. In March 2011, paramilitary forces burned down three villages in Dantewada – Tadmetla, Timmapuram and Morapalli. The Chhattisgarh government blamed the Maoists. The supreme court assigned the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation. Lingaram returned to Dantewada with a video camera and trekked from village to village documenting first-hand testimonies of the villagers who indicted the police. By doing this he made himself one of the most wanted men in Dantewada. On 9 September the police finally got to him.

Lingaram has joined an impressive line-up of troublesome news gatherers and disseminators in Chhattisgarh. Among the earliest to be silenced was the celebrated doctor Binayak Sen, who first raised the alarm about the crimes of the Salwa Judum as far back as 2005. He was arrested in 2007, accused of being a Maoist and sentenced to life imprisonment. After years in prison, he is out on bail now.

Kopa Kunjam was my first guide into the forest villages of Dantewada. At the time he worked with Himanshu Kumar's Vanvasi Chetna ashram, doing exactly what Lingaram tried to do much later – travelling to remote villages, bringing out the news, and carefully documenting the horror that was unfolding. In May 2009 the ashram, the last neutral shelter for journalists, writers and academics who were travelling to Dantewada, was demolished by the Chhattisgarh government.
Kopa was arrested on human rights day in September 2009. He was accused of colluding with the Maoists in the murder of one man and the kidnapping of another.

The case against Kopa has begun to fall apart as the police witnesses, including the man who was kidnapped, have disowned the statements they purportedly made to the police. It doesn't really matter, because in India the process is the punishment.

It could take years for Kopa to establish his innocence. Many of those who were emboldened by Kopa to file complaints against the police have been arrested too. That includes women who committed the crime of being raped. Soon after Kopa's arrest Himanshu Kumar was hounded out of Dantewada.

Eventually, here too the dead will begin to speak. And it will not just be dead human beings, it will be the dead land, dead rivers, dead mountains and dead creatures in dead forests that will insist on a hearing.

In this age of surveillance, internet policing and phone-tapping, as the clampdown on those who speak up becomes grimmer with every passing day, it's odd how India is becoming the dream destination of literary festivals. Many of these festivals are funded by the very corporations on whose behalf the police have unleashed their regime of terror.

The Harud literary festival in Srinagar (postponed for the moment) was slated to be the newest, most exciting literary festival in India – "As the autumn leaves change colour the valley of Kashmir will resonate with the sound of poetry, literary dialogue, debate and discussions …"
Its organisers advertised it as an "apolitical" event, but did not say how either the rulers or the subjects of a brutal military occupation that has claimed tens of thousands of lives could be "apolitical". I wonder – will the guests come on tourist visas? Will there be separate ones for Srinagar and Delhi? Will they need security clearance?

The festive din of all this spurious freedom helps to muffle the sound of footsteps in airport corridors as the deported are frog-marched on to departing planes, to mute the click of handcuffs locking around strong, warm wrists and the cold metallic clang of prison doors.
Our lungs are gradually being depleted of oxygen. Perhaps it's time use whatever breath remains in our bodies to say: "Open the bloody gates."

About this author: Arundhati Roy was born 0n November 24, 1961 in Shillong,Meghalaya, India.She is a writer and an activist who focuses on issues related to social justice and economic inequality. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and has also written two screenplays and several collections of essays.For her work as an activist she received the Cultural Freedom Prize awarded by the Lannan Foundation in 2002.

For an interesting video interview, click on: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnTS9gHCZoI

OBAMA'S BADGE OF SHAME

2011-09-26T15:01:00.000-04:00

By: Gulamhusein A. Abba

No one told the Kuwaitis that the only way to end Iraq’s occupation
was for them to negotiate with Iraq.

Kosovo was unilaterally recognized by the United States three years
ago–even though its statehood did not come about through a negotiated
settlement with Serbia

One does not ask the robbed to negotiate with the robber as to which
of the robbed items s/he is going to return, when s/he is going to do it
and on what terms. The keepers of law and order step in
and do the needful.

In this case particularly, more than in any other case, it is the duty
and responsibility of the international community to step in.
It is they who created Israel

It is time for the international community to end this farce of direct negotiations
between the helpless occupied and the all-powerful occupier.
It is time for it to live up to its duty and obligations and
take action to end the illegal occupation

Obama has diminished himself, tarnished the image of America
and, as between Israel and Palestine, has aligned himself
with the oppressor against the oppressed.
**********************************

The portion of Obama’s speech in the United Nations that referred to the Palestinian bid for membership in the UN earned for him a “badge of honor” from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (those are the very words used by Netanyahu when he congratulated Obama on his speech!). But, in the eyes of most of the world, it brought shame and disgrace on Obama and the US and made a laughing stock of both.

There are three points he made in his speech. One was that the Palestinian state cannot come into being through resolutions in the UN. He forgets that but for a resolution of the UN, Israel would not be even existing today. And it was a UN resolution that enabled NATO to actively help the Libyan rebels get control of Tripoli and most of Libya. Again, it was UN resolutions that resulted in the formation of the Alliance of the Willing and launching of Desert Storm. Once again, it was a UN resolution that enabled the launching of the war on Iraq purportedly to find and destroy Weapons of Mass Destruction.

In Tunisia the US, along with the rest of the world, cheered the Tunisian rebels when they got rid of their tyrannical government. In Egypt the US supported, slowly, hesitatingly, cautiously and, at times, seemingly reluctantly, the Egyptian people and applauded the departure of dictator Hosni Mubarak, a long time and loyal ally of the US. In Libya the US went one step further. It spent billions of dollars and actively participated, along with NATO forces, in bombing Gaddafi’s bases. But for the UN resolution sanctioning NATO intervention, the Gaddafi regime would still be in power in Libya.

Not so long back, Iraq reclaimed Kuwait, which was once its province and an integral part of Iraq, and would have remained so had not the British, as was their common practice, drawn a line in the sand, carved out from Iraq what is now Kuwait and put a puppet on its throne. There are those who even today believe that Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait was done with a nod and a wink from the then American ambassador to Iraq.

US and the whole civilized world, notwithstanding any “justification” that Iraq may have had, was outraged at this breach of international law by Iraq. The question of sovereignty of lawfully constituted nations was involved. It acted promptly and decisively to end this illegal occupation of Kuwait and, in a reasonably short time, the Iraqi occupying force was not only driven out of Kuwait but chased almost to the gates of Basra.

No one told the Kuwaitis that the only way to end Iraq’s occupation was for them to negotiate with Iraq. There were some negotiations of sorts but not between the occupied and the occupier. Rather, it was with world powers.

In none of the above cases were the desired results obtained through negotiations.
More to the point is the recent prominent example Kosovo. It was unilaterally recognized by the United States three years ago–even though its statehood did not come about through a negotiated settlement with Serbia

Photo: Courtesy of GALLO/Getty

It is ridiculous to ask Palestinians to negotiate with Israel. Israel is the aggressor, the occupier and Palestinians are the victims of this aggression, the occupied. Besides, there is no comparison between them. Israel has the fourth largest army in the world and is heavily armed, its arsenal including nuclear arms. Palestinians have no army at all. They are completely asymmetrical.
Besides, one does not ask the raped to negotiate with the rapist or the robbed to negotiate with the robber as to which of the robbed items s/he is going to return, when s/he is going to do it and on what terms. The keepers of law and order step in and do the needful.

In this case particularly, more than in any other case, it is the duty and responsibility of the international community to step in. It is they who, in 1949, ignoring the strong objections and protests of the indigenous people, the Palestinians, and of all the neighboring Arab states which surround Palestine, carved out a little more than 50% of Palestine as it then exited, and gifted it to the Jewish community, which promptly started its ethnic cleansing activities in the demarcated area and its surroundings.

In the war that followed the attacks launched by the surrounding Arab nations, chiefly to halt the massacre of the Palestinians, Israel went beyond the area granted to it by the international community, and, the truce lines at the end of that war added more territory to Israel.
Not satisfied, Israel in 1967 launched an attack on Jordan (which was then in control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem), Egypt (which controlled the Gaza Strip) and Syria (to which belonged the Golan Heights).As a direct result of this aggression Israel gained control of and occupied all the said territory in Palestine, thus fulfilling its objective of establishing Eretz Israel, with Judea and Samaria, in all of the land between the Jordan river and the sea to the west. It continues this illegal occupation to this day, with impunity.

This occupation is the longest occupation in present history, and it is a brutal and tyrannical one. Human rights violations and violations of international law occur regularly in open sight of the whole world. Massive transfer of population by the occupying power into occupied lands, destruction of villages in the occupied territories, building illegal constructions thereon – all violations of international law -- go on almost on a daily basis.

That this occupation and the Israeli settlements built on lands beyond what was earmarked for Israel is illegal is recognized and accepted by the whole world, including the USA. The international community, which created the state responsible for these illegal acts, instead of doing its duty and carrying out its obligations and responsibilities, asked the Palestinians to negotiate with the aggressor, Israel!

Having no other alternative, the Palestinians did just that. Arafat even signed, eighteen years back, the disastrous Oslo Accords, believing that under its terms, within five years all the occupied territory would be fully under the control of the Palestinians.
Israel used this agreement to expand exponentially its settlements in the occupied territories. The expected transfer of power after five years never happened. Instead fresh demands and conditions were put forward by Israel. When the Palestinians refused to accede to these preposterous demands, Israel shamelessly alleged that the Palestinians had rejected peace and chosen the path of terrorism!

Notwithstanding all this, the Palestinians have persevered and negotiated and negotiated and negotiated -- Madrid (1991), Oslo (1993), Wye River (1997), Camp David (2000), Taba (2001), Quartet’s road map (2002), Annapolis (2007), bilateral negotiations (2008) and on and on. All to no avail. The grabbing of land, demolitions of Palestinian homes and even entire villages,, uprooting of produce, building of illegal Israeli settlements and “for Jews only” roads and highways has continued unabated.

Even the powerful USA and strong ally of Israel could not get Israel to at least cease and desist from further violation of international law by putting a halt to the construction of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

All that these “negotiations” got for Palestinians is almost 6500 Palestinian civilians killed since September 2000 alone, over 45,000 Palestinians injured (some maimed for life), over 6,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, many with no charges (including over 250 females and children under the age of 16), over 650,000 Palestinians detained and imprisoned, over 25,000 Palestinian homes demolished since 1967 – over half since 2003, including over 4300 during the Israeli military assault on Gaza in 2008-2009.

The number of Israeli settlers has more than doubled during the last ten years of “negotiations”, reaching a staggering figure of 650,000. There are 236 illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. These occupy about 43 per cent of the land in the truncated West Bank and East Jerusalem and have displaced thousands of Palestinians. There are over four hundreds checkpoints and Jewish-only roads. And, of course the monstrous separation and land grabbing Wall snaking through Palestinian territories.

Clearly the sole beneficiary of these “negotiations” is Israel, which is using the negotiations for this very purpose. The Palestinians have gained nothing. To the contrary. they have lost much from the meager amount they had.
Under these circumstances, to say that the only course for the Palestinians is to negotiate with Israel is, to say the least, cruel.

It is time for the international community to end this farce of direct negotiations between the helpless occupied and the all-powerful occupier. It is time for it to live up to its duty and obligations and take action to end the illegal occupation.

The first step is to approve the Palestinians’ application for full membership.

Regrettably, of all persons, Obama has threatened to veto any resolution granting this request!
Coming from the man who started his presidency by choosing the Palestinians to be the first to be called on phone, who gave the Cairo speech so full of hope and promise to the Arab world, who not so long ago snubbed Netanyahu, this stance by Obama is inexplicable and strange indeed.
But then, the President’s chair has magical powers. It changes men. Its occupant becomes addicted to it. S/he will do anything to retain this seat.

Alas, Obama has obviously chosen this path. From being a world statesman he has sunk to being a contender in the coming general elections in the USA. He used the international forum to speak to the electorate in the USA. Aware of the power of AIPAC, desperate to shore up his sagging popularity back home, he spoke what powerful donors and supporters wanted to hear.
In doing so, he has shown a complete disregard for justice and international law, has diminished himself, tarnished the image of America and, as between Israel and Palestine, has aligned himself with the oppressor against the oppressed.

Note: Please also see the poem “Peace Talks” by Palestinian poet Samah Sabavi in the October 2009 archives in this blog.

SLAUGHTER IN GAZA

2011-08-21T15:38:00.000-04:00

ISRAELI WARPLANES CONTINUE DEADLY AIR STRIKES
Where is the reporting of this human slaughter in our media?

A compilation of photos taken since Israel began bombarding Gaza on 18 August. To see a large version, please go to our website: Australians for Palestine

Sonja Karkar, Editor of Australians for Palestine writes: Israel is continuing to pound Gaza - MEMO reports 19 killed and 42 injured. More distressing photos on MEMO website

Is anyone going to do something about Israel's flagrant disregard of human life? Children are being slaughtered and parents have nowhere to run to escape. Israel has the entire population of Gaza under siege and there is no safe haven for the Palestinians.

Collective punishment directly contravenes Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and is identified a war crime. How big must the numbers be before journalists will have the courage to write and editors to publish what Israel is doing again with impunity in violation of international law?

THE LONDON RIOTS: Lessons to be learnt

2011-08-15T13:33:00.000-04:00

by Gulamhusein A. Abba

Photo Credit: readerssupportnews.org

“Who believed there would be no consequences
to the increase of obscene wealth for a few while
impoverishment simultaneously plagued the masses”.
“A Society on the Verge of a Meltdown” By Jakob Augstein
Spiegel Online: 08.18.2011

It has been reported that the recent riots in London are the worst that city has seen. Several areas were affected. Apart from London proper, the riots, which began late in London’s Tottenham district, spread to Manchester in central England, Carring Cross area of Nottinghamshire, Leicester, Wolverhampton, West Brunswick and other areas.

The damage done was tremendous. Shops were set on fire, window panes broken, stores looted, police shot at. Cases of stabbing were reported. Lives were lost.

Almost immediately the blame game started. A favorite culprit was “multiculturism” (code for ‘these damned immigrants’). Others blamed poor or non-existing parenting. Parents blamed laws that prevented them from using old and tried methods to discipline their children.

Prime Minister David Cameron, on returning to London after cutting short his summer vacation, reacted in the only way governments know to react in such situations. He hammered out a tough line against the rioters. Thousands of police flooded the capital. He talked about not letting a “culture of fear” taking hold and said “nothing is off the table”. Including water cannons, never deployed in Britain so far.

To the rioters he said, to thunderous applause, “We will find you. We will arrest you. We will punish you. You will pay.” To the people he said “We will protect you” and promised that the government would compensate them for such damage and or losses they may have suffered. And to the authorities he gave an assurance that they would be given “strong powers”, which would include allowing police to order “thugs” to remove masks or hoods, evicting “trouble makers” from subsidized housing, and temporarily disabling cell phone instant messaging services.

Whatever else may have been responsible, the charge against immigrants was unwarranted. Those indulging in violence included local whites. And many immigrants went out of their way to stop the rioting and looting.

The rioting, the violence, the arson, the looting, the lawlessness was deplorable and deserving of unreserved condemnation. Such violence serves no purpose. It only backfires. Worse, it results in avoidable damage and loss, including to public property, when the country can least afford it.

Giving the police extra powers and deploying them in large numbers to quell the riots was the right thing to do, on short term basis.

That having been said, there is need for context, a need for understanding the root cause of the unrest and taking long term measures to deal with them.

That is what was urged by some when the US was faced with the 9/11 terror attack. At that time, all those who called for introspection were branded as traitors and accused of blaming the victims!

The same thing is happening now in England. There is a knee jerk reaction against the rioters. Harsh words are being said against them. And harsh actions are being called for and taken. Deservedly. But we cannot stop there. We have to dig deeper.

Apart from charges of insensitive policing, other factors which are being cited as causes of the riots are: isolation and neglect of communities, deep frustration and anger across Britain over the government’s austerity budget which will bring huge cuts to social services and welfare payments, so vital to the poor, without exacting any “sacrifices” from the rich.

I have for years been saying that as the gap between the rich and the poor widens, unrest will spread and, unless corrective steps, grounded in social justice are taken, the poor and the exploited will sooner or later revolt.

When an agenda is pushed that makes the rich richer and punches out huge holes in the social safety net of the poor and the powerless, when those already suffering are asked to sacrifice more while nothing is asked of the rich, when those in power turn a blind eye to the struggle for survival by the masses, and a deaf ear to their cries, a point is reached when it becomes unbearable and intolerable and the building frustration, despair, desperation and rage boils over and expresses itself in the only way left --- violence.

It is argued in some quarters that the riots in England were not a protest. It was a riot. The rioters were not protesting government’s policies. They were simply out on a looting spree, having “fun” as one of the rioters described it.

True the rioters looted. True some of the acts were pure, unadulterated evil. No one denies that. And those who indulged in these acts need to be dealt with.

And yet there is need to ask as to why these acts happened. Does the government, does the British society have any responsibility in this?

“The riots began in Tottenham, which has the highest unemployment rate in London. Youth clubs have been closed, because the austerity economics regime slashed 75% of the youth services budget. And, as Seumas Milne points out, young people in the neighborhood said the club closings could lead to rioting, as bored and anxious young people take to the streets.” Wrote Richard (RJ) Eskow on August 11 in his article “England's Ashes - Our Future?” (http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011083211/englands-ashes-our-future)

Education grants for children from low-income families have been
abolished. So also, in many areas, youth centers and help centers for the unemployed and pregnant have been closed. In the Lewisham area alone, five libraries were closed. In the London borough of Haringey, which includes Tottenham, 75 percent of funding for youth services will be cut over the next three years.

The gap between rich and poor is wider in Great Britain than almost anywhere else in the Western world. It is a tough place to live in if you are poor.

According to a UNICEF study, the UK is ranked as the most child-unfriendly of 21 major industrialized nations. There are 3.4 million children living below the poverty line in Britain. For those youngsters living in what are dismissed as “bad neighborhoods”, life can be very difficult. Almost daily they put up with beatings and assaults. Some 60 percent of those between the ages of 10 and 15 become a victim of crime at least once.

The violence escalates and “evolves”. Those who used fists soon find themselves having to use knives. Then, guns.

The average age of those for whom such a violent confrontation is deadly used to be 24. Now it is 19!

Whole neighborhoods were devastated by the policies of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Neither Tony Blair nor Gordon Brown did anything to fix them.

These are the neighborhood in which the rioters have been living. This is the life which the “NEETS” (i.e. not in education, employment or training), who number a whopping 1.2 million, are fated to live -- a life of drugs, loitering and weapons. As one writer observed. “They rule their local areas under the law of the jungle, with a deep sense of uselessness in a world where almost every recreational activity costs money; money which they don't have”.

One woman, a truly compassionate woman who has worked hard all her life and who has given, given and given, referring to the rioters said: “They are given by the state a place to live in and money to live on, without having to work for it. They should be grateful. Instead, they burn and loot and kill. They are nothing but scum.” That such a woman could say this reveals how uninformed the people are of realities.

Here is what one of the rioters said when this was put to him; “"No one has ever given me a chance; I am just angry at how the whole system works. They give me just enough money so that I can eat and watch TV all day."

That about sums it up. Just enough money to eat and watch TV all day. Thus the elite make sure that these unfortunates remain confined to the “bad neighborhoods.” !

So, when the police shot and killed a 29-year-old black man, Mark Duggan, in the London area of Tottenham on a Saturday, they decided they had had enough of it and went on a “shopping spree”. Not having any cash, or plastic, they used what they had – sticks, knives, rocks, fire bombs. ( It has been claimed that the police shot the man only after he had shot at them. A loaded handgun was recovered from the scene, but the Independent Police Complaints Commission said there was no evidence that Duggan had fired on police before he was shot. An inquest into his death is ongoing. It is expected to take months to reach a conclusion).

The rioters are those who years back were thrown away by society, considered to be dregs and flotsam of society. The house and the money which the woman said the rioters should be grateful for is the price the elite pay to keep them confined to the “neighborhoods”, to make sure that they do not make inroads into the world of the elite, the “haves”.

The prospects of these youth in London are no better than of the youth in Cairo or Sana'a. What they need and want is not handouts, not “a place to live in and enough to eat”, but opportunities to educate themselves and jobs they are willing to work, so that they can escape the culture of violence amid which they are forced to live, and live instead a life of dignity and respect.

For too long the message to the British underclass has been: Born poor, you will remain poor and so will your children and grandchildren.

Yes, the violence was deplorable and condemnable. Yes, the rioters are the immediate and visible culprits responsible for the ashes in which parts of England lie. Yes, they must be found and dealt with according to law.

But what about those who knowingly ignored the frustration and rage their policies were causing? When governments pander to the rich and turn their backs on those who need their help most -- the poor, the elderly, the sick, the disabled, the homeless, the powerless, the forgotten ones, those dismissed as dregs and flotsam of society – then those in charge of such governments are the ones who are the hidden culprits responsible for the resultant violence.

Who is going to punish them? How are they going ot be punished?

The answer seems to be clear. Boot them out of office! But that is easier said than done. In the system as it exists today, millions are required to just contest an election. Far more to win one. And no single person has that kind of money. The funding comes from the vested interests and global corporations or even foreign governments. Those who get elected are beholden to them and will do nothing that will interrupt the flow of funds from these sources.

There are big problems that need to be grasped and addressed. There are solutions but these are beyond the scope of this article.

What must be realized is that the riots in England are a harbinger of things to come. A class war on a much larger scale looms, not only in England but all over the world. As witnessed in Tunisia and Egypt, and being witnessed in Bahrain, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon.

The exploited are done taking it lying down. Their voices are ringing out loud and clear. Their determination to rid themselves of the old order is in plain sight. They will not be stopped. They cannot be stopped.

A disclaimer:
Nothing said here is meant to condone or justify the violence that the Brits witnessed recently. Just to add context and apportion the blame where it belongs.

More importantly, it is meant to bring home the point that unless the root causes for the violence are examined and long term corrective and meaningful steps are taken, this cycle of violence will

An Ode to Lifta

2011-08-14T17:49:00.000-04:00

By Nahida Izzat

Nahida Izzat
the Exiled Palestinian

Editor's Note: This version has been very slightly edited, near the ending. It was written by the young poet on reading that Israel is planning to raze the old village of Lifta to make room for vacation homes for Israelis. Read the full account in A Palestinian's Last Village to be Razed appearing on this blog.

I think of Lifta... I smile.... like a flower

Lifta . . . The healing touch of my grandmother

The aroma of her bread, baked with tenderness and love

Lifta . . . The hand of my mother against my face

Her gentle fingers running through my curls

Lifta . . . The smile of "Amal" my childhood friend

Gazing at Jerusalem in the horizon

Lifta . . . Rambling roses, lavender and jasmine

Poppies, daisies, chamomile carpets

And a blanket of stars

I think of Lifta . . . I smile . . . like a flower

Lifta . . . distressed rocks, anxious roofs and wounded windows

Lifta . . . fatigued Hills sleeping on each other’s shoulders

Hunched homes, years of anguish and solitude

Insisting not to bow down

Resilient trees embracing the landscape

Refusing to surrender

A pounding tearful stream determined not to drown

I think of Lifta . . . I smile . . . like a flower

Lifta . . . fragrant dreams of little girls

bouncing in the meadows

Lifta . . . sparkly eyes teaming with joy . . .

following a baby gazelle down the valley

Lifta . . . Rainbow giggles of many many children,

singing, dancing, playing "bride and groom"

I think of Lifta . . . I smile.... like a flower

Lifta . . . Lifta . . . Lifta

Lifta . . . the throbbing wound of my heart

The scent of my buried memories seeping through my tortured being

Lifta . . . the childhood paradise I yearn to re-grasp

Lifta . . . the last straw humankind could hold onto

To save its humanity

I think of Lifta . . . I smile . . . like a flower

I think of Lifta . . . I weep... like a motherless child

I think of Lifta . . . I sing like a buoyant hummingbird

I think of Lifta . . . I tremble like an autumn leaf

I think of Lifta . . . I haemorrhage like slaughtered lamb

I think of Lifta . . . I smile.... like a flower

I think of Lifta . . . I gasp for a glimpse of her splendour

I think of Lifta . . . I melt with love, so tender

I think of Lifta . . . I rage with blazing anger

You doers of evil

who so wantonly rain death and destruction

on helpless, defenseless

Palestinians

Heed if you have a residue of a heart

NEVER AGAIN you said

NEVER AGAIN you LIED

Heed if you have a scum of a soul

You destroy Lifta! You unleash your own demise

WRATH as NEVER BEFORE

Torment

Boundless, measureless, bottomless, eternal

It’s your choice

And so it goes

Delightful

Life . . . goes on!

About the author: Nahida Izzat is a Jerusalem-born Palestinian refugee living in exile for over 44 years. She was forced to leave her homeland, Palestine, at the age of seven during the six-day war. Nahida is a mathematician by education, a mother of 3 children by career, an artist by hobby, and a returned-refugee to a free Palestine by optimism, hopes and anticipation

THE ONLY HOPE: A Palestinian Revolution

2011-08-07T16:08:00.000-04:00

By: Gulamhusein A. Abba

From what has appeared so far in the media and on blogs, it appears that all that the Palestinian leadership intends to do in September is approach the UN for recognition of a Palestinian State with 1967 borders and give it full membership. Such recognition and membership, important though they are, are at best purely symbolic. In and by themselves, they cannot advance the cause of the Palestinian people, much less end Israel's illegal occupation. Nor, judging from past performance, can one expect much from the UN.

It is time all of us, especially the Palestinian people and their leaders, grasped and accepted some bitter truths, spoke out about them and took some positive and meaningful action.

First, it must be understood that the Oslo agreement was a big mistake. The signing of it by Arafat was an act of a desperate man trying to end his exile, return to Palestine and recapture his leadership which was fast slipping into the hands of those carrying on the Intifada from within Palestine. More than anything else, this millstone round the neck of the Palestinian people needs to be removed and thrown out.

The current Fatah leadership is more intent on retaining the privileges granted to them by the Israelis (like going unhindered through checkpoints with VIP cards, getting a monopoly to import essential goods like Dahlan importing gas _ and being able to travel around the world without any hindrance) and the US and some other Western countries (sumptuous and ego boosting State receptions and financial aid) than in obtaining for the Palestinians their just demands.

The Fatah government is, to a large extent, dependent on the aid given to it by the US. It is, therefore, subservient to the US which, in turn, notwithstanding the periodic rhetoric from Obama, cares not a whit for the aspirations of the Palestinians or the injustices being heaped on them by the Israelis. The US is committed to supporting Israel unconditionally. This has been proven time and again by the veto used by the US in the UN whenever a resolution was sought to be passed condemning Israel, and by the failure of the US to get Israel to even stop, temporarily at that, their illegal land grab, demolitions and settlement building activities.

Any strategy that envisages negotiations with Israel or US will yield nothing. Such negotiations are a waste of time and serve only to provide an opportunity to the Israelis to confiscate more Palestinian land and expand Israeli settlements.

If the PA is really serious about pressing the cause of the Palestinians, it should, instead of merely seeking recognition and membership of the UN, announce its rescinding of the Oslo agreement and throw the whole question in the lap of the UN, insisting that the UN live up to its responsibilities and get Israel to vacate its illegal occupation in its entirety and faithfully carry out its duties as a member of the UN.

The PA should urge all the member states of the UN to hold Israel accountable and boycott it, divest from it and impose sanctions on it till it confirms to internationally accepted and agreed upon rules of conduct by civilized nations.

More likely than not, judging from past history, neither asking the UN to take any action against Israel nor asking member state for BDS support will receive the desired response, but, they will be on record and show up the hypocrisy of those who do not respond.

Internally, the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and in Gaza need to bury their differences, put aside personal ambitions and agendas, and present a united front, creating a truly unified and representative party representing all the Palestinians.

The Palestinian leaders, instead of depending on support from outside, should go to their people, identify themselves with their people and draw strength from them. Unless they do this they will, sooner or later, meet the fate of Hosni Mubarak.

The PLO should stop being the agent, tax collector and policeman of Israel (by abrogating the Oslo agreement and directing the PA to dissolve itself) and reclaim its original role as a revolutionary organization, opposing the occupation and leading the fight for justice, freedom and independence by the Palestinians.

Those Palestinians who seem to have fallen into a stupor and come to accept their subjugation in return for a loaf of bread from Israel need to stir themselves up, and, all Palestinians, irrespective of their faith and ethnic divisions, must unite to launch massive, non-violent civil disobedience.

At the same time, those able to do so should step up lobbying, PR work, using the social net-works and making available to the media resources to cover what is being done in Palestine and get their word out. Once the common people of the world come to know the true facts, there will be a swell of support for the Palestinians. Already many from countries all over the world are beginning to be supportive of the Palestinians and critical of Israel. These include Jews in Israel itself and those living outside. Even Zionists of long standing are speaking out against the actions of the Israeli leaders.

Bottom line: The Israelis are robbing the Palestinians of their land, their homes, their dignity, their rights. The international community, unfortunately, has washed its hands off the whole problem and is content to treat it as a dispute between two peoples and leave it to the Israelis and Palestinians to resolve their differences through negotiations! The Palestinians have no option but to take matters in their own hands and obtain their rights through their own efforts (aided by the brave activists in Israel itself and spread throughout the world), much as the Indians did in making the British quit India, as the Tunisians and Egyptians did.

PALESTINE'S LAST VILLAGE TO BE RAZED

2011-07-07T16:34:00.000-04:00

Lifta. Palestine's last village to be razed for Israeli vacation homes.

By: Jonathan Cook - Counter Punch

Note:
The pictures appearing at the end of this article were carefully selected by Nahida Izzat, a Plaestinian exile, to go with her poem “A Song for Lifta”. The poignant and evocative poem can be seen at: http://nahidaexiledpalestinian.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/a-song-for-lifta/

On a rocky slope dropping steeply away from the busy main road at the entrance to West Jerusalem is to be found a scattering of ancient stone houses, empty and clinging precariously to terraces hewn from the hillside centuries ago. Although most Israeli drivers barely notice the buildings, this small ghost town -- neglected for the past six decades -- is at the centre of a legal battle fuelling nationalist sentiments on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide.

Picking his way through the cluster of 55 surviving houses, their stone walls invaded by weeds and shrubs, Yacoub Odeh, 71, slipped easily into reminiscences about the halcyon days in Lifta.

He was only eight years old in January 1948 when the advancing Jewish forces put his family and the 3,000 other Palestinian villagers to flight.

Over the coming months, as the Jewish state was born, they would be joined by 750,000 others forced into exile in an event that is known by Palestinians as the "nakba", or catastrophe.

Despite the passage of time, Lifta's chief landmarks are still clear to Mr Odeh: the remains of his own family's home, an olive press, the village oven, a spring, the mosque, the cemetery and the courtyard where the villagers once congregated.

"Life was wonderful for a small child here," he said, closing his eyes. "We were like one large family. We played in the spring's waters, we picked the delicious strawberries growing next to the pool.

"I can still remember the taste of the bread freshly baked by my mother and coated with olive oil and thyme."

The village not only occupies a unique place in Mr Odeh's affections. It has also come to symbolise a hope of eventual return for many of the nearly five million Palestinian refugees around the world.

In the words of Ghada Karmi, a British academic whose own family was forced from their home close by, in the Jerusalem suburb of Katamon, Lifta "remains a physical memorial of injustice and survival".

The reason is that Lifta is the last deserted village from 1948 still standing in modern-day Israel.

More than 400 other villages seized by Israel war were razed during and after the war of 1948 in what historians have described as a systematic plan to make sure the refugees had no homes to return to.

Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian who examined the 1948 war in his book the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, has termed the villages' destruction an act of "memoricide" -- erasing for Israelis all troubling reminders of an earlier Palestinian presence.

The destroyed villages' lands were used by the new state either to build communities for Jewish immigrants or to plant national forests, said Eitan Bronstein, spokesman for Zochrot, an Israeli group dedicated to teaching Israelis about the nakba.

A handful of other Palestinian communities, such as the old city of Jaffa and Ein Hod near Haifa, survived the wave of demolitions but were quickly passed on to new Jewish owners to be reinvented as artists' colonies.

Only Lifta was neither destroyed nor reinhabited, its homes standing as a solitary, silent testament to a vanished way of life, said Mr Bronstein.

But even that small legacy is under imminent threat from the bulldozers.

In January the Israel Lands Authority, a government body responsible for Lifta's lands, announced a plan to build a luxury housing project over the village, including more than 200 apartments, a hotel and shops.

The project, said Meir Margalit, a Jerusalem city councillor, would be targeted at wealthy foreign Jews, mainly from the United States and France, looking for summer vacation homes in Israel.

The developers have promised to incorporate some of the old buildings into the complex, although most observers -- including leading architects -- say that little of the orginal Palestinian village will be recognisable after the project is completed.

Instead, according to Mr Bronstein, Lifta will belatedly suffer the same fate as the hundreds of villages destroyed by Israel decades ago. "The message is that we are finishing what we started in 1948," he said.

Esther Zandberg, a commentator on architecture for the Israeli Haaretz daily, agreed: "Although it is termed a preservation effort, it is in effect, paradoxically, an erasure of all memory of the original village."

Critics have been joined by Shmuel Groag, one of the project's original architects, who has accused the developers of failing to respect the basic rules of conservation in their treatment of Lifta.

Lifta's families, backed by several Israeli groups, including Rabbis for Human Rights, petitioned the courts to stop the project, saying the site should be preserved in its existing state.

The Jerusalem district court temporarily froze the development in March, and is expected to issue a ruling in the coming days.

The families have also appealed to Unesco, the United Nations organisation in charge of educational, scientific and cultural matters, to declare Lifta a world heritage site.

The development, however, is backed by the leading conservation bodies in Israel, including the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and the Council for the Preservation of Historic Sites. The council's director, Isaac Shewky, said the costs of a proper restoration would be "astronomical".

Unlike most of the other 20,000 refugees and their descendants from Lifta, many of whom live in the West Bank and Jordan, Mr Odeh is able to visit his former village because he lives a few kilometres away in East Jerusalem.

He said he would ultimately like to see the families offered a chance to reclaim their former homes. "We will never forget Lifta. Our dream is to come back."

Few observers expect such a scenario in the current political climate. The Palestinian right of return is widely seen by Israeli Jews as spelling doom for Israel's continued existence as a Jewish state.

He did it, Hassan Hijazi returned to Yafa (Java) - Millions will follow

That fear was only accentuated by the images of refugees in Syria storming border fences in the Golan Heights in May and June, in what was widely seen in Israel as an attempted return to their former homes.

Mr Bronstein said: "Lifta poses such a threat to Israelis because it offers a starting point for imagining how the right of return might be implemented. It offers a model for the refugees."

Mr Odeh, who offers guided tours of Lifta, has to share the site with many Israeli visitors. Young religious boys have turned the still-functioning village pool into a mikveh, or ritual immersion bath. Other Israelis use the site as a favourite hiking spot. And in the evenings, drug-users take shelter in the homes.

Lifta is also facing rapid encroachment from West Jerusalem. It is ringed by major roads linking Jerusalem to the West Bank settlements; on the ridge above, a high-speed rail link to Tel Aviv is being built; and in the valley below a military complex is believed to house the government's underground nuclear bunker.

About the author: Jonathan Cook won this year's Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

NOBEL PLEA

2011-06-27T17:05:00.000-04:00

"Hope is nature's veil to hide truth's nakedness"

-- Alfred Nobel

Mairead Maguire
Nobel Peace Laureate, 1976

Rigoberta Menchu Tum

Nobel Peace Laureate, 1992

Jody Williams

Nobel Peace Laureate, 1997

Shirin Ebadi

Nobel Peace Laureate, 2003

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

United Nations

New York, NY 10017 USA

RE: Inspection and sealing of Freedom Flotilla II cargo

Dear Mr. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,

We are writing to urge you to use your good offices in support of the humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza.

In our view, you can support the people of Gaza with two key actions. First, by appointing a representative to inspect and seal the cargo of the boats of the Freedom Flotilla II—thus assuring the Israeli government that the boats are carrying humanitarian supplies such as toys, medical supplies, cement and educational materials. Equally important, we strongly urge you to use your authority to call on all governments to support the safe passage of the Freedom Flotilla II. We are disappointed to learn of your recent efforts to persuade member governments from stopping the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza on the Freedom Flotilla II. We urge you to reconsider and instead encourage member states to lend support and ask Israel not to use force against legitimate humanitarian initiatives undertaken by civil society to help ease the suffering of the people of Gaza who are facing a humanitarian crisis of devastating scale.

The Freedom Flotilla II, organized by 14 national groups and international coalitions and carrying approximately 1500 'freedom riders,’ is set to sail to Gaza this month. Sailing in the spirit of promoting human rights, prosperity, and social responsibility, the aim of the Flotilla is to alleviate the humanitarian crisis faced by the citizens of Gaza.

The blockade in Gaza is clearly having a harmful impact on the people of Gaza, and indeed UNDP and other agencies report high levels of malnutrition and other disturbing health problems. According to a report by the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization, the level of "abject poverty" among the Palestinians of Gaza has tripled since the imposition of the blockade, with 61 % of households not having enough food. The blockade has crippled the Gaza economy and destroyed Palestinians’ livelihoods and homes.

We believe our requests to you are in keeping with UN Security Council Resolution 1860 of January 2009 as well as the 2010 UN Human Rights Council fact-finding mission on the attack on Freedom Flotilla I, which are calling for a lift of the blockade to allow humanitarian assistance. We urge you to do all you can to support this nonviolent international humanitarian effort, to provide UN representatives to inspect and seal the cargo, and to appeal to all governments to allow safe passage of the Freedom Flotilla II.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter. We look forward to your positive response.

Sincerely,

Mairead Maguire (1976)

Rigoberta Menchu Tum (1992)

Jody Williams (1997)

Shirin Ebadi (2003)

Source: Prophetic Imagery by Dom Martin

Editor’s note: Please visit Prophetic Imagery and see Nakblinka, Icons of Innocence, The Second Crucifixion and more, and distribute this widely.

ISRAEL'S HIDDEN FACE

2011-06-26T18:11:00.000-04:00

A “benign” culture with “Benign individuals”

by Nahida Izzat

Nahida Izzat
The Exiled Palestinian

Disclaimer: Quoting people and books is NOT antisemitism

Editor’s note: In almost every article, every Op-Ed, every letter-to-the-editor, every speech by any Israeli, or any of the lobbyist for Israel, there are claims that the Palestinians want to push all the Jews in Israel into the sea, that they want to wipe Israel off the map, that they teach their children hate. By contrast, Israelis are presented as civilized and gentle people, sharing the same values held by Westerners!

In fact, no responsible Palestinian has ever expressed a desire to push all the Jews into the sea. And there is no need for Palestinian parents to teach their children to hate the Israelis. The Israelis themselves instill hate for Israelis in Palestinian children through their daily acts of cruelty in full sight of the children.

As compared to the myth spread by the Israelis, their lobbyists and compliant western media, the author of this article presents the side of Israel’s face kept carefully hidden from the general public. We present it here in all its ugliness.

"A nation of priests"

"Light unto the nations"

Come and learn O humans!

Enjoy the pearls of wisdom:

"Gentile sperm leads to cruel and barbaric offspring"

Says Rabbi Dov Lior

"Blacks are like apes"

Says Rabbi Mordechai Friedman

"Gentiles exist only to serve Jews"

Says Rabbi Ovadia Yosef

"Palestinians to the Ovens"

Says Israel's Orthodox Rabbis

"Jews should Destroy their (Arab) holy sites" and

"Kill men, women and children (and cattle)"

Says Chabad Rabbi Manis Friedman

The work of Chabad

"profoundly affects the very fabric of daily life in Israel"

"Exterminate the Palestinians"

Says Lubavitch Family Magazine

"Exterminate all Palestinian Males"

Says Rabbi Yousef Falay

"One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail"

Says Rabbi Yaacov Perrin

"Jewish blood is NOT the same as the blood of a (Gentile) goya"

Says Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg

Most influential Rabbi in US

is

Chabad Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky

The doctor who refused to treat Arabs

Also killed 29 Palestinians,

as they knelt down to pray

Rabbi Baruch Goldstein

"The battlefield is not just in Gaza strip.

The battlefield is everywhere a Jew exists . . .

in North and South, in West and East"

Says Former Chief Rabbi of "Israel",

Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, Yisrael Meir Lau

***

Dr. Giora Yosefial called Moroccan Jews

"primitive" and "backward"

X-Prime-Minister of "Israel" Levi Eshkol named them

"human rubbish" and "defective people"

Dr. Nachum Goldman who was described as "a Jew and a Zionist

with a profound awareness of Jewish culture

and history, yet at the same time a "citizen of the world.",

Goldman described North African Jewry as "catastrophic immigration"

Professor Chaim Sheba believed in the "genetic supremacy" of Ashkanazi Jews

so he ran the programme of

a mass radiation of North Africa Jewish children!

Who will forget the Ring Worm Children?

Furthermore;

During the onslaught on Gaza

"A few benign individuals" celebrated the murder

of suckling babies and little children

moreover, they called to

"Wipe them all out"

"A few more benign individuals" chanted:

"kill the Arabs . . . butcher the Arams . . . I hate Arabs"

Another "few benign individuals"

celebrated the murder of humanitarian workers

saying that the "Israeli" army is guilty of one thing:

"They didn't wipe them all out"

Just a few more benign individuals "emanating light"

as the called to "kill them all"

Another group of "few benign individuals" shouted

Deport the Jewish "Negros"

And here, another group of 300 "benign" rabbis have signed

"a document which warns that "it is forbidden in the Torah

"to sell a house or a field in the land of Israel to a Gentile"

*******************************
Chabad which is subsidized by "Israeli" government abroad

danced around to the sound of bombs

falling over Gaza

they also printed 500,000 booklets

with special prayers to the soldiers

and a message from the Rebbe Schneerson

"Then the people of Israel made this vow to the Lord:

"If you will hand these people over to us,

we will completely destroy all their towns"
(including the inhabitants of the land)

Says the Hebrew Bible: Numbers 21:2

The Hebrew Bible also blessed "Israel" with a special Mitzvah

a Commandment to exterminate the Amalekites

and the seven Canaanite nations

â€œmilchemet reshut ... a war of aggression

The Torah permits such a war to

expand the borders of Eretz Yisrael,

to capture captives,

or because the King of Israel decides that

war is good for the country and for God

Milchemet reshut is war against other nations

to enlarge Eretz Yisrael and increase its prestige.

Such was the "elitist" Culture with "great civilization"

Its "benign" individuals have always been at the "helm of social justice"

They are the "champions of progress and morality"

95% of US Jews support Israel as a Jewish state

90% of British Jews believe that Israel is the â€˜ancestral homelandâ€™ of the Jewish people

"Love thy neighbour", they "teach" us

"That which is hateful to you, don't do unto others",

Our Golden Rule, they say

OOooOooOops!

Am I missing something here??

for humanity's sake

What and where are these "Jewish values"

they keep bragging about?

About the author: Nahida Izzat is a Jerusalem-born Palestinian refugee living in exile for over 44 years. She was forced to leave her homeland, Palestine, at the age of seven during the six-day war. Nahida is mathematician by education, a mother of 3 children by career, an artist by hobby, and a returned-refugee to a free Palestine by optimism, hopes and anticipation

BACK TO PALESTINE, JULY 8 TO 16

2011-06-24T15:57:00.000-04:00

By: Laura Durkay

I'm doing this.It's a week of international solidarity actions in Palestine, which will bring together hundreds of internationals to work with 15 Palestinian civil resistance organizations across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

It also includes this--a mass fly-in to Ben Gurion Airport on July 8. Hundreds of internationals will arrive on the same day, and, if all goes according to plan, hundreds of people will refuse to lie to Israeli security about the fact that we are here to visit Palestinians and participate in nonviolent solidarity actions.

"You're crazy," you might say. "They're just going to deport you all, and you will have spent all that time and money for nothing."

(For the record, I don't have $1,500 or more to drop on maybe getting deported. I have an epic number of frequent flyer miles on a certain airline, which allowed me to get a free ticket to London, where I will meet up with the UK delegation that is joining this action. A ticket the rest of the way on a European budget airline was fairly cheap. That's how I can afford to do this.)

It is true that they may deport us. The Israeli authorities will do what they will do and we cannot control their behavior. But if that happens, I don't believe it will be for nothing.

I heard about the fly-in action months ago. Like many people, I thought it was a great idea, but I was afraid of getting deported, and downright terrified of losing my ability to enter Palestine in the future, especially at such a critical time.

But then came Nakba Day, Naksa Day, and the announcement that seven of my friends will be on the US Boat to Gaza, which is due to sail very shortly before the July week of action. The action started to seem more and more like an important challenge to Israeli apartheid, and I began to feel more and more like I was the exact right kind of person to do it.

I've been to Palestine twice on "witnessing" delegations. I've seen what things are like on the ground. I'm done with traveling there simply to witness. On the last trip I was questioned extensively by Israeli security, and I have been writing and speaking openly and publicly about Palestine since then, using my full name and with a very visible online and real-world presence. This leads me to believe that I would probably be questioned no matter what I did and how carefully I tried to hide the next time I tried to enter Palestine, and that trying to pass myself off as a "tourist" in the future might in fact only piss off Israeli security and give them an excuse to deport me anyway, for lying to them.

For what it's worth, I have absolutely no problem with activists going on the DL, not telling the whole truth, or otherwise obfuscating in order to get into Palestine and do work that undermines the rotten apartheid system. That is the standard M.O., and I think people should continue to go for it. But I'm excited by the possibility of trying a different route this time.

Something interesting happened once I signed up for this venture. I completely lost my fear of Ben Gurion Airport, which has to be one of my least favorite places on Earth. Israeli-controlled borders are miserable places. They're factories of humiliation, intimidation, dehumanization, and forced submission to vile degrees of racial profiling, political policing, and generally unchecked dominance behavior by cocky soldiers and cold-eyed secret police. Usually, internationals and Palestinians accept submitting to this system as a necessary evil, the unwritten price of an entry visa into Palestine.

But there is something so wonderful about the prospect of being able to defy that system, of being given permission to defy it as part of a nonviolent civil disobedience action. It releases every natural rebellious instinct, the very impulses that draw people to Palestine in the first place, and channels them into mass action. The prospect of getting deported alone is lame, pointless and depressing. The prospect of getting deported along with hundreds and hundreds of people who are challenging Israel's racist, repressive entry policies sounds like it just might be worth it.

The brilliance of this action is that it takes an experience that is often isolated and isolating--interacting with the fearsome Israeli security apparatus--and turns it into a collective, mass solidarity action. The whole system of interrogation, detention, prison and deportation is designed to isolate you as much as possible, to create the impression that you are completely alone against this overwhelmingly powerful repressive machinery. Mass civil disobedience completely undercuts and inverts this power dynamic, which is one of the reasons Israel finds acts of unarmed civil resistance so threatening.

It's not that any of us want to get deported. We don't. We want permission to enter Palestine and travel freely to visit our Palestinian friends, as is our universal human right. But we have no illusions about the system that stands in our way.

I love Palestine. I love the people I've met there, Palestinians and Israelis, who are fighting for Palestinian national liberation and a country where everyone can live in peace with justice and equal rights. To be invited--welcomed--into such a heroic struggle is an honor beyond words. It physically hurts to think about the prospect that I might not be able to go back there for years.

But really, what justification do I have to hold so tightly to my ability to enter Palestine when that right is denied to so many actual Palestinians? When Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have to brave Israeli snipers just to catch a glimpse of their homeland? When it was recently revealed that 140,000 Palestinians from the West Bank lost their ability to return home, simply because they had the temerity to live, work, or study abroad?

Israel is being challenged on every border. If Palestinian refugees can brave minefields and live ammunition, and the folks aboard Freedom Flotilla 2 can face Israeli gunboats and navy commandos, we can stand up to the Ben Gurion security apparatus. Yalla, let's go to Palestine.

About the author: Laura Durkay is a Palestine solidarity activist and member of the International Socialist Organization in New York City

CHALLENGING ISRAEL ON EVERY FRONT

2011-06-23T16:13:00.000-04:00

By:Gulamhusein A. Abba

The pressure on Israel is building. Non violent protests by the Palestinians are increasing in numbers and size. As predicted by me in an earlier article, they will soon escalate and go one notch further, adopting Gandhi’s concept of not mere passive protest but active non-violent civil disobedience. It will not be long before thousands of Palestinians and their Israeli supporters will march to checkpoints and attempt to break through without waiting for “clearance” from young, arrogant Israeli soldiers manning them. Tunisian and type mass protests that are taking place all over the Middle East are bound to take place in Palestine also. No one need be surprised to see many Israelis joining them.

It is encouraging to see that while the international community represented in the UN seems paralyzed, the common, peace and justice loving people from around the world are ready to lend their support to the brave people of Palestine. They are beginning to say “enough is enough”. They are demanding that Israel comply with International law and human rights.

On July 8 hundreds of activists – about 500 estimated so far -- from all over the world will converge on Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, and this time they will not lie about their reason for being there. They will openly and truthfully declare to the Israeli security that they are there to go to the West Bank to help the people there and participate in nonviolent solidarity actions.

These solidarity actions are scheduled to take place from July 8-16 in coordination with 15 Palestinian civil resistance organizations in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The purpose of these actions is to show that not only are the actions of Israel in Gaza reprehensible but that Israeli repression in the West Bank and Jerusalem is no less condemnable and is part of an attempt by Israel at ethnic cleansing and colonization.

I long to join them. Unfortunately, I do not have the money to go there. Also, my holding an Indian passport and living in the US makes getting the necessary paperwork done difficult – not to mention my 83 years and poor health.

Why are hundre4ds of internationals giving up the comforts of their homes to go to Ben Gurion Airport and subject themselves to the certain humiliations and invasive interrogations by the Israel security -- and deportation that seems certain to follow?

Why are other internationals sailing in boasts to go to Gaza and risk being bombed by the Israelis?

Why do I long to go there?

Basically because having come to know of the injustice, hardships, trials and tribulations, deaths and tragedy on a vast scale being suffered by the Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli government, being quiet, saying nothing, doing nothing, is no longer an option. Silence, in such situations, is complicity.

For long we have agonized over our helplessness to help. For long we have wondered what we could do.

Michael Riordon in his book “Our Way to Fight” writes: “Yet in the face of overwhelming harm, the question arises: “What can I do?” The victims ask, our conscience asks. So does a shared interest in a livable world. What can I do?

“During Athens street protests in 2008, a Greek blogger answered, beautifully: “We have a duty to move here, there, anywhere except back to our couches as mere viewers of history, back home to the warmth that freezes our conscience.”

The convergence at the Ben Gurion Airport on July 8, the solidarity actions in Palestine from July 8 to 16, sailing on Flotilla II provide some opportunities to do something.

Israeli apartheid days are numbered, and now is the moment to challenge it on every front.
Action is the best antidote to despair. Besides, it bears repeating, silence is complicity.

Individuals interested in participating in the July 8-16 week of solidarity should email info@palestinejn.org or visit http://www.palestinejn.org/ for more details.

Desmond Tutu on Freedom for Palestine

2011-06-22T15:33:00.000-04:00

ARCHBISHOOP TUTU ENDORSES
“FREEDOM FOR PALESTINE”
MUSIC SINGLE by ONE WORLD

What a wonderful, compassionate and wise man.
In just a few words, Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s
simple message brings hope and clarity to the spin
that has wrought such terrible injustices and calamity
on the Palestinian people and shamelessly influenced
our leaders to abandon the common human values
of decency, compassion and honour to condemn them
to a life of unforgiving occupation and apartheid.
The honest truth cuts through all the silver-tongued words
that speak of peace and understanding even as the
bulldozers rip apart Palestinian homes, land and society
for the pleasure of strangers from far away lands.

As long as Israel occupies, rejects and discriminates against
the Palestinian people, all the negotiations, dialogue and
joint initiatives being brandished about now that suck even
well-meaning Palestinians into their vortex, are meaningless.

WATCH ARCHBISHOP TUTU’S MESSAGE ON OUR WEBSITE
http://australiansforpalestine.com/46628
AND SHARE IT VIA FACEBOOK AND TWITTER

PLEASE SPREAD HIS MESSAGE FAR AND WIDE AND
BUY THE MUSIC SINGLE “FREEDOM FOR PALESTINE” NOW
BY CLICKING ON THE LINK BELOW
http://www.hmvdigital.com/artist/oneworld/freedom-for-palestine

Sonja Karkar

ISRAEL THE PROVOCATEUR, NOT FREEDOM FLOTILLA

2011-06-13T12:02:00.000-04:00

INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY MUST LEGALLY PUT SANCTION S ON PERPETRATORS OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS

Those who seek to uphold and defend freedom,
human rights, and justice must do more than
denounce belligerent occupation, man-made
humanitarian crises, ethnic cleansing, wanton
violence against civilians, and the fierce oppression
of social movements
. ……………
International diplomacy must do what it has refused
to do for years, to undertake initiatives that it has turned
away from for decades. Instead of condoning threats
of repeated violence against unarmed civilians
sailing in international waters, the global community
must legally sanction the perpetrators of such crimes.

As we get ready to sail in two weeks, Israel has stepped up the threats, threatening to sue the Canadians who are going, threatening to sue the satellite phone company if they provide us with service, threatening to kill and maim us if we don't stop, then saying, "I told you so...we said we would kill you."

This behavior has got to stop. Israel is behaving like the schoolyard bully who parents and teachers fear, because his parents are rich and have contributed to the school. It's time for us to put our foot down.

Start calling your member of parliament/congress now. Start writing letters to the editor. Start a civil movement on social networks of outrage against Israel's attacks on civilians. Distribute this statement below and post on your websites.

We CAN stop Israeli attacks against us if we work together. Greta

ANNOUNCEMENT

Dear Israel: It is you who is the provocateur, not us.
Written by Free Gaza Team
June 12, 2011

Regarding statements of government officials in Israel (echoed by officials in other countries) about diplomatic initiatives to impede the “Freedom Flotilla II- Stay Human” mission to Gaza, Palestine, we say:

Proper diplomacy does not exclude humanitarian action; Instead of seeking to prevent an international community of concerned citizens from taking nonviolent action in defense of liberty and human rights, diplomacy must pursue such actions and encourage them.

It is, therefore, a provocation to label the humanitarian action taken by movements supporting human rights to sail to Gaza a “provocation.”

It is a provocation that powerful states and international organizations, such as the US, Israel, the EU and the UN, are asking people to be silent and not react to violations of law and the disdain for universal values.

It is a provocation that international diplomacy is demanding that solidarity action from "people to people" be stopped.

It is a provocation that this international peaceful action is threatened with violence, and the powerful of the earth “wash their hands” of the consequences if Israel attacks us.

It is a provocation that these powerful entities justify, a priori, the murders, wounding, arrests and torture of unarmed human rights activists that took place one year ago on board all six ships of Freedom Flotilla 1.

We are determined to sail to Gaza, and we will. Our cause is just and our means are transparent. International diplomacy must do what it has refused to do for years, to undertake initiatives that it has turned away from for decades. Instead of condoning threats of repeated violence against unarmed civilians sailing in international waters, the global community must legally sanction the perpetrators of such crimes.

Those who seek to uphold and defend freedom, human rights, and justice must do more than denounce belligerent occupation, man-made humanitarian crises, ethnic cleansing, wanton violence against civilians, and the fierce oppression of social movements.

Civil society must be present, direct, and pro-active; it must transcend the political process of handling and resolving crises, which governments and international organizations carry out slowly, indecisively and, above all, with their self-interest at the forefront.

The grossly unjust and unlawful blockade of the Gaza Strip and the ongoing belligerent occupation of the rest of Palestine is a stark case of states sacrificing principle and human rights for power and self-interest.

The Freedom Flotilla II – Stay Human mission is a healthy reaction to the apathy of the international political community. We are sailing to confront massive injustice with global nonviolent action. This mission puts on notice all those who, for many years, have passively watched the tragedy of Palestine, as well as those who directly contribute to it.

Therefore, direct action taken by civil society to uphold freedom, human rights, and justice (such as Freedom Flotilla II - Stay Human), not only helps to build a different level of conscience, but is, and has to be, a means for the public to become a part of change and a direct challenge to governmental bodies that will not be stopped.

http://www.freegaza.org/

TO GAZA WITH LOVE

2011-06-09T14:37:00.000-04:00

A letter from one about to go to Gaza on ‘The Audacity of Hope’

By: Gale Khourey Toensing

Dear Friends

I'm honored and delighted to report that I'll be a passenger on the U.S. Boat to Gaza -- The Audacity of Hope -- which will be part of the international Freedom Flotilla whose goal is to break Israel's illegal blockade of the tiny Mediterrean coastal enclave where 1.5 million people live in an oppressive open air prison imposed by their neighboring state.

Among the passengers will be Alice Walker, African American Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Color Purple; former U.S. Ambassador Col. Ann Wright, who resigned from the State Department in 2003 to protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq; and the amazing Hedy Epstein, an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor. I can't wait to meet them and all of the other passengers. Alice Walker compared the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza to the Freedom Rides of the 1960's civil rights movement when people in the northeast boarded buses and headed to the American south to challenge segregation. The Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, Alice Walker said, "is the Freedom Ride of this era."

Part of the reason why I'm a passenger on The Audacity of Hope is because the Israeli blockade of Gaza is unconditionally and immorally supported by the U.S. government -- and our tax dollars. It's important for Americans to speak out against "injustice anywhere," because, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, it's "a threat to justice everywhere." If our government won't defend Palestinians' human rights because of some misperceived benefit of its alliance with Israel or -- more likely -- because politicans are afraid of being targeted for non-election by the powerful Israeli lobby, then civilians of conscience must speak out.

But I'm also going to Gaza to remind the world that Palestinians are the indigenous people of Palestine and as such they have inherent rights of sovereignty and self determination under international law and the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which Israel voted to adopt at the U.N. General Assembly on September 13, 2007. Israel's control over the West Bank and Gaza currently prevents Palestine from asserting and exercising sovereignty over its land, resources and borders, including its border on the Mediterrean coast. By sailing to Gaza's seaport there, passengers on The Audacity of Hope are telling the world that we recognize Palestinian sovereignty and its right to receive visitors from abroad, and we are willing to risk Israel's promise of aggression toward us in order to assert it.

In less than three weeks, I'll fly to Athens to meet up with around 60 other U.S. citizens who are dedicated to promoting human rights, national rights and civil rights for the Palestinian people, who have been living under Israeli military occupation since 1967 -- an occupation that is deemed illegal by international law, the United Nations, and dozens of human rights organizations around the world. We'll meet up with more than a dozen boats from more than a dozen countries carrying more than 1,000 passengers bringing messages of support and solidarity to the people of Gaza. Israel has mounted an hysterical public relations campaign to stop the flotilla, claiming that its pasengers are "Islamic terrorists" or they will be "smuggling arms" or that the flotilla poses a threat to its "national security." None of it is true. We are unarmed, we're fully committed to non-violence and international law, and our cargo will be open to international inspection.

But the only cargo The Audacity of Hope will carry to the children, women and men of Gaza will be hope -- very audacious hope indeed in the form of thousands of letters, postcards, emails, drawings and other expressions of love, humanity and solidarity. That's where I hope (there's that word again!) you come in. Please join our letter writing campaign. It's called To Gaza with Love and you can find a video about it featuring Alice Walker, actress Kathleen Chalfant, and others, and instructions about where to send your messages at http://ustogaza.org/. You can also sign up to receive email action alerts during The Audacity of Hope be part of our journey to meet and greet the people of Gaza.

With all good wishes and hope for peace in our only world,

-- Gale

About the author: Gale Courey Toensing, a Canaan, Conn., resident, is the editor of widely read The Corner Report.
She received a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Vermont College, Norwich University in 1999, winning the national New Writers Introductory Award for her poem “Personal Belongings,” which was published in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Arizona State University’s literary magazine.

She has been writing for Indian Country Today newspaper for years., She worked for12 years as a general-assignment correspondent for the daily Waterbury [Conn.] Republican American and as a free-lance writer, designer and editor. At the daily, she won the Housatonic Valley Association’s Environmental Reporting Award in 1998, and the Connecticut Greenways Award for environmental reporting in 2001.
She is particularly interested in the global struggles of indigenous peoples for their lands and self determination.