Dr. Lawrence Davidson
Making The Same Mistake Twice
It is estimated that up to a million people died as a function of George Bush Jr.’s decision to invade Iraq. According to Bush, that decision was made on the basis of “faulty intelligence.” This is the ex-president’s way of passing the blame. The decision was made by Mr. Bush’s insistence that the accurate intelligence he was getting from traditional sources was false, and that the lies he was being told by other parties were true.
Dr. Lawrence Davidson
Part I – Two Fronts
In January 2011, I wrote an analysis in support of a one-state solution to the on-going Israeli-Palestinian struggle. It is the Israelis themselves who have made the one-state solution the only practicable approach, because their incessant and illegal colonization of the West Bank has simply eliminated all possibility of a viable and truly independentPalestinian state. Israeli behavior has not changed in the past year and so I still stand by the position.
Continue reading
Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery
IN THE middle of the ’80s, a German diplomat conveyed to me a surprising message. A member of the Jordanian Royal family would like to speak with me in Amman. At the time, Jordan was still officially at war with us.
Somehow I obtained official permission from the Israeli government. The Germans generously provided me with a passport that was not strictly accurate, and so, with much turning of blind eyes, I arrived in Amman and was lodged in the best hotel.
The news of my presence spread quickly, and after some days it became an embarrassment to the Jordanian government. So I was politely asked to leave, and very quickly, please.
Considering a Palestinian kid throwing stones gets imprisonment and mashed testicles…
Standing his ground against evil invaders like Shalit…. if caught this youngster can expect imprisonment and mashed testicles.
While the whole world, it seemed, was in ecstasy over the freeing of Gilad Shalit, I was amazed to discover that the Israeli tank-gunner had been made an honorary citizen of Rome, Paris, Baltimore, Miami, Pittsburgh and New Orleans.
Knowing what we know, that’s pretty sick stuff. Continue reading
One-Eyed Men In The World Of The Blind – An Analysis (11 September 2011)
Dr. Lawrence Davidson
There is an interesting phenomenon which we can call “the political retiree’s confession.” I don’t mean all those hyped memoirs, ghost written for all manner of high ranking ex-officials. Here I refer to statements by important political leaders and bureaucrats, either out of office or about to vacate their positions, publically describing what really needs to be done. For instance, what really needs to be done to obtain peace, or accurately pointing fingers at those obstructing peace. These statements can be shocking in their honesty, but curiously enough, are never made, much less acted upon, while the truth sayer is in a position of power. They come to us only with retirement or pending retirement.
For example, take former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert was Prime Minister from 2006 (replacing Ariel Sharon who had suffered a debilitating stroke) till early 2009. A few months before leaving office Olmert told the newspaper Yediot Aharonot that, in the end, Israel would have to return “almost all” of the West Bank to the Palestinians, including East Jerusalem. There was no other way to achieve peace with the Arab world. Olmert went on, “the decision we are going to have to make is the decision we have been refusing for 40 years to look at open-eyed….The time has come to say these things. The time has come to put them on the table.” Of course “the time” oddly coincided with a period when the Prime Minister could not move this insight from theory into practice.
Now we have another example of this strange phenomenon. This time from the United States. According to Jeffrey Goldberg, the national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, “in a meeting of the National Security Council Principals Committee held shortly before his retirement this summer [2011]” gave his expert opinion that the Israeli government was ungrateful for United States assistance. That despite all the Obama administration had done for Jerusalem, “access to top-quality weapons, assistance developing missile defense systems, high-level intelligence sharing….the U.S. has received nothing in return.” On top of that, in Gates’s estimation Prime Minister Netanyahu is “endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel’s growing isolation…” No one at the high level meeting disagreed with this analysis.
Gates’s publically revealed anger is nice to hear about but, like Olmert’s epiphany, it means little in practice. Netanyahu has been rude, duplicitous and downright nasty to President Obama in what was actually a replay of the behavior of Menachem Begin toward Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s. Carter’s National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski learned to distrust the Israeli leadership and would later, after he was no longer in office, advocate an increasing hard line toward Jerusalem. Indeed, he once suggested military confrontation with Israel if that country’s leaders risked a regional war by attacking Iranian nuclear development sites (he suggested the U.S. Air Force shoot down the Israeli planes). This was a reasonable suggestion given the stakes but, of course, it was made when Brzezinski had no position of influence.
Getting back to the article on Gates’s negative opinion of Netanyahu and his government, Jeffrey Goldberg writes, that the former Defense Secretary actually “articulated bluntly what so many people in the administration seem to believe.” OK. So what are they doing about this? Absolutely nothing. They will all wait until they no longer have positions of influence to come out and vent. The situation is disgusting. And it is disgusting because in both the U.S. and Israel (and no doubt in many other countries as well) there are leaders and advisers who know what needs to be done in Israel-Palestine to make the world more secure and stable, and yet they stand by and twiddle their thumbs.
Why do these leaders do nothing about matters of such importance? Here are two interconnected reasons:
1. In his book Victims of Groupthink (1972) Irving L. Janis shows how governing political elites create self-reinforcing decision making circles that insulate themselves from serious challenge. It is rare that anyone within these circles “thinks outside the box.” However, it turns out that the “box” must always be able to accommodate the demands and interests of other groups whose money and power support the “circle’s” political viability. This is a system that must produce frustration and sense of powerlessness among (the rare) officials who can see even a little more clearly than their peers. By the way it is not a problem unique to political elites. It surely exists in most organizational structures. It is just that when it comes to government the stakes are so much higher for all of us.
2. Enmeshed as they are in a system of national interest group politics that dictate the fate of their various political parties and their own careers, those who might suspect a world outside the box will stay silent. The narrow fate of party and career is, apparently, worth more than world peace. It is worth more than the lives of millions of doomed civilians and soldiers. It is worth more than justice for nations and peoples. Only when free of this debilitating system do some of these people find their tongues. But by then all they have are impotent words. This is what we are seeing in the belated surfacing of rational criticism and analysis from unexpected sources such as Olmert and Gates.
Conclusion
How often do we read about individuals and groups who, witnessing an accident or a crime just stand by and do nothing? These people do not want to “get involved.” Afterwards, such folks are usually very quiet and meek. They don’t want their neighbors to know that they stood by and did nothing. But the position of these confessing political retirees is quite different. They were already involved. And now, after the fact, these one-eyed men in the world of the blind want us all to know they have seen the light. Great. Now you tell us!
Dr. Lawrence Davidson
Dr. Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.
The author is a regular contributor to RamallahOnline.com.More articles can be found on RamallahOnline.com, Logos Journal, and Dr. Davidson also maintains an online blog, you can find it at http://www.tothepointanalyses.com
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Links to some Media Stories below (Netanyahu went to the airport himself to oversee preparations!!
Bethlehem and Jerusalem 5 July 2011–The organizers of the “Welcome to Palestine” initiative decry the numerous attempts by Israeli and other media to distort our message and planned activities. There were messages claiming that we are attempting to reach Gaza by going to Lod Airport (aka Ben Gurion airport) on July 8. Some claimed that this initiative came after the flotilla was blocked. Others claimed our visitors want to disrupt things at the airport and some even claimed they will try to take over planes. These claims and many others being circulated are false; we urge media not to disseminate false statements.
As stated in our first press release: we invited international guests, including families, to visit us in Palestine. We hope and expect the Israeli authorities to allow them safe passage in compliance with International law and normal diplomatic bilateral protocols. We also reject the Israeli government threat to engage in mass deportation of peace activists and the apparent attempt justify this unjustifiable action by using rumors that they spread.
We are accessible to the media and encourage them to speak with the actual organizers and participants of this peaceful initiative. Journalists will be flying with us, and we encourage more journalists to join us and to report on what actually happens (without innuendos and propaganda efforts – Israeli hasbara).
Our visitors are coming to Palestine with a nonviolent approach to peace building and conflict resolution, with full respect of the universal declaration of human rights. We urge the Israeli authorities to allow the journalists to have access to our participants and to report the true story of “Welcome to Palestine.”
Inviting Palestinians and internationals to join us is our right as people under colonial occupation who yearn to be free.
Some journalists are flying with our visitors and we invite all journalists who want to exercise their right to free press to fly in of the 8th of July to Palestine.
We will have a press conference Friday July 8 at 10 AM at the Bethlehem Peace Center in Bethlehem.
Contact: info@palestinejn.org
##End###
Press Release from the European group is posted at
http://bienvenuepalestine.com/
نتنياهو في مطار بن غوريون يُعد لخطة احباط وصول نشطاء السلام
http://www.maannews.net/arb/
Xinhua agency Report
http://english.peopledaily.
AFP Report
http://beta.news.yahoo.com/
Israel to expel pro-Palestinian airport protesters
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
نتنياهو في مطار بن غوريون يُعد لخطة احباط وصول نشطاء
http://www.maannews.net/arb/
الشرطة الاسرائيلية ترفع حالة التأهب في مطار بن غوريون بعد أنباء عن وصول نشطاء سلام
http://www.alarab.net/Article/
جلسة تشاورية للحكومة الاسرائيلية في مطار “بن غوريون” قبل وصول المتضامنين
http://www.kuna.net.kw/
Challenging Israeli apartheid, starting at Ben Gurion Airport
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/06/
Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ph.D.
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 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 the forthcoming book Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and Empowerment.
A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home
http://www.qumsiyeh.org
http://www.pcr.ps
Articles by Dr. Qumsiyeh on RamallahOnline.com.
Uri Avnery, 23 Jan 2011
ISRAEL IS, as we well know, the land of unlimited impossibilities. In Israel, for example, the diplomats are striking.
A strike of diplomats? But that is impossible! Postmen strike. Longshoremen strike. But diplomats? The most conservative, the most establishment people? The people who serve any Israeli government, whatever its complexion? Who find pretexts for all its actions, whatever they may be?
Well, in Israel it is possible. All the Foreign Office services have ceased to function. No new passports for citizens who have lost their papers in Moscow, no consular assistance for citizens who have been thrown into prison in New York. No preparations for Binyamin Netanyahu’s visit to Paris. For years, Foreign Office people have suffered from miserable working conditions. Their salaries are bordering on the ridiculous. So they went on strike.
DOES THIS infuriate the Prime Minister? Is the Foreign Minister upset? Not a bit of it. Netanyahu does not go out of his way to put an end to the strike, and Avigdor Lieberman does absolutely nothing to tempt his employees back to their desks. Both do not care. On the contrary, they look almost happy. For all they care, let them strike forever.
And they are right. This week, everybody realized how right they are.
The President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, was scheduled to visit Israel. But before that, he went to Jericho, which is considered the oldest town in the world. There, in the presence of President Mahmoud Abbas, he declared that Russia had recognized the Palestinian state long ago, and that it continues to recognize the Palestinians’ right to a state of their own, with its capital in East Jerusalem.
Not exactly. It was not Russia that recognized Palestine, but the Soviet Union. And the recognition was conferred on the virtual state declared by Yasser Arafat in 1988. That is very different from recognition of the Palestinian state now, when it is becoming a reality.
After his visit to Jericho, Medvedev was to come to Jerusalem, to be photographed next to Binyamin Netanyahu and shake hands with Avigdor Lieberman. How was Netanyahu to react to the Jericho declaration? How could he extricate himself from this matter, without humiliating himself or offending the largest country in the world?
see also Israel Hardens Repression as Palestinian Recognition Increases
This embarrassment was avoided by the sanctions of the Israeli diplomats. They refused to prepare the visit and organize the meetings. Medvedev gave up, and the two great statesmen – Netanyahu and Lieberman – could breathe again.
Deep in his heart, Lieberman surely blessed the people of his office, whom he hates. They saved him. What could he tell Medvedev? Ever since walking into the Foreign Office like a bear entering the proverbial china shop, he has boasted of his excellent relations with Russia. The Americans loathe him? So what? America is a declining empire. The Europeans don’t want to meet with him? So what? Who are they, anyhow?
But Russia is Russia. Here we have a real friend. Lieberman admires Vladimir Putin, that great democrat, who knows how to deal with cheeky people like the Chechnyans. Lieberman speaks with him in his mother tongue. He boasted of having established really intimate relations with Russia. And now they do this thing to him. What a disgrace.
BUT THE truth is that Putin is not really his friend. Yvette Lieberman (his original name) has only one real friend in the world: Aleksandr Lukashenko, President of Belarus, “the Last Dictator in Europe”.
True. Lieberman was not born in Belarus, but in Soviet Moldavia. But there is no doubt that Belarus is his Second Homeland. In its capital, Minsk, he spends his vacations. There he chose to hide in the (successful) intention of blackmailing Netanyahu, when “Bibi” begged him to join the government coalition. Lukashenko is his soul-mate. He is his model. From him he learned how to deal with human rights organizations. The patent belongs to the President of Belarus, and is only licensed to the leader of “Israel Our Home”. It was Lukashenko who sent an official warning to the human rights activists in his country and threatened them with heavy penalties if they continue to “distort information” about Belarus.
“The Ministry of Justice has issued a written warning,” said the text, “to the Belorussian Helsinki Committee for violations of the law on civic organizations and mass media and for spreading dubious information discrediting the law enforcement and justice agencies of the republic.” The police raided the premises of the human rights organizations and the KGB (yes, the old name lives on in Belarus) has started to investigate.
From there Lieberman drew his inspiration, when he opened his campaign against the peace and human rights activists in Israel, whom he called this week “collaborators of terrorism”. I don’t speak Slavic languages, but I am sure that it sounds more authentic in Belarussian than in Hebrew.
ONE CAN laugh (for the time being) at Lieberman’s claim that the peace and human rights organizations cause the de-legitimization of the State of Israel, and especially the de-legitimization of the Israeli army.
But one cannot laugh about the de-legitimization itself. More and more governments are recognizing the State of Palestine, boxing the ears of the Netanyahu government in the process.
When the Palestinian National Council declared, 22 years ago, the foundation of the independent Palestinian state, about 110 countries recognized it. All of them raised the status of the Palestinian delegations to the rank of embassies. The Israeli government ignored them. In its view, that was an empty declaration and a meaningless recognition. It did not change the realities on the ground. In its eyes, one new settlement in the West Bank was more important than the opinion of a hundred countries. As they say in Yiddish: Oilam Goilam – the world is a Golem (the clumsy monster of Jewish legend.).
But the new wave of recognition of Palestine is a different matter altogether. When important countries like Brazil, Argentina and Chile recognize Palestine, and draw behind them the other Latin American countries, this is significant. When Russia renews its recognition, through its highest official and on Palestinian soil, this is an important event. If anybody is relying on the rock solid American support we are used to, they should pay attention to a small news item that appeared this week: the permanent delegation of the PLO in Washington DC was allowed to fly the Palestinian flag over its building – a right generally reserved for embassies alone.
An interesting plot is unfolding. Two thirds of the world’s countries have already recognized the State of Palestine, and the wave is gathering momentum. These are no longer just small third world states, but significant actors on the world stage. Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayad are quietly and persistently building the institutions of the Palestinian state. They are investing a lot of effort in development, building a new town north of Ramallah, restricting the powers of the security services and gaining the sympathy and attention of the world’s governments.
So what? – the average Israeli asks. After all, the Goyim are only proving yet again that they are all anti-Semites. How is this important? We control the territory and no diplomatic tricks will change that. And as long as we have unlimited American support, we don’t give a damn.
Really? For many years we could rely on the Americans with eyes closed. Every “anti-Israeli” resolution was met with a firm American veto. But is this still so certain? When all the important countries in the world recognize the State of Palestine – will the US alone hold out forever?
While the Israeli diplomats are striking, a new initiative condemning the settlements is gaining momentum in the UN Security Council. The entire world is against these settlements, which are manifestly illegal under international law. Even the US has demanded a freeze. Can the US veto a resolution that expresses its own policy, without becoming a laughing stock? And if it does do so all the same this time, what about next time, or the time after?
And if the American veto still rules the Security Council – it does not rule the UN General Assembly. It was the General Assembly – and not the Security Council – that resolved in 1947 to set up in Palestine, next to each other, a Jewish and an Arab state. If the Assembly decides now that the time has come to realize the second half of the resolution – the establishment of the Arab State in Palestine – it will strengthen even more the world-wide recognition of Palestine.
THE ARAB governments, which have lately paid only lip-service to the Palestinian cause and have not lifted a finger to help in the creation of the state – must now think again.
In Tunisia the people rose up against a dictatorship just like all the other Arab dictatorships – a small and corrupt elite, indifferent towards the wishes of the people and overtly or covertly collaboration with Israel. During the 13 years of Yasser Arafat’s stay in Tunis, I visited there many times. I always knew that lurking behind the liberal and attractive facade was a tough and oppressive police-state. But I saw the Tunisian men walking in the streets with a Jasmine flower over their ear (called Shmum) and I could never have imagined that here, of all places, the first popular Arab revolt would erupt.
see also The brutal truth about Tunisia
Now it has happened. And in Tunisia. This is a wake-up call to all Arab countries, from Morocco to Oman, that dictatorships will fall, that there will be an endeavor to set up liberal democratic regimes, and if that does not succeed – Islamic regimes will take over.
That is the writing on the wall. The present Israeli government is leading us towards disaster. But this week this government was shored-up even more, when Ehud Barak, the pocket Napoleon, finally abandoned all pretense of belonging to the social-democratic left and set up a clearly rightist party, something like Likud II, that will be a loyal partner of Netanyahu and Lieberman.
With such leaders, does our country really need enemies?
Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement. A member of the Irgun as a teenager, Avnery sat in the Knesset from 1965–74 and 1979-81.
Alan Hart, 1 Dec 2010
The Wikileaks revelation that some Persian Gulf Arab leaders wanted (and still want?) America to attack Iran is confirmation of what some of us thought we knew – that Arab leaders are not merely impotent but as dangerously deluded as their Israeli counterparts.
Netanyahu was absolutely correct when he told a group of editors in Tel Aviv that “Israel has not been damaged at all by the Wikileaks publications.” A senior Israeli government official went further in his response to questions from AFP. He said: “We have come out looking good.” The leaked documents, he added, “confirm that the whole Middle East is terrified by the prospect of a nuclear Iran… The Arab countries are pushing the United States towards military action more forcefully than Israel.”
Actually the assertion that “the whole Middle East is terrified by the prospect of a nuclear Iran” is nonsense. The Arab regimes which more or less do the bidding of America-and-Zionism are terrified, but the same cannot be said of many of their repressed subjects. As Noam Chomsky pointed out in a recent interview with Open Democracy’s Amy Goodman, a poll of Arab opinion indicates that 80% regard Israel as the major threat in the region. Iran is seen as a threat by only 10%. The poll also indicated that 57% believe the region would be a more safe place if Iran had nuclear weapons. (As with Israel/Palestine, the regimes are effectively on one side – that of America-and-Israel, and the Arab masses are on the other side – that of the Palestinians).
The only good news confirmed by the latest Wiki leaked documents is that President Obama has so far resisted pressure from both Israel and the Arabs. (In fairness it should not be forgotten that President George “Dubya” Bush also said “No” to an attack on Iran when Vice President Cheney wanted him to authorize it).
There is no mystery about why any U.S. president who is not completely nuts will refuse to authorize an American attack on Iran (and do his best to stop Israel going it alone, no doubt with clearance through Saudi airspace). An American attack on Iran would have huge and possibly incalculable consequences for American interests. It would set in motion an escalating and possibly unending counter offensive including unbridled terrorism against American forces and facilities (civilian and business as well as military) around the world. And while that was happening, what is left of the global economy could be wrecked by sustained rises in the price of oil.
If those Arab leaders who pressed America to attack Iran discount the catastrophe scenario indicated above, they are very, very irresponsible. But there is more to their folly.
I don’t believe Iran’s ruling mullahs want nuclear weapons, but under pressure from the Revolutionary Guards (the real power in the country when push comes to shove?), they may have agreed in principle a while ago that Iran should have at least the possibility of developing a nuclear bomb for deterrence.
Prior to the publication of Wiki’s latest leaks, the question of how far and how fast Iran should go to have the possibility of developing a nuclear bomb was still the subject of debate in the leadership in all of its manifestations. It may be that Wiki’s revelations will play into the hands of those in Tehran who are insisting that Iran must have a nuclear bomb for deterrence.
While I was absorbing what the Wiki leaks confirmed about the attitudes of Arab leaders, I asked myself this question: What would I want if I was an Iranian, even one who hated the present regime?
My answer?
I would want my government, whatever its composition, to crash ahead with developing a nuclear bomb for deterrence. I would tell myself that was the only way to keep Iran safe from Arab-backed Israeli threats. And when challenged in argument, I would say, “Do you think America and Britain would have invaded Iraq if Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons?”
My main point?
If Iran does becomes a nuclear-armed state, it will be because of Israeli threats and Arab leadership’s endorsement of them.
Now to a most controversial question, one at least as controversial as the various 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Is Wikileaks being manipulated by intelligence services – one or several?
There are a number of bloggers – some of them informed writers with credibility, some of them uninformed, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory nutters – who think the answer is “Yes”. More to the point is that no less a figure than Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s National Security Advisor, thinks the answer could be “Yes”. He said so in an interview with PBS’s Judy Woodruff and also in a subsequent BBC World Service (Radio) interview. To Judy Woodruff he said:
“The real issue is, who is feeding Wikileaks? They’re getting a lot of information which seems trivial, inconsequential, but some of it seems surprisingly pointed… The very pointed references to Arab leaders could have as their objective undermining their political credibility at home, because this kind of public identification of their hostility towards Iran could actually play against them at home…It’s a question of whether Wikileaks are being manipulated by interested parties that want to either complicate our relationship with other governments or want to undermine some governments… I have no doubt that Wikileaks is getting a lot of the stuff from sort of relatively unimportant sources, like the one that perhaps is identified on the air. But it may be getting stuff at the same time from interested intelligence parties who want to manipulate the process and achieve certain very specific objectives.”
Another way to look at the matter is to ask this question. If a visitor from Outer Space studied the first two days of Wikileak’s revelations, what preliminary conclusion would he (or she) come to?
I think it’s entirely possible that he (or she) would say: “The main message is clear. Iran is the biggest single threat to the peace of the region and the world and not only because the Israelis say so. Arab leaders agree with them. The secondary message is that apart from the Arab leaders who say they share Israel’s assessment, other Muslim leaders, those in Turkey and Pakistan especially, are not to be trusted.”
And here’s another question. Which party benefited most from the first two days of Wikileaks revelations? The obvious answer is the Zionist state of Israel.
I must also confess that I have a nagging worry (small but real) about the possibility that Julian Paul Assange, Wikileaks’ founder, has been compromised in some way and is open to manipulation. My concern on this account is the fact that he is a 9/11 conspiracy denier. He is firmly on the record as saying: “I’m constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.”
As I have said on public platforms in America and written in a number of articles for the worldwide web, I think there is irrefutable evidence that the Twin Towers were not brought down by the planes and their burning fuel.
My own conclusion at the present time is that I don’t have a conclusion; but I think the question of whether or not Wikileaks is being manipulated, and if so by whom, is worthy of deep and serious investigation.
Alan Hart
Alan Hart has been engaged with events in the Middle East and their global consequences and terrifying implications – the possibility of a Clash of Civilisations, Judeo-Christian v Islamic, and, along the way, another great turning against the Jews – for nearly 40 years…
Alan maintains an online blog with a wealth of articles that can be found here http://www.alanhart.net/
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD, 29 Oct 2010
Israeli authorities are relieved that Wikileaks showed US documents proving not only that US soldiers killed civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan but that they also participated and condoned other severe violations of international law (including engaging in torture and other crimes against humanity). So the circle is now complete, the Israel-first lobby had pushed for the war on Iraq to align US and Israeli interests and actions. The idea that Americans having to kill and torture Arabs in an illegal invasion and occupation might now understand better Israel’s perpetual behavior of killing, displacing, and torturing Arabs. But I think this gamble is beginning to unravel. The US public was of course against the war on Iraq and over 70% believe it was not in the US interest. But even elites in the US including military and industrial leaders have now started to see Israel and the US wars for Israel as a strategic liability rather than a strategic asset. But much more needs to be done by civil society (including with the growing boycotts, divestments and sanctions movement) to drive home the point. In the meantime, Israeli government officials still engage are aggressively pursuing their racist policies from attacking demonstrators in Um Al-Faham (including Haneen Zoubi), to attacking Catholic Bishops correctly stating that notions of ‘chosenness” should not be used to justify oppression and occupation, to attacking UNESCO (for a balanced report on Israel’s attempts to change the character of Muslim and other religious sites under occupation). Fanatical Zionists have also gone off the deep end by pairing with racist rightwing politicians in Europe and America. They think the more divisions the better. An already divided Arab world will be fragmented even more if these demagogues get their way (whether splitting South Sudan or reigniting a civil war in Lebanon). People with common decency must stand against those sawing divisions and mayhem.
Video: My speech delivered via YouTube to the conference for One Democratic State held in Texas
(http://onedemocraticstate.org/ which follows on similar conferences held around the world)”
Great events:
-Watch what happens when two members of the Israeli war machine (AKA IDF) try to speak in an American campus
-Watch how a stall for “Israeli products” is shut down by BDS activists in Brisbane
-Bishops at Meeting Urge Israel to End Its Occupation of Palestinian Territories
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/world/europe/24vatican.html?ref=europe
Bulldozer driver insists he did not see Rachel Corrie: Israeli behind crush death testifies from behind a screen http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/bulldozer-driver-insists-he-did-not-see-rachel-corrie-2113346.html
The injustice of allowing anonymous testimony of a murderer from behind a screen is appalling. It is to be added to hundreds of other instances of Israel’s abuse of basic decency and human rights. But on good news, there seems to be a delay in delivery of armored bulldozers from the US (Caterpillar company) to Israel. Act now to push for total sanctions: http://endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=2832
Invitation from OPGAI: United in Struggle Against the Israeli Colonialism, Occupation and Racism
Education as a Tool for Building, Interaction and Freedom’ Conference (Within the activities of the World Education Forum http://www.wef-palestine.org/ )
http://www.jai-pal.org/content.php?page=996
Request: My book on “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of hope and empowerment” will be out in two weeks from Pluto Press. We are looking for film-makers or aspiring film-makers to take existing large archives of photographs and video footage of popular and nonviolent resistance from the past 130 years to make a short documentary to accompany the book. Contact me at mazin@qumsiyeh.org
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home
http://www.qumsiyeh.org
http://www.pcr.ps
Editor Palestine Monitor, 21 September 2010
With eleven days left until the end of the settlement freeze, the construction company Naot Pisgah decided to jump the gun. Despite the current peace talks hinging critically on the issue of continued illegal construction in Palestinian territory, the company started construction 14 September in Modi’in Illit.
Naot Pisgah saw themselves with little financial options. The internationally-supported moratorium on construction in the West Bank cost them nearly $48 million, according to their since rejected compensation lawsuit filed against Israel.
The company’s tractors were clearing ground for 750 homes out of a planned 3,000 at the third largest settlement in the West Bank, when inspectors arrived from the Civil Administration – the Israeli organization empowered since Oslo authority in the area. They ordered Naot Pisgah to stop their work obviously flouting the freeze signed by President Benjamin Netanyahu.
But when the inspectors left, the construction continued.
A team from human rights organization Yesh Din investigated Modi’in Illit after the Naot Pisgah was ordered to stop, and they found buildings still being raised. All of the construction is on land legally part of the Palestinian village Bil’in, which has lost most of its lucrative farmland to the construction of the settlement and the separation wall.
Modi’in Illit’s neighbors from Bil’in protested the confiscation of their land for the expanding settlement in 2006. Photo by Yotam Ronen/Active Stills
According to human rights group B’Tselem, the ultra-orthodox settlement also known as Keryat Sefer has grown by leaps and bounds at the expense of neighboring villages Bil’in and Nil’in. Founded after Oslo in 1996, Modi’in Illit was recognized as a city in 2005 and has grown to 36,282 people.
The Israeli government was fully aware of the illegal expansion – they even recorded it. According to a Defense Ministry database originally leaked by Yesh Din, Modi’in Illit had an illicit construction boom: six multi-story buildings, 23 condominiums, an emergency service center, nine school trailers, an industrial zone, a compound of 20 trailers and many other partial, complete or mobile units.
Construction was never frozen at Modi’in Illit.
“It is is growing rapidly,” said Hagit Ofran, Settlement Watch project directorate at Peace Now, who visited Modi’in Illit a week before Naot Pisgah’s bulldozers. “We saw there were many violations of the [freeze] order. I saw three new buildings that are now being started with a concrete floor. This is not supposed to happen according to the military order.”
Outside of Israeli law, the settlement’s municipal council issued permits for the buildings. After they were constructed, the Civil Administration approved them, in effect supporting illegal expansion. Since 1967, Israel extended settlement authority over 42 percent of the West Bank and goaded nearly half a million settlers there, according to a B’Tselem report.
“The settlement enterprise has been characterized, since its inception, by an instrumental, cynical, and even criminal attitude toward international law, local legislation, Israeli military orders, and Israeli law,” stated the report, titled By Hook and By Crook. “This attitude has enabled the continuous seizure of land from Palestinians in the West Bank. Israel has ignored the explicit prohibitions in international law on establishing settlements, offering its own interpretation for their establishment, an interpretation that has not been accepted by almost any jurists in the world or the international community.”
Once the freeze expires on 26 September, Israeli companies and settlement organizations are planning a massive explosion in construction inside Palestinian territory. According to a report by Peace Now, the day the freeze ends, construction will start on 2,066 homes on land outside the jurisdiction – but under the direct military and political influence – of Israel.
Many doubt President Netanyahu’s ability, or desire, to stop the settlement expansion because a continued freeze would fracture his coalition government – and his father would disapprove. In an interview with Israel’s Channel II, Ben-Zion Netanyahu said his son is sabotaging the peace talks with impossible demands on the Palestinians.
“They will never accept these conditions,” Ben-Zion said. “Not one of them.”
According to an interview between a Knesset member and Atlantic Magazine correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg, “the chance for movement toward the creation of an independent Palestinian state will come only after Ben-Zion’s death.”
“Bibi [Netanyahu]could not withdraw from more of Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]” said the MK to Goldberg, “and still look into his father’s eyes.”
ST McNeil reporting from Ramallah.