Posted on 06/21/2011 by RamallahOnline

Israel; It is all “unilateral”!

Sami Jamil Jadallah, 21 June 2011

Do not know why every one from President Obama, to Dennis Ross, to Bibi Netanyahu to Nancy Pelosi, to Senator Lieberman to Ron Prosor to Glen Beck, to AIPAC, to Anti-Defamation League to Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organization, all are going out of whack for the upcoming September vote on a Palestinian State at the UN. A vote that will not take place any way, since Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO leadership are looking for excuses and a way out of the predicament they put themselves in.

Never understood why every one is so anxious about “unilateral decisions” by the Palestinians when in fact, Israel and all of its actions since 47 all about “unilateral” decision and never gave a damn about the US, or the man in the White House, never gave a damn about the UN let alone the UN Security Council.

Israel as a bi-product of the Zionist Enterprise is all about “unilateral” actions and steps. The Zionist Enterprise was able to secure the Balfour Declaration in a “unilateral “decision by Great Britain in the form of its foreign secretary and without consultation with any one, let alone the Palestinian people.

The Zionist Enterprise without consulting the Palestinian people or reaching a negotiated settlement with them decided “unilaterally” to seek and push for a division of Palestine. The UN General Assembly decided on November 29, 1947 without seeking the approval of the indigenous people of Palestine to partition Palestine giving the small minority of Jewish immigrants and armed settlers more than 60% of the land, prime land at that.

In anticipation of British withdrawal from Mandated Palestine, the Jewish Agency decided “unilaterally” to declare the independence of the State of Israel, of course without defined borders, ignoring the UN Partition Plan knowing well its army will define and continues to define its borders until today.

In 1956, again, Israel decided “unilaterally” without any provocation from Egypt to take the lead in invading Egypt in an operation it termed “ Mivtza Kadesh” in partnership with France and England in response to Nasser’s nationalizations of the Sues Canal.

June 5th, 1967 saw another ‘unilateral “ declaration of war on Egypt and Syria, and Jordan duped as the 6 Day War because poor little Israel was able to destroy the combined Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian armies. Of course this does not speak very well of the political or the military leadership of Egypt, Syria or Jordan.

Soon after the war ended and before the dust settled down on Occupied East Jerusalem, Israel announced “unilaterally” it was annexing Arab East Jerusalem in what the Knesset refers to as “ Jerusalem Law” declaring Jerusalem “complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. Of course this “unilateral “decision is in violation of UNSC resolution 478 which declared the annexation” null and void”.

While Israel did not formally “annexed” the Golan Heights, it did ‘unilaterally” passed a law that extended Israeli administration and law to the Golan Heights, effectively treating and behaving as if the Golan Heights is an integral part of Israel. Of course the UNSC rejected the declaration, but then who gives a damn about the UNSC.

Of course we must not forget the “unilateral “ action duped “Operation Litani” in 1978 when Israel decided on its own without approval from any one, not the UN, nor the US decided to establish a “security zone” within Lebanon extending all the way from the Israeli border to the River Litani.

Israel as ever itching for a fight, knowing well it has the full political, financial and military packing from the US decided “unilaterally” to renew air strikes against Lebanon with the hope it will trigger a war with Lebanon, a war that will allow it to occupy Lebanon and drive its partner Yasser Arafat and his PLO out of Lebanon.

Even Alexander Haig warned Ronald Reagan on September 20, 1982 “Israel might at the slightest provocations start a war against Lebanon”. Of course the War of 82 (Operation Peace for Galilee) is well known with Israel leveling Beirut giving full logistical support for its Lebanese allies the Phalange to commit the massacre at Sabra and Shatilla. It took Israel some 20 years to “unilaterally” quit Lebanon in total defiance of UNSC resolution 425.

It seems June is always good month for Israel, it “unilaterally” and on June 7, 1981 sent its air force across Jordan, Saudi Arabia all the way to Baghdad destroying the under construction nuclear reactor in an operation dubbed “Operation Babylon”.

But Iraqi was only too close for Israeli “unilateral” action and on October 1st, 1985 it sent its air force all the way across the Mediterranean Sea some 1,280 miles to Tunisia to bomb PLO headquarters. It seems someone warned Arafat of the upcoming surprise attack, he was saved to deliver Oslo, and many of his men died in the attack. Israel was later to send its commando with the support from former Tunisian president Bin Ali to assassinate and kill “Abu-Jihad” Arafat second in command.

The story of Israel’s “unilateral” action does not stop here. It continued after Israel and Arafat signed the infamous Oslo Accord, which gave Israel the right to “unilaterally” exclude East Jerusalem and Area C (58% of the West Bank) to do what it wants with it. No thanks to the stupid, criminally negligent Palestinian negotiating team that negotiated Oslo without the basic benefits of legal review or even basic maps.

While the Palestinian leadership of Arafat, Abbas and Qurai and later the leading Palestinian top negotiators where going along with Israel definition of Oslo allowing Israel to “unilaterally “ proceed with its settlements policy, the International Court of Justice and the international community deemed these settlements within “greater Jerusalem” as illegal and in violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Of course knowing how stupid and reckless the PLO leadership is, it negotiated Oslo in 1993 and it negotiated the “Interim Agreement” in 1995 while both agreements explicitly leaving out the most critical issue of Occupation, which is the Jewish Settlements, East Jerusalem and of course the Palestinian refugees.

Between 1993 and 2000 Israel “unilaterally” expanded its settlements by 42% and since the PLO began negotiating with Israel, the settlements more than quadruple since Oslo. All “unilateral” of course and under the not so watchful eyes of the Palestinian leadership and it’s not so brilliant chief negotiator. Of course Israel continued to “unilaterally” do all of this because Israel had and continues to have doubts about the seriousness and credibility of the Palestinian leadership and its negotiating team.

Article XXX1 (7) of the “Interim Agreement” of 1995 states “ neither side shall initiate or take any steps that will change the status of the West Bank and Gaza pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations”. Of course Israel deems “status” to mean “legal” and not “physical” which means the PLO going to the UN is in violations of the “Interim Agreement” while the continued expansions of Jewish settlement is physical” and is not “unilateral”. Now someone needs to try and explain to the guys in Ramallah this clear distinction.

Of course, we all need to remember that the PLO leadership of Arafat, Abbas and Qurai and later the negotiating team simply left East Jerusalem and the Jewish Settlements out of any of these “agreements” it reached with Israel. No wonder Israel is doing what it is doing “unilaterally”. It totally understands the other side as ‘legal illiterate’.

Oslo was a bonanza for Israel, it allowed Israel to “unilaterally” keep East Jerusalem out of any agreement, it allowed Israel to “unilaterally” expand Jerusalem to include many of the Palestinian villages surrounding Jerusalem with Jerusalem borders right at the footstep of the capital of the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas Magic Kingdom.

Whether it is Declaration of Independence, withdrawal from Lebanon, withdrawal from Gaza, or attack and wars on Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Tunisia, or Jordan, or attack on the US (USS Liberty) Israel always took “unilateral “actions.

Why the big fuss over the PLO going to the UN, no one knows since neither negotiations nor the UN nor the US, or Europe will be able to end the Jewish Occupation or create a Palestinian State. Mahmoud Abbas and his chief negotiator must wait for Israel to decide “unilaterally” to recognize the Palestinian State of Ramallah.

Sami Jamil Jadallah

Sami Jamil Jadallah is an international legal and business consultant and is the founder and director of Palestine Agency and Palestine Documentation Center www.palestineagency.com and founder and owner of several business in technology and services. Sami also runs an online website (Jefferson Corner). His articles are also featured on PalestineNote and Veterans Today.

Articles on RamallahOnline by Sami Jamil Jadallah

Posted on 06/14/2011 by RamallahOnline

Mahmoud Abbas; Another U-Turn ?

Palestine Israel Flag

Sami Jamil Jadallah, 14 June 2011

Mahmoud Abbas like his predecessor Arafat and the entire PLO leadership, never held accountable to any one or by any one, will for sure disregard all the advice and the momentum leading to September and announce a U-Turn at the UN in favor of sitting at the table with Bib Netanyahu.

Mahmoud Abbas made his preference of sitting with Bibi Netanyahu over a UN vote for full admission of Palestine in a meeting in Ramallah, this past weekend with a delegation from Socialist International.

According to Haaretz that carried the news “ Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared over the weekend in Ramallah that he prefers to returning to negotiations with Israel over demanding that the United Nation vote on recognizing a Palestinian state”. It seems 20 years of wasteful useless negotiations with Israel and the US are not enough; perhaps there will be another 100 years of “peace process”.

Mahmoud Abbas wavering under pressure from the US and Israel, sent his chief negotiator Saeb Erekat (you remember he resigned in disgrace over his roll in the Palestine Paper) together with Nabil Abu Rudeineh to the White House and State to meet with Obama’s team, not to push for the case of going to the UN seeking full recognition of the Palestinian State along the June 4th borders with East Jerusalem, but to find and negotiate a “secret” deal “ fist full of dollars” that will keep the Palestinian Authority and the Ramallah boys in business, in exchange for aborting the plans to go to the UN.

This is not the first, certainly will not be the last time that Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO leadership makes a U-Turn and proceed in manner and on track that is totally against the interests of the people of Palestine and in favor of their own selfish interests.

Abbas, Arafat and Qurai did it when they went to Oslo and negotiated the deal that gave Israel total and unconditional control not only over 58% of the land known as Area C, but they gave Israel a “veto” over any of the key and “final status issues”, such as the borders, the return of the refugees and of course East Jerusalem without having a way out in event of failed or dead end negotiations. Any thing the PLO or the PA undertake without having Israel’s approval is deemed “unilateral action” and in violations of Oslo. That same rule of course does not apply to Israel.

The PLO leadership went even further, it gave Israeli and its partner the US a total and additional “veto” in accordance with the Road Map, devised by non other than the leading American Jewish Zionist Elliot Abrams, which made it impossible for the Palestinian Authority to meet any of the conditions of the Quartet, while allowing Israel to take “unilateral “ actions in Area C including continued and uninterrupted and expanded settlement buildings, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from East Jerusalem, expanding house demolition and of course maintaining and increasing security checkpoints. Obama and Netanyahu called these “facts on the ground”.

President Obama beholding to his benefactors and looking for a second term threatened the Palestinians with a certain “veto” if they go to the UN, terming the steps toward seeking full recognition as “delegitimizing” the State of Israel, as if admitting Palestine to the UN means expelling Israel from it. Barack Obama is bullying the Palestinian leadership knowing well they will scum to unfulfilled promises as they did in the Goldstone Report.

Professor Francis Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois, Champaign, in a widely distributed and circulated article The Case for Palestine’s membership in the United Nation strongly argues for a Palestinian membership in the United Nation. According to Professor Boyle, “the State of Palestine is bilaterally recognized de jure by about 130 states and a de facto diplomatic recognition from most countries” including some European countries.

Professor Boyle further argues the case that “Palestine is already a member of the Arab League and a member of the Organization of Islamic Conference”, mentioning the case of the World Court when conducting its proceedings over the “Apartheid Wall” invited the State of Palestine to participate in the proceedings, concluding “in other words, the International Court of Justice recognized the State of Palestine. With the Palestine having an “Observer State Status” with all the basic rights except the ‘vote” in the General Assembly “effectively Palestine has a de facto UN Membership”.

However the threatened “veto” by President Obama is “clearly illegal because it would violate a solemn and binding pledge given by the United States not to veto States applying for UN membership” argues Francis Boyle. Threatening a veto, President Obama proves one more time; he is not the master of his White House.

Every one, least of all Mahmoud Abbas and his boys in Ramallah should know the US was never a fair and honest broker in the Middle East conflict with decisions and policies formulated in Tel-Aviv and carried out in Washington by the “Israeli Team” with in the State Department and the White House and could not honor any thing it promises.

Going to the UN is also strongly argued by HRH Prince Turki Al-Faisal of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in an Op-Ed published this Sunday June 12, 2011 in the Washington Post Why the Palestinians need the UN. Prince Turki Al-Faisal when he speaks he speaks with authority and power of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Arab and Islamic states.

Prince Turki argued that “ One conclusion can be drawn from recent events: that any peace plans co-authored by the United States and Israel would be untenable and that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will remain intractable as long as UN policy is unduly beholden to Israel”.

So true, but for the fact the US is always siding with Israel “right and wrong”, the entire Middle East conflict would have been solved long, long time ago. Entrusting the US as the “honest broker” proved time and time again, the futility of entrusting any thing or any promise even one coming from the President of the United State. When it comes to the Middle East, and Israel, it is not the words of the US that count; it is the masters in Tel-Aviv and AIPAC that count.

Mahmoud Abbas will be making another fatal mistake if he trust Washington fulfilling any promise and should heed the calls of the people of Palestine, friends of the Palestinian people around the Arab and the world and seek formal recognition of Palestine as a full member of the United Nation and hell with the US “veto”.

Time for Abbas to do something right to mend for all the sins and wrongs he committed since Oslo continuing with 20 years of futile negotiations with the US and Israel while Israel stole and stole, built and built “facts on the ground”. Time to take the US out of the equation and out of the sham called “peace process”. If it is question of money, let Israel take over and pay the PA directly to manage its occupation. When the US and Europe contribute to the Palestinian Authority, they are not doing the Palestinians a favor, they are doing Israel the favor. I hope I am wrong about President Mahmoud Abbas this time around.

Sami Jamil Jadallah

Articles on RamallahOnline by Sami Jamil Jadallah

Posted on 05/17/2011 by RamallahOnline

Can the UN be trusted to grant long overdue statehood to Palestinians?

The United Nations Security Council Chamber in New York, also known as the Norwegian Room (Wikipedia Commons)

Stuart Littlewood, 16 May 2011
Hamas don’t think so… Do you?

One of Hamas’s top men, Mahmoud al-Zahar, says he doesn’t trust the United Nations to hand statehood to the Palestinians.

Dr al-Zahar notes that Bush promised an independent state and Obama can’t even stop the illegal settlement-building. There has been a long list of disappointments with the international community.

Asked whether Hamas was willing to accept the existence of the Zionist entity, al-Zahar replied: “The question is whether Israel is ready to accept the Palestinian state…”

It is interesting to see Dr al-Zahar speaking up more. A founder of Hamas and a member of its ‘politburo’, he is listed as the government’s foreign minister and was the Resistance movement’s first press officer back in 1987.

He’s regarded as a hard-liner. But who wouldn’t be if he’d suffered as cruelly at the hands of the Israeli regime as this man. Al-Zahar was expelled in 1992 (along with Ismail Haniyeh) to South Lebanon and subsequently targeted for assassination. In 2003 an Israeli F-16 bombed his home killing his eldest son and seriously injuring his wife. In 2007 another Israeli air-strike killed his youngest son.

A strict Islamist, he was brought up in Egypt and is a surgeon by profession.

However, the failure of Hamas to re-write their charter in less threatening language and revise their diplomatic stance in the light of international realities, continues to place a question-mark over al-Zahar and his senior colleagues at this critical time in Palestinian affairs.

They can point to many instances of mis-quotation and mis-interpretation of what they’ve said, which the Israeli propaganda machine skillfully exploits, but the fact remains that they still have work to do if they wish to be seen occupying the moral high ground.

Their refusal to address the issue of the charter only encourages Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s preposterous sabre rattling. The Palestinian Authority must choose between a peace deal with Israel and one with Hamas, he now insists. “Peace with both is impossible, because Hamas aims to destroy the State of Israel and says that openly,” Netanyahu told the world on YouTube. “It fires missiles at our cities and at our children.

“I hope that the Palestinian Authority will make the right choice – that it will choose peace with Israel. The choice is in its hands.” Has any of Israel’s neighbours known peace? Nevertheless Netanyahu’s rants play well with the warmongers in Washington and London.

A few days later, in the Jerusalem Post, a senior official was rubbing it in. Israel would cut ties with the Palestinian Authority if it brought Hamas into government [even though Hamas won the 2006 elections and is the rightful authority]. “Abbas has to choose whether he wants peace with Israel, or peace with Hamas,” said the official. “He can’t have both. If he chooses peace with Hamas it will bury the peace process.”

But if Hamas accepted the Quartet’s three conditions – renounce violence, recognise Israel, and accept previous Israel-Palestinian agreements – it would be a different matter.

Reciprocal conditions are not required of Israel. If they were, there wouldn’t be a problem in the first place. But that’s not in the peacemakers’ script.

Worried by latest moves towards Palestinian unity and desperate to keep a wedge firmly driven between the main Palestinian factions – collaborators Fatah and resisters Hamas – Israel has once again decided to ignore its obligations and freeze the tax revenues it is supposed to transfer to the Palestinian Authority. Israel’s finance minister says it’s a “punishment” for Fatah’s signing a reconciliation agreement with Hamas.

Hamas an essential ingredient in the Middle East cake-mix

Is there is anyone in Washington, London, Brussels or Strasbourg who still doesn’t understand that a peace process promoted by dishonest diplomats will never work?

Omar Abdul Razek, Hamas’s finance minister, said when interviewed by Aljazeera in May 2006: “Which Israel would you want me to recognise? Is it Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates? Israel with the occupied Golan Heights? Israel with East Jerusalem? Israel with the settlements? I challenge you to tell me where Israel’s borders lie.”

The 1967 borders, suggested the interviewer.

“Does Israel recognise the 1967 borders?” asked Rezek. “Can you tell me of one Israeli government that ever voiced willingness to withdraw to the 1967 borders?”

That’s it in a nutshell.

To be sure, Hamas want rid of Israel altogether and seem convinced that the Zionist entity will eventually fizzle out or self-destruct and “vanish from the pages of time”, as Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini and President Ahmadinejad so poetically put it. In the meantime Gaza’s prime minister Haniyeh, within days of being elected, offered long-term peace if Israel recognised Palestine as an independent state on the internationally accepted 1967 borders. Previously the PLO had foolishly “recognised” Israel without any reciprocal recognition by Israel. The Oslo Accords were supposed to take care of that by ending the Occupation and giving the Palestinians their independence. “What we’ve got instead are more settlements, more occupation, more roadblocks, more poverty and more repression,” he said.

Bush and Obama and all the other Western loud-mouths have consistently failed to deliver. So the question remains: why should Hamas renounce violence against a foreign power that violently occupies their homeland, bulldozes their houses at gun-point, uproots their beautiful olive groves, sets up hundreds of armed checkpoints to disrupt normal life and block access to the holy places, batters down villagers’ front doors in the dead of night, builds an illegal ‘separation’ wall to annex their territory, steal their water and isolate their communities, and blockades exports and imports to cause economic ruin?

Haniyeh told fellow Palestinians yesterday, on the 63rd anniversary of Nakba (the ethnic cleansing programme that drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes never to be allowed to return) (link) : “We will never recognize the [Israeli occupier]…There is no relinquishing the resistance program as the basic platform to achieve liberation…We will not relinquish the prisoners cause, and we will hold fast to all demands of the resistance in order to attain your freedom.

“Victory is coming. Your state is coming. And the refugees will return, and the occupation will reach its demise.”

Hamas chief Khaled Mesh’al last year rejected further negotiations as not being in the Palestinians’ interests, given the lopsided balance of power. “Negotiation in such conditions is a kind of fruitless gamble.”

These are some of the policy points he emphasised…

Hamas is a national liberation movement with resistance its main tool.

Its objective is ending the Zionist occupation and restoring Palestinian rights.

Hamas only employ “legitimate resistance” – i.e. against the enemy occupying Palestinian land and holy places. They do not attack the enemy’s allies who supply the weapons and munitions used to kill Palestinians. Nor do they extend resistance outside Palestine.

Peace cannot be made when one party is so powerful and the other so weak. Negotiation under these circumstances would only benefit Israel and would mean surrender.

Hamas do not recognise Israel. Doing so would effectively legitimise the Occupation and the rest of Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. That would be unacceptable in terms of international law and human values.

Hamas have the legitimacy of the ballot box. There will be no peace in the region until the Powers deal with Hamas and respect their interests and rights and quit favouring Israel at Palestine’s expense.

Could red-blooded patriots out there object to these principles if robbed of freedom in their own country?

Tiny Gaza’s extraordinary people have somehow survived every criminal nastiness the Israelis could throw at them, and have been humiliated by the shamefully inaction of the international community. They have resisted daily air strikes and armed intrusions for five years and courageously withstood the devastating blitzkrieg of 28 months ago.

They have endured the sort of barbarity and betrayal that would have brought lesser people to their knees. I wonder if the British could have clung on through the dark days of the London blitz, which my family lived under, if they’d had nothing to fight with, no Spitfires and Hurricanes, and nowhere to run, and if in addition they’d had to contend with Nazi tanks in the streets, thousands of checkpoints, Nazi rifle butts smashing down their front doors, and the vile Nazi storm-troopers in their jackboots ransacking their homes and dragging off family members.

And if, all the time, the great international Powers of western Christendom had just looked on as spectators… not intervening, not helping. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

But the brutal dispossession and suffering of the Palestinian people has continued for decades. The freedom-preaching West still plays the pathetic spectator while death and misery stalk the streets of Palestinian towns and villages. Today, as I write, reports are coming in http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24783 about another outrage on the high seas by lawless Israel. A Malaysia-flagged ship carrying a humanitarian cargo of urgently needed sewage pipes to Gaza for The Spirit of Rachel Corrie Mission has been fired on and stopped by Israeli vessels in international waters. Where are the brave boys of NATO’s Mediterranean fleet when you need them?

An Egyptian vessel is said to have supported Israel’s act of piracy. What price the “revolution”, the Arab Spring?

Back to the rather mysterious Dr al-Zahar. Israel can huff and puff about Hamas but it seems they’re here to stay, an essential ingredient in the Middle East cake-mix.

We in the West ought to know more about these Hamas people but we don’t want to hear it from a Zio-compliant media. Hamas, for their part, need to introduce themselves properly and professionally.

The Resistance have said they aim to win more friends internationally. They’d better hurry if the bid for statehood is not to become another victim of US-Israeli blocking tactics.

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood is an industrial marketing specialist turned writer-photographer. In 2005 he was invited to write and shoot pictures for a book about the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. ‘Radio Free Palestine’ was published in 2007. For details please see www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.

The Author is a regular contributor to RamallahOnline.com. Find more Articles by Stuart Littlewood on RamallahOnline.

Posted on 04/11/2011 by RamallahOnline

Gaza Assault Over, For Now

Editor Palestine Monitor, 11 April 2011

After a cease-fire, “all options are on the table” including targeted killings and Operation Cast Lead II, said Israeli Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom.

What many Israelis and Palestinians were calling the beginning of Operation Cast Lead II, has calmed down for now.

However, the Palestinian News Network warns that sources inside the Israeli military have predicted the fight is far from over, expecting violence to escalate soon.

After a direct appeal from Hamas, Israel agreed to a cease-fire. Israeli Foreign Minister called the move a mistake, and his Israeli Beitienu colleague Uzi Landau demanded the army “finish the job” of the 2009 brutal campaign which left 6,000 injured and 1,500 dead in Gaza.

So egregious was it’s violence, Israeli must be investigated by the International Criminal Court for Operation Cast Lead, according to Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

While Israel and newsrooms describe the effectiveness of Iron Dome missile-defense system, the Gazan Health Minister Basem Na’im announced that last Saturday that after four consecutive days of border closures, Gaza has run out of 150 different kinds of medicines. A week old, the closure and air assault continues.

After a week of air, land and naval attacks, 19 Palestinians are dead, 70 injured.

Yesterday, the Arab League asked from Cairo for a UN Security Council-imposed no-fly zone over Gaza. Decrying the collective punishment of the small, densely populated and impoverished coastal land governed by Hamas, the Arab League said a no-fly zone would keep civilian casualties low.

The Israeli missile attacks started a rocket fired from Gaza hit a school bus, critically wounding a teenager. Violence escalated when Palestinian groups fired more than 120 rockets into Israel, so far without wounding any Israelis.

Even before the assaults, despite the so-called lifting of the blockade earlier this year, Gazans’ lives were not significantly changed, according to a pre-bombing March 2011 report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories (OCHA). They still live in abject poverty, pushed by desperate hunger to tunnel to Egypt and work alongside dangerous border zones bristling with security towers, soldiers and remote-controlled machine gun turrets.

Posted on 01/29/2011 by RamallahOnline

US Ambassador’s bid to get Falk sacked from UN opens a can of worms

Stuart Littlewood, 29 Jan 2011

Mention Richard Falk and you think of an honourable man who cares deeply about injustice, particularly the trampled rights of Palestinians under the evil jackboot.

Mention Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the United Nations, and what comes to mind?

The BBC reported in December 2008: “During her stint in the Clinton White House, she was described as ‘brilliant’ but also ‘authoritarian’ and ‘brash’. According to the New York Times, she acknowledges ‘a certain impatience at times’.”

She is also said to be “unwilling to consider opinions that differ from her own”.

Ambassador Rice has just demanded that Falk, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur in the Palestinian territories, step down from his UN position. “In my view, Mr. Falk’s latest commentary [an entry in his blog about the media and 9/11] is so noxious that it should finally be plain to all that he should no longer continue in his position on behalf of the UN.”

Falk’s crime was saying that the US administration’s reluctance to address the awkward gaps and contradictions identified by several scholars in the official explanations of 9/11, only fuels suspicions of a conspiracy. And he suggested that “what may be more distressing than the apparent cover up is the eerie silence of the mainstream media, unwilling to acknowledge the well-evidenced doubts about the official version of the events: an al Qaeda operation with no foreknowledge by government officials”.

Fair comment, you might think. And carefully worded to cause no offence.

But Reuters reported that UN Watch, an advocacy group affiliated with the American Jewish Committee, had written to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon similarly demanding that he “strongly condemn Mr. Falk’s offensive remarks — and … immediately remove him from his post”.

The report added that UN Watch had targeted Falk in the past and frequently criticised the Human Rights Council for berating Israel while ignoring rights violations by developing countries.

The American Jewish Committee also called on the UN to immediately dismiss Falk for publicly endorsing “the slander of conspiracy theorists”. Executive Director David Harris said: “We agree wholeheartedly with the US Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Susan Rice, who stated that Mr Falk’s comments are ‘despicable and offensive’ and, like her, urge the UN to remove him from his position. Falk has long been a conspiracy-ridden and harmful figure who surely does not serve the best interests of the UN.”

UN Watch claims to have won “global condemnation” of Falk. Its website trumpets: “After UN Watch exposes noxious remarks, UN official Richard Falk [is] roundly condemned by UN Chief, US Gov’t, and media worldwide.”

“Noxious”… that’s Rice’s word. Could they be sharing the same scriptwriter?

UN Watch diligently sets down who said what…

Thursday, Jan. 20: UN Watch takes action and files complaint with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, demanding he condemn Richard Falk, the U.N Human Rights Council’s permanent investigator on “Israel’s violations of the principles of international law,” for his latest remarks suggesting that the US government — and not Al Qaeda terrorists — destroyed the World Trade Center. The protest came as part of UN Watch’s 3-year campaign to expose and combat Falk’s denial and justification of Hamas and Al Qaeda terrorism, and his material support for 9/11 conspiracy theorists. At the daily U.N. press briefing, when Matthew Lee of Inner City Press asks for a response, the Secretary-General’s spokesman says they don’t comment on independent experts.

Friday, Jan. 21: The New York Daily News picks up the story and publishes editorial: “When will the lunacy reach such heights that UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon realizes his so-called Human Rights Council is wrecking what little reputation the world body has left? … Ignore those jetliners crashing into the towers, is Falk’s advice. Who are you going to believe, your own eyes or him and his friends? Ban should ring down the curtain on this grotesque buffoonery. He should force out Falk forthwith…”

Monday, Jan. 24: The United Nations sends letter to UN Watch with unprecedented condemnation of a UN Human Rights Council official: “The Secretary-General condemns [Falk's] remarks. He has repeatedly stated his view that any such suggestion is preposterous — and an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in the attack.” UN Watch immediately releases the letter to the public, and calls for the UN to fire Falk.

Tuesday, Jan. 25: US Ambassador Susan Rice condemns Falk and echoes UN Watch’s call for him to be fired: “Mr. Falk’s comments are despicable and deeply offensive, and I condemn them in the strongest terms… The United States is deeply committed to the cause of human rights and believes that cause will be better advanced without Mr. Falk and the distasteful sideshow he has chosen to create.” Ambassador Eileen C. Donahoe, the US envoy to the Human Rights Council, also speaks out.

On the same day, in a Geneva address to the member and observer states of the Human Rights Council, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon repeats his condemnation of Falk: “Recently, there was a Special Rapporteur who suggested there was an ‘apparent cover-up’ in the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. I want to tell you, clearly and directly. I condemn this sort of inflammatory rhetoric. It is preposterous – an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in that tragic terrorist attack.” Click for Video

SUCCESS: UN Watch’s campaign led to the unprecedented international condemation of Richard Falk, who exploits his UN position to justify and deny Hamas and Al Qaeda terrorism. It sparked dozens of news stories worldwide, as shown in the sample below. All of this succeeded in finally puncturing Falk’s undeserved halo as a “human rights expert.” For the first time ever, the UN itself had condemned Falk, and in the strongest terms. As a result, Falk’s credibility in the international arena is now at zero.

What’s remarkable is how twitchy these people get at the slightest possibility that someone will lift the lid on 9/11, their hysterical protests serving only to deepen already serious suspicions.

Incidentally UN Watch’s founder, chairman and executive director are all Jewish, the latter having worked at Israel’s Supreme Court.

Let’s go back to July 14 last year and remarks made by Ambassador Rice during a reception for Israeli Ambassadors Gabriela Shalev and Daniel Carmon held by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
http://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/2010/144672.htm

“Today, I mostly want to talk about my very dear friend, Ambassador Gabriela Shalev,” said Rice. “She’s truly one of my favorite people…

“Gabi and I had the opportunity to work closely together on a series of important issues, from dealing with the deeply flawed Goldstone Report to seeing through the passage by the Security Council of the toughest sanctions resolution to date against Iran. She has been a lioness in defense of Israel’s security and its legitimacy — working tirelessly to ensure that Israel has the same rights and enjoys the same responsibilities as any other UN member state.

“We will continue to work together to seek a lasting and comprehensive peace that meets Israel’s security needs and creates a viable, sovereign Palestinian state. We will continue to strengthen Israel’s qualitative military advantage so that Israel can always defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats. And, as the President pledged, we will continue US efforts to combat all international attempts to challenge the legitimacy of Israel — including and especially at the United Nations.”

Having revealed herself as another handmaiden to the Zionist cause, Rice’s attack on Falk for breaking the ridiculous taboo and questioning the US administration’s refusal to hold a proper independent inquiry into 9/11 only raises questions about her own suitability for an important position at the UN.

Meanwhile, there are millions of us out here who are right behind Richard Falk because he stands for justice. We are not amused by growing indications that the official story of 9/11 doesn’t add up. Nor are we too pleased by the realisation that it was used to prod our own governments into sacrificing troops and treasure to a couple of unlawful, unwinnable wars that have caused mega-deaths and endless suffering to innocent civilians, trashed our good name abroad and made us vulnerable to reprisals at home… just to advance the crazed ambitions of the US-Israeli axis.

In short, if there’s the slightest doubt we want to know the truth.

Stuart Littlewood

The Author is a regular contributor to RamallahOnline.com. Find more Articles by Stuart Littlewood on RamallahOnline.

Posted on 11/30/2010 by RamallahOnline

29 November 1947 – UN calls for creation of Jewish State + Arab State in Palestine

UN 1947 partition plan for Palestine (Photo source: Wiki - U.S. Central Intelligence Agency)

Marian Houk, 29 Nov 2010

That’s right: 63 years ago today, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 181 which calls for the establishment of a Jewish State and an Arab State in Palestine.

For 63 years, the “international community” as we know it has backed the establishment of a Jewish State.

Six months later, the State of Israel was proclaimed as a Jewish state by virtue of UN General Assembly resolution 181.

And, though some argue otherwise, this is “international legitimacy” — a term coined by Palestinians, many of whom wish to preserve an option for their national rights based on UN resolutions and international treaties and various other agreements that are now called international law.

In November 1988, the Palestinians themselves declared independence, based on this same UN General Assembly resolution 181. But, it remains unrealized. Vague Palestinian pronouncements are met with threats against any “unilateral” actions — though Israel is perhaps the world’s foremost practitioner of “unilateral” actions , the country of “unilateral” actions par excellence .

So, how is it that we are all still talking past each other?

And, how did this situation come to be?

The “Allied” victors of World War I formed an international organization, which they called the League of Nations, which was based in Geneva.

Britain was pleased to have been awarded the Palestine Mandate — a move which it itself engineered — by the League of Nations, several years after British troops marched out of Egypt and swept up in a crescent to Jerusalem by December 1918, and then moving on to Iraq.

After years of carrying out a military administration of the Palestine Mandate — and before it was actually offically awarded as a Mandate — Britain had already divided it into two parts: “Palestine”, and “Transjordan”.

The Jewish immigration that Britain was enjoined by the League of Nations to encourage was, thus, restricted to “Palestine” (and excluded from “Transjordan”).

The Palestine Mandate was officially awarded to Britain by the Council of the League of Nations only after the official surrender of the Ottoman Empire, which took place at a Conference in Lausanne in 1923 — only after a lot of hard bargaining by Turkey (the Ottoman successor).

Within a decade, the League of Nations was gradually paralyzed by its members’ bad behavior, and had already suspended functioning by the time the Second World War broke out.

Meanwhile, Britain was supposed to encourage the development of the two communities in Palestine, but was really rather bad at managing the communal conflict that developed alongside increased Jewish immigration.

By the end of World War II, Britain simply wanted to get out of Palestine.

Concurrently, the Allied victors of the Second World War had formed the United Nations (UN), as the successor organization to the League of Nations.

Britain asked the UN General Assembly to decide how to dispose of the Palestine Mandate awarded by the League of Nations.

After months of deliberatation, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 on 29 November 1947. Britain announced it would pull its troops out by mid-May 1948. And, as it did so, the State of Israel was proclaimed, from Tel Aviv, as a Jewish State (not one mention of it being “democratic”, a much more recent concept, enunciated only after the fall of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s.

By November 1988, the Palestinian leadership said that although they didn’t like Resolution 181 very much, it nevertheless provided the basis for the Declaration of an independent Palestinian state.

Now, after a prolonged and agonizing labor, are we facing a dangerous delivery by forceps?

Israel’s continued military occupation of what is left of Palestine has caused a miserable postponement of Palestinian self-determination.

Today, in Geneva, Richard Falk — an America, Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, and an expert on international law who is also currently the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on Palestinian rights, According to a press release from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Falk today “stressed the need to impose ’some outer time limit after which further occupation becomes a distinct violation of international law, and if not promptly corrected, constitutes a new type of crime against humanity’.”

The press release was entitled, more straight to the point, “Prolonged occupation, a new type of crime against humanity”.

Falk said that he “wished to express sympathy for the Palestinian people who continue after more than 43 years to live under Israeli occupation that daily violates many of their fundamental and inalienable human rights. Above all, the failure to resolve the underlying conflict between Palestine and Israel in such a manner as to realize after decades of delay the Palestinians’ right to self-determination is of urgent concern. It should be observed, also, that negotiation between the parties to the conflict needs to be guided by the implementation of several principles of international law if a settlement of the conflict is to achieve Palestinian self-determination. These principles, as set forth in the General Assembly Resolution 48/158, 20 December 1993, include the following: (1) withdrawal from Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem; (2) resolving the Palestinian refugee problem in accordance with General Assembly Resolution 181 and subsequent resolutions; (3) dismantling settlements established during the occupation; (4) fixing of secure and internationally recognized borders; (5) guaranteeing free access to sacred sites and religious buildings throughout historic Palestine. A peace process that does not heed these guidelines, with appropriate degrees of flexible implementation, cannot realize either self-determination for the Palestinian people or peace with security and justice for both Palestinians and Israelis”.

Falk added that “it is important to ponder the special consequences of prolonged occupation and refugee status, which inflicts serious physical and mental harm on Palestinians living under occupation [n.b. -- as it also does to many Palestinian refugees and their descendants living outside the occupied territories, several hundreds of thousands of whom still live in refugee camps...]. International humanitarian law was developed under the assumption that occupation would be temporary and short-lived. The Palestinian experience suggests the need for a new protocol of international humanitarian law that addresses the distinctive situation of prolonged occupation and refugee status, imposing some outer time limit after which further occupation becomes a distinct violation of international law, and if not promptly corrected, constitutes a new type of crime against humanity. The United Nations and the international community as a whole will be judged in the future by whether effective action is now taken to end the humanitarian catastrophe that has befallen the Palestinian people. In this respect, the United Nations, the governments and the peoples of the world will all be judged complicit to the extent that this persistent violation of fundamental human rights is endured without taking the necessary steps in a spirit of urgency and commitment to bring this abusive occupation to an end and achieve Palestinian self-determination in accordance with international law and the dictates of global justice”.

His statement can be consulted in full here.

In the photo below, taken at a roundtable discussion in Jerusalem in July 2004, Marian Houk is the woman wearing the sort-of-orange-colored eyeglasses. Photo courtesy of PASSIA:

Marian Houk, a writer, reporter, journalist and analyst with long experience at the United Nations — in New York and in Geneva and more — as well as with the Middle East. She has reported on, and for a time also worked for, the United Nations. She is a former President of the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) at UNHQ/NY (1986), and is currently based in Jerusalem.

Marian Houk is the Editor of UN-Truth news site.

Posted on 11/03/2010 by RamallahOnline

OCHA Report: 1,000 Palestinians Injured By Israeli Forces in 2010

United Nations, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory (OCHA)

During the week, Israeli forces injured 23 Palestinian civilians, for the most part during weekly demonstrations. Since the beginning of 2010, Israeli forces have injured 1002 Palestinians, up nearly 38 percent on the similar period in 2009 (727 injuries).

Twenty Palestinians and one Israeli activist were injured during weekly demonstrations in the Ramallah and Bethlehem governorates. These demonstrations were held in protest at the expansion of the Hallamish settlement on Nabi Saleh land and the construction of the Barrier in the villages of Bil’in and Al Ma’sara. In Nabi Saleh, Israeli forces fired tear gas canisters at demonstrators who were marching towards the village centre, resulting in the injury of 17 people. During the incident, one house was badly damaged and its contents were destroyed by fire. Approximately one-quarter of Palestinian injuries by Israeli forces in 2010 have occurred over the course of clashes that erupted during weekly demonstrations against the Barrier, settlement expansion and access restrictions.

Continue for full report here, or view it embedded below.

Ocha Opt Protection of Civilians 2010-10-29 English

Posted on 07/29/2010 by RamallahOnline

White Phosphorus Burns

Palestinian civilians and medics run to safety during an Israeli strike using phosphorus shells at a UN school. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP

Palestine Monitor, 29 July 2010

In January, 2009, an 18-year-old man presented to the emergency department after suffering an attack with an incendiary shell. He had many painful patches of full-thickness burns, which were surrounded by sloughed tissue. His wounds covered 30% of his body surface area, and were distributed on both upper and lower limbs, and his right shoulder.

There were no signs of inhalation burns. After a clinical diagnosis of white phosphorus burns was made, the airway was secured, resuscitation fluid was initiated, and wounds were irrigated with diluted sodium bicarbonate solution before wet dressing.

1 day after admission to the burns unit, white smoke was noticed emanating from the wounds, which now contained extensive necrotic tissue and had extended into the underlying tissue.

He was urgently transferred to the operating room for debridement and excision of necrotic tissue, and removal of white phosphorus particles. During debridement, a white phosphorus particle was accidentally dislodged resulting in a superficial burn on a nurse’s neck.We transferred our patient to the intensive care unit for monitoring of vital signs, electrolyte disturbance (in particular hypocalcaemia), and electrocardiogram (ECG) changes.

After 8 days in hospital, our patient was relatively well, and was discharged without any systemic complications. At 16-month follow-up, our patient was well; however, hypertrophic, mildly tender scars remained on his chest, arm, and thigh. White phosphorus is a smoke-producing, waxy, yellow transparent combustible solid,(1) which is used mainly in military and industrial settings. In the presence of oxygen, it spontaneously ignites with a yellow flame and produces dense smoke; it extinguishes only when deprived of oxygen or totally consumed.(2)

Example of wounds provoked by white phosphorus.

On contact with exposed skin, white phosphorus produces painful chemical burns (3) these typically appear as yellowish, necrotic, full-thickness lesions due to both chemical and thermal components. Because white phosphorus has high lipid solubility, the injuries often extend deep into underlying tissues with resultant delayed wound healing.

White phosphorus can also be absorbed systemically resulting in multiple organ dysfunction syndrome because of its effect on erythrocytes, kidneys, liver, and heart. (2), (4) First aid management of white phosphorus burns includes removal of the patient’s clothes and application of saline or a water-soaked dressing.

(1) On the basis of animal studies and case reports, in the emergency department, continuous irrigation with water is recommended to minimise the complications of the burn,(1), (2,) (4) and large easily identifiable particles of white phosphorus should be debrided. Wood lamp (ultraviolet light) or a solution of 0•5% copper sulphate can be used to facilitate the extinction of embedded particles.(4)

In critically ill patients, excision of the necrotic tissue and skin grafting, plus appropriate fluid replacement, and close monitoring of electrolytes and ECG are required to avoid predictable complications like hypocalcaemia, hyperphosphataemia, and cardiac arrhythmia. White phosphorus burns are associated with significant morbidity often necessitating lengthy hospital stays. Extreme cases can be fatal. We cannot give an estimate of the number of such cases in our burns unit because it is in a war situation in which no formal recording was done; these burns are rarely encountered in practice and literature describing cases is limited.

According to the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons it is prohibited to make civilians the object of attack by incendiary weapons.

The report is by Dr Loai Nabil Al Barqouni, Al Quds University (Abu-Deis, Jerusalem).Contributors Patient management: NS, SS, LB; writing the report: LB, NB. Written consent to publish was obtained.

References

1 Lisandro I. CBRNE-incendiary agents, white phosphorus. http://emedicine.medscape.com/artic…. (accessed May 21, 2010).

2 Eldad A, Simon GA. The phosphorous burn-a preliminary comparative experimental study of various forms of treatment. Burns 1991; 17: 198-200. CrossRef | PubMed

3 Chou TD, Lee TW, Chen SL, et al. The management of white phosphorus burns. Burns 2001; 27: 492-497. CrossRef | PubMed

4 Davis KG. Acute management of white phosphorus burn. Mil Med 2002; 167: 83-84.

The report was realised by: Faculty of Medicine, Al Quds University, Abu-Deis, Jerusalem, occupied Palestinian territory, Department of Surgery, Shifa Medical Centre, Gaza Strip, occupied Palestinian territory, Department of Plastic Surgery and Burns, Shifa Medical Centre, Gaza Strip, occupied Palestinian territory, Al Nasser Pediatric Hospital, Gaza Strip, occupied Palestinian territory

Correspondence to: Loai Nabil Al Barqouni, Faculty of Medicine, Al Quds University, Abu-Deis, Jerusalem, 00970 occupied Palestinian territory

Millennium Goals Revisited: Noble Ideas, and Feel-Good Moments

Gaza woman and Child (Sameh Habeeb, 2009)

Ramzy Baroud, 1 July 2010

When the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were first declared, they were met with a sense of promise. A decade later, despite all the official insistence that all is on track, it is increasingly clear that this approach to development was flawed from the onset.

For ten years, numerous committees, international and local organizations and independent researchers have tirelessly mulled over all sorts of indicators, numbers, charts and statistical data relating to extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, gender equality, child mortality, and so on.

The conclusions derived from all the data weren’t necessarily grim. And the sincerity of the many men and women who have indefatigably worked to ensure that the eight international development goals – agreed to by all 192 UN member states and over 20 international organizations – were fully implemented, cannot in any way be discounted. They were the ones who brought the issue to the fore, and they continue to push forward with resolve and determination.

The problem lies with the concept itself, and with the naive trust that governments and politicians – whether rich or poor, democratic or authoritarian, leading global wars or trying to steer clear from the abyss of famine – could possibly share one common, selfless and unconditional love for humanity, including the poor, the disadvantaged, hungry and the ill. The utopian scenario might be attainable one day, but it certainly won’t be happening anytime soon.

So why commit to such goals, with specific deadlines and regular reports, if a genuine global consensus is not achievable?

Since its inception, the United Nations has been a source of two conflicting agendas. One is undemocratic, and championed by those who wield the veto power at the Security Council. The other is egalitarian, and it’s embodied in the General Assembly. The latter reflects the global mood and international opinion much more accurately than the former, which is largely dictatorial and caters only to power.

As a result, two conflicting sets of ideas and behaviors have emerged in the last six decades. One imposes sanctions, leads wars and destroys nations, and the other offers a helping hand, builds a school, shelters a refugee. The latter offers assistance, albeit on a relatively small scale. The former spreads devastation and destruction on a grand scale.

The Millennium goals evolved from this very dilemma, which continues to afflict the United Nations and undermine its noble principles. For now, MDGs would have to settle for being a true reflection of peoples’ aspirations, but with little expectation of achievable results.

That does not mean that there is no good news. On the contrary, there will always be reasons to compel us to push further towards desired change. Since September 8, 2000 – the day in which the General Assembly adopted the Millennium Declaration – many encouraging results have been reported. Although the progress, as reported during the 2005 World Summit of leaders, was still falling short from the target dates, much has been achieved.

On June 23, Charles Abugre, the Director for Africa of the United Nations MDG campaign presented the 2010 Millennium Development Goals Report in Berlin. The same report was simultaneously presented in New York and Paris. According to its findings, the 2008 food and 2009 financial crises didn’t stop progress, but they certainly made the goal of reducing global poverty by half “more difficult to achieve.”

Indeed, significantly less people are reportedly living on less income, though, according to Aburge, bringing “poverty down to 15 percent of the global population” is less likely. Aburge has also said that progress has been made throughout the world, with the distressing exception of Central Asia, which is “riven by war and armed conflicts.”

In areas such as child mortality rate and combating epidemics, there has been little or no progress. More, “environmental degradation continues at an alarming pace,” according to Abugre. “CO2 emissions have even increased by almost 50 percent over the past 17 years, and in spite of a minor slowdown in emissions due to the crisis, are set to increase further.” It’s important to mention here that some countries are much closer to succeeding with the MDGs than others. China, for instance, has slashed the number of its poor by a huge margin, while others have fallen deeper into poverty.

While the numbers offer a strong enough reason to maintain a global push for reducing poverty, there is little evidence to suggest that the improvement is in any way related to the global pledge of 2000. It may well be a reflection of the state of affairs of individual countries. For example, China’s economic progress is hardly related to the September 2000 meet, and Afghanistan never really opted for the US-NATO invasion of 2001, which eliminated any realistic chance for the country to ever meet such seemingly lofty standards.

In its constant search for consensus, the General Assembly’s goals hardly view development from a critical perspective. They do not take into account the way in which structural adjustment policies, designed by international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank forced poor countries into debt and extreme poverty in the first place. They also ignore the way in which rich and powerful countries, in their quest for military, economic and political dominance ensure the subordination of poor, politically fragile, and militarily weak countries.

Of course, delving into the real issues would undermine the futile search for consensus, threatening the ‘amiable’ image of the General Assembly. These are left instead to the Security Council or those members of the UNSC, whose ‘opinion’ is the only one that truly counts, and who regularly go on to prescribe decisive and cruel policies.

All of this is not to say that the millennium goals should be relegated. Every noble effort should be supported and lauded. But unwarranted optimism can border on folly if one intentionally ignores the dynamic of lasting change, whether at a micro or macro levels. The discussion of MDGs should not come at the expense of realism and truth, and it should certainly not just serve as yet another feel-good moment for the rich, while further humiliating for the poor.

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.

Posted on 06/28/2010 by RamallahOnline

Prof William O. Beeman: Iranians deny the arrogant literature of the west

Kourosh Ziabari, 28 June 2010

Prof. William O. Beeman is the head of anthropology department at the University of Minnesota. His inimitable and independent approach toward the current affairs of Iran, one of the most controversial countries of the world, resembles the attitude of Noam Chomsky in terms of perspective and mindset and has cost him his reputation, professional credit.

Regrettably, he was insulted and attacked by a number of American mainstream media and fanatic neoconservatives over the past years and even his academic colleagues blamed him for what they considered to be his support for the main pivot of the “axis of evil”.

Prof. Beeman who speaks the Persian language fluently believes that Iranian people should not be treated with disdain and arrogance since their ancient superiority and historical backgrounds causes them to be resistant toward the hostile rhetoric and inimical literature.

He says that it’s not justifiable with any conscious and knowledgeable mind to allow Israel to accumulate an arsenal of 200 atomic warheads while putting lethal pressure on Iran to suspend its civilian nuclear program.

In an interview for the Foreign Policy Journal, I talked to Prof. Beeman on a variety of Iran-involved topics including the media propaganda, nuclear dossier and the prospect of revolution.

The Islamic Revolution of Iran emerged alongside a series of brisk transformations and makeovers in the arrangement of international deals and equations. One of these prominent contributions was the permanent dissolution of CENTO pact. How do you perceive that? How did the Iranian Revolution of 1979 impact upon the formation of international relations?

The Islamic movement has been active for more than 100 years. One of the most important figures, Jamal ed-Din al-Afghani, (Asadabadi for most Iranians) was very influential throughout the Islamic world. The Islamic world was suffering from military and economic oppression from Europe, largely because of the advantages the West gained through the Industrial Revolution. He urged the following remedies:

1- Purification of Islam– He claimed that the Islamic world had lapsed because faith in Islam had lapsed. Renewed faith and practice in Islam was necessary.

2-Reform– He urged Islamic leaders to re-examine Shari’a Law and practice to modernize in conformity with the modern world. One of his followers, Mohammad Abduh of Egypt, “opened the door of ‘Ijtehad” to enact legal reform.

3- Resistance– He urged Muslims everywhere to resist colonial influence. This led to groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, and indirectly to the Iranian Revolution.

All three of these elements were active in the Iranian Revolution. The Iranian revolution was the first revolution in the Middle East to oppose Western colonialism in the name of Islam. This was a complete fulfillment of the promise of the Islamic movement. It was very inspirational for the rest of the Islamic world. There was one difficulty–the Sunni world was uncomfortable that it was undertaken by the Shi’a community, but Ayatollah Khomeini’s picture was on the walls of Muslim homes everywhere in the Islamic world from Morocco to the Philippines.

So, do you believe that the new government of Iran managed to polarize the distribution of political power by giving birth to a new regional hub and fading the hegemony of the U.S. and Russia?

Yes, I agree. However, just as the original Islamic movement identified the alliance between corrupt Middle Eastern leaders and European colonial power as the basis for misery in the Middle East in the 19th and 20th Centuries, so today do the leaders of some Middle Eastern nations, who are allied with the West, decry Iran. However, the people of the Islamic World respect and admire Iran’s willingness to carry out the philosophy of “Neither East nor West.” So there is a distinction between leaders of Islamic States, many of whom are even afraid of the Iranian philosophy, and the people, who admire the Iranian philosophy. Again, this distinction is more than 150 years old.

Was the omnipotent catchphrase of Iranian revolutionary thinking, i.e. the supportive umbrella for the oppressed nations and subjugated people of the world, a major factor in the ultimate victory of anti-Western movement of Iranians in 1979 which was spearheaded by Imam Khomeini?

Yes, actually Imam Khomeini’s philosophy was inspirational for many people throughout the world; I certainly support this ideal. This has been one of the hallmarks of the Iranian Revolution as it goes forward. However, I would be less than honest if I didn’t admit that this ideal has not been completely realized in Iran. Iran’s support for downtrodden people in Lebanon and the Palestinian world shows the power of this philosophy. It is an ideal toward which we all must strive. Consequently, people must continually make their leaders aware of these ideals, and hold them to those ideals. This should be a theme in the next Iranian elections, in my opinion.

Nevertheless, Iran has been grappling with a huge amount of black propaganda and psychological attacks vindicated by the corporate and so-called independent media of the West since the dissolution of the U.S.-backed monarchy. How do you perceive that?

Unfortunately, Iran has become the most popular villain for American politicians. Both Democrats like Representative Gary Ackerman and Republicans like Senator Sam Brownback can attack Iran and become popular. In fact no American politician ever lost a vote by attacking Iran. Partly, Americans are still mad about the American hostages in 1979-80. They are also mad about Iranian opposition to Israel, which is largely supported in the U.S. It wasn’t always so. In the 1980′s the universal villain was Libya, and the rhetoric against Iran today is almost exactly the same as the rhetoric against Libya. There is a practical reason for this. Lobbying groups, such as AIPAC have enormous influence in the United States They review all candidates for election, and have influence over every newspaper, television and radio station. Their sponsored organizations, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) have millions of dollars behind them, and large publicity agencies working for them, their opinions and editorials appear in every U.S. media outlet every day. It is very difficult to counteract these people. They are actively working to promote attacks on Iran.

As you implied, the root of anti-Iranian sentiments lies in the nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic which the Western governments and their affiliated corporate media portray as threatening to international peace. Should Iran pursue its nuclear programs under the current pressures?

Iran is granted the “inalienable right” to the development of peaceful nuclear energy under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States and some European powers want to claim that Iran should be different, and should have its treaty rights denied, because some people thought that Iran “might” be making weapons. There is absolutely no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, and it should be allowed to continue to exercise its rights under the Treaty.

How should the Western powers deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program? Will the continuation of current “stick and carrot” stance be fruitful in this framework?

Iranians will grant legitimate respect to those who deserve it–to honorable leaders, virtuous scholars and wise teachers. They hate “ghodrat talabi” (Desire for illegal power) when people try to exercise power without legitimacy. Yazid is an example of such a person. Just as Imam Hossein would not yield to the illegitimate authority of Yazid, so will the Iranian people not yield to the illegitimate authority of, for example, George W. Bush. The strong sense of spiritual purity and justice is a characteristic of Iranian life, and Iranians will resist injustice and illegitimate exercise of power, even if they must die for it

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