12.26.08

Iraq: Lies, lies and now delusion

Posted in America, Iraq War tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 12:10 am by Mazin

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown | The Independent

Triumphalists are getting off on Iraq again, intoning hallelujah songs as they did after staging the fall of Saddam’s statue then again and again, sweet lullabies to send us into blissful sleep and wake to a new dawn. The composers and orchestrators — Blair, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Straw, Hoon and Rice — still believe history is on their side.

Bush visited his troops at Camp Victory in Iraq this month and said: “Iraq had a record of supporting terror, of developing and using weapons of mass destruction, was routinely firing at American military personnel, systematically violating UN resolutions … Iraqis, once afraid to leave their homes are going back to school and shopping in malls … American troops are returning home because of success.” Only one shoe and one without a sharp stiletto was hurled at him by Muntadar Al-Zeidi, an Iraqi who begged to differ.

Gordon Brown, also in Iraq, spun his own fairy tale of Baghdad, where everyone is living happily ever after and British soldiers come home proud heroes. The reality is that some of our soldiers are broken — physically and mentally — fighting this illegal and unpopular war and that too many did terrible things in the land of endless tears. Gen. Sir Mike Jackson now blames the Americans for their “appalling” decisions. And yet he too insists the campaign was a success.

Even the choral backers of Bush and Blair, once oh-so-influential, sound tinny now, out of tune. In a new book, The Liberal Defense Of Murder, Richard Seymour names many usually enlightened individuals who cheered on the disgraceful crusade and have now gone silent. Others who supported the adventure have escaped through passages of ingenious exculpation. Most Tories, for example, now say they were hypnotized by the government’s false dossiers.

Really? Even hard-of-hearing Mrs. Kirkpatrick down the road — she’s 79 — understood that we were being deceived. The UN weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Scott Ritter both told us there were no WMDs. Ken Clarke said this weekend: “I opposed the Iraq war. I’m not sure whether anybody believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that were a threat to anybody. Most American spies didn’t believe that, most British spies didn’t believe that and most of the Foreign Office didn’t believe that”.

Nor did the Opposition but it still backed Blair because Conservatives love wars and one against a swarthy potentate was irresistible.

So to Iraqis, the beneficiaries of our noble “sacrifices”. This week Nahla Hussein, a left-wing, feminist Kurdish Iraqi, was shot and beheaded for her campaigning zeal. Fifty-seven Iraqis were blown up in Kirkuk. Christians in Mosul are being savagely persecuted. Women in Iraq have fewer rights today than under Saddam. Yes, there is some normality in parts but tensions between Shiites and Sunnis are explosive. When troops are withdrawn next year, expect more bloodshed. The resources of Iraq, meanwhile, are being plundered.

For these blessings, one million Iraqis had to die and their children still suffer from illnesses caused by our weapons and our war. Five million Iraqis are displaced and, of these, the US took in 1,700. It is easier for an Iraqi cat or dog to gain entry to the land of the free. Try Baghdad Pups, which offers (for a hefty fee) to get the adopted pets of US soldiers into America. In 2007, 39,000 Iraqis sought refuge in the EU countries and we took in 300. Sweden, which has no responsibility for the havoc, gave refuge to 18,000.

I have been talking to exiled Iraqis in London. One young man has a child whose mother killed herself after giving birth during the war. He both loves and hates this country, as did Bilal Abdullah, the NHS doctor convicted for dreadful plans to blow up people in the UK.

A beautiful Iraqi woman told me her nephew gave plastic flowers to our soldiers when first they went into Basra. Last year, they shot him dead, mistaking him for an enemy.

On Friday, I met an Iraqi artist, Yousif Nasser, whose studio has become a hub for other exiles, artists, musicians and the mentally ill seeking art therapy. A gentle, melancholic man, he showed me his series titled “Black Rain”, enormous works depicting the violence in Iraq: “There are no bodies, only pieces, bits, of a little bit of this and that. People don’t buy my pictures — they are too dark. How can I tell you what has happened to my country? I have no words, only these images.”

I have words, too weak and inadequate to carry the rage felt by millions at the renewed arrogance of the villains who first devastated Iraq and now garland themselves. Lies, lies and now delusion.

There is no glory to be salvaged in this desert.

12.20.08

Arabs’ Deadly Silence: All Quiet on the Gaza Shore

Posted in Amnesty International, Israel-Palestine, War crimes, politics tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 4:17 pm by Mazin

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‘The complicity of the Arab states in abetting the Israeli siege.’ (Photo: AP)

By Rannie Amiri

“…a person who hears the voice of a man who calls the Muslims to his help but he does not respond to him, is not a Muslim.” — Prophet Muhammad

Gaza is an island.

Although located in the middle of the Arab world and bordering one of its principal and most populous countries, it could very well be in the middle of the ocean, isolated and unbeknownst to anyone. Its residents, if given the choice, may actually prefer this setting than bear witness to the malignant neglect afforded them by their fellow Arabs as Gaza inexorably withers under the barbaric Israeli siege.

If there were any doubts of its dire situation, they were removed by Dr. Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinians Territories.

On Dec. 9, Falk clearly and forcefully stated that, “An urgent effort should be made at the United Nations to implement the agreed norm of a responsibility to protect a civilian population being collectively punished by policies that amount to a Crime Against Humanity.”

Yes, crimes against humanity are being committed in Gaza according to a Jewish-American professor of international law, and nary a peep was heard from Cairo, Amman, Riyadh or Doha.

“If the UN says that the tight siege on the Gaza Strip is a war crime, we wonder why Arab leaders do not demand the reopening of the Rafah crossing,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, in reference to the land border crossing shared with Egypt.

The UNHRC harshly reprimanded Israel for its policies toward Palestinians generally and its blockade of Gaza specifically, calling for an end to their “cruel, inhuman and degrading” punishments. Falk also insisted the UN International Criminal Court investigate Israel’s behavior and actions in order to “determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.”

In the face of Dr. Falk’s and the UNHRC’s findings and conclusions, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, King Abdullah of Jordan, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the princes, sheikhs and emirs of the Gulf fiefdoms, and the feckless Arab League, all remained silent.

Some Ships Set Sail … and Others Don’t

Gaza’s 1.5 million citizens have been cut off from the rest of the world since June 2007. That is when Hamas exerted full authority over the tiny strip of land and its borders were subsequently sealed by Israel and Egypt. Since then, the Israelis have imposed ever more severe restrictions on what may enter the territory, now significantly limiting even the most basic of humanitarian supplies including food, fuel, clothing, cooking oil and medicine. As a result, according to Iran’s Press TV, hundreds of patients have died, 40 percent of ambulances have stopped running due to lack of fuel, and 75 percent of Gaza’s children suffer from malnutrition. As reported in the Dec. 14 Sunday Times, some families have now resorted to eating grass. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency just announced it has been forced to suspend food distribution to the 750,000 Gazans who depend on them for assistance. It has run out of flour and with all border crossings closed by Israel, there is no way for its trucks to enter and replenish empty food stockpiles.

Attempts have been made to break the siege on Gaza. Who has tried, and who has not, is most telling.

The U.S.-based Free Gaza Movement has successfully landed four ships on its shores, bringing humanitarian relief along with academicians, journalists and doctors, and leaving with patients in need of medical attention and students otherwise prohibited from studying abroad.

Heroic grassroots movements such as this have raised needed awareness of Gaza’s plight, but the question remains: where are the ships from the Arab countries?

In early December, a Libyan cargo vessel carrying 3,000 tons of food, powdered milk and blankets to Gaza was turned away by Israel under the pretext of not having diplomatic relations with Libya. That has been the only attempt made by an Arab or Muslim country to challenge the Israeli blockade.

A Qatar-based aid group, simply named Qatar Charity, was set to send a shipment of $2 million in cancer medication shortly after the Libyan endeavor. Under intense pressure from the Israeli government, however, Qatar capitulated and canceled the trip just hours before departure.

Within the last week, Iran’s Red Crescent Society stated its intention to send a relief ship with 1,000 tons of supplies including wheat, sugar, rice, cooking oil, and medical supplies.

“Unfortunately so far the Egyptian government had not allowed us to send the relief items to them by air,” said its Secretary-General, Ahmad Moussavi.

And that aptly summarizes the second heinous crime being committed against Gaza: the complicity of the Arab states in abetting the Israeli siege.

Protests From Afar

There have been large rallies in Tehran in support of Palestinians and in protest against Israeli actions, with equal venom directed at Hosni Mubarak for not opening the Rafah crossing to allow in humanitarian aid. This caused Iran’s Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami (no relation to former President Mohammad Khatami) to declare:

“Certain Arab leaders should be tried as ‘betrayers’ for all Israeli crimes in the occupied lands and the Gaza Strip.”

Mubarak replied to Iran’s criticism by characteristically warning of a “Persian” invasion of Arab countries; an all too tired and racist refrain which avoids addressing the matter at hand. Sporadic and smaller demonstrations have taken place in Beirut and by the banned Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

The Real Threat Posed by Gaza: Democracy

No one should be surprised at the Arabs’ foot dragging (at best) or collusion with the Israelis (at worst) in maintaining the siege.

Egypt is the most egregious offender of course, easily able to open the Rafah crossing at will, or permanently, to allow desperately needed supplies in, and civilians in need of medical care, out. The deafening – and deadly – silence from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf states is not unexpected. In the July 2006 invasion and destruction of Lebanon for example, the leaders of all of these nations gave their tacit approval to the Israeli onslaught in the hopes that Hezbollah would ultimately be destroyed.

But what threat does Hezbollah and Hamas pose to them?

These groups are looked at much differently in the Middle East than in Western Europe or the United States. Whereas the latter two narrowly question how they may imperil Israel, the Arab leaders question what ramifications the democratic elections they call for, or were elected by, may have on their own grip on power.

Hence the unelected monarchs and dictators such as Mubarak and the Kings Abdullah find parties such as Hamas and Hezbollah anathema, for they have used the power of the ballot as a stamp of their legitimacy. That is something those rulers have never had, or if so, in nothing more than sham elections. For this reason alone, the Israeli siege of Gaza remains tolerated and unchallenged by the regions’ U.S.-supported dictators, kings, princes and emirs. The entire population of Gaza is paying dearly for their experiment in democracy, which elected Hamas in 2006, and they will continue to do so for some time.

The vast majority of human rights activists, advocates and people of conscience are rightly condemning Israel for its cruel blockade. But what they have wholly failed to denounce is the acquiescence of the Arab and Muslim countries to it.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah, in a recently televised speech, called for open-ended demonstrations until the siege is lifted. He also addressed the Arab heads of state directly:

“Where are your Arab sensibilities? When a million-and-a-half Arab people in the Gaza Strip are living under a siege, in hunger, under threat? My humanitarian, religious, Islamic, and Arabic sensibilities call on me to take part in actions and protests against it.”

When the siege of Gaza ends – and it will end, but only after a terrible price has been exacted -and its citizens in future years and generations are asked why it was allowed to continue on for so long, they will point east, west and south, and say:

“We had met the enemy. And they were us.”

- Rannie Amiri is an independent commentator on the Arab and Islamic worlds. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

How Israel plays a clever mind game

Posted in Israel-Palestine, Media Bias, War crimes, Zionism, politics tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 3:38 pm by Mazin


Richard Falk | The Guardian
On Dec. 14, I arrived at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, Israel to carry out my UN role as special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories.

I was leading a mission that had intended to visit the West Bank and Gaza to prepare a report on Israel’s compliance with human rights standards and international humanitarian law. Meetings had been scheduled on an hourly basis during the six days, starting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, the following day.

I knew that there might be problems at the airport. Israel had strongly opposed my appointment a few months earlier and its Foreign Ministry had issued a statement that it would bar my entry if I came to Israel in my capacity as a UN representative.

At the same time, I would not have made the long journey from California, where I live, had I not been reasonably optimistic about my chances of getting in. Israel was informed that I would lead the mission and given a copy of my itinerary, and issued visas to the two people assisting me: A staff security person and an assistant, both of whom work at the office of the high commissioner of human rights in Geneva.

To avoid an incident at the airport, Israel could have either refused to grant visas or communicated to the UN that I would not be allowed to enter, but neither step was taken. It seemed that Israel wanted to teach me, and more significantly, the UN a lesson: There will be no cooperation with those who make strong criticisms of Israel’s occupation policy. After being denied entry, I was put in a holding room with about 20 others experiencing entry problems. At this point, I was treated not as a UN representative, but as some sort of security threat, subjected to an inch-by-inch body search and the most meticulous luggage inspection I have ever witnessed.

I was separated from my two UN companions who were allowed to enter Israel and taken to the airport detention facility a mile or so away. I was required to put all my bags and cell phone in a room and taken to a locked tiny room that smelled of urine and filth. It contained five other detainees and was an unwelcome invitation to claustrophobia. I spent the next 15 hours so confined, which amounted to a cram course on the miseries of prison life, including dirty sheets, inedible food and lights that were too bright or darkness controlled from the guard office.

Of course, my disappointment and harsh confinement were trivial matters, not by themselves worthy of notice, given the sorts of serious hardships that millions around the world daily endure. Their importance is largely symbolic. I am an individual who had done nothing wrong beyond express strong disapproval of policies of a sovereign state. More importantly, the obvious intention was to humble me as a UN representative and thereby send a message of defiance to the United Nations.

Israel had all along accused me of bias and of making inflammatory charges relating to the occupation of Palestinian territories. I deny that I am biased, but rather insist that I have tried to be truthful in assessing the facts and relevant law. It is the character of the occupation that gives rise to sharp criticism of Israel’s approach, especially its harsh blockade of Gaza, resulting in the collective punishment of the 1.5 million inhabitants. By attacking the observer rather than what is observed, Israel plays a clever mind game. It directs attention away from the realities of the occupation, practicing effectively a politics of distraction.

The blockade of Gaza serves no legitimate Israeli function. It is supposedly imposed in retaliation for some Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets that have been fired across the border at the Israeli town of Sderot. The wrongfulness of firing such rockets is unquestionable, yet this in no way justifies indiscriminate Israeli retaliation against the entire civilian population of Gaza.

The purpose of my reports is to document on behalf of the UN the urgency of the situation in Gaza and elsewhere in occupied Palestine. Such work is particularly important now as there are signs of a renewed escalation of violence and even of a threatened Israeli reoccupation.

Before such a catastrophe happens, it is important to make the situation as transparent as possible, and that is what I had hoped to do in carrying out my mission. Although denied entry, my effort will continue to use all available means to document the realities of the Israeli occupation as truthfully as possible.

— Richard Falk is professor of international law at Princeton University and the UN’s special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories

12.18.08

The shoes we longed for

Posted in America, Iraq War tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 7:24 pm by Mazin

Sami Ramadani | The Guardian

Within a few unlikely seconds, a pair of size 10 shoes have become the most destructive weapon the people of Iraq have managed to throw at the occupying powers, after nearly six years of occupation and formidable resistance. One Iraqi writer called the shoes, hurled by a journalist at George Bush, “Iraq’s weapon of comprehensive destruction”.

While the uprisings of Fallujah, Najaf, Basra and Baghdad against the occupation will always remain as landmarks of a people resisting occupation, these incredible seconds have united Iraqis in the most dramatic fashion.

Contrary to most media coverage, the 28-year-old TV reporter Muntadar Al-Zeidi made history not by merely throwing a pair of shoes, the highest expression of insult in Iraqi culture, at the US president, but by what he said while doing so and as he was smothered by US and Iraqi security men. He groaned as they dragged him out of the press conference. They succeeded in silencing him — and according to his brother he was beaten in custody — but he had already said enough to shake the occupation and Nouri Al-Maliki’s Green Zone regime to their foundations.

Strip the words away, and his and the Iraqi people’s cry of deep pain, anger and defiance would amount to no more than a shoe-throwing insult. But the words were heard. “This is the farewell kiss, you dog,” he shouted as he threw the first shoe. The crucial line followed the second shoe: “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.” Once those words were heard, the impact of a pair of shoes became electrifying. A young journalist has put aside the demands of his profession, preferring to act as the loudest cry of his long-suffering people. If one considers the torture and killings in Iraqi and US jails that Muntadar often mentioned in his reports for Al-Baghdadia satellite TV station, he was certainly aware he risked being badly hurt.

As the Iraqi and Arab satellite stations switched from the live press conference to reporting reaction to the event, the stunned presenters and reporters were swept away by popular expressions of joy in the streets, from Baghdad to Gaza to Casablanca. TV stations and media websites were inundated with messages of adulation.

Expressions of support and demands for Muntadar’s immediate release have spread from Najaf and Fallujah to Baghdad, and from Mosul in the north to Basra in the south. An impressive show of anti-occupation unity is developing fast, after being weakened by the sectarian forces that the occupation itself has strengthened and nourished, as Muntadar himself used to stress.

No one asked about Muntadar’s religion or sect, but they all loved his message. Indeed, I have yet to come across an Iraqi media outlet or website that pronounced on his religion, sect or ethnicity. The first I heard of his “sect” was through US and British media.

The reality is that Muntadar is a secular socialist whose hero happens to be Che Guevara.

He became a prominent left-wing student leader immediately after the occupation, while at Baghdad University’s media college. He reported for Al-Baghdadia on the poor and downtrodden victims of the US war. He was first on the scene in Sadr City and wherever people suffered violence or severe deprivation. He not only followed US Apache helicopters’ trails of death and destruction, but he was also among the first to report every “sectarian” atrocity and the bombing of popular market places. He let the victims talk first.

It was effective journalism, reporting that the victims of violence themselves accused the US-led occupation of being behind all the carnage. He was a voice that could not be silenced, despite being kidnapped by a gang and arrested by US and regime forces.

His passion for the war’s victims and his staunchly anti-occupation message endeared him to Al-Baghdadia viewers.

And after sending Bush out of Iraq in ignominy he has become a formidable national hero. The orphan who was brought up by his aunt, and whose name means the longed or awaited for, has become a powerful unifying symbol of defiance, and is being adopted by countless Iraqis as “our dearest son”.

— Sami Ramadani, a political exile from Saddam’s regime, is a senior lecturer at London Metropolitan University

Untold story of defiance and despair

Posted in Israel-Palestine tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 12:58 am by Mazin

Ramzy Baroud | Arab News

It’s incomprehensible that a region such as the Gaza Strip, so rich with history, so saturated with defiance, can be reduced to a few blurbs, sound bites and reductionist assumptions, convenient but deceptive, vacant of any relevant meaning, or even true analytical value.

The fact is that there is more to the Gaza Strip than 1.5 million hungry Palestinians, who are supposedly paying the price for Hamas’ militancy, or Israel’s “collective punishment,” whichever way the media decide to brand the problem.

More importantly, Gaza’s existence since time immemorial must not be juxtaposed by its proximity to Israel, failure or success in “providing” a tiny Israeli town — itself built on conquered land that was seen only 60 years ago as part of the Gaza Province — with its need for security. It’s this very expectation that made the killing and wounding of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza a price worth paying, in the callous eyes of many.

These unrealistic expectations and disregard of important history will continue to be costly, and will only serve the purpose of those interested in swift generalizations. Yes, Gaza might be economically dead, but its current struggles and tribulations are consistent with a legacy of conquerors, colonialism and foreign occupations, and more, its people’s collective triumph in rising above the tyranny of those invaders.

In relatively recent history, Gaza became a recurring story following the 1948 influx of refugees, who were driven from their homes by Zionist militias or fled for their families’ sake, hoping to return once Palestine was recovered. They settled in Gaza, subsisting in absolute poverty, a situation that continues, more or less, to this day.

The history of Gaza, and the place itself was largely irrelevant, if not revolting from the point of view of the refugees who poured into the Strip mostly from the south of Palestine, for it represented the pinnacle of their loss, humiliation and, at times, despair. It mattered little to the peasant refugees as they fled to Gaza that that they probably walked on the same ancient road that ran along the Palestinian coast when Gaza was once the last metropolis for travelers to Egypt, just before they embarked on an unforgiving desert journey through Sinai. So what if Gaza was described as the city, as told in the Book of Judges, where Samson performed his famous deed and perished. Christianity was relevant to the refugees insofar as a few of Gaza’s ancient churches provided shelter to the tired bodies escaping snipers, bullets and massacres. Even the strong belief amongst Muslims that Prophet Muhammed’s great-grandfather, Hashem, died on one of his journeys from Makkah to the Levant and was buried in Gaza, was largely sentimental.

But Gaza’s history became more relevant to the refugees when it appeared that their temporary journey to the Strip was likely to be extended. Only then the areas’ many stories of conquerors, tragedies, triumphs but also sheer goodness, became of essence. A pilgrim to the Holy Land, who passed through Gaza in A.D. 570, wrote in Latin, “Gaza is a splendid city, full of pleasant things; the men in it are most honest, distinguished by every generosity, and warm to friends and visitors.”

Gaza’s history became even more relevant when the refugees realized that their violent encounters with Israel were not yet over, and that they needed the moral tenacity to survive what would eventually be viewed as one of most severe humanitarian catastrophes in recent memory. And indeed, there was much history to marvel upon, and from which to extract strength and substantiation.

Conquerors came and went, and Gaza stood where it still stands today. This was the recurring lesson for generations, even millennia. Ancient Egyptians came and went, as did the Hyksos, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Ottomans, the British, and now the Israelis. And through it all, Gaza stood strong and defiant. Neither Alexander the Great’s bloody conquest of 332 B.C., nor Alexander Janneus’s brutal attack of 96 B.C. broke Gaza’s spirit or took away from its eternal grandeur. It always rose again to reach a degree of civilization unheard of, as it did in the 5th century AD. It was in Gaza that the Crusaders surrendered their strategic control of the city to Saladin in 1170, only to open up yet another era of prosperity and growth, occasionally interrupted by conquerors and outsiders with colonial designs, but to no avail. All the neglected ruins of past civilizations were only reminders that Gaza’s enemies would never prevail, and would, at best, merely register their presence by another neglected structure of concrete and rocks.

Now Gaza is undergoing another phase of hardship and defiance. Its modern conquerors are as unpitying as its ancient ones. True, Gaza is ailing, but standing, its people resourceful and durable as ever, defiant as they have always been, and hell-bent on surviving, for that’s what Gazans do best. And I should know, its my hometown.

— Excerpts from this article will appear in Ramzy Baroud’s new book, My Father Was a Freedom Fighter — Gaza: The Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).

12.14.08

Gitmo inmates: US doublethink

Posted in America, Iraq War tagged , , , , , , at 11:11 pm by Mazin

14 December 2008 Editorial

Like a runaway tank, the Bush presidency has left a trail of wreckage in its wake, which the world hopes the Obama administration is set on cleaning up. One major mess is the Guantanamo Bay detention center and its remaining 250 inmates. While the Bush team is pressing ahead with the contentious military trial of five self-confessed terrorists led by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, it is busy trying to offload to any country that will take them many other detainees which it now says pose no threat.

In an extraordinary example of Bush doublethink, the Americans say they cannot return detainees who are Chinese, Libyan, Russian, Tunisian or Uzbek nationals because they might face persecution or death if they are sent back home. These men were all grabbed in Afghanistan or in CIA “Extreme Rendition” operations around the world because they came under Washington’s legislative fiction that they were “illegal combatants”. The White House thus imagined that its could sidestep its obligations under the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. But seven long years of detention without charge has of itself been a form of persecution. Worse, many, if not all, of the detainees have faced tortures such as waterboarding, in an attempt to extract confessions from them. So appalling has been the treatment of these men, dozens have attempted to commit suicide and three have succeeded.

The key grounds on which Washington kept the detainees under lock and key outside of the US civil judicial process was its allegation they were all dangerous terrorists. Only 60 of the prisoners have been or are due to go before military tribunals. The remainder, the authorities have said cannot be prosecuted because of lack of evidence but they should remain under lock and key indefinitely because they are dangerous!

Now these dangerous “terrorists” who cannot be returned to their home countries such as China, because they would be put on trial there, are being off-loaded to any country that will be prepared to offer them asylum. Until yesterday, only Albania had been prepared to take a handful of ethnic Uighur Chinese, almost certainly in return for a US financial sweetener. Now Portugal has said that it will take some of the detainees and has urged other EU states to do likewise. Pressure from Washington is building up on Europeans to help President-elect Obama the more easily close down Guantanamo Bay as soon as possible, as he has promised.

But most EU states, not least Spain and the UK which have had direct and bloody experience of Al-Qaeda terrorism are extremely reluctant to give asylum to men who only a short while ago were branded by the US as simply too dangerous to be allowed to go free. Washington is, therefore, hoist with its own petard. The only way it might hope to persuade other countries to accept Guantanamo detainees would be to admit that they had never been the deadly terrorists Washington claimed they were and therefore confess to a terrible lie.

‘Debate’ in the White House

Posted in America, US Media, politics tagged , , , at 11:07 pm by Mazin

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12.09.08

Olmert: Shame sans substance

Posted in Israel-Palestine, Zionism tagged , , , , , , , , , at 1:51 pm by Mazin


Linda Heard | sierra12th@yahoo.co.uk

The outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is all peace and love nowadays. One might even be driven to think he has developed a conscience. On Sunday, he told his Cabinet that he felt ashamed of the attacks by Jewish settlers on their innocent Palestinian neighbors in Hebron and went as far as equating the anti-Palestinian violence with “a pogrom”.

Indeed it was. Settlers bent on taking revenge when some of their members were evicted from the A-Ras neighborhood of Hebron by the government, shot a father and son, set fire to Palestinian homes and vehicles, scrawled graffiti on mosques, shattered windows and hurled rocks at passersby.

For most Jews in Israel and throughout the Diaspora “pogrom” is a word evoking violent persecution of Jews, driven by anti-Semitism, evoking Oradea, Krakow, Odessa and Minsk. The word itself is Russian meaning, “to wreak havoc, to demolish violently”.

“We are the children of a people whose historic ethos is built on the memory of pogroms. The sight of Jews firing at innocent Palestinians has no other name than pogrom. Even when Jews do this, it is a pogrom,” Olmert said. If he were brutally honest, he should have accused the Israeli Army of complicity as by all accounts they stood back allowing the violence to occur and ignored advance warnings.

Olmert should be applauded for his straight talking but why didn’t he speak out before? Telling the truth when he’s just about to leave office with little hope of returning to the top job is too easy. He no longer has to care about the reaction of Israeli voters to his words and he will very soon be in no position to prevent repeat performances of the Hebron atrocity.

So called “settlers” — a euphemism for religious extremists who believe in a Greater Israel and who reject the peace process — have been responsible for attacks on Palestinians for years; most of which go unnoticed by the international media. These are people emanating mostly from the US and Europe who relocate to Israel not in hopes of bettering their lives but rather on a mission to ruin the lives of Palestinians by ousting them from their land.

The world witnessed their fanaticism when they were evicted from Gaza when they turned on the IDF, threatened mass suicides and laid siege to buildings. Few know that they have shot at Palestinian children, killed farm animals, poisoned wells and destroyed olive groves and orchards.

The Hebron “pogrom” may have gone unnoticed too if it wasn’t for a camera distribution project launched by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, which “provides Palestinians living in high-conflict areas with video cameras, with the goal of bringing the reality of their lives under occupation to the attention of the Israeli and international public, exposing and seeking redress for violations of human rights”.

B’Tselem says it has succeeded in getting incriminating material garnered aired on major Israeli and international news networks “exposing global audiences to the previously unseen”. Unfortunately, though there is little outrage either within Israel or outside for the suffering of Palestinians existing under a harsh occupation. It’s almost as though we have been indoctrinated to believe that Jews are always victims in a way that excludes the possibility of Jewish terrorism.

If the Israeli prime minister can delve deep into his conscience perhaps it’s time we should re-evaluate our own and dissect any knee-jerk prejudices that we might unknowingly harbor.

Having said that, we should also wonder why Olmert’s sudden apparent softening of heart or resurgent morality doesn’t extend to Gaza where 1.5 people are being held prisoner without fuel, food, potable water and essential medicines, vulnerable to Israeli bombs and the extrajudicial assassination of their leadership.

Is the war of attrition that Israel is waging on Gaza any less of a pogrom than Hebron? In reality, it is much worse. People there are dying a slow painful death in literal terms as well as metaphorical without freedom, without income and without hope. On Sunday, the Israeli government thwarted an attempt by Israeli Arabs to sail to Gaza bearing medicines and food. Last week, a Libyan vessel carrying 3,000 tons of aid was turned back. Olmert’s statements concerning Hebron, therefore, have a hollow ring while he continues the blockade of Gaza, rejecting appeals from the United Nations to open the borders. “Hypocrisy” is a word that comes to mind.

In the latter part of his premiership, Olmert has also been verbally promoting a two-state solution. Last year, he told the Israeli daily Haaretz that if “the day comes when a two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished”.

Absolutely right! Then why on earth wasn’t he proactive in progressing peace? Why didn’t he do his utmost to bring a Palestinian state into fruition? Similarly, he has been pursuing indirect talks with Syria, saying, “I’d like to know if there’s a serious person in the State of Israel who believes that we can make peace with the Syrians without, in the end, giving up the Golan Heights.” Syria has been receptive, so what has stopped him going ahead?

Sadly, what Olmert says and what he does are disparate. He will leave office under the shadow of corruption having achieved nothing. He will leave behind nothing but the echo of empty words. In the end, he will be known as someone in power with the right ideas but without a backbone to implement them. He is a politician who missed his chance of greatness. We can only pray that the void won’t be filled by someone even worse.

12.04.08

Obama choosing Hillary in Cabinet ?

Posted in America, Humor, US elections tagged , , , , at 6:54 pm by Mazin

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Israeli counterpart of Obama Barack

Posted in America, Israel-Palestine, US elections tagged , , , , , , , at 6:38 pm by Mazin

Uri Avnery | avnery@actcom.co.il
 
What will he look like, the Israeli counterpart of Barack Obama? What will be his attributes?

That is a tantalizing question. It goes without saying that one cannot construct a human being according to a recipe, like a cake from a cook book. But one can, at least, consider a few of the desired traits.

Where will he come from?

The Israeli equivalent of the black community in the United States is the Oriental Jewish community, the Jews who have come to Israel from Arab and other Islamic countries. They do not belong to another people, like the Arab citizens of Israel, they belong to the majority population. They are a patriotic community which sees itself discriminated against, a community of second-class citizens. In order to obtain an exact parallel to Obama, the candidate should be half-Oriental and half-Ashkenazi, with the Oriental part of his image dominating. So, the Israeli Obama is an Oriental Jew of mixed extraction.

For convenience’s sake, let’s give him an imaginary Hebrew name: Barak Hasson Ovadya. The first achievement of Barack Obama was the mobilization of millions of voters, many of them young, who were fed up with the politicians. What this large group detested was not politics, as it seemed, but the politicians. They had come to the conclusion that there was no real difference between the members of the various parties, that they were all cynics, all greedy for power and most of them greedy for money. When these young voters saw a politician of a different species, they hoisted him onto their shoulders.

That is exactly what we need. The recent experience in the Tel Aviv municipal elections proves that this is possible. When a politician of a different kind appears on the stage, one who does not resemble the old-time politicians, the voters will recognize him.

SO “Barak Ovadya” must find his way into the hearts and minds of these voters and convince them that it is possible to change everything completely.

The second great achievement of Barack Obama was his success in constructing a new rainbow coalition: Young whites and blacks, Hispanics, Green idealists, liberals, people with a social conscience. Ovadya too will have the task of building a grand coalition before the elections. That is in essence the founding of a new party – or the taking over and total re-shaping of an existing party, as Obama has done.

What will be the ingredients of such a new force? The masses of young Ashkenazis and Orientals, the “social” public, the Arab citizens, the Russian community, the greens, the secular, the feminists, the religious progressives, and of course the peace activists.

Even Hercules would think twice before undertaking such a task. An abyss is yawning between those who are striving for peace and reconciliation with the Palestinian people, almost all of whom belong to the Ashkenazi elite, and the Oriental Jews, the great majority of whom vote for the old right-wing parties, in glaring contradiction to their own economic interests. The Russian public is cut off, estranged and bitter. It lives in a soap bubble, and almost all of its spokespersons are extreme nationalist racists. The large secular public, which loathes the domineering religious establishment and the extreme-right message of almost all of its spokespersons, has no one to vote for. Even Meretz has lowered this flag to half-mast. Can all these messages, which look so different, be connected to each other? The fight against corruption and the concern for the environment, the struggle for a just peace and the longing for social justice, the demand for equality for the Arab citizens and the citizens of Russian origin (both Jews and non-Jews), equality for women, the demand for the separation of state and religion, and the insistence on human rights, a healthy Israeli patriotism and universal human values? The answer is: Yes, absolutely! All these aims spring from the same source: The striving for justice, for a model society, for a country that is good to live in, a state we can be proud of.

Is this possible? Some people believe that if one just utters the word “Palestinians”, all the other voters will run away. Or that the Oriental heritage of the candidate will scare away the members of the Ashkenazi elite. Or that the Russians will be deterred by the Arabs.

I am convinced that it is indeed possible – provided that the overall message is convincing enough, that it is balanced and emphasizes the uniting and not the dividing, that each of the aims finds the place it deserves in the general scheme, that it is clear that one thing depends on the other. Barack Obama has a rare combination of traits, making him an almost perfect candidate.

He is new. He is untouched by corruption. He is a great speaker, convincing in every word. He never makes a gaffe, not even under heavy pressure. His views are considered and balanced. He does not get excited. His private life seems without flaw. He radiates tranquility. He lives modestly. He showed personal and moral courage when he opposed the Iraq war from the first moment. (How many people in Israel opposed the first and second Lebanon wars from the first day?) His message unites, it does not divide. He doesn’t revel in controversy. He has no “killer instinct”. He brought with him a message of hope, an altogether positive message, a message that allows him to find his way even into the hearts of his opponents.

And on top of everything else – and that must not be underestimated – he is good-looking. Such people do not grow on trees. But such an almost impossible combination of characteristics is essential for a task that looks almost impossible. Mahatma Gandhi was like that. Such a thing can happen suddenly, without prior notice, and conquer a nation in one stroke. But the chances for it to happen this time, with just 42 days to go before the elections, are slim indeed. The way things look now, the next Knesset will be as miserable as the present one. It will not be able to tackle any of the big national and social problems. It will collapse long before it is threatened by old age.

The great effort of preparing the ground for a powerful new political camp must start on the morrow of the elections

The shadows of Mumbai

Posted in India-Pakistan tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , at 6:33 pm by Mazin


Siddartha Deb | The Guardian
 
It may be because I’ve never lived in Mumbai, but when news of last week’s horrifying siege began to filter through on television and the Internet, I found it hard to reconcile myself to the idea that the Taj, the Oberoi and even Cafe Leopold are places that define everything Mumbai stands for.

I’ve never been to the Oberoi or Cafe Leopold, and although I wandered into the Taj lobby on one of my first visits to the city, it made no impression on me beyond a sense of rather sanitized opulence. Instead, what affected me strongly was the way ordinary people lived in Mumbai. The places I remember most are poky little cafes with pinball machines, stretches of beach and parks where a sudden whiff of marijuana would travel through the evening air, and the crowded trains that ran almost all night and made Mumbai a far more democratic city than Delhi.

It was some of this Mumbai, the city shaped and lived in by ordinary people, that I was looking for last week. It was this Mumbai that I couldn’t find in news of the attacks. The first assault seems to have taken place at the main train station, killing as many as 60 people. Yet there was little of this except in a few photographs. What was true of the train station was equally true of the other attacks: Nothing of the shopkeepers shot down, nothing of the hospitals where they opened fire. It was as if the attackers had morphed magically into the Taj and Oberoi hotels and the Lubavitch center at Nariman House.

I understand that it was necessary for the coverage to focus on the places where the attacks were going on. But it was still surprising to see how quickly this made it a story about besieged hotel guests, mostly Westerners and upper-class Indians. The other people who had been killed — some of them Muslims — were faceless, and those who weren’t faceless were on the margins.

I had to look away from the focus of the pictures to see the ordinary women and men helping hotel guests emerging from the wreckage, just as buried somewhere in the reams of prose about how the city would never be the same again were micro narratives of waiters at the Cafe Leopold hurrying guests into a hiding corner, and of workers at the Taj supplying people, through the firefights and grenade attacks, with sandwiches and drinking water. It seems to me that there was a striking generosity on display at most of these places that has been utterly disregarded in all the talk about commandos, guests and terrorists.

Amid the flurry of accusations, there is already a story being shaped that this was an attack on India’s globalization. There have been plenty of fatuous comments from India’s elite about how it feels threatened in its pursuit of fine dining, the predictable war talk about Muslims and Pakistan from the Hindu right-wing, and the equally predictable agonizing in the West about whether the subcontinent has once again become the most dangerous place on earth.

It is not that the anguish and suffering of people trapped in restaurants and hotel rooms was insignificant, but what is dismaying is the lack of recognition that such anguish and suffering have been evident in India for a long time — in the bomb blasts that took place in October, for instance, in the northeastern state of Assam; in the unending onslaught on Kashmiris; and in the steady and relentless marginalization of the poor and the dispossessed.

The men who slipped into Mumbai, for all their posturing about the state of Indian Muslims and Kashmiris, had certainly no interest in such details. They wanted violence and spectacle, and they will have got what they wanted — unless we can turn our attention to the ordinary people who were relegated to the shadows throughout the siege.