Face-Off: Palestine v. Washington/Israel on Statehood
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 15 Sep 2011
Palestine
Face-Off: Palestine v. Washington/Israel on Statehood - by Stephen Lendman
With the moment of truth arriving next week, rhetoric from both sides suggests Palestinians again will lose out.
Instead of an advocate representing them in New York, a collaborationist apparently will show up. Public statements and body language say so.
What could at last be looks likely to be denied. Instead of a new beginning, betrayal appears in the cards.
It's almost no exaggeration saying the fix is in. What'll finally emerge will be portrayed as a Palestinian win. In reality, it'll be defeat - a worthless half loaf in place of what's easily within reach.
With more than enough international support backed by international law at a time Israeli and US influence are weaker, a golden chance is slip-siding away.
The daily soap opera continues. Here's the latest.
On September 14, Haaretz writer Avi Issacharoff headlined, "Palestinians trying to dodge pre-UN vote face-off with Obama," saying:
"Next week, intense negotiations will be undertaken between the European Union, the PA and the American government regarding the specific formula of the request for Palestinian statehood recognition."
The "specific formula" says it all. Only an easily attainable one delivers statehood and full de jure UN membership. Anything less continues status quo betrayal.
Instead of going for it with overwhelming support, bet on Abbas petitioning only for reshuffling the deck chairs, leaving status quo denial in place.
Apparently he's less concerned about justice than embarrassing Washington, if Obama followed through with his threatened Security Council veto. Bet on it, and it won't be long before it's known.
On September 13, New York Times writers Steven Myers and David Kirkpatrick headlined, "US Scrambles to Avert Palestinian Vote at UN," saying:
Ahead of next week in New York, "maneuvering became an exercise in brinkmanship as the administration wrestles with roiling tensions in the region, including a sharp deterioration of relations between....Egypt, Israel and Turkey."
While Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Palestinian statehood "not a choice but an obligation," Arab League Secretary-General Nabil el-Araby said after meeting with PA officials:
"(I)t is obvious that the Palestinian Authority and the Arab countries are leaning towards going to the General Assembly" for a meaningless status upgrade from "observer entity" to "observer state," leaving them back at square one.
Even so, Obama, Hillary Clinton, regional envoy Tony Blair (a reinvented war criminal), EU representative Catherine Ashton, US Middle East envoy David Hale, and pro-Israeli hardliner Dennis Ross want Abbas to call the whole thing off.
In their minds, even a fig leaf is too much.
Only Israeli interests matter. Palestinians must accept their status as powerless occupied people and shut up.
"The administration has spent months trying to avoid" the embarrassment of a Security Council veto, even though under international law it's toothless. Only the General Assembly admits new members. The Security Council recommends.
Both get their say on admissions. One body alone matters, and it's ready to do the right thing if proper procedures are followed.
Lots of times, Abbas and chief negotiator Saeb Erekat had their say more for Israel than Palestine.
Erekat, in fact, signaled no change now, saying:
"We don't intend to confront the US, or anyone else for that matter (suggesting Israel and its EU allies)."
The early 2011 released Palestine Papers revealed that policy position was longstanding, siding with Israel against his own people.
So did Abbas as chief Oslo negotiator where he sold them out entirely and did so ever since.
Expect no change of heart now. For him, Erekat and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, it would be entirely out of character. Leopards can't change their spots, nor snakes in the grass.
Nor Congress, threatening to cut off aid in the event of a UN vote, what most in it call a "confrontation," not long delayed justice.
The same Congress backs Obama's imperial wars, banker bailouts, austerity hardship for needy Americans, and repressive police state laws to slap them down if they complain.
The deck indeed is stacked, and unrepresented Palestinians hold no aces.
So hinted Jimmy Carter, America's 39th president and author of "Peace Not Apartheid."
His September 13 New York Times op-ed headlined, "After the UN Vote on Palestine," saying:
Camp David promises proved hollow. Despite overwhelming Knesset approval, "call(ing) for honoring all aspects of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (November 22, 1967)," Israel systematically violated its provisions.
Key ones included denying "the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security."
Others mandated:
"(i) Withdrawal of Israel(i) armed forces from territories occupied in (1967);" and
"(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."
In 1948, Palestinians lost 78% of their historic homeland. In 1967, they lost the rest. Camp David I, Madrid, Oslo, Oslo II, Wye River, Camp David II, Taba, and decades of peace process futility accomplished nothing.
Every post-Camp David I negotiation favored Israel. Palestinians' only choice was take it or leave it. Nothing's changed now. Carter knows it but didn't say. So do Palestinians and the Arab street with no power.
Carter did say Washington "basically withdr(ew) from active participation in the peace process. The Palestinians and other Arabs have interpreted US policy as acquiescing on the occupation and (being) biased against them."
Given what they're up against, "what are the options for the future?"
Instead of explaining the futility of peace process negotiations because Palestinians have no willing partner, Carter called for "comprehensive" efforts "based on the fully compatible US official policy, previous UN resolutions and the Quartet's previous demands."
In other words, he recommends another round of what won't work instead of suggesting what may, and saying US policy must back it. With enough (sorely lacking) commitment, Israel would have a hard time saying no, but don't bet it wouldn't try.
Yet Carter's vision calls for "peace for Israel and all its neighbors. The United States would regain its leadership role in the region, based on its commitment to freedom, democracy and justice, and a major cause of widespread animosity toward America within the Arab world would be eliminated."
Shamefully, Carter omitted mention of America's imperial wars. That the business of America is war. That permanent war is official policy.
That eroding homeland social justice pays for them. That repressive police state laws slap down resisters.
That post-9/11, $10 trillion or more was spent on militarism with all categories included.
That over the same period, millions of lives were lost. Many millions more were harmed, and killer weapons destroyed nonbelligerent countries lawlessly.
Libya, of course, is Washington's latest trophy. Even so, death and destruction continue daily, turning the entire country into a hellish charnel house.
At home, unbridled greed, corruption, and imperial lawlessness define America.
Torture, extraordinary renditions, indefinite detentions without charge, military commissions, warrantless surveillance, and racial profiling are official policies.
Special Forces death squads murder people globally who disagree with US policies.
Decades of bad policies, including his own, have America on a fast track toward tyranny and ruin.
America's middle class is disappearing. Growing millions suffer from poverty, homelessness, hunger and despair. America's media don't notice, let alone care.
America partners with Israel's most lawless policies. Its leaders (including himself) support the worst of world despots and brutes.
Democracy in America is a sham illusion. Whistleblowing and dissent can be called criminal.
Times op-eds alone won't change things, especially ones falling way short of the mark.
On October 1, Carter turn's 87. Arguably, his post-presidency is the best of the lot, though far from perfect.
At this stage in life, why not go all the way burnishing it.
What better way than by forthrightly challenging US policies causing so much harm to so many, including permanent imperial wars and social injustice.
Then support Palestinian statehood and full de jure UN membership. At the same time, denounce Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, saying "harsh and grave consequences" will follow a UN vote.
That's the kind of legacy worth working for!
It's true for everyone, not just him!
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
Showing posts with label defend the palestinian people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label defend the palestinian people. Show all posts
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Palestine's Rocky Road to Statehood - by Stephen Lendman
Palestine's Rocky Road to Statehood
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 16 Sep 2011
Palestine
Palestine's Rocky Road to Statehood - by Stephen Lendman
Some roads prove too rocky to traverse, especially when opposition against the real thing comes from alleged supportive allies.
The worst of all enemies often are traitors to a just cause. That in a word sums up Palestine's dilemma as loyalists count down to September's General Assembly meeting next week.
The 11th hour. The moment of truth, looking more like disappointment, shame and betrayal.
In other words, again Palestinians face what they've endured for decades, despite millions of global supporters, including most or perhaps the entire Arab street.
What do Palestinians want and deserve? In a word: justice.
They want sovereign statehood - no ifs, ands, buts or maybe next time.
They want it comprised of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - 22% of historic Palestine, not parts only in isolated pieces.
They want control over their shoreline and air space.
They want fixed borders and unfragmented territorial integrity, not isolated cantons on worthless scrub land constituting no state at all.
They want Israel's illegal occupation ended.
They want unauthorized incursions on their land called naked aggression.
They want international law provisions enforced, including UN Charter Chapter VII, Article 51, saying nations may attack another only in self-defense. Even then, it's only until the Security Council acts as the final arbiter on matters of international peace and security.
They want freedom over their own lives.
They want decades of Israeli state terror ended.
They want no more of their land stolen.
They want access to every international convention and institution able to help them.
They want diaspora refugees freely able to return as codified in international law.
On December 11, 1948, UN Resolution 194 "(r)esolve(d) that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation (paid by responsible governments or authorities) should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return...."
Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his (or her) own, and to return to his (or her) country."
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states:
"No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his (or her) own country."
In short, they want and deserve the same rights as all citizens. Sadly, too few have them, but no one anywhere should quit struggling for what's right, especially those long-suffering and denied.
Victories Take Sustained Commitment
Great victories aren't won by the timid. Only those committed to stay the course may succeed. They're also the most deserving because they put their bodies where their hopes and dreams lie.
They're willing to stake it all for a just cause. They're willing to settle for only what new generations may enjoy. That's commitment.
Palestinians have it, but not their collaborationist officials, planning to sell them out in New York, despite duplicitous rhetoric to the contrary.
On September 15, reiterating his "no retreat" vow on full UN membership, Abbas said:
"Going to the United Nations to request full membership for Palestine in the international organization is an inevitable thing and there is no retreat from it."
"Despite the pressures exercised on us, Palestine will go to" New York on September 23 "to request full membership."
Heavy US/EU/Israeli pressure haven't stopped demanding he give it up. Washington, in fact, vowed not to stop trying. According to State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland:
"We want to leave no stone unturned in our effort to get these parties back to the table," where Israel holds all the aces. Palestinians have none, the way it's always been.
Nonetheless, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (notoriously pro-Israeli like Obama and his handpicked envoys) said:
"The only way of getting a lasting solution is through direct negotiations between the two parties, and the route to that lies in Jerusalem and Ramallah, not in New York."
Earlier she called destroying Libya and NATO's genocidal rape "liberation."
She backs the worst of Israeli crimes of war and against humanity. She deplores the idea of Palestinians having any say over their own affairs. She feels the same way about Americans, as does Obama.
He called Palestinians petitioning the UN a "distraction," adding:
"What happens in New York can occupy a lot of press attention but is not going to change, actually, what is happening on the ground until the Israelis and Palestinians sit down."
He's saying Washington and Israel will deny independent Palestine a moment of peace and security, threatening its right to exist.
Israel calls Palestinian statehood an attempt to isolate it and undermine its legitimacy. It'll say or do anything to get its way. So will America and its deceitful EU partners. They're enemies of independence and freedom as is Israel.
Its extremist ultranationalist Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, raged about the prospect, warning "harsh and grave consequences" will follow any attempt by Palestine to petition the UN for what's right.
Stopping short of revealing specifics, he said:
"The moment has not yet come to give details of what will happen. What I can say with the greatest confidence is that from the moment they pass a unilateral decision there will be harsh and grave consequences."
"I hope that we shall not come to (that point), and that common sense will prevail in all decisions taken in order to allow co-existence and progress with negotiation."
Spoken like true despot, he also accused Palestinians of planning an "unprecedented bloodbath" after the UN acts.
With racist hatemongers like Lieberman and Netanyahu in high places, anything ahead is possible. Both symbolize the worst of Israeli state terror, directed against Arabs for not being Jewish.
On September 15, Haaretz writer Gideon Levy headlined, "Israel does not want a Palestinian state. Period," saying:
It has no "single persuasive argument against" one. Neither does Washington or pro-Israeli EU partners.
"Next week will be Israel's moment of truth, or more precisely the moment in which its deception will be revealed."
Its position is wholly without merit. In fact, its entirely self-serving and underhanded, forgetting that the UN, in part, established Israel and other new nations since 1945.
Moreover, it's the only way to create Palestinian statehood, what neither Israel or Palestine can do on their own. Nor Washington.
Notably, Oslo promised final status talks in five years. It didn't happen and won't in 50 or 500 if left up to Israel.
Every Israeli excuse turned up empty, leaving disturbing naked truths exposed. They're plain as day now to see.
As a result, Palestinians have "three options, not four: to surrender unconditionally (and stay occupied); to launch a third intifada; or to mobilize the world on their behalf."
They chose the third and got most of it. Israel has no leg to stand on, yet persists against what world public opinion calls the right thing at the right time.
"Yesterday, a coalition of Israeli peace organizations published a list of 50 reasons for Israel to support a Palestinian state."
In sum, they come down to backing what's lawful, principled, high-minded, righteous and timely.
On September 14, New York Times writer Isabel Kershner headlined, "Palestinians Say a UN Gamble on Statehood Is Worth the Risks," saying:
"Going to the United Nations remains a high-stakes gambit for Mr. Abbas," adding that it's "far from clear what will happen when the Palestinians go to the United Nations next week to seek recognition of statehood."
Fact check
What's very clear is that status quo occupation is intolerable and unacceptable.
That independence beside a rogue aggressor is better than living under its rules.
Moreover, anything improving their current lot advances true liberation for millions deserving it, even if getting it means waiting years or even decades longer.
Try finding any Times writer or op-ed contributor saying so.
Notably, its Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, stands out. On September 14, Max Blumenthal's Columbia Journalism Review article headlined, "Conflict in Israel? saying:
In charge since March 2008, Bronner "joined the speakers bureau of one of Israel's top public relations firms, Lone Star Communications," an organization with a pro-Israeli agenda.
It "arranges speaking dates for Bronner and takes 10 to 15 percent of his fee. At the same time, (it) pitches (him) stories."
His Times bosses see no conflict of interest. Why should they with their pro-Israeli agenda and refusal to hire on staff with views different from their own. Bronner fits the bill.
Combining journalism with "paid engagements from a firm that also pitches him stories" he reports is big time conflict of interest, especially one with a "clear ideological bent."
"Bronner faced an earlier controversy when his young son decided to serve in the Israeli military....(F)ormer Times editor Bill Keller strongly backed (him) and he weathered it."
At first, however, he and Times editors declined comment. Foreign Editor Susan Chira said only that:
"Mr. Bronner's son is a young adult who makes his own decisions. At The Times, we have found Mr. Bronner's coverage to be scrupulously fair and we are confident that will continue to be the case."
Others disagree based on studies showing a history of Times misreporting on Israel/Palestine, besides on so much else. In fact, bias and distorted coverage defines how its correspondents and opinion writers do their job.
Calling it "scrupulously fair" is laughable on its face. It's also insulting to those affected.
A Final Comment
On September 23, Abbas will formally petition the UN for whatever he intends to propose. He'll address the General Assembly the same day.
So will Netanyahu after earlier saying Shimon Peres would represent him. Advisors warned him against it, saying not being there would show weakness and support what Palestinians want.
He claims he decided to go "to tell the truth before anyone who would like to hear it." In fact, he and truth are total strangers. He couldn't look it in the eye and see it.
Neither can Obama, those around him, and most in Congress, warning harsh measures if Palestinians pursue their rights.
"Make no mistake," said House Appropriations Committee member Steve Rothman (D. NJ), "I have no doubt that Congress will act swiftly and with an overwhelming majority to impose penalties...."
Besides cutting off funding, he may even have declaring war in mind. Why not with a legislative body packed with rogues. They're bipartisan criminals, backing imperial rampaging and wrecking America for their deep-pocketed funders.
They also support whatever Israel wants, including the right to reign terror on Palestine.
"The PA has little to gain and much to lose," added Rothman. Most Americans, in fact, gained nothing and lost everything under Republican and Democrat scoundrels, sacrificing them for their own self-interest.
Homeland justice depends on committed grassroots activism. It's true as well for Palestinians.
On September 23, Abbas plans to sell them out like so many previous times. Rothman and his bunch needn't worry.
Americans are on their own. So are Palestinians.
The struggle for liberating justice here and there continues.
With enough sustained commitment, maybe one day it'll show up.
For Palestinians, however, not on September 23. Abbas didn't book it passage on his New York flight.
Hopefully, he won't be warmly greeted when he returns.
Many there hope he's gone and won't come back.
That would be a big step forward, especially if his number two, Salam Fayyad, leaves with him.
Great victories come a baby step at a time.
Hopefully some are coming, but only people power ones matter most.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 16 Sep 2011
Palestine
Palestine's Rocky Road to Statehood - by Stephen Lendman
Some roads prove too rocky to traverse, especially when opposition against the real thing comes from alleged supportive allies.
The worst of all enemies often are traitors to a just cause. That in a word sums up Palestine's dilemma as loyalists count down to September's General Assembly meeting next week.
The 11th hour. The moment of truth, looking more like disappointment, shame and betrayal.
In other words, again Palestinians face what they've endured for decades, despite millions of global supporters, including most or perhaps the entire Arab street.
What do Palestinians want and deserve? In a word: justice.
They want sovereign statehood - no ifs, ands, buts or maybe next time.
They want it comprised of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - 22% of historic Palestine, not parts only in isolated pieces.
They want control over their shoreline and air space.
They want fixed borders and unfragmented territorial integrity, not isolated cantons on worthless scrub land constituting no state at all.
They want Israel's illegal occupation ended.
They want unauthorized incursions on their land called naked aggression.
They want international law provisions enforced, including UN Charter Chapter VII, Article 51, saying nations may attack another only in self-defense. Even then, it's only until the Security Council acts as the final arbiter on matters of international peace and security.
They want freedom over their own lives.
They want decades of Israeli state terror ended.
They want no more of their land stolen.
They want access to every international convention and institution able to help them.
They want diaspora refugees freely able to return as codified in international law.
On December 11, 1948, UN Resolution 194 "(r)esolve(d) that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation (paid by responsible governments or authorities) should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return...."
Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his (or her) own, and to return to his (or her) country."
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states:
"No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his (or her) own country."
In short, they want and deserve the same rights as all citizens. Sadly, too few have them, but no one anywhere should quit struggling for what's right, especially those long-suffering and denied.
Victories Take Sustained Commitment
Great victories aren't won by the timid. Only those committed to stay the course may succeed. They're also the most deserving because they put their bodies where their hopes and dreams lie.
They're willing to stake it all for a just cause. They're willing to settle for only what new generations may enjoy. That's commitment.
Palestinians have it, but not their collaborationist officials, planning to sell them out in New York, despite duplicitous rhetoric to the contrary.
On September 15, reiterating his "no retreat" vow on full UN membership, Abbas said:
"Going to the United Nations to request full membership for Palestine in the international organization is an inevitable thing and there is no retreat from it."
"Despite the pressures exercised on us, Palestine will go to" New York on September 23 "to request full membership."
Heavy US/EU/Israeli pressure haven't stopped demanding he give it up. Washington, in fact, vowed not to stop trying. According to State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland:
"We want to leave no stone unturned in our effort to get these parties back to the table," where Israel holds all the aces. Palestinians have none, the way it's always been.
Nonetheless, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (notoriously pro-Israeli like Obama and his handpicked envoys) said:
"The only way of getting a lasting solution is through direct negotiations between the two parties, and the route to that lies in Jerusalem and Ramallah, not in New York."
Earlier she called destroying Libya and NATO's genocidal rape "liberation."
She backs the worst of Israeli crimes of war and against humanity. She deplores the idea of Palestinians having any say over their own affairs. She feels the same way about Americans, as does Obama.
He called Palestinians petitioning the UN a "distraction," adding:
"What happens in New York can occupy a lot of press attention but is not going to change, actually, what is happening on the ground until the Israelis and Palestinians sit down."
He's saying Washington and Israel will deny independent Palestine a moment of peace and security, threatening its right to exist.
Israel calls Palestinian statehood an attempt to isolate it and undermine its legitimacy. It'll say or do anything to get its way. So will America and its deceitful EU partners. They're enemies of independence and freedom as is Israel.
Its extremist ultranationalist Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, raged about the prospect, warning "harsh and grave consequences" will follow any attempt by Palestine to petition the UN for what's right.
Stopping short of revealing specifics, he said:
"The moment has not yet come to give details of what will happen. What I can say with the greatest confidence is that from the moment they pass a unilateral decision there will be harsh and grave consequences."
"I hope that we shall not come to (that point), and that common sense will prevail in all decisions taken in order to allow co-existence and progress with negotiation."
Spoken like true despot, he also accused Palestinians of planning an "unprecedented bloodbath" after the UN acts.
With racist hatemongers like Lieberman and Netanyahu in high places, anything ahead is possible. Both symbolize the worst of Israeli state terror, directed against Arabs for not being Jewish.
On September 15, Haaretz writer Gideon Levy headlined, "Israel does not want a Palestinian state. Period," saying:
It has no "single persuasive argument against" one. Neither does Washington or pro-Israeli EU partners.
"Next week will be Israel's moment of truth, or more precisely the moment in which its deception will be revealed."
Its position is wholly without merit. In fact, its entirely self-serving and underhanded, forgetting that the UN, in part, established Israel and other new nations since 1945.
Moreover, it's the only way to create Palestinian statehood, what neither Israel or Palestine can do on their own. Nor Washington.
Notably, Oslo promised final status talks in five years. It didn't happen and won't in 50 or 500 if left up to Israel.
Every Israeli excuse turned up empty, leaving disturbing naked truths exposed. They're plain as day now to see.
As a result, Palestinians have "three options, not four: to surrender unconditionally (and stay occupied); to launch a third intifada; or to mobilize the world on their behalf."
They chose the third and got most of it. Israel has no leg to stand on, yet persists against what world public opinion calls the right thing at the right time.
"Yesterday, a coalition of Israeli peace organizations published a list of 50 reasons for Israel to support a Palestinian state."
In sum, they come down to backing what's lawful, principled, high-minded, righteous and timely.
On September 14, New York Times writer Isabel Kershner headlined, "Palestinians Say a UN Gamble on Statehood Is Worth the Risks," saying:
"Going to the United Nations remains a high-stakes gambit for Mr. Abbas," adding that it's "far from clear what will happen when the Palestinians go to the United Nations next week to seek recognition of statehood."
Fact check
What's very clear is that status quo occupation is intolerable and unacceptable.
That independence beside a rogue aggressor is better than living under its rules.
Moreover, anything improving their current lot advances true liberation for millions deserving it, even if getting it means waiting years or even decades longer.
Try finding any Times writer or op-ed contributor saying so.
Notably, its Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, stands out. On September 14, Max Blumenthal's Columbia Journalism Review article headlined, "Conflict in Israel? saying:
In charge since March 2008, Bronner "joined the speakers bureau of one of Israel's top public relations firms, Lone Star Communications," an organization with a pro-Israeli agenda.
It "arranges speaking dates for Bronner and takes 10 to 15 percent of his fee. At the same time, (it) pitches (him) stories."
His Times bosses see no conflict of interest. Why should they with their pro-Israeli agenda and refusal to hire on staff with views different from their own. Bronner fits the bill.
Combining journalism with "paid engagements from a firm that also pitches him stories" he reports is big time conflict of interest, especially one with a "clear ideological bent."
"Bronner faced an earlier controversy when his young son decided to serve in the Israeli military....(F)ormer Times editor Bill Keller strongly backed (him) and he weathered it."
At first, however, he and Times editors declined comment. Foreign Editor Susan Chira said only that:
"Mr. Bronner's son is a young adult who makes his own decisions. At The Times, we have found Mr. Bronner's coverage to be scrupulously fair and we are confident that will continue to be the case."
Others disagree based on studies showing a history of Times misreporting on Israel/Palestine, besides on so much else. In fact, bias and distorted coverage defines how its correspondents and opinion writers do their job.
Calling it "scrupulously fair" is laughable on its face. It's also insulting to those affected.
A Final Comment
On September 23, Abbas will formally petition the UN for whatever he intends to propose. He'll address the General Assembly the same day.
So will Netanyahu after earlier saying Shimon Peres would represent him. Advisors warned him against it, saying not being there would show weakness and support what Palestinians want.
He claims he decided to go "to tell the truth before anyone who would like to hear it." In fact, he and truth are total strangers. He couldn't look it in the eye and see it.
Neither can Obama, those around him, and most in Congress, warning harsh measures if Palestinians pursue their rights.
"Make no mistake," said House Appropriations Committee member Steve Rothman (D. NJ), "I have no doubt that Congress will act swiftly and with an overwhelming majority to impose penalties...."
Besides cutting off funding, he may even have declaring war in mind. Why not with a legislative body packed with rogues. They're bipartisan criminals, backing imperial rampaging and wrecking America for their deep-pocketed funders.
They also support whatever Israel wants, including the right to reign terror on Palestine.
"The PA has little to gain and much to lose," added Rothman. Most Americans, in fact, gained nothing and lost everything under Republican and Democrat scoundrels, sacrificing them for their own self-interest.
Homeland justice depends on committed grassroots activism. It's true as well for Palestinians.
On September 23, Abbas plans to sell them out like so many previous times. Rothman and his bunch needn't worry.
Americans are on their own. So are Palestinians.
The struggle for liberating justice here and there continues.
With enough sustained commitment, maybe one day it'll show up.
For Palestinians, however, not on September 23. Abbas didn't book it passage on his New York flight.
Hopefully, he won't be warmly greeted when he returns.
Many there hope he's gone and won't come back.
That would be a big step forward, especially if his number two, Salam Fayyad, leaves with him.
Great victories come a baby step at a time.
Hopefully some are coming, but only people power ones matter most.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Follow-Up Comments on Palestinian Statehood Vote (In UN)- by Stephen Lendman
Follow-Up Comments on Palestinian Statehood Vote
by Stephen Lendman
Follow-Up Comments on Palestinian Statehood Vote - by Stephen Lendman
A previous article discussed the upcoming September UN General Assembly vote, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/08/general-assembly-palestinian-state
Explaining the legal issues, it said delaying what's long overdue is neither wise nor right for all Palestinians who deserve it.
Their supporters agree, including Law Professor Francis Boyle, former PLO legal advisor in drafting its 1988 Declaration of Independence.
In September, the General Assembly will vote on granting full statehood recognition and de jure UN membership, what only it can grant, not the Security Council. The above linked article explained.
However, Oxford University Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill prepared an opinion, claiming granting it will result in the PLO losing its status. In addition, he said, diaspora refugees will be disenfranchised, left unrepresented by the PLO through the Palestinian National Council (PNC).
His opinion titled, "The Palestine Liberation Organization, the future State of Palestine, and the question of popular representation" can be accessed through the following link:
http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/238962-final-pdf-plo-statehood-op
Boyle discounted his concerns, saying he built explicit safeguards into the 1988 Declaration of Independence he drafted "to make sure that his doomsday scenario does not materialize."
Having carefully read Goodwin-Gill's opinion, Boyle emailed the following comments:
My Dear Palestinian Friends:
Goodwin-Gill's analysis "is based upon most erroneous assumptions. But in a nutshell, in the 15 November 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence that was approved by the PNC representing all Palestinians all over the world, the Executive Committee of the PLO was set up as the Provisional Government for the State of Palestine—pursuant to my advice.
In addition, the Declaration of Independence also provides that all Palestinians living around the world automatically become citizens of the State of Palestine—pursuant to my advice.
So the Executive Committee of the PLO in its capacity as the Provisional Government for the State of Palestine will continue to represent the interests of all Palestinians around the world when Palestine becomes a UN Member State.
Hence all your rights will be preserved: for all Palestinians and for the PLO. No one will be disenfranchised. The PLO will not lose its status. This legal arrangement does not violate the Palestinian Charter, but was approved already by the PNC.
Unfortunately, this professor is not aware of all the legal and constitutional technicalities that were originally built into the Palestinian Declaration of Independence to make sure that his doomsday scenario does not materialize--at my advice.
All of your rights have been protected and will be protected by Palestine becoming a Member State of the United Nations, including the Right of Return.
Indeed, in the Memo I originally did for President Arafat and the PLO back in 1988, I explained how we could obtain UN Membership. All of the advice that I gave to President Arafat and the PLO in 1987 to 1989 was originally premised on the assumption that someday we would apply for UN Membership.
That day has come. Please move forward. I have been working for this Day since I first proposed UN Membership for Palestine along the lines of Namibia at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in June of 1987.
Palestine’s Application for UN Membership was my idea. When my Client and Dear Friend - the late, great Dr. Haidar Abdul Shaffi, Chair of the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Negotiations instructed me to draft the Palestinian counter-offer to the now defunct Oslo Agreement, he most solemnly told me: “Professor Boyle, we have decided to ask you to draft this Interim Peace Agreement for us. Do whatever you want! But do not sell out our right to our State!”
And I responded to Dr. Haidar: “Do not worry, Dr. Abdul Shaffi. As you know, I was the one who first called for the creation of the Palestinian State back at United Nations Headquarters in June of 1987, and then served as the Legal Adviser to the PLO on its creation. I will do nothing to harm it!”
As I promised Dr. Haidar, I (did) nothing to harm Palestine and the Palestinians."
As a result, if the General Assembly grants statehood and full de jure UN membership in September, the rights of all Palestinians worldwide will be preserved. Claiming otherwise is entirely false.
Francis A. Boyle
Professor of International Law
Legal Advisor to the PLO and H.E. Yasser Arafat on the Palestinian Declaration of Independence.
Legal Advisor to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle Peace Negotiations (1991-1993) and H.E. Dr. Haidar Abdul Shaffi
Author, Palestine, Palestinians and International Law (2003) and The Palestinian Right of Return under International Law (2011)
A Final Comment
On August 26, London Guardian writer Harriet Sherwood headlined, "Palestinian state could leave millions of refugees with no voice at UN," saying:
According to Law Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill, "(m)illions of Palestinian refugees outside the West Bank and Gaza could lose their representation at the UN if the Palestinian Authority succeeds in winning recognition of its state at the world body...."
Fact check
As the above article, the previous one linked, and Law Professor Francis Boyle's comments explain, Goodwin-Gill's analysis is entirely misguided and false. In fact, Boyle asserts:
"Guy's 'Opinion' is a shoddy disgrace. How much was he paid for this hit-job on Palestine? He should go back to his 'Chambers'!"
Very likely it's an underhanded effort to derail Palestinian statehood and full de jure UN membership in September. If so, Goodwin-Gill acted disreputably, losing all credibility in the process.
"The Palestinians bid to be accepted as a member state of the UN requires security council approval."
Fact check
False. Only the General Assembly can grant statehood and full de jure membership. If Washington uses its Security Council veto as threatened, the GA can circumvent it under the 1950 Uniting for Peace Resolution.
Someone perhaps paid Goodwin-Gill to produce misguided analysis to derail Palestinian statehood and full UN membership in September.
Guardian writer Sherwood regurgitated his opinion, omitting others able to refute him. Professor Boyle does it admirably. It deserves front page featuring in the Guardian, other leading broadsheets, and web sites supporting Palestinian rights.
This writer, Boyle, and many others forthrightly and honorably back them. So should everyone, including Guardian writers and Oxford law professors.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
by Stephen Lendman
Follow-Up Comments on Palestinian Statehood Vote - by Stephen Lendman
A previous article discussed the upcoming September UN General Assembly vote, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/08/general-assembly-palestinian-state
Explaining the legal issues, it said delaying what's long overdue is neither wise nor right for all Palestinians who deserve it.
Their supporters agree, including Law Professor Francis Boyle, former PLO legal advisor in drafting its 1988 Declaration of Independence.
In September, the General Assembly will vote on granting full statehood recognition and de jure UN membership, what only it can grant, not the Security Council. The above linked article explained.
However, Oxford University Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill prepared an opinion, claiming granting it will result in the PLO losing its status. In addition, he said, diaspora refugees will be disenfranchised, left unrepresented by the PLO through the Palestinian National Council (PNC).
His opinion titled, "The Palestine Liberation Organization, the future State of Palestine, and the question of popular representation" can be accessed through the following link:
http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/238962-final-pdf-plo-statehood-op
Boyle discounted his concerns, saying he built explicit safeguards into the 1988 Declaration of Independence he drafted "to make sure that his doomsday scenario does not materialize."
Having carefully read Goodwin-Gill's opinion, Boyle emailed the following comments:
My Dear Palestinian Friends:
Goodwin-Gill's analysis "is based upon most erroneous assumptions. But in a nutshell, in the 15 November 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence that was approved by the PNC representing all Palestinians all over the world, the Executive Committee of the PLO was set up as the Provisional Government for the State of Palestine—pursuant to my advice.
In addition, the Declaration of Independence also provides that all Palestinians living around the world automatically become citizens of the State of Palestine—pursuant to my advice.
So the Executive Committee of the PLO in its capacity as the Provisional Government for the State of Palestine will continue to represent the interests of all Palestinians around the world when Palestine becomes a UN Member State.
Hence all your rights will be preserved: for all Palestinians and for the PLO. No one will be disenfranchised. The PLO will not lose its status. This legal arrangement does not violate the Palestinian Charter, but was approved already by the PNC.
Unfortunately, this professor is not aware of all the legal and constitutional technicalities that were originally built into the Palestinian Declaration of Independence to make sure that his doomsday scenario does not materialize--at my advice.
All of your rights have been protected and will be protected by Palestine becoming a Member State of the United Nations, including the Right of Return.
Indeed, in the Memo I originally did for President Arafat and the PLO back in 1988, I explained how we could obtain UN Membership. All of the advice that I gave to President Arafat and the PLO in 1987 to 1989 was originally premised on the assumption that someday we would apply for UN Membership.
That day has come. Please move forward. I have been working for this Day since I first proposed UN Membership for Palestine along the lines of Namibia at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in June of 1987.
Palestine’s Application for UN Membership was my idea. When my Client and Dear Friend - the late, great Dr. Haidar Abdul Shaffi, Chair of the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Negotiations instructed me to draft the Palestinian counter-offer to the now defunct Oslo Agreement, he most solemnly told me: “Professor Boyle, we have decided to ask you to draft this Interim Peace Agreement for us. Do whatever you want! But do not sell out our right to our State!”
And I responded to Dr. Haidar: “Do not worry, Dr. Abdul Shaffi. As you know, I was the one who first called for the creation of the Palestinian State back at United Nations Headquarters in June of 1987, and then served as the Legal Adviser to the PLO on its creation. I will do nothing to harm it!”
As I promised Dr. Haidar, I (did) nothing to harm Palestine and the Palestinians."
As a result, if the General Assembly grants statehood and full de jure UN membership in September, the rights of all Palestinians worldwide will be preserved. Claiming otherwise is entirely false.
Francis A. Boyle
Professor of International Law
Legal Advisor to the PLO and H.E. Yasser Arafat on the Palestinian Declaration of Independence.
Legal Advisor to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle Peace Negotiations (1991-1993) and H.E. Dr. Haidar Abdul Shaffi
Author, Palestine, Palestinians and International Law (2003) and The Palestinian Right of Return under International Law (2011)
A Final Comment
On August 26, London Guardian writer Harriet Sherwood headlined, "Palestinian state could leave millions of refugees with no voice at UN," saying:
According to Law Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill, "(m)illions of Palestinian refugees outside the West Bank and Gaza could lose their representation at the UN if the Palestinian Authority succeeds in winning recognition of its state at the world body...."
Fact check
As the above article, the previous one linked, and Law Professor Francis Boyle's comments explain, Goodwin-Gill's analysis is entirely misguided and false. In fact, Boyle asserts:
"Guy's 'Opinion' is a shoddy disgrace. How much was he paid for this hit-job on Palestine? He should go back to his 'Chambers'!"
Very likely it's an underhanded effort to derail Palestinian statehood and full de jure UN membership in September. If so, Goodwin-Gill acted disreputably, losing all credibility in the process.
"The Palestinians bid to be accepted as a member state of the UN requires security council approval."
Fact check
False. Only the General Assembly can grant statehood and full de jure membership. If Washington uses its Security Council veto as threatened, the GA can circumvent it under the 1950 Uniting for Peace Resolution.
Someone perhaps paid Goodwin-Gill to produce misguided analysis to derail Palestinian statehood and full UN membership in September.
Guardian writer Sherwood regurgitated his opinion, omitting others able to refute him. Professor Boyle does it admirably. It deserves front page featuring in the Guardian, other leading broadsheets, and web sites supporting Palestinian rights.
This writer, Boyle, and many others forthrightly and honorably back them. So should everyone, including Guardian writers and Oxford law professors.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Freedom Flotilla II: Final Thoughts - by Stephen Lendman
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Freedom Flotilla II: Final Thoughts
Freedom Flotilla II: Final Thoughts - by Stephen Lendman
Palestinian analyst/advocate/author and former journalist Nadia Hijab is right, saying "(i)t was never about aid."
In her article titled, "Freedom Flotilla II: No to a Kinder, Gentler Siege," she said like earlier and new initiatives to come, it's "a political act" against Israel's illegal occupation/Gaza blockade - forced isolation, in fact, since 1988 "permit system" terrorism was instituted.
In 1991, closures began, "institutionalized" in 1993, then a 1994 electronic wall, and continued repression by lawless incursions, air attacks, home demolitions, targeted assassinations, mass arrests, daily intimidation, Cast Lead, and virtually anything Israel can dream up to collectively punish 1.6 million people, guilty of being Arabs, not Jews.
Flotillas and other humanitarian efforts aren't about delivering "goods," said Hijab. They're about freedom, self-determination, and ending Israel's lawless chokehold, violating international laws, norms and principles grievously for decades, complicit with rogue partners against justice, shamelessly supporting crimes of war and against humanity.
Blocked but not defeated, Freedom Flotilla II endorsers sent a July 10 open letter to European Commission President Joseo Manuel Barroso, saying in part:
"Squeezed between Scylla and Charybdid (twin evils), the zionist state of Israel and the 'democratic' Greece, our nutshell JULIANO with" European citizens from Sweden, Greece and Austria "on board still tries to (fulfill) its mission of peace and solidarity with the Palestinian people."
Is isolating them behind "prison-walls" your choice, or is "freedom of the seas....freedom of expression, and the mandate of peace the (EU) constitutional treaty prescribed you to fulfill?"
It's shameful that EU nations and other Quartet members bow subserviently to Israel, complicit with "its constant violations of Human Rights against the population of Palestine."
"Don't forget that history....always....punish(es) those who have allied themselves with the oppressors. In the name of the same (EU) democratic order," global peace, and justice you and others endorse, "we therefore demand:
OUR RIGHT TO SAIL FREE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA WHEREVER WE WANT!"
On behalf of JULIANO participants, signed:
Dr. Leo Gabriel
International Council of the World Social Forum
Maria Pia Boethius
Swedish writer
Jabar Amin
Member of Sweden's Parliament
Stellan Vinthagen
Swedish Professor of Sociology/Ship to Gaza participant
Takis Politis
Greek Professor/member of the Hellenic Federation of University Teachers Associations Executive Committee
Orestes Kolokouris
Greek Parliament member
America's Media Pro-Israeli Bias
Typical distorted Flotilla reports came from Ethan Bronner, New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief, exposing his pro-Israeli bias like on July 2 headlining, "Setting Sail on Gaza's Sea of Spin," saying:
Some saw "a parallel with the Exodus, (when) Jewish refugees (tried) to break" Britain's 1947 blockade. Others wondered why participants bring aid "when it is no longer needed." Bronner obviously knows nothing about Gaza, perhaps never visited, and for sure doesn't care.
"Still others," he said "note the way the Israeli authorities portray the organizers as violent Islamists when most are middle-aged European pacifists."
Correct, but not that "challenging Israel's blockade (reflects) something else, part of an unstated effort to recast the Israeli-Palestinian narrative in extreme terms, (bringing) out the public relations demons on all sides."
Bronner downplayed Israel's May 2010 massacre, claimed enough goods now enter Gaza, ignored the deplorable humanitarian crisis, and said if activists want to deliver aid, they "should take it to either Israel or Egypt and it will be delivered by truck. Sea access must remain blocked to prevent weapons smuggling."
In fact, Gaza is sovereign Palestine. So are its offshore waters. Israel's blockade is illegal. Every state may defend itself, especially against rogue aggressors like Israel, committing regular atrocities by land, sea and air.
Moreover, Flotilla activism isn't about aid. It's about liberation, what Bronner, and others like him, don't understand or support. Instead, he claims it's about "delegitimizing Israel and killing its soldiers."
Allegations like that and quoting Israel's public diplomacy minister, Yuli Edelstein, saying "representatives of different terror groups" joined the Flotilla make yellow journalism look good.
Nonetheless, he continued, regurgitating other spurious claims, exposing his intellectual dishonesty the way Times writers always do. As a result, they present one-sided pro-Israeli, pro-war, pro-imperial, pro-corporate, anti-justice reports, opinions and commentaries, mocking equity, justice, democratic values, and real journalism - siding with villains, not victims.
Israel v. Flytilla Activists
An Israeli no-fly list prevented 200 or more from arriving. Others came and were targeted repressively. On July 10, International Middle East Media Center writer Saed Bannoura headlined, "Israel Deports 36 Activists, 82 Still Detained," saying:
"Israeli Immigration spokeswoman Sabine Haddad" said 22 deported were Belgian, 13 German, and one Spanish, 82 others imprisoned in Beer Sheva, Al Ramla and Tel Aviv. Most are French. Others are American, Belgian, Spanish and Dutch.
They represent hundreds of "Welcome to Palestine" Campaign (WPC) activists, challenging Israel's illegal blockade and occupation. On July 10, WPC said:
"Israeli authorities set stringent conditions for release of (WPC) prisoners. (Most) are still incarcerated under brutal conditions," in Al Ramla and Beer Sheva detention centers.
"These friends of Palestine, among which there are minors and elderly persons with medical conditions, have been and are being mistreated and subjected to unnecessary brutality." As a result, they began a hunger strike, protesting their illegal arrest, detention and mistreatment.
On July 12, WPC said members illegally imprisoned may rightfully refuse deportation for the following reasons:
-- they'll illegally detained;
-- denying them entry to Israel is unjustified;
-- deportation will normalize it and "create a precedent by which the Israeli authorities are 'permitted' to decide on who has the right or not to come visit Palestine;"
-- WPC activists came to challenge Israeli lawlessness;
-- doing so keeps the issue alive; and
-- foreign governments and airlines should be pressured to explain and justify their complicity with Israeli crimes.
Arriving members were mistreated as follows:
"held together in one room and then attacked, forcefully handcuffed and dragged into separate transfer vehicles. They were then forcefully transferred to the (Al Ramla) detention facility....Lawyers have been trying to reach the Ministry of Interior to gain access to (them) to assure they receive their right to legal representation, to visits from their country consular staff, and to call their families."
Moreover, supportive Israelis were denied entrance to Ben-Gurion Airport. Each visitor was asked to confirm travel plans or name arriving passengers they wished to meet - checked against inbound passenger lists.
Those who circumvented security procedures "were immediately attacked even as they peacefully" awaited WPC arrivals. Six, in fact, were arrested.
"We urge (everyone) to write to the media, to their governments, and to all fellow human beings," saying: "enough is enough. Israel must be forced to respect basic human rights, allow free travel, (and) end apartheid and colonization."
Urgently, "Western governments must insist that Israeli authorities release those they kidnapped, afford them all protections due them, and punish officials who mistreated our guests."
The Free Gaza Movement and Palestinian Boycott National Committee (BNC) called for an "immediate embargo on Israel," saying:
"Freedom Flotilla II, and Israel's attempts to thwart it through outrageous acts of intimidation, lies, political pressure, threats of violence, and sabotage, has reminded the world (about) the criminal blockade on the Gaza Strip," violating fundamental international law.
Israel is a lawless rogue state. "In the name of freedom, equality, justice and peace," it must be held fully accountable, starting with a full embargo, followed perhaps by UN expulsion for violating its charter principles and dozens of resolutions.
A Final Comment
On July 12, US Boat to Gaza/Audacity of Hope participants Ann Wright and Regina Carey emailed that Greek authorities cut off electricity at 10AM Athens time, "leaving us with no power" in over 100 degree heat "inside the boat, and a Russian ship loading grain is spewing (it) and dust over the entire area."
Since blocked from sailing, remaining passengers have effectively been imprisoned. Six stayed on board to protect the boat from sabotage. Four are over 60.
The Papandreou government sold out to Israel and Washington, partnering with lawless criminal acts.
Wright, Carey and others demand the right to sail, asking supporters to call Greek embassies, consulates and Washington embassy at 202-939-1300. Flood their switchboards with righteous outrage. Let them know millions care.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
posted by Steve Lendman @ 12:56 AM
Freedom Flotilla II: Final Thoughts
Freedom Flotilla II: Final Thoughts - by Stephen Lendman
Palestinian analyst/advocate/author and former journalist Nadia Hijab is right, saying "(i)t was never about aid."
In her article titled, "Freedom Flotilla II: No to a Kinder, Gentler Siege," she said like earlier and new initiatives to come, it's "a political act" against Israel's illegal occupation/Gaza blockade - forced isolation, in fact, since 1988 "permit system" terrorism was instituted.
In 1991, closures began, "institutionalized" in 1993, then a 1994 electronic wall, and continued repression by lawless incursions, air attacks, home demolitions, targeted assassinations, mass arrests, daily intimidation, Cast Lead, and virtually anything Israel can dream up to collectively punish 1.6 million people, guilty of being Arabs, not Jews.
Flotillas and other humanitarian efforts aren't about delivering "goods," said Hijab. They're about freedom, self-determination, and ending Israel's lawless chokehold, violating international laws, norms and principles grievously for decades, complicit with rogue partners against justice, shamelessly supporting crimes of war and against humanity.
Blocked but not defeated, Freedom Flotilla II endorsers sent a July 10 open letter to European Commission President Joseo Manuel Barroso, saying in part:
"Squeezed between Scylla and Charybdid (twin evils), the zionist state of Israel and the 'democratic' Greece, our nutshell JULIANO with" European citizens from Sweden, Greece and Austria "on board still tries to (fulfill) its mission of peace and solidarity with the Palestinian people."
Is isolating them behind "prison-walls" your choice, or is "freedom of the seas....freedom of expression, and the mandate of peace the (EU) constitutional treaty prescribed you to fulfill?"
It's shameful that EU nations and other Quartet members bow subserviently to Israel, complicit with "its constant violations of Human Rights against the population of Palestine."
"Don't forget that history....always....punish(es) those who have allied themselves with the oppressors. In the name of the same (EU) democratic order," global peace, and justice you and others endorse, "we therefore demand:
OUR RIGHT TO SAIL FREE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA WHEREVER WE WANT!"
On behalf of JULIANO participants, signed:
Dr. Leo Gabriel
International Council of the World Social Forum
Maria Pia Boethius
Swedish writer
Jabar Amin
Member of Sweden's Parliament
Stellan Vinthagen
Swedish Professor of Sociology/Ship to Gaza participant
Takis Politis
Greek Professor/member of the Hellenic Federation of University Teachers Associations Executive Committee
Orestes Kolokouris
Greek Parliament member
America's Media Pro-Israeli Bias
Typical distorted Flotilla reports came from Ethan Bronner, New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief, exposing his pro-Israeli bias like on July 2 headlining, "Setting Sail on Gaza's Sea of Spin," saying:
Some saw "a parallel with the Exodus, (when) Jewish refugees (tried) to break" Britain's 1947 blockade. Others wondered why participants bring aid "when it is no longer needed." Bronner obviously knows nothing about Gaza, perhaps never visited, and for sure doesn't care.
"Still others," he said "note the way the Israeli authorities portray the organizers as violent Islamists when most are middle-aged European pacifists."
Correct, but not that "challenging Israel's blockade (reflects) something else, part of an unstated effort to recast the Israeli-Palestinian narrative in extreme terms, (bringing) out the public relations demons on all sides."
Bronner downplayed Israel's May 2010 massacre, claimed enough goods now enter Gaza, ignored the deplorable humanitarian crisis, and said if activists want to deliver aid, they "should take it to either Israel or Egypt and it will be delivered by truck. Sea access must remain blocked to prevent weapons smuggling."
In fact, Gaza is sovereign Palestine. So are its offshore waters. Israel's blockade is illegal. Every state may defend itself, especially against rogue aggressors like Israel, committing regular atrocities by land, sea and air.
Moreover, Flotilla activism isn't about aid. It's about liberation, what Bronner, and others like him, don't understand or support. Instead, he claims it's about "delegitimizing Israel and killing its soldiers."
Allegations like that and quoting Israel's public diplomacy minister, Yuli Edelstein, saying "representatives of different terror groups" joined the Flotilla make yellow journalism look good.
Nonetheless, he continued, regurgitating other spurious claims, exposing his intellectual dishonesty the way Times writers always do. As a result, they present one-sided pro-Israeli, pro-war, pro-imperial, pro-corporate, anti-justice reports, opinions and commentaries, mocking equity, justice, democratic values, and real journalism - siding with villains, not victims.
Israel v. Flytilla Activists
An Israeli no-fly list prevented 200 or more from arriving. Others came and were targeted repressively. On July 10, International Middle East Media Center writer Saed Bannoura headlined, "Israel Deports 36 Activists, 82 Still Detained," saying:
"Israeli Immigration spokeswoman Sabine Haddad" said 22 deported were Belgian, 13 German, and one Spanish, 82 others imprisoned in Beer Sheva, Al Ramla and Tel Aviv. Most are French. Others are American, Belgian, Spanish and Dutch.
They represent hundreds of "Welcome to Palestine" Campaign (WPC) activists, challenging Israel's illegal blockade and occupation. On July 10, WPC said:
"Israeli authorities set stringent conditions for release of (WPC) prisoners. (Most) are still incarcerated under brutal conditions," in Al Ramla and Beer Sheva detention centers.
"These friends of Palestine, among which there are minors and elderly persons with medical conditions, have been and are being mistreated and subjected to unnecessary brutality." As a result, they began a hunger strike, protesting their illegal arrest, detention and mistreatment.
On July 12, WPC said members illegally imprisoned may rightfully refuse deportation for the following reasons:
-- they'll illegally detained;
-- denying them entry to Israel is unjustified;
-- deportation will normalize it and "create a precedent by which the Israeli authorities are 'permitted' to decide on who has the right or not to come visit Palestine;"
-- WPC activists came to challenge Israeli lawlessness;
-- doing so keeps the issue alive; and
-- foreign governments and airlines should be pressured to explain and justify their complicity with Israeli crimes.
Arriving members were mistreated as follows:
"held together in one room and then attacked, forcefully handcuffed and dragged into separate transfer vehicles. They were then forcefully transferred to the (Al Ramla) detention facility....Lawyers have been trying to reach the Ministry of Interior to gain access to (them) to assure they receive their right to legal representation, to visits from their country consular staff, and to call their families."
Moreover, supportive Israelis were denied entrance to Ben-Gurion Airport. Each visitor was asked to confirm travel plans or name arriving passengers they wished to meet - checked against inbound passenger lists.
Those who circumvented security procedures "were immediately attacked even as they peacefully" awaited WPC arrivals. Six, in fact, were arrested.
"We urge (everyone) to write to the media, to their governments, and to all fellow human beings," saying: "enough is enough. Israel must be forced to respect basic human rights, allow free travel, (and) end apartheid and colonization."
Urgently, "Western governments must insist that Israeli authorities release those they kidnapped, afford them all protections due them, and punish officials who mistreated our guests."
The Free Gaza Movement and Palestinian Boycott National Committee (BNC) called for an "immediate embargo on Israel," saying:
"Freedom Flotilla II, and Israel's attempts to thwart it through outrageous acts of intimidation, lies, political pressure, threats of violence, and sabotage, has reminded the world (about) the criminal blockade on the Gaza Strip," violating fundamental international law.
Israel is a lawless rogue state. "In the name of freedom, equality, justice and peace," it must be held fully accountable, starting with a full embargo, followed perhaps by UN expulsion for violating its charter principles and dozens of resolutions.
A Final Comment
On July 12, US Boat to Gaza/Audacity of Hope participants Ann Wright and Regina Carey emailed that Greek authorities cut off electricity at 10AM Athens time, "leaving us with no power" in over 100 degree heat "inside the boat, and a Russian ship loading grain is spewing (it) and dust over the entire area."
Since blocked from sailing, remaining passengers have effectively been imprisoned. Six stayed on board to protect the boat from sabotage. Four are over 60.
The Papandreou government sold out to Israel and Washington, partnering with lawless criminal acts.
Wright, Carey and others demand the right to sail, asking supporters to call Greek embassies, consulates and Washington embassy at 202-939-1300. Flood their switchboards with righteous outrage. Let them know millions care.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
posted by Steve Lendman @ 12:56 AM
Sunday, July 03, 2011
From The Veterans For Peace Website- Veterans For Peace Supports the Audacity of Hope, Condemns Israeli Naval Blockade
June 30, 2011
Veterans For Peace Supports the Audacity of Hope, Condemns Israeli Naval Blockade
This week, five members of Veterans For Peace are joining 40 other American citizens in a peaceful attempt to break Israel's illegal naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. The U.S. ship Audacity of Hope will be part of a flotilla expected to consist of 10 boats carrying human rights advocates from around the world and humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza.
VFP members, retired Colonel Ann Wright; former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern; retired Marine Corps Major, Ken Mayers; Nic Abramson and Hedy Epstein, an Honorary VFP member and 87 year-old Holocaust survivor. Other U.S. passengers include Alice Walker, and two time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Kathy Kelly. About 25% of the passengers are Jewish.
The U.S. ship will bring over 3,000 letters of support to a population suffering its fifth continuous decade of de facto occupation, now in the form of a military blockade controlling Gaza's sea and sky, punctuated by frequent deadly military incursions, that has starved Gaza's economy and people.
Although the Audacity of Hope will be sailing unarmed and has no intention of entering Israel or Israeli waters, the U.S. State Department has issued an unusually specific and blunt travel advisory, warning Americans against traveling to Gaza. Without giving any details, State Department officials also suggested that Americans taking part in the flotilla might be violating U.S. law.
HILLARY CLINTON GIVES GREEN LIGHT FOR ISRAELI ASSAULT ON FLOTILLA
The next day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused flotilla organizers of trying to "provoke actions," claiming erroneously that they were going to enter Israeli waters. Clinton said that "the Israelis have the right to defend themselves," implying they can violently attack the boats with U.S. government permission. This is inexcusable and a total betrayal of her duty to protect law abiding American citizens.
Last year the international flotilla to Gaza was brutally attacked by Israeli commandos, murdering nine Turkish activists, one of whom was also an U.S. citizen. Flotilla passengers were also attacked with water cannons, taser guns, stink bombs, sound bombs, stun guns, tear gas, and pepper spray, before being taken to Israel, jailed and deported.
Israel Defense Forces are reportedly training for a fierce assault intended to "secure" each boat in the Freedom Flotilla 2. U.S. organizer Kathy Kelly believes that passengers on the U.S. boat may be spared the most violent responses. But with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton giving Israel the green light for an assault, Kelly said, "We are preparing ourselves not to panic and to practice disciplined nonviolence whatever scenario Israel decides to enact."
The slogan of the flotilla is "Stay Human," advice which Kelly says, "exposure to violence, real or imagined, always tempts us to forget."
The Audacity of Hope was inspected by Greek officials on Monday, June 27 after a complaint was lodged by an Israeli group that the vessel was not seaworthy. Organizers of the Gaza flotilla accused Israel of pressuring Greece to halt the ships' departure.
Colonel Ann Wright told a news conference that Israel is mounting a "tremendous diplomatic offensive" to prevent the flotilla from setting sail. Organizers urged the Greek government not to "become complicit in Israel's illegal actions by succumbing to this pressure."
ISRAEL AND U.S. RATCHET UP PRESSURE
According to Kate Wickman at Raw Story, Israeli officials have threatened to punish activists who plan to set sail from Greece to Gaza, with the aim of breaking the Israeli embargo on the Palestinian territory. Journalists, the Israeli officials say, will also be punished if they choose to cover the activists' mission, the Christian Science Monitor reported.
Journalists who cover the flotilla's attempt to reach the Gaza strip will be denied entry to the country for 10 year, The National reported. The government press office released a statement that called the pro-Palestinian activists' actions "a dangerous provocation" and an "international violation of Israeli law."
Israel's Foreign Press Association, however, issued a statement calling the government threats "a chilling message to the international media and raises serious questions about Israel's commitment to freedom of the press".
Flotilla organizers now say that two of their ships have been intentionally damaged by unknown saboteurs.
Ratcheting up the pressure, Israeli defense officials have claimed that flotilla members are armed with chemical weapons (bags of sulphur) to use against Israeli soldiers. But other Israeli military sources have disputed this claim, dismissing it as "spin."
"This is truly a shameful and desperate tactic on the part of the Israeli government. They know full well that the passengers have no intention of being anything but peaceful," said passenger Paki Wieland.
In the latest outrage, Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., says the United States should "make available all necessary special operations and naval support to the Israeli Navy to effectively disable flotilla vessels before they can pose a threat to Israeli coastal security or put Israeli lives at risk."
Clearly, the 40 brave representatives of the U.S. people on the Audacity of Hope are up against huge opposition from powerful, dark forces. They very much need and deserve the support of all who believe in peace and justice.
VETERANS FOR PEACE IS PROUD TO SUPPORT THE AUDACITY OF HOPE.
We call upon the U.S. government to take the necessary steps to guarantee the safety of all the activists on the Free Gaza Flotilla. We call upon all VFP chapters and members to act now to ensure the safety of our fellow activists and members, and to help them to successfully complete their mission to bring comfort to the people of Gaza and to end the illegal Israeli blockade. See the list of suggested actions, below.
THE ISRAELI BLOCKADE OF GAZA IS ILLEGAL UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW
Four years ago Israel imposed a draconian blockade on Gaza, effecting a paralysis of commerce and severe shortages of basic foods. The result has been deprivation and death to innocent people. This blockade was imposed, in the words of Israel's leaders, to "put Gaza on a diet" as a punitive action for Palestinian's electing Hamas to power.
Foreign Policy Magazine compiled a large volume of information from reports issued by the United Nations and various NGOs working in Gaza. Just a few highlights:
Electricity: In 2006, Israel carried out an attack on Gaza's only power plant and never permitted the rebuilding to its pre-attack capacity.... The majority of houses have power cuts at least eight hours per day. Some have no electricity for long as 12 hours a day. The lack of electricity has led to reliance on generators, many of which have exploded from overwork, killing and maiming civilians.
Water: Israel has not permitted supplies into the Gaza Strip to rebuild the sewage system. Amnesty International reports that 90-95 percent of the drinking water in Gaza is contaminated and unfit for consumption.
Health: According to UN OCHA, infrastructure for 15 of 27 of Gaza's hospitals, 43 of 110 of its primary care facilities, and 29 of its 148 ambulances were damaged or destroyed during the war. Without rebuilding materials like cement and glass due to Israeli restrictions, the vast majority of the destroyed health infrastructure has not been rebuilt.
Food: A 2010 World Health Organization report stated that "chronic malnutrition in the Gaza Strip has risen over the past few years and has now reached 10.2%. ... According to UN OCHA: "Over 60 percent of households are now food insecure ...
Industry: A World Health Organization report from this year states: "In the Gaza Strip, private enterprise is practically at a standstill as a consequence of the blockade. Almost all (98%) industrial operations have been shut down.
A blockade that restricts the local population's access to vital goods violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, which specifies that an occupying force has a legally binding duty to protect an occupied population. Moreover, collective punishment is specifically barred under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Veterans for Peace condemns this inhumane blockade of Gaza and demands that the U.S. government end its support for Israel's illegal assault on Palestinian human rights and self-determination.
U.S. WEAPONS WERE USED IN ISRAELI COMMANDO ASSAULT ON FIRST FREE GAZA FLOTILLA
U.S. weapons provided with U.S. taxpayer money were used in the Israeli commando attack, which violates our Arms Export Control Act prohibiting use of American weapons against civilians. These included boats, helicopters and probable murder weapons used, made by ten U.S. companies:
The Sa'ar 5-class corvette warship built by Northrup Grumman, armed with Honeywell torpedoes and surface-to- surface missiles made by McDonnell Douglas
Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters that dropped the commandoes
Morena Rigid-Hull Inflatable Boats made by U.S.M.I. Louisiana with Caterpillar 3126 turbocharged diesel engines
US M4 Carbine Rifles, a magazine-fed, selective fire, shoulder-fired weapon made by Colt
Hellfire SSM laser-guided missiles made by Boeing
Raytheon radar systems
MK13 Stun Grenades made by American Rheinmetall
AS AMERICAN CITIZENS AND U.S. MILITARY VETERANS, WE REPUDIATE U.S. COMPLICITY IN THESE CRIMES.
WE DEMAND AN END TO U.S. MILITARY AID TO ISRAEL.
WE DEMAND AN END TO ISRAEL'S ILLEGAL BLOCKADE OF GAZA.
WE DEMAND JUSTICE FOR THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE.
WE DEMAND SAFE PASSAGE FOR THE FREE GAZA FLOTILLA
Veterans For Peace Supports the Audacity of Hope, Condemns Israeli Naval Blockade
This week, five members of Veterans For Peace are joining 40 other American citizens in a peaceful attempt to break Israel's illegal naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. The U.S. ship Audacity of Hope will be part of a flotilla expected to consist of 10 boats carrying human rights advocates from around the world and humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza.
VFP members, retired Colonel Ann Wright; former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern; retired Marine Corps Major, Ken Mayers; Nic Abramson and Hedy Epstein, an Honorary VFP member and 87 year-old Holocaust survivor. Other U.S. passengers include Alice Walker, and two time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Kathy Kelly. About 25% of the passengers are Jewish.
The U.S. ship will bring over 3,000 letters of support to a population suffering its fifth continuous decade of de facto occupation, now in the form of a military blockade controlling Gaza's sea and sky, punctuated by frequent deadly military incursions, that has starved Gaza's economy and people.
Although the Audacity of Hope will be sailing unarmed and has no intention of entering Israel or Israeli waters, the U.S. State Department has issued an unusually specific and blunt travel advisory, warning Americans against traveling to Gaza. Without giving any details, State Department officials also suggested that Americans taking part in the flotilla might be violating U.S. law.
HILLARY CLINTON GIVES GREEN LIGHT FOR ISRAELI ASSAULT ON FLOTILLA
The next day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused flotilla organizers of trying to "provoke actions," claiming erroneously that they were going to enter Israeli waters. Clinton said that "the Israelis have the right to defend themselves," implying they can violently attack the boats with U.S. government permission. This is inexcusable and a total betrayal of her duty to protect law abiding American citizens.
Last year the international flotilla to Gaza was brutally attacked by Israeli commandos, murdering nine Turkish activists, one of whom was also an U.S. citizen. Flotilla passengers were also attacked with water cannons, taser guns, stink bombs, sound bombs, stun guns, tear gas, and pepper spray, before being taken to Israel, jailed and deported.
Israel Defense Forces are reportedly training for a fierce assault intended to "secure" each boat in the Freedom Flotilla 2. U.S. organizer Kathy Kelly believes that passengers on the U.S. boat may be spared the most violent responses. But with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton giving Israel the green light for an assault, Kelly said, "We are preparing ourselves not to panic and to practice disciplined nonviolence whatever scenario Israel decides to enact."
The slogan of the flotilla is "Stay Human," advice which Kelly says, "exposure to violence, real or imagined, always tempts us to forget."
The Audacity of Hope was inspected by Greek officials on Monday, June 27 after a complaint was lodged by an Israeli group that the vessel was not seaworthy. Organizers of the Gaza flotilla accused Israel of pressuring Greece to halt the ships' departure.
Colonel Ann Wright told a news conference that Israel is mounting a "tremendous diplomatic offensive" to prevent the flotilla from setting sail. Organizers urged the Greek government not to "become complicit in Israel's illegal actions by succumbing to this pressure."
ISRAEL AND U.S. RATCHET UP PRESSURE
According to Kate Wickman at Raw Story, Israeli officials have threatened to punish activists who plan to set sail from Greece to Gaza, with the aim of breaking the Israeli embargo on the Palestinian territory. Journalists, the Israeli officials say, will also be punished if they choose to cover the activists' mission, the Christian Science Monitor reported.
Journalists who cover the flotilla's attempt to reach the Gaza strip will be denied entry to the country for 10 year, The National reported. The government press office released a statement that called the pro-Palestinian activists' actions "a dangerous provocation" and an "international violation of Israeli law."
Israel's Foreign Press Association, however, issued a statement calling the government threats "a chilling message to the international media and raises serious questions about Israel's commitment to freedom of the press".
Flotilla organizers now say that two of their ships have been intentionally damaged by unknown saboteurs.
Ratcheting up the pressure, Israeli defense officials have claimed that flotilla members are armed with chemical weapons (bags of sulphur) to use against Israeli soldiers. But other Israeli military sources have disputed this claim, dismissing it as "spin."
"This is truly a shameful and desperate tactic on the part of the Israeli government. They know full well that the passengers have no intention of being anything but peaceful," said passenger Paki Wieland.
In the latest outrage, Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., says the United States should "make available all necessary special operations and naval support to the Israeli Navy to effectively disable flotilla vessels before they can pose a threat to Israeli coastal security or put Israeli lives at risk."
Clearly, the 40 brave representatives of the U.S. people on the Audacity of Hope are up against huge opposition from powerful, dark forces. They very much need and deserve the support of all who believe in peace and justice.
VETERANS FOR PEACE IS PROUD TO SUPPORT THE AUDACITY OF HOPE.
We call upon the U.S. government to take the necessary steps to guarantee the safety of all the activists on the Free Gaza Flotilla. We call upon all VFP chapters and members to act now to ensure the safety of our fellow activists and members, and to help them to successfully complete their mission to bring comfort to the people of Gaza and to end the illegal Israeli blockade. See the list of suggested actions, below.
THE ISRAELI BLOCKADE OF GAZA IS ILLEGAL UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW
Four years ago Israel imposed a draconian blockade on Gaza, effecting a paralysis of commerce and severe shortages of basic foods. The result has been deprivation and death to innocent people. This blockade was imposed, in the words of Israel's leaders, to "put Gaza on a diet" as a punitive action for Palestinian's electing Hamas to power.
Foreign Policy Magazine compiled a large volume of information from reports issued by the United Nations and various NGOs working in Gaza. Just a few highlights:
Electricity: In 2006, Israel carried out an attack on Gaza's only power plant and never permitted the rebuilding to its pre-attack capacity.... The majority of houses have power cuts at least eight hours per day. Some have no electricity for long as 12 hours a day. The lack of electricity has led to reliance on generators, many of which have exploded from overwork, killing and maiming civilians.
Water: Israel has not permitted supplies into the Gaza Strip to rebuild the sewage system. Amnesty International reports that 90-95 percent of the drinking water in Gaza is contaminated and unfit for consumption.
Health: According to UN OCHA, infrastructure for 15 of 27 of Gaza's hospitals, 43 of 110 of its primary care facilities, and 29 of its 148 ambulances were damaged or destroyed during the war. Without rebuilding materials like cement and glass due to Israeli restrictions, the vast majority of the destroyed health infrastructure has not been rebuilt.
Food: A 2010 World Health Organization report stated that "chronic malnutrition in the Gaza Strip has risen over the past few years and has now reached 10.2%. ... According to UN OCHA: "Over 60 percent of households are now food insecure ...
Industry: A World Health Organization report from this year states: "In the Gaza Strip, private enterprise is practically at a standstill as a consequence of the blockade. Almost all (98%) industrial operations have been shut down.
A blockade that restricts the local population's access to vital goods violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, which specifies that an occupying force has a legally binding duty to protect an occupied population. Moreover, collective punishment is specifically barred under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Veterans for Peace condemns this inhumane blockade of Gaza and demands that the U.S. government end its support for Israel's illegal assault on Palestinian human rights and self-determination.
U.S. WEAPONS WERE USED IN ISRAELI COMMANDO ASSAULT ON FIRST FREE GAZA FLOTILLA
U.S. weapons provided with U.S. taxpayer money were used in the Israeli commando attack, which violates our Arms Export Control Act prohibiting use of American weapons against civilians. These included boats, helicopters and probable murder weapons used, made by ten U.S. companies:
The Sa'ar 5-class corvette warship built by Northrup Grumman, armed with Honeywell torpedoes and surface-to- surface missiles made by McDonnell Douglas
Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters that dropped the commandoes
Morena Rigid-Hull Inflatable Boats made by U.S.M.I. Louisiana with Caterpillar 3126 turbocharged diesel engines
US M4 Carbine Rifles, a magazine-fed, selective fire, shoulder-fired weapon made by Colt
Hellfire SSM laser-guided missiles made by Boeing
Raytheon radar systems
MK13 Stun Grenades made by American Rheinmetall
AS AMERICAN CITIZENS AND U.S. MILITARY VETERANS, WE REPUDIATE U.S. COMPLICITY IN THESE CRIMES.
WE DEMAND AN END TO U.S. MILITARY AID TO ISRAEL.
WE DEMAND AN END TO ISRAEL'S ILLEGAL BLOCKADE OF GAZA.
WE DEMAND JUSTICE FOR THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE.
WE DEMAND SAFE PASSAGE FOR THE FREE GAZA FLOTILLA
From The United National Anti-War Committee- Statement In Support Of The Gaza Flotilla
The United National Antiwar Committee calls for the resignation of Secretary of State Clinton because of her statement saying that Israel could use violence against a humanitarian flotilla of boats, including one U.S. flagged ship that is trying to reach the GazaStrip. Also, a report from UNAC steering committee member, Kathy Kelly, who will be on the boat, follows the UNAC statement.
Secretary of State Clinton stated that in response to the humanitarian and totally peaceful mission of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla II, “the Israelis have the right to defend themselves”, implying they can violently attack the boats with U.S. government permission. She has given approval for an attack by a foreign power on a U.S. flagged boat carrying nearly40 Americans who are on a completely legal and admirable mission. This is inexcusable and a total betrayal of her duty to protect law abiding American citizens.
The United National Antiwar Committee, which is a coalition whose last convention had nearly 800 participants, condemns Clinton’s statement, and calls for her resignation as Secretary of State. We call for a clear statement by the Obama Administration that it will not tolerate any Israeli interference in the Freedom Flotilla voyage to the Gaza Strip.
Washington has also threatened to use "material support to terrorism" laws against boat participants-- the same laws which have been used to criminalize the totally legal and peaceful antiwar, solidarity and humanitarian activities of the 23 FBI/grand jury targets in the Midwest, and hundreds of others, mostly Muslim/Arab/South Asian."
At a recent meeting of the UNAC leadership, the organization voted unanimously to support the Freedom Flotilla and called for major demonstrations in the event the boat was attacked.
The U.S. Boat to Gaza website is www.ustogaza.org
END THE SIEGE OF GAZA!
NO US AID TO ISRAEL!
END THE OCCUPATION! SUPPORT THE RIGHT OF RETURN!
SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE PALESTINIANS
Secretary of State Clinton stated that in response to the humanitarian and totally peaceful mission of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla II, “the Israelis have the right to defend themselves”, implying they can violently attack the boats with U.S. government permission. She has given approval for an attack by a foreign power on a U.S. flagged boat carrying nearly40 Americans who are on a completely legal and admirable mission. This is inexcusable and a total betrayal of her duty to protect law abiding American citizens.
The United National Antiwar Committee, which is a coalition whose last convention had nearly 800 participants, condemns Clinton’s statement, and calls for her resignation as Secretary of State. We call for a clear statement by the Obama Administration that it will not tolerate any Israeli interference in the Freedom Flotilla voyage to the Gaza Strip.
Washington has also threatened to use "material support to terrorism" laws against boat participants-- the same laws which have been used to criminalize the totally legal and peaceful antiwar, solidarity and humanitarian activities of the 23 FBI/grand jury targets in the Midwest, and hundreds of others, mostly Muslim/Arab/South Asian."
At a recent meeting of the UNAC leadership, the organization voted unanimously to support the Freedom Flotilla and called for major demonstrations in the event the boat was attacked.
The U.S. Boat to Gaza website is www.ustogaza.org
END THE SIEGE OF GAZA!
NO US AID TO ISRAEL!
END THE OCCUPATION! SUPPORT THE RIGHT OF RETURN!
SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE PALESTINIANS
Israeli Freedom Flotilla II Terrorism - by Stephen Lendman
Sunday, July 03, 2011
Israeli Freedom Flotilla II Terrorism
Israeli Freedom Flotilla II Terrorism - by Stephen Lendman
Daily, Israel keeps proving its lawless rogue credentials, notably by blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza. As a result, it finds new ways to show contempt for human rights, rule of law standards, civility, fundamental Judaic tenets, and its very legitimacy as a nation state, established by mass slaughter and displacement of indigenous Palestinians from their homeland.
Today, its war against humanity dirty tricks/state terrorism arsenal includes propaganda, intimidating lawsuits, pressure on other governments, sabotage, subversion, cold-blodded murder, and whatever else it takes to ruthlessly commit slow-motion genocide against nearly 1.7 million Gazans, besides daily crimes against others in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
No wonder growing numbers of fed up Jews are leaving, voting with their feet, including studies showing half or more there actively consider it, and why not.
Israel is an armed camp, a warrior state, a modern-day Sparta, institutionalizing militarism as a way of life. Young children are taught this ideology in school, including to hate, not respect non-Jews, especially Muslims as violent enemies and human rights activists supporting them.
Freedom Flotilla II participants are among them - vilified, sabotaged, delayed, and now blocked from departing by Greece's complicit rogue government, after agreeing to surrender its sovereignty to Western bankers despite mass street protests against it.
In fact, Greece's Washington embassy published an "Announcement on the Flotilla," accessed through the following link:
http://www.mfa.gr/www.mfa.gr/AuthoritiesAbroad/North+America/USA/EmbassyWashington/Articles/en-US/Announcement+on+the+Flotilla.htm
In part it says:
"Prohibition of the departure of ships with Greek and foreign flags from Greek ports to the maritime area of Gaza today."
In other words, Gaza-bound ships in Greek ports are prohibited from sailing because Israel and Washington demand it - a clear international law violation.
Moreover, "all appropriate measures are taken for the implementation of the said decision....Furthermore, the broader maritime area of eastern Mediterranean will be continuously monitored by electronic means for tracking, where applicable, the movements of the ships allegedly participating in such campaign."
On July 1, the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) headlined, "Greek cabinet votes to stop Flotilla as US Boat to Gaza forced back to port," saying:
Its planned departure already delayed over a week, "the US Boat to Gaza decided Friday to challenge" Greece's government by leaving Athens without permission. However, before reaching international waters, Greek Coast Guard vessels forced it back to port and arrested its captain for leaving port without permission, disturbing sea traffic, and endangering the lives of his passengers. In other words, when no legitimate charges exist, rogue authorities invent them.
Moreover, Greek officials told Canadian boat participants that "the Office of the President has demanded the seizure of their boat." At the same time, Greece's cabinet voted to keep participating boats from leaving, succumbing to Washington and Israeli pressure to block them.
Free Gaza Movement (FGM) founder Greta Berlin issued a statement, saying: "Israel is doing its very, very best to make sure we don't get out of port," stooping to any depth to do it with help from its Washington paymaster partner, equally contemptuous of human rights and rule of law standards.
In fact, Obama provides daily proof of his out-of-control lawlessness, showing perhaps he's America's worst ever president, a hard-earned distinction given challenging competition for top honors.
Regularly, however, he's outdistancing the pack, including his rogue predecessor, multiplying his wars by three, continuing his criminal policies, and adding new ones of his own.
Possible US/Israeli Sabotage
Suspicions are that US Navy Seals and/or Israeli Syayetet 13 commandos sabotaged one boat for Greek, Norwegian and Swedish passengers by cutting off its propeller shaft, and disabled an Irish one altogether in Gocek, Turkey (MV Saoirse), forcing it to abandon its mission but not its determination to try again.
Why not despite Senator Mark Kirk's (R. IL) early June statement saying America should:
"should make available all necessary special operation and naval support to the Israeli Navy to effectively disable flotilla vessels before they can pose a threat to Israeli coastal security or put Israeli lives at risk."
In a free democratic country, those remarks would minimally get him censured, vilified and disgraced. in fact, he should be banned from government service and prosecuted for supporting sabotage and harm to humanitarian passengers, punishing him for supporting crimes against humanity and perhaps war.
However, he's not alone. Besides Obama, Clinton and other administration rogues, as well as legions of them in Congress, Texas Gov. Rick Perry asked Attorney General Eric Holder to take legal steps to stop US participants and prosecute them if they refuse. Perry, in fact, is a right-wing extremist with presidential ambitions, hoping to do to America what he's done to Texas, governing it like George Bush.
IMEMC also headlined another July 1 article, "Free Flotilla activists: 'Gaza blockade has been extended to Greece,' " saying:
Two boats were sabotaged, one disabled, another forced back to port after sailing, and Greek police boarded the Canadian vessel (the Tahrir), blocking its departure, making Greece complicit in Israeli/Washington crimes against humanity, what their street brutality does daily against angry citizen activism.
At first, "port authorities (tried) to take the Tahrir's official transit logs (required for sailing)." However, passengers balked, demanding an explanation why. "When authorities (got) photocopies," they lost interest in the originals. According to organizing committee member Irene McInnes:
"The government of Israel, shamefully with the tacit support of (Canada's) Harper government (a willing co-conspirator), is doing everything in its power to maintain the blockade. Yet we will persevere in our attempts," no matter what rogue governments do.
"We have a legal and moral obligation to challenge the blockade, given the failure of the international community to act," said committee member Dylan Penner. "This is why we must continue our attempts to sail to Gaza: to challenge the illegal and immoral blockade," and Canada's criminal support along with America's and Israel's.
They may win the battle. They've already lost the war, creating a worldwide cause celebre, shaming them for denying humanitarian justice. If Flotilla II vessels reach Gaza, it'll be a bonus, what criminal governments are too blind to see.
According to Reuters on July 1, Flotilla vessels will sail next week, "a spokeswoman said on Friday," adding:
"We want to move the boats by July 5 to get to our rendezvous point no later than July 6 or 7....We will go with what we have," hoping to defeat dirty tricks trying to stop them, including by suing to be allowed to sail.
Netanyahu and other Israeli officials call the mission "provocative." They lied, an Israeli specialty, disgracefully replicated by Washington, Canada, Greece, and other complicit governments, shooting themselves in the foot in the process.
In spite of determined efforts to stop them, activists hope to sail anyway. Perhaps Greece's Coast Guard will use "gunboat diplomacy" or worse to stop them, violating international law brazenly like rogue pirates, complicit with Israel and Washington ready to deploy commando killers against unarmed humanitarian activists.
US Boat/Audacity of Hope lead organizer Col. Ann Wright (a former State Department official who protested the Iraq war by resigning) said:
"We could see the handwriting on the wall, that they were going to try to shut down all the ports across the Mediterranean." As for Greece, she added: "It's not surprising (they) succumbed to the pressure," but lost what's left from its soul in the process, destroying its remaining credentials as democracy's birthplace.
After more a week blocked in Greek ports, every ship still can't sail, showing how far its government will violate international law for Israeli and Washington criminals.
On June 30, Netanyahu thanked Prime Minister Papandreou and other world leaders for acting "against the provocation flotilla."
On July 1, IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich claimed Tarek Hamud, son-in-law of Khaled Mashal (Hamas' Damascus-based head) was a leading Flotilla organizer when, in fact, participants say they never heard of him.
Nonetheless, an agitprop Israeli press release said:
"According to Israeli military intelligence, the terrorist organization Hamas and several organizations behind the 2011 Gaza flotilla have similar funding sources. Three Islamic charity funds from the Hamas-affiliated Charity Coalition directly fund Hamas and some of the organizations connected to the 2011 Gaza flotilla."
With no corroborating evidence whatever, the statement is a bald faced lie, common Israeli/Washington fabrications to support their terror tactics.
In fact, Hamas spokesman Izzat al-Risheq emphatically said Hamud "has nothing to do with the flotilla in any way. He is in his house right now in Damascus. This is a lie by the Israeli Army aimed at getting people to oppose this humane mission."
The Flotilla, of course, has nothing to do with Hamas. Like earlier missions and others to come, it's about breaching Gaza's siege as a first step to ending it and liberating Palestine altogether. Because of growing support worldwide, sooner or later it's coming.
A Final Comment
At the same time Israel suffocates Gazans and blocks vital humanitarian aid, Obama's war on terror lawlessness persecutes innocent Muslims at home, prosecuting them for crimes they never conceived or committed.
An earlier article discussed entrapping innocent Muslims, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/06/entrapping-innocent-muslims.html
Another discussed the Newburgh 4, accessed through the link below:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/08/no-letup-in-political-witch-hunts-under.html
Every case involves manufacturing homegrown threats to incite fear as justification to wage global wars against nonbelligerent countries, posing no threat to America or their neighbors.
On May 20, 2009, four New York men were bogusly charged with planning to bomb a Bronx synagogue and community center, as well as implausibly shoot down Air National Guard jets with stinger missiles. Prosecutions and convictions followed.
Then on June 29, the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said three of the four got 25 year sentences even though there was no plot or crime. The fourth defendant will be sentenced later.
At issue was lawless entrapment, involving an FBI sting against unwitting victims - in this case, four poor black Newburgh, New York men who converted to Islam, two while in prison for unrelated minor offenses.
A Pakistani man named Shahed Hussain (aka Malik) was a paid FBI informant, facing prison and/or deportation on dozens of fraud counts. In return for leniency, he was enlisted to cooperate and well paid for his efforts.
He's the same man used earlier for four separate stings, Yassin Aref among them, another innocent man, entrapped and victimized, now serving a 15 year prison term unjustly.
In post-9/11 America, they're among many Muslim victims of police state justice. They've been targeted, persecuted, arrested, imprisoned, kept in isolation, denied bail, tried on secret evidence on trumped-up charges, convicted by juries too intimidated to acquit, and sentenced to long prison terms for being Muslims in America at the wrong time.
Others were targeted for their environmental and/or animal rights activism. Washington calls them "ecoterrorists." It went on under Bush and now Obama. He's also waging six global wars simultaneously, as well as funding, arming and supporting Israeli terror against nonviolent Palestinian civilians for being Muslims, not Jews.
A web of lies and international complicity sustain this, harming millions of victims globally, including in America and Israel, paying for their governments' crimes.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
posted by Steve Lendman @ 1:00 AM
Israeli Freedom Flotilla II Terrorism
Israeli Freedom Flotilla II Terrorism - by Stephen Lendman
Daily, Israel keeps proving its lawless rogue credentials, notably by blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza. As a result, it finds new ways to show contempt for human rights, rule of law standards, civility, fundamental Judaic tenets, and its very legitimacy as a nation state, established by mass slaughter and displacement of indigenous Palestinians from their homeland.
Today, its war against humanity dirty tricks/state terrorism arsenal includes propaganda, intimidating lawsuits, pressure on other governments, sabotage, subversion, cold-blodded murder, and whatever else it takes to ruthlessly commit slow-motion genocide against nearly 1.7 million Gazans, besides daily crimes against others in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
No wonder growing numbers of fed up Jews are leaving, voting with their feet, including studies showing half or more there actively consider it, and why not.
Israel is an armed camp, a warrior state, a modern-day Sparta, institutionalizing militarism as a way of life. Young children are taught this ideology in school, including to hate, not respect non-Jews, especially Muslims as violent enemies and human rights activists supporting them.
Freedom Flotilla II participants are among them - vilified, sabotaged, delayed, and now blocked from departing by Greece's complicit rogue government, after agreeing to surrender its sovereignty to Western bankers despite mass street protests against it.
In fact, Greece's Washington embassy published an "Announcement on the Flotilla," accessed through the following link:
http://www.mfa.gr/www.mfa.gr/AuthoritiesAbroad/North+America/USA/EmbassyWashington/Articles/en-US/Announcement+on+the+Flotilla.htm
In part it says:
"Prohibition of the departure of ships with Greek and foreign flags from Greek ports to the maritime area of Gaza today."
In other words, Gaza-bound ships in Greek ports are prohibited from sailing because Israel and Washington demand it - a clear international law violation.
Moreover, "all appropriate measures are taken for the implementation of the said decision....Furthermore, the broader maritime area of eastern Mediterranean will be continuously monitored by electronic means for tracking, where applicable, the movements of the ships allegedly participating in such campaign."
On July 1, the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) headlined, "Greek cabinet votes to stop Flotilla as US Boat to Gaza forced back to port," saying:
Its planned departure already delayed over a week, "the US Boat to Gaza decided Friday to challenge" Greece's government by leaving Athens without permission. However, before reaching international waters, Greek Coast Guard vessels forced it back to port and arrested its captain for leaving port without permission, disturbing sea traffic, and endangering the lives of his passengers. In other words, when no legitimate charges exist, rogue authorities invent them.
Moreover, Greek officials told Canadian boat participants that "the Office of the President has demanded the seizure of their boat." At the same time, Greece's cabinet voted to keep participating boats from leaving, succumbing to Washington and Israeli pressure to block them.
Free Gaza Movement (FGM) founder Greta Berlin issued a statement, saying: "Israel is doing its very, very best to make sure we don't get out of port," stooping to any depth to do it with help from its Washington paymaster partner, equally contemptuous of human rights and rule of law standards.
In fact, Obama provides daily proof of his out-of-control lawlessness, showing perhaps he's America's worst ever president, a hard-earned distinction given challenging competition for top honors.
Regularly, however, he's outdistancing the pack, including his rogue predecessor, multiplying his wars by three, continuing his criminal policies, and adding new ones of his own.
Possible US/Israeli Sabotage
Suspicions are that US Navy Seals and/or Israeli Syayetet 13 commandos sabotaged one boat for Greek, Norwegian and Swedish passengers by cutting off its propeller shaft, and disabled an Irish one altogether in Gocek, Turkey (MV Saoirse), forcing it to abandon its mission but not its determination to try again.
Why not despite Senator Mark Kirk's (R. IL) early June statement saying America should:
"should make available all necessary special operation and naval support to the Israeli Navy to effectively disable flotilla vessels before they can pose a threat to Israeli coastal security or put Israeli lives at risk."
In a free democratic country, those remarks would minimally get him censured, vilified and disgraced. in fact, he should be banned from government service and prosecuted for supporting sabotage and harm to humanitarian passengers, punishing him for supporting crimes against humanity and perhaps war.
However, he's not alone. Besides Obama, Clinton and other administration rogues, as well as legions of them in Congress, Texas Gov. Rick Perry asked Attorney General Eric Holder to take legal steps to stop US participants and prosecute them if they refuse. Perry, in fact, is a right-wing extremist with presidential ambitions, hoping to do to America what he's done to Texas, governing it like George Bush.
IMEMC also headlined another July 1 article, "Free Flotilla activists: 'Gaza blockade has been extended to Greece,' " saying:
Two boats were sabotaged, one disabled, another forced back to port after sailing, and Greek police boarded the Canadian vessel (the Tahrir), blocking its departure, making Greece complicit in Israeli/Washington crimes against humanity, what their street brutality does daily against angry citizen activism.
At first, "port authorities (tried) to take the Tahrir's official transit logs (required for sailing)." However, passengers balked, demanding an explanation why. "When authorities (got) photocopies," they lost interest in the originals. According to organizing committee member Irene McInnes:
"The government of Israel, shamefully with the tacit support of (Canada's) Harper government (a willing co-conspirator), is doing everything in its power to maintain the blockade. Yet we will persevere in our attempts," no matter what rogue governments do.
"We have a legal and moral obligation to challenge the blockade, given the failure of the international community to act," said committee member Dylan Penner. "This is why we must continue our attempts to sail to Gaza: to challenge the illegal and immoral blockade," and Canada's criminal support along with America's and Israel's.
They may win the battle. They've already lost the war, creating a worldwide cause celebre, shaming them for denying humanitarian justice. If Flotilla II vessels reach Gaza, it'll be a bonus, what criminal governments are too blind to see.
According to Reuters on July 1, Flotilla vessels will sail next week, "a spokeswoman said on Friday," adding:
"We want to move the boats by July 5 to get to our rendezvous point no later than July 6 or 7....We will go with what we have," hoping to defeat dirty tricks trying to stop them, including by suing to be allowed to sail.
Netanyahu and other Israeli officials call the mission "provocative." They lied, an Israeli specialty, disgracefully replicated by Washington, Canada, Greece, and other complicit governments, shooting themselves in the foot in the process.
In spite of determined efforts to stop them, activists hope to sail anyway. Perhaps Greece's Coast Guard will use "gunboat diplomacy" or worse to stop them, violating international law brazenly like rogue pirates, complicit with Israel and Washington ready to deploy commando killers against unarmed humanitarian activists.
US Boat/Audacity of Hope lead organizer Col. Ann Wright (a former State Department official who protested the Iraq war by resigning) said:
"We could see the handwriting on the wall, that they were going to try to shut down all the ports across the Mediterranean." As for Greece, she added: "It's not surprising (they) succumbed to the pressure," but lost what's left from its soul in the process, destroying its remaining credentials as democracy's birthplace.
After more a week blocked in Greek ports, every ship still can't sail, showing how far its government will violate international law for Israeli and Washington criminals.
On June 30, Netanyahu thanked Prime Minister Papandreou and other world leaders for acting "against the provocation flotilla."
On July 1, IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich claimed Tarek Hamud, son-in-law of Khaled Mashal (Hamas' Damascus-based head) was a leading Flotilla organizer when, in fact, participants say they never heard of him.
Nonetheless, an agitprop Israeli press release said:
"According to Israeli military intelligence, the terrorist organization Hamas and several organizations behind the 2011 Gaza flotilla have similar funding sources. Three Islamic charity funds from the Hamas-affiliated Charity Coalition directly fund Hamas and some of the organizations connected to the 2011 Gaza flotilla."
With no corroborating evidence whatever, the statement is a bald faced lie, common Israeli/Washington fabrications to support their terror tactics.
In fact, Hamas spokesman Izzat al-Risheq emphatically said Hamud "has nothing to do with the flotilla in any way. He is in his house right now in Damascus. This is a lie by the Israeli Army aimed at getting people to oppose this humane mission."
The Flotilla, of course, has nothing to do with Hamas. Like earlier missions and others to come, it's about breaching Gaza's siege as a first step to ending it and liberating Palestine altogether. Because of growing support worldwide, sooner or later it's coming.
A Final Comment
At the same time Israel suffocates Gazans and blocks vital humanitarian aid, Obama's war on terror lawlessness persecutes innocent Muslims at home, prosecuting them for crimes they never conceived or committed.
An earlier article discussed entrapping innocent Muslims, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/06/entrapping-innocent-muslims.html
Another discussed the Newburgh 4, accessed through the link below:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/08/no-letup-in-political-witch-hunts-under.html
Every case involves manufacturing homegrown threats to incite fear as justification to wage global wars against nonbelligerent countries, posing no threat to America or their neighbors.
On May 20, 2009, four New York men were bogusly charged with planning to bomb a Bronx synagogue and community center, as well as implausibly shoot down Air National Guard jets with stinger missiles. Prosecutions and convictions followed.
Then on June 29, the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said three of the four got 25 year sentences even though there was no plot or crime. The fourth defendant will be sentenced later.
At issue was lawless entrapment, involving an FBI sting against unwitting victims - in this case, four poor black Newburgh, New York men who converted to Islam, two while in prison for unrelated minor offenses.
A Pakistani man named Shahed Hussain (aka Malik) was a paid FBI informant, facing prison and/or deportation on dozens of fraud counts. In return for leniency, he was enlisted to cooperate and well paid for his efforts.
He's the same man used earlier for four separate stings, Yassin Aref among them, another innocent man, entrapped and victimized, now serving a 15 year prison term unjustly.
In post-9/11 America, they're among many Muslim victims of police state justice. They've been targeted, persecuted, arrested, imprisoned, kept in isolation, denied bail, tried on secret evidence on trumped-up charges, convicted by juries too intimidated to acquit, and sentenced to long prison terms for being Muslims in America at the wrong time.
Others were targeted for their environmental and/or animal rights activism. Washington calls them "ecoterrorists." It went on under Bush and now Obama. He's also waging six global wars simultaneously, as well as funding, arming and supporting Israeli terror against nonviolent Palestinian civilians for being Muslims, not Jews.
A web of lies and international complicity sustain this, harming millions of victims globally, including in America and Israel, paying for their governments' crimes.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
posted by Steve Lendman @ 1:00 AM
From "The Rag Blog"- Alice Walker-Why I'm joining the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza
Why I'm joining the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza
Pulitzer prize-winning American writer Alice Walker is on board an international flotilla of boats sailing to Gaza to challenge the Israeli blockade. Here she tells why.
By Alice Walker / The Guardian (U.K) / June 27, 2011
See 'After the excitement of the Arab Spring, has the Palestine issue slipped out of view?' by Emine Saner, Below.
Why am I going on the Freedom Flotilla II to Gaza? I ask myself this, even though the answer is: what else would I do? I am in my 67th year, having lived already a long and fruitful life, one with which I am content. It seems to me that during this period of eldering it is good to reap the harvest of one's understanding of what is important, and to share this, especially with the young. How are they to learn, otherwise?
Our boat, The Audacity of Hope, will be carrying letters to the people of Gaza. Letters expressing solidarity and love. That is all its cargo will consist of. If the Israeli military attacks us, it will be as if they attacked the mailman. This should go down hilariously in the annals of history. But if they insist on attacking us, wounding us, even murdering us, as they did some of the activists in the last flotilla, Freedom Flotilla I, what is to be done?
There is a scene in the movie Gandhi that is very moving to me: it is when the unarmed Indian protesters line up to confront the armed forces of the British Empire. The soldiers beat them unmercifully, but the Indians, their broken and dead lifted tenderly out of the fray, keep coming.
Alongside this image of brave followers of Gandhi there is, for me, an awareness of paying off a debt to the Jewish civil rights activists who faced death to come to the side of black people in the American South in our time of need. I am especially indebted to Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman who heard our calls for help -- our government then as now glacially slow in providing protection to non-violent protesters -- and came to stand with us.
They got as far as the truncheons and bullets of a few "good ol' boys'" of Neshoba County, Mississippi and were beaten and shot to death along with James Chaney, a young black man of formidable courage who died with them. So, even though our boat will be called The Audacity of Hope, it will fly the Goodman, Chaney, Schwerner flag in my own heart.
And what of the children of Palestine, who were ignored in our president's latest speech on Israel and Palestine, and whose impoverished, terrorized, segregated existence was mocked by the standing ovations recently given in the U.S. Congress to the prime minister of Israel?
I see children, all children, as humanity's most precious resource, because it will be to them that the care of the planet will always be left. One child must never be set above another, even in casual conversation, not to mention in speeches that circle the globe.
As adults, we must affirm, constantly, that the Arab child, the Muslim child, the Palestinian child, the African child, the Jewish child, the Christian child, the American child, the Chinese child, the Israeli child, the Native American child, etc, is equal to all others on the planet. We must do everything in our power to cease the behavior that makes children everywhere feel afraid.
I once asked my best friend and husband during the era of segregation, who was as staunch a defender of black people's human rights as anyone I'd ever met: how did you find your way to us, to black people, who so needed you? What force shaped your response to the great injustice facing people of color of that time?
I thought he might say it was the speeches, the marches, the example of Martin Luther King Jr, or of others in the movement who exhibited impactful courage and grace. But no. Thinking back, he recounted an episode from his childhood that had led him, inevitably, to our struggle.
He was a little boy on his way home from yeshiva, the Jewish school he attended after regular school let out. His mother, a bookkeeper, was still at work; he was alone. He was frequently harassed by older boys from regular school, and one day two of these boys snatched his yarmulke (skull cap), and, taunting him, ran off with it, eventually throwing it over a fence.
Two black boys appeared, saw his tears, assessed the situation, and took off after the boys who had taken his yarmulke. Chasing the boys down and catching them, they made them climb the fence, retrieve and dust off the yarmulke, and place it respectfully back on his head.
It is justice and respect that I want the world to dust off and put -- without delay, and with tenderness -- back on the head of the Palestinian child. It will be imperfect justice and respect because the injustice and disrespect have been so severe. But I believe we are right to try.
That is why I sail.
[Alice Malsenior Walker is a poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist, anthologist, teacher, editor, publisher, womanist, and activist. The Chicken Chronicles: A Memoir by Alice Walker was published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Her critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Walker won the 2010 Lennon/Ono Grant for Peace. This article was originally published in the British daily, The Guardian. A longer version appears on Alice Walker's blog, alicewalkersgarden.com/blog.]
Activists involved of the new Gaza flotilla called "Freedom Flotilla Two" at press conference on Feb. 7, 2011, in Madrid. (At left, Cindy Sheehan.) Photo by Dominique Faget / AFP / Getty Images.
After the excitement of the Arab Spring,
has the Palestine issue slipped out of view?
Just over a year ago, in the middle of the night, Israeli commandos boarded a Turkish ship in international waters just off the coast of Israel, opened fire and killed nine activists. The Mavi Marmara was one of six ships in the Freedom Flotilla, which was attempting to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, and the actions of Israel's military brought widespread international condemnation.
This time, as Freedom Flotilla II sets sail over the next week, with 10 ships carrying many of the same activists who traveled last year, including Swedish writer Henning Mankell, American human rights campaigner Hedy Epstein, and writer and academic Alice Walker, the Israeli government's response will be closely watched.
This week Ron Prosor, Israel's ambassador to the UN, wrote a letter saying: "Israel calls on the international community to do everything in their ability in order to prevent the flotilla and warn citizens... of the risks of participating in this type of provocation." The purpose of the flotilla, he said, is "to provoke and aid a radical political agenda." He later added: "We are very determined to defend ourselves and to assert our right to a naval blockade on Gaza."
"The threats of violence won't deter us," says Huwaida Arraf, one of the flotilla organizers. "Nobody is going in to this lightly, but we feel it has to be done. Israel has to realize its violence against us is not going to stop our growing civilian effort to challenge its illegal policies. The size of this flotilla, the number of people involved in organizing it, even after Israel killed nine of our colleagues last year, is testament to that."
She says half a million people applied for the few hundred places: depending on how many of the 10 boats are seaworthy in time, there should be around 400 people on the flotilla.
The campaign began in August 2008, when 44 activists on two small fishing boats set off from Cyprus and managed to reach Gaza. Later that year, the Free Gaza Movement, as it became known, organized several other voyages, usually sending single boats containing small but symbolic supplies such as medicine and toys, and volunteers, including doctors, lawyers, and politicians.
Amid allegations of violence and hostility from Israel's naval forces at sea, the activists decided they would need to send a flotilla, and after months of fundraising and negotiating with NGOs from other countries, particularly Turkey, several ships met in the Mediterranean sea in May last year with the intention of reaching Gaza.
"We didn't make it to Gaza and we lost a lot of colleagues," says Arraf, "but one of the things that was achieved was that people realized what Israel's policies meant, and the violence Israel was using to maintain them. We think our action will put pressure on Israel to end its blockade on Gaza, and we hope the respective governments of all the people participating will take action and do what they should be doing, instead of having their nationals putting their lives at risk like this."
There is a danger, says Chris Doyle, director of the council for Arab-British understanding, of the Palestinian issue being overlooked -- in the west at least -- as focus shifts to countries going through the extraordinary changes in the Arab Spring. "There is a danger that people forget how important this issue is, and that it is boiling. It is still an unresolved issue. At a time when international politicians -- Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy, and others-- are concentrating so much on other areas of the region, the issue of Palestine has not gone away."
"Everyone has been so amazed and shocked at the beauty of the Arab revolutions, seeing these incredibly brave and wonderful citizens, that it quite naturally seizes the attention, but at the heart of the Arab revolutions is Palestine," says Karma Nabulsi, an academic and expert on the Middle East. "I would say it hasn't been properly covered in the west, but Palestine is central to what people -- the Arab media, the people who are participating in the Arab revolutions -- talk about all the time."
So where does Palestine fit into the Arab spring? Doyle says: "A Palestinian spring is more than possible. Many senior people within Fatah and the Palestinian authorities have been saying this is the way to go because the negotiations are not seen as credible, and they will have to adopt different tactics. I think that, on the one hand, those tactics could be against the Israeli occupation, but also it represents a threat to the Palestinian authority itself, both to Fatah and Hamas."
The flotilla "gives people heart and encouragement, that the struggle for freedom has friends and supporters," says Nabulsi. "What the flotilla did last year, these plucky little boats, was bring the entire world to look at what [the Israeli government] were doing. Not just because of the brutality of the response of the military, but it shows how simple gestures get to the heart of the issue -- breaking through the silence and the siege, and all the things that seem so big and impossible to do. They did it and they're going to do it again, and that's what is so remarkably brave."
-- Emine Saner / The Guardian (U.K.)
The Rag Blog
Posted by thorne dreyer at 3:08 PM
Pulitzer prize-winning American writer Alice Walker is on board an international flotilla of boats sailing to Gaza to challenge the Israeli blockade. Here she tells why.
By Alice Walker / The Guardian (U.K) / June 27, 2011
See 'After the excitement of the Arab Spring, has the Palestine issue slipped out of view?' by Emine Saner, Below.
Why am I going on the Freedom Flotilla II to Gaza? I ask myself this, even though the answer is: what else would I do? I am in my 67th year, having lived already a long and fruitful life, one with which I am content. It seems to me that during this period of eldering it is good to reap the harvest of one's understanding of what is important, and to share this, especially with the young. How are they to learn, otherwise?
Our boat, The Audacity of Hope, will be carrying letters to the people of Gaza. Letters expressing solidarity and love. That is all its cargo will consist of. If the Israeli military attacks us, it will be as if they attacked the mailman. This should go down hilariously in the annals of history. But if they insist on attacking us, wounding us, even murdering us, as they did some of the activists in the last flotilla, Freedom Flotilla I, what is to be done?
There is a scene in the movie Gandhi that is very moving to me: it is when the unarmed Indian protesters line up to confront the armed forces of the British Empire. The soldiers beat them unmercifully, but the Indians, their broken and dead lifted tenderly out of the fray, keep coming.
Alongside this image of brave followers of Gandhi there is, for me, an awareness of paying off a debt to the Jewish civil rights activists who faced death to come to the side of black people in the American South in our time of need. I am especially indebted to Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman who heard our calls for help -- our government then as now glacially slow in providing protection to non-violent protesters -- and came to stand with us.
They got as far as the truncheons and bullets of a few "good ol' boys'" of Neshoba County, Mississippi and were beaten and shot to death along with James Chaney, a young black man of formidable courage who died with them. So, even though our boat will be called The Audacity of Hope, it will fly the Goodman, Chaney, Schwerner flag in my own heart.
And what of the children of Palestine, who were ignored in our president's latest speech on Israel and Palestine, and whose impoverished, terrorized, segregated existence was mocked by the standing ovations recently given in the U.S. Congress to the prime minister of Israel?
I see children, all children, as humanity's most precious resource, because it will be to them that the care of the planet will always be left. One child must never be set above another, even in casual conversation, not to mention in speeches that circle the globe.
As adults, we must affirm, constantly, that the Arab child, the Muslim child, the Palestinian child, the African child, the Jewish child, the Christian child, the American child, the Chinese child, the Israeli child, the Native American child, etc, is equal to all others on the planet. We must do everything in our power to cease the behavior that makes children everywhere feel afraid.
I once asked my best friend and husband during the era of segregation, who was as staunch a defender of black people's human rights as anyone I'd ever met: how did you find your way to us, to black people, who so needed you? What force shaped your response to the great injustice facing people of color of that time?
I thought he might say it was the speeches, the marches, the example of Martin Luther King Jr, or of others in the movement who exhibited impactful courage and grace. But no. Thinking back, he recounted an episode from his childhood that had led him, inevitably, to our struggle.
He was a little boy on his way home from yeshiva, the Jewish school he attended after regular school let out. His mother, a bookkeeper, was still at work; he was alone. He was frequently harassed by older boys from regular school, and one day two of these boys snatched his yarmulke (skull cap), and, taunting him, ran off with it, eventually throwing it over a fence.
Two black boys appeared, saw his tears, assessed the situation, and took off after the boys who had taken his yarmulke. Chasing the boys down and catching them, they made them climb the fence, retrieve and dust off the yarmulke, and place it respectfully back on his head.
It is justice and respect that I want the world to dust off and put -- without delay, and with tenderness -- back on the head of the Palestinian child. It will be imperfect justice and respect because the injustice and disrespect have been so severe. But I believe we are right to try.
That is why I sail.
[Alice Malsenior Walker is a poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist, anthologist, teacher, editor, publisher, womanist, and activist. The Chicken Chronicles: A Memoir by Alice Walker was published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Her critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Walker won the 2010 Lennon/Ono Grant for Peace. This article was originally published in the British daily, The Guardian. A longer version appears on Alice Walker's blog, alicewalkersgarden.com/blog.]
Activists involved of the new Gaza flotilla called "Freedom Flotilla Two" at press conference on Feb. 7, 2011, in Madrid. (At left, Cindy Sheehan.) Photo by Dominique Faget / AFP / Getty Images.
After the excitement of the Arab Spring,
has the Palestine issue slipped out of view?
Just over a year ago, in the middle of the night, Israeli commandos boarded a Turkish ship in international waters just off the coast of Israel, opened fire and killed nine activists. The Mavi Marmara was one of six ships in the Freedom Flotilla, which was attempting to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, and the actions of Israel's military brought widespread international condemnation.
This time, as Freedom Flotilla II sets sail over the next week, with 10 ships carrying many of the same activists who traveled last year, including Swedish writer Henning Mankell, American human rights campaigner Hedy Epstein, and writer and academic Alice Walker, the Israeli government's response will be closely watched.
This week Ron Prosor, Israel's ambassador to the UN, wrote a letter saying: "Israel calls on the international community to do everything in their ability in order to prevent the flotilla and warn citizens... of the risks of participating in this type of provocation." The purpose of the flotilla, he said, is "to provoke and aid a radical political agenda." He later added: "We are very determined to defend ourselves and to assert our right to a naval blockade on Gaza."
"The threats of violence won't deter us," says Huwaida Arraf, one of the flotilla organizers. "Nobody is going in to this lightly, but we feel it has to be done. Israel has to realize its violence against us is not going to stop our growing civilian effort to challenge its illegal policies. The size of this flotilla, the number of people involved in organizing it, even after Israel killed nine of our colleagues last year, is testament to that."
She says half a million people applied for the few hundred places: depending on how many of the 10 boats are seaworthy in time, there should be around 400 people on the flotilla.
The campaign began in August 2008, when 44 activists on two small fishing boats set off from Cyprus and managed to reach Gaza. Later that year, the Free Gaza Movement, as it became known, organized several other voyages, usually sending single boats containing small but symbolic supplies such as medicine and toys, and volunteers, including doctors, lawyers, and politicians.
Amid allegations of violence and hostility from Israel's naval forces at sea, the activists decided they would need to send a flotilla, and after months of fundraising and negotiating with NGOs from other countries, particularly Turkey, several ships met in the Mediterranean sea in May last year with the intention of reaching Gaza.
"We didn't make it to Gaza and we lost a lot of colleagues," says Arraf, "but one of the things that was achieved was that people realized what Israel's policies meant, and the violence Israel was using to maintain them. We think our action will put pressure on Israel to end its blockade on Gaza, and we hope the respective governments of all the people participating will take action and do what they should be doing, instead of having their nationals putting their lives at risk like this."
There is a danger, says Chris Doyle, director of the council for Arab-British understanding, of the Palestinian issue being overlooked -- in the west at least -- as focus shifts to countries going through the extraordinary changes in the Arab Spring. "There is a danger that people forget how important this issue is, and that it is boiling. It is still an unresolved issue. At a time when international politicians -- Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy, and others-- are concentrating so much on other areas of the region, the issue of Palestine has not gone away."
"Everyone has been so amazed and shocked at the beauty of the Arab revolutions, seeing these incredibly brave and wonderful citizens, that it quite naturally seizes the attention, but at the heart of the Arab revolutions is Palestine," says Karma Nabulsi, an academic and expert on the Middle East. "I would say it hasn't been properly covered in the west, but Palestine is central to what people -- the Arab media, the people who are participating in the Arab revolutions -- talk about all the time."
So where does Palestine fit into the Arab spring? Doyle says: "A Palestinian spring is more than possible. Many senior people within Fatah and the Palestinian authorities have been saying this is the way to go because the negotiations are not seen as credible, and they will have to adopt different tactics. I think that, on the one hand, those tactics could be against the Israeli occupation, but also it represents a threat to the Palestinian authority itself, both to Fatah and Hamas."
The flotilla "gives people heart and encouragement, that the struggle for freedom has friends and supporters," says Nabulsi. "What the flotilla did last year, these plucky little boats, was bring the entire world to look at what [the Israeli government] were doing. Not just because of the brutality of the response of the military, but it shows how simple gestures get to the heart of the issue -- breaking through the silence and the siege, and all the things that seem so big and impossible to do. They did it and they're going to do it again, and that's what is so remarkably brave."
-- Emine Saner / The Guardian (U.K.)
The Rag Blog
Posted by thorne dreyer at 3:08 PM
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Breaching Gaza's Siege Update - by Stephen Lendman
Monday, June 27, 2011
Breaching Gaza's Siege Update
Breaching Gaza's Siege Update - by Stephen Lendman
Israel keeps exerting pressure to block humanitarian efforts to deliver vital to life and other essential aid to besieged Gazans.
Endorsing Israeli lawlessness, the State Department issued a June 22 "Travel Warning - Israel, the West Bank and Gaza," saying in part:
"The Department of State warns US citizens of the risks of traveling to Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, and about threats to themselves and to US interests in those locations," adding "avoid all travel to the Gaza Strip."
Access the full statement through the following link:
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_5511.html
On June 23, Secretary of State Clinton added:
"We do not believe that the flotilla is a necessary or useful effort to try to assist the people of Gaza. And we think that it's not helpful for there to be flotillas that try to provoke actions by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves."
Defend against whom she didn't explain or that Gazan waters belong to Palestine, not Israel. Moreover, delivering humanitarian aid is essential until Gaza's blockade is ended, a crime against humanity Washington funds and supports.
This week, "Freedom Flotilla II - Stay Human" sails to Gaza. Neither Israel nor Clinton will stop it, but they're trying by blocking its departure or planned interdiction surprises if it comes.
The US Boat to Gaza (The Audacity of Hope) is one of 10 participating ships, now blocked by Greek officials, saying the vessel is unseaworthy, a spurious claim with no validity.
A June 26 US Boat to Gaza press release asked "Greek government officials to clarify whether (their leased boat) is being blocked....because of an anonymous request of a private citizen....or whether (Greece) made a political decision....in response to US and Israeli" pressure.
Specifically they want to know if bailout help is contingent on succumbing to blackmail, besides Greece already surrendering its sovereignty to foreign bankers.
A previous article explained, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/06/banker-occupation-of-greece.html
On June 27, a US Boat to Gaza press release responded to reports that an Israeli "Lawfare" group (Shurat HaDin) complaint is delaying the boat's departure.
Israel, Washington, AIPAC, and the Shurat HaDin Law Center (SH) are directly involved. In fact, SH's web site claims it's "bankrupting terrorism one lawsuit at a time," adding on June 19:
"I am happy to report that we have achieved some important victories in the struggle to block the anti-Israel Flotilla from 'smuggling contraband' to the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip."
Specifically, it referred to a French insurance company succumbing to intimidation not to cover a French boat from Marseilles, and the Turkish ship pressured by Ankara to cancel its participation.
On June 15, SH announced a Manhattan federal court lawsuit to "confiscate 14 ships outfitted with funds unlawfully raised in the United States by anti-Israeli groups, including the Free Gaza Movement."
SH, the Obama administration, AIPAC and other Israeli Lobby members clearly support state terrorism in violation of international, US and Israeli law. Nonetheless, America's "Audacity of Hope" is confident it will sail, saying:
SH is notorious for filing "frivolous legal complaints against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. We reiterate that the boat we are leasing....was surveyed by a professional surveyor and successfully completed its sea trials."
At noon Athens time June 27, a press conference will announce its readiness to sail, but expect continued pressure to stop it - criminal co-conspirators determined to lawlessly suffocate besieged Gazans.
On June 27, a Haaretz editorial headlined, "Let the flotilla go," saying:
Israel equates "flotilla" with terrorism or "a declaration of war," no matter that cargo includes food, medicines, educational materials and other humanitarian aid raised by private donations.
Nonetheless, Israel "seems to be as frightened of the flotilla as one would think it would be of an attack by an armed naval fleet." As a result, it's "preparing to fight an enemy" comprised of unarmed, nonviolent men and women who care enough to risk their safety to deliver vital aid and symbolically oppose Israeli lawlessness.
Thirteen months after the Mavi Marmara massacre, "Israel is showing that it has learned just one lesson: the military lesson....The country is not willing to give up a display of power, thereby no doubt contributing to inflating the flotilla's importance" and Israel as a rogue terror state. "From Israel, we can at least demand that it let the flotilla get through....without once again endangering the country's position in the world."
On June 27, Israel National News said former US Ecuador ambassador Samuel Hart (a 27-year Foreign Service veteran) will participate in the Flotilla mission.
In a 1992 Foreign Affairs Oral History Project for the Association for Diplomatic Studies interview, Hart said:
"I've always felt that Israel has been a little bit of a burr in the saddle in our foreign policy. Here is a small country with no particular interest to us in any real strategic terms, yet it sort of jerks us around because it has not only a very vocal Jewish population, but also supporters of Israel from non-Jewish groups."
He also once wrote an essay calling Israel "an exhausting place to live (because) the tension, anxiety and intensity wear you out."
Now aged 77, he told a Jacksonville, FL newspaper he joined the Flotilla because he "missed" participating in the 1950s and 1960s civil rights movement to end segregation. "I see great similarities between this and the civil rights movement," he said. "I am pleased to be part of it."
He also asked, "What did the residents of Gaza do to deserve such punishment? The honest answer is they" elected Hamas in 2006 democratically and now suffer lawlessly.
On June 26, New York Times writer Ethan Bronner headlined, "Avoid Gaza Flotilla, Israel Warns Foreign Journalists," saying:
"Israel threatened Sunday to bar for up to a decade any foreign journalist who boards a flotilla seeking to challenge an Israeli naval blockade of Gaza."
Moreover, Israel's Government Press Office director Oren Helman said their equipment will be impounded and they'll be subjected to "additional sanctions." He sent a warning letter to registered foreign correspondents, stopping short of saying they'll be arrested and jailed.
Perhaps all Flotilla participants will be mistreated, imprisoned, their personal possessions confiscated, then summarily deported the way Flotilla I activists were treated after being attacked, beaten and otherwise abused, besides nine on board massacred in cold blood.
On June 26, Israel's Foreign Press Association responded, saying:
Journalists "covering a legitimate news event should be allowed to do their jobs without threat and intimidation. (Helman's letter) sends a chilling message to the international media and raises serious questions about Israel's commitment to freedom of the press."
Bronner said an unnamed New York Times journalist would participate, joining other international correspondents.
Further updates will follow, highlighting courageous activism against lawless Israeli brutality, complicit with its Washington paymaster/partner.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
posted by Steve Lendman @ 5:26 AM
Breaching Gaza's Siege Update
Breaching Gaza's Siege Update - by Stephen Lendman
Israel keeps exerting pressure to block humanitarian efforts to deliver vital to life and other essential aid to besieged Gazans.
Endorsing Israeli lawlessness, the State Department issued a June 22 "Travel Warning - Israel, the West Bank and Gaza," saying in part:
"The Department of State warns US citizens of the risks of traveling to Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, and about threats to themselves and to US interests in those locations," adding "avoid all travel to the Gaza Strip."
Access the full statement through the following link:
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_5511.html
On June 23, Secretary of State Clinton added:
"We do not believe that the flotilla is a necessary or useful effort to try to assist the people of Gaza. And we think that it's not helpful for there to be flotillas that try to provoke actions by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves."
Defend against whom she didn't explain or that Gazan waters belong to Palestine, not Israel. Moreover, delivering humanitarian aid is essential until Gaza's blockade is ended, a crime against humanity Washington funds and supports.
This week, "Freedom Flotilla II - Stay Human" sails to Gaza. Neither Israel nor Clinton will stop it, but they're trying by blocking its departure or planned interdiction surprises if it comes.
The US Boat to Gaza (The Audacity of Hope) is one of 10 participating ships, now blocked by Greek officials, saying the vessel is unseaworthy, a spurious claim with no validity.
A June 26 US Boat to Gaza press release asked "Greek government officials to clarify whether (their leased boat) is being blocked....because of an anonymous request of a private citizen....or whether (Greece) made a political decision....in response to US and Israeli" pressure.
Specifically they want to know if bailout help is contingent on succumbing to blackmail, besides Greece already surrendering its sovereignty to foreign bankers.
A previous article explained, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/06/banker-occupation-of-greece.html
On June 27, a US Boat to Gaza press release responded to reports that an Israeli "Lawfare" group (Shurat HaDin) complaint is delaying the boat's departure.
Israel, Washington, AIPAC, and the Shurat HaDin Law Center (SH) are directly involved. In fact, SH's web site claims it's "bankrupting terrorism one lawsuit at a time," adding on June 19:
"I am happy to report that we have achieved some important victories in the struggle to block the anti-Israel Flotilla from 'smuggling contraband' to the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip."
Specifically, it referred to a French insurance company succumbing to intimidation not to cover a French boat from Marseilles, and the Turkish ship pressured by Ankara to cancel its participation.
On June 15, SH announced a Manhattan federal court lawsuit to "confiscate 14 ships outfitted with funds unlawfully raised in the United States by anti-Israeli groups, including the Free Gaza Movement."
SH, the Obama administration, AIPAC and other Israeli Lobby members clearly support state terrorism in violation of international, US and Israeli law. Nonetheless, America's "Audacity of Hope" is confident it will sail, saying:
SH is notorious for filing "frivolous legal complaints against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. We reiterate that the boat we are leasing....was surveyed by a professional surveyor and successfully completed its sea trials."
At noon Athens time June 27, a press conference will announce its readiness to sail, but expect continued pressure to stop it - criminal co-conspirators determined to lawlessly suffocate besieged Gazans.
On June 27, a Haaretz editorial headlined, "Let the flotilla go," saying:
Israel equates "flotilla" with terrorism or "a declaration of war," no matter that cargo includes food, medicines, educational materials and other humanitarian aid raised by private donations.
Nonetheless, Israel "seems to be as frightened of the flotilla as one would think it would be of an attack by an armed naval fleet." As a result, it's "preparing to fight an enemy" comprised of unarmed, nonviolent men and women who care enough to risk their safety to deliver vital aid and symbolically oppose Israeli lawlessness.
Thirteen months after the Mavi Marmara massacre, "Israel is showing that it has learned just one lesson: the military lesson....The country is not willing to give up a display of power, thereby no doubt contributing to inflating the flotilla's importance" and Israel as a rogue terror state. "From Israel, we can at least demand that it let the flotilla get through....without once again endangering the country's position in the world."
On June 27, Israel National News said former US Ecuador ambassador Samuel Hart (a 27-year Foreign Service veteran) will participate in the Flotilla mission.
In a 1992 Foreign Affairs Oral History Project for the Association for Diplomatic Studies interview, Hart said:
"I've always felt that Israel has been a little bit of a burr in the saddle in our foreign policy. Here is a small country with no particular interest to us in any real strategic terms, yet it sort of jerks us around because it has not only a very vocal Jewish population, but also supporters of Israel from non-Jewish groups."
He also once wrote an essay calling Israel "an exhausting place to live (because) the tension, anxiety and intensity wear you out."
Now aged 77, he told a Jacksonville, FL newspaper he joined the Flotilla because he "missed" participating in the 1950s and 1960s civil rights movement to end segregation. "I see great similarities between this and the civil rights movement," he said. "I am pleased to be part of it."
He also asked, "What did the residents of Gaza do to deserve such punishment? The honest answer is they" elected Hamas in 2006 democratically and now suffer lawlessly.
On June 26, New York Times writer Ethan Bronner headlined, "Avoid Gaza Flotilla, Israel Warns Foreign Journalists," saying:
"Israel threatened Sunday to bar for up to a decade any foreign journalist who boards a flotilla seeking to challenge an Israeli naval blockade of Gaza."
Moreover, Israel's Government Press Office director Oren Helman said their equipment will be impounded and they'll be subjected to "additional sanctions." He sent a warning letter to registered foreign correspondents, stopping short of saying they'll be arrested and jailed.
Perhaps all Flotilla participants will be mistreated, imprisoned, their personal possessions confiscated, then summarily deported the way Flotilla I activists were treated after being attacked, beaten and otherwise abused, besides nine on board massacred in cold blood.
On June 26, Israel's Foreign Press Association responded, saying:
Journalists "covering a legitimate news event should be allowed to do their jobs without threat and intimidation. (Helman's letter) sends a chilling message to the international media and raises serious questions about Israel's commitment to freedom of the press."
Bronner said an unnamed New York Times journalist would participate, joining other international correspondents.
Further updates will follow, highlighting courageous activism against lawless Israeli brutality, complicit with its Washington paymaster/partner.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
posted by Steve Lendman @ 5:26 AM
Friday, June 03, 2011
From the Archives of Marxism-"Palestinian Trotskyists on the Partition of Palestine and the 1948 Arab-Israel War"
Workers Vanguard No. 981
27 May 2011
From the Archives of Marxism
Palestinian Trotskyists on the Partition of Palestine and the 1948 Arab-Israel War
Each May, as the Zionist rulers celebrate the anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel, Palestinians across the Near East mark the nakba, or catastrophe: the expulsion in 1948 of more than 700,000 Arabs from their homeland in Palestine. The United Nations General Assembly had voted the previous year in favor of ending the British mandate in Palestine and creating two independent states, one Zionist and the other Palestinian Arab. Through mass killings and terror, the Zionists drove out most of the Palestinian population from their homes and villages. Following the declaration of the founding of the Israeli state in May 1948, a number of bourgeois Arab regimes intervened militarily, not to defend the Palestinians but to seize land that had been allotted to them under the UN partition plan.
The small Palestinian Trotskyist group, the Revolutionary Communist League (RCL), upheld the position of communist internationalism in the 1948 War between Israel and the Arab states. While recognizing the right of both the Hebrew-speaking and Palestinian Arab peoples to national self-determination, the RCL resolutely opposed the imperialist-imposed partition and took a position of revolutionary defeatism toward both sides in the war. That position is today upheld by the International Communist League.
We reprint below an excerpted editorial, titled “Against the Stream,” that was originally published in the RCL’s Hebrew organ Kol Ham’amad (Voice of the Class). The English translation was published by the then-Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party in Fourth International (May 1948). The excerpts refer to Ernest Bevin, who was foreign minister in Britain’s Labour Party government; Chaim Weitzmann (Weizmann), Israel’s first president; and the Husseinis, a clan of Palestinian landowners and political leaders.
* * *
Politicians and diplomats are still trying to find a formula for the disastrous situation into which Palestine has been plunged by the UNO [United Nations Organization] deciding upon partition. Is this a “breach of international peace” or are we dealing with merely “hostile acts”? As far as we are concerned there is no point in this distinction. We are daily witnessing the killing or maiming of men and women, old and young, Jew or Arab. As always, the working masses and the poor suffer most.
Not so very long ago the Arab and Jewish workers were united in strikes against a foreign oppressor. This common struggle has been put to an end. Today the workers are being incited to kill each other. The inciters have succeeded….
“Keeping order” in Palestine costs England over 35 million Pounds a year, an amount which exceeds the profit she can extort from this country. Partition will release her from her financial obligations, enable her to employ her soldiers in the productive process while her source of income will remain intact. — But this is not all. By partition a wedge is driven between the Arab and Jewish worker. The Zionist state with its provocative lines of demarcation will bring about the blossoming forth of irredentist (revenge) movements on either side, there will be fighting for an “Arab Palestine” and for a “Jewish state within the historic frontiers of Eretz Israel (Israel’s Land).” As a result, the chauvinistic atmosphere created thus will poison the Arab world in the Middle East and throttle the anti-imperialist fight of the masses, while Zionists and Arab feudalists will vie for imperialist favors….
If the Anglo-American imperialists had forced this “solution” on Palestine of their own, the rotten game would have been patent in the whole Arab East. However, they dodged: the “problem” was passed on to the UNO. The function of the UNO was to sweeten the bitter dish cooked in the imperialist cuisine, dressing it, in Bevin’s words, with the twaddle of the “conscience of the world that has passed judgment.” Exactly! And the diplomats of the lesser countries danced to the tune of the dollar flute, reiterating the “public opinion of the world.” And the peculiar casts in this performance enabled Great Britain to appear as the Guardian Angel overflowing with sympathy for either side.
And the Soviet Union? Why did not her representatives call the UNO game the swindle it really is?—Apparently, the present foreign policy of the SU is not concerned with the fighting of the colonial masses. And as the Palestine question is a second-rate affair for the “Big,” the Soviet diplomats saw fit to dwell upon what Stalin had said about “the Soviet Union being ready to meet America and Britain halfway, economic and social differences notwithstanding.”…
The Jewish worker having been separated from his Arab colleague and prevented from fighting a common class struggle will be at the mercy of his class enemies, imperialism and the Zionist bourgeoisie. It will be easy to arouse him against his proletarian ally, the Arab worker, “who is depriving him of jobs and depressing the level of wages” (a method that has not failed in the past!). Not in vain has Weitzmann said that “the Jewish state will stem Communist influence.” As a compensation, the Jewish worker is bestowed with the privilege of dying a hero’s death on the altar of the Hebrew state.
And what promises does the Jewish state hold out? Does it really mean a step toward the solution of the Jewish problem?
The partition was not meant to solve Jewish misery nor is it likely ever to do so. This dwarf of a state which is too small to absorb the Jewish masses cannot even solve the problems of its citizens. The Hebrew state can only infest the Arab East with anti-Semitism and may well turn out—as Trotsky said—a bloody trap for hundreds of thousands of Jews.
The leaders of the Arab League reacted to the decision on partition with speeches full of threats and enthusiasm. As a matter of fact, a Zionist state is to them a godsend from Allah. Calling up the worker and fellah [peasant] for the “holy war to save Palestine” is supposed to stifle their cries for bread, land and freedom. Another time-honored method of diverting an embittered people against the Jewish and communist danger.
In Palestine the feudal rule has of late begun to lose ground. During the war the Arab working class has grown in numbers and political consciousness. Jewish and Arab workers stood up against the foreign oppressor, against whom they together went on strikes. A strong leftist trade union had come into existence; and the “Workers’ Association of the Arabs of Palestine” had been well on the way of freeing itself from the influence of the Husseinis. The murder of its leader, Sami Taha, committed by hirelings of the Arab High Committee could not restrain this development. But where the Husseinis failed, the decision of the imperialist agency, the UNO succeeded. The partition decision stifled the class struggle of the Palestine workers. The prospect of being at the hands of the Zionist “conquerors of soil and labor” is arousing fear and anxiety among the Arab workers and fellahs. Nationalist war slogans fall on fertile soil. And feudal murderers see their chance. Thus the policy of partition enables the feudalists to turn back the wheels of history….
The two camps today mobilize the masses under the mask of “self-defense.” “We have been attacked, let us defend ourselves!”—say the Zionists. “Let us ward off the danger of a Jewish conquest!”—declares the Arab Higher Committee. Where does the truth lie?
War is the continuation of politics by other means. The war led by the Arab feudalists is but the continuation of their reactionary war on the worker and the fellah who are striving to shake off oppression and exploitation. For the feudal effendis [lords] “Salvation of Palestine” means safeguarding their revenues at the expense of the fellahin, maintaining their autocratic rule in town and country, smashing the proletarian organizations and international class solidarity.
The war waged by the Zionists is the continuation of their expansionist policy based on discrimination between the two peoples: they defend kibbush avoda (ousting of Arab labor), kibbush adama (ousting of the fellah), boycott of Arab goods, “Hebrew rule.” The military conflict is a direct result of the policy of the Zionist conquerors.
This war can on neither side be said to bear a progressive character. The war does not release progressive forces or do away with social and economic obstacles in the path of development of the two nations. Quite the opposite is true. It is apt to obscure the class antagonism and to open the gate for nationalist excesses. It weakens the proletariat and strengthens imperialism in both camps.
Each side is “anti-imperialist” to the bone, busy detecting the reactionary—in the opposite camp. And imperialism is always seen—helping the other side. But this kind of exposure is oil on the imperialist fire. For the inveigling policy of imperialism is based upon agents and agencies within both camps. Therefore, we say to the Palestine people in reply to the patriotic warmongers: Make this war between Jews and Arabs, which serves the end of imperialism, the common war of both nations against imperialism!
This is the only solution guaranteeing a real peace. This must be our goal which must be achieved without concessions to the chauvinist mood prevailing at present among the masses.
How can that be done?
“The main enemy is in our own country!”—this was what Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg had to say to the workers when imperialists and social democrats were inciting them to the slaughter of their fellow workers in other countries. In this spirit we say to the Jewish and Arab workers: The enemy is in your own camp!
Jewish workers! Get rid of the Zionist provocateurs who tell you to sacrifice yourself on the altar of the Hebrew state.
Arab worker and fellah! Get rid of the chauvinist provocateurs who are getting you into a mess of blood for their own sake and pocket.
Workers of the two peoples, unite in a common front against imperialism and its agents!
27 May 2011
From the Archives of Marxism
Palestinian Trotskyists on the Partition of Palestine and the 1948 Arab-Israel War
Each May, as the Zionist rulers celebrate the anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel, Palestinians across the Near East mark the nakba, or catastrophe: the expulsion in 1948 of more than 700,000 Arabs from their homeland in Palestine. The United Nations General Assembly had voted the previous year in favor of ending the British mandate in Palestine and creating two independent states, one Zionist and the other Palestinian Arab. Through mass killings and terror, the Zionists drove out most of the Palestinian population from their homes and villages. Following the declaration of the founding of the Israeli state in May 1948, a number of bourgeois Arab regimes intervened militarily, not to defend the Palestinians but to seize land that had been allotted to them under the UN partition plan.
The small Palestinian Trotskyist group, the Revolutionary Communist League (RCL), upheld the position of communist internationalism in the 1948 War between Israel and the Arab states. While recognizing the right of both the Hebrew-speaking and Palestinian Arab peoples to national self-determination, the RCL resolutely opposed the imperialist-imposed partition and took a position of revolutionary defeatism toward both sides in the war. That position is today upheld by the International Communist League.
We reprint below an excerpted editorial, titled “Against the Stream,” that was originally published in the RCL’s Hebrew organ Kol Ham’amad (Voice of the Class). The English translation was published by the then-Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party in Fourth International (May 1948). The excerpts refer to Ernest Bevin, who was foreign minister in Britain’s Labour Party government; Chaim Weitzmann (Weizmann), Israel’s first president; and the Husseinis, a clan of Palestinian landowners and political leaders.
* * *
Politicians and diplomats are still trying to find a formula for the disastrous situation into which Palestine has been plunged by the UNO [United Nations Organization] deciding upon partition. Is this a “breach of international peace” or are we dealing with merely “hostile acts”? As far as we are concerned there is no point in this distinction. We are daily witnessing the killing or maiming of men and women, old and young, Jew or Arab. As always, the working masses and the poor suffer most.
Not so very long ago the Arab and Jewish workers were united in strikes against a foreign oppressor. This common struggle has been put to an end. Today the workers are being incited to kill each other. The inciters have succeeded….
“Keeping order” in Palestine costs England over 35 million Pounds a year, an amount which exceeds the profit she can extort from this country. Partition will release her from her financial obligations, enable her to employ her soldiers in the productive process while her source of income will remain intact. — But this is not all. By partition a wedge is driven between the Arab and Jewish worker. The Zionist state with its provocative lines of demarcation will bring about the blossoming forth of irredentist (revenge) movements on either side, there will be fighting for an “Arab Palestine” and for a “Jewish state within the historic frontiers of Eretz Israel (Israel’s Land).” As a result, the chauvinistic atmosphere created thus will poison the Arab world in the Middle East and throttle the anti-imperialist fight of the masses, while Zionists and Arab feudalists will vie for imperialist favors….
If the Anglo-American imperialists had forced this “solution” on Palestine of their own, the rotten game would have been patent in the whole Arab East. However, they dodged: the “problem” was passed on to the UNO. The function of the UNO was to sweeten the bitter dish cooked in the imperialist cuisine, dressing it, in Bevin’s words, with the twaddle of the “conscience of the world that has passed judgment.” Exactly! And the diplomats of the lesser countries danced to the tune of the dollar flute, reiterating the “public opinion of the world.” And the peculiar casts in this performance enabled Great Britain to appear as the Guardian Angel overflowing with sympathy for either side.
And the Soviet Union? Why did not her representatives call the UNO game the swindle it really is?—Apparently, the present foreign policy of the SU is not concerned with the fighting of the colonial masses. And as the Palestine question is a second-rate affair for the “Big,” the Soviet diplomats saw fit to dwell upon what Stalin had said about “the Soviet Union being ready to meet America and Britain halfway, economic and social differences notwithstanding.”…
The Jewish worker having been separated from his Arab colleague and prevented from fighting a common class struggle will be at the mercy of his class enemies, imperialism and the Zionist bourgeoisie. It will be easy to arouse him against his proletarian ally, the Arab worker, “who is depriving him of jobs and depressing the level of wages” (a method that has not failed in the past!). Not in vain has Weitzmann said that “the Jewish state will stem Communist influence.” As a compensation, the Jewish worker is bestowed with the privilege of dying a hero’s death on the altar of the Hebrew state.
And what promises does the Jewish state hold out? Does it really mean a step toward the solution of the Jewish problem?
The partition was not meant to solve Jewish misery nor is it likely ever to do so. This dwarf of a state which is too small to absorb the Jewish masses cannot even solve the problems of its citizens. The Hebrew state can only infest the Arab East with anti-Semitism and may well turn out—as Trotsky said—a bloody trap for hundreds of thousands of Jews.
The leaders of the Arab League reacted to the decision on partition with speeches full of threats and enthusiasm. As a matter of fact, a Zionist state is to them a godsend from Allah. Calling up the worker and fellah [peasant] for the “holy war to save Palestine” is supposed to stifle their cries for bread, land and freedom. Another time-honored method of diverting an embittered people against the Jewish and communist danger.
In Palestine the feudal rule has of late begun to lose ground. During the war the Arab working class has grown in numbers and political consciousness. Jewish and Arab workers stood up against the foreign oppressor, against whom they together went on strikes. A strong leftist trade union had come into existence; and the “Workers’ Association of the Arabs of Palestine” had been well on the way of freeing itself from the influence of the Husseinis. The murder of its leader, Sami Taha, committed by hirelings of the Arab High Committee could not restrain this development. But where the Husseinis failed, the decision of the imperialist agency, the UNO succeeded. The partition decision stifled the class struggle of the Palestine workers. The prospect of being at the hands of the Zionist “conquerors of soil and labor” is arousing fear and anxiety among the Arab workers and fellahs. Nationalist war slogans fall on fertile soil. And feudal murderers see their chance. Thus the policy of partition enables the feudalists to turn back the wheels of history….
The two camps today mobilize the masses under the mask of “self-defense.” “We have been attacked, let us defend ourselves!”—say the Zionists. “Let us ward off the danger of a Jewish conquest!”—declares the Arab Higher Committee. Where does the truth lie?
War is the continuation of politics by other means. The war led by the Arab feudalists is but the continuation of their reactionary war on the worker and the fellah who are striving to shake off oppression and exploitation. For the feudal effendis [lords] “Salvation of Palestine” means safeguarding their revenues at the expense of the fellahin, maintaining their autocratic rule in town and country, smashing the proletarian organizations and international class solidarity.
The war waged by the Zionists is the continuation of their expansionist policy based on discrimination between the two peoples: they defend kibbush avoda (ousting of Arab labor), kibbush adama (ousting of the fellah), boycott of Arab goods, “Hebrew rule.” The military conflict is a direct result of the policy of the Zionist conquerors.
This war can on neither side be said to bear a progressive character. The war does not release progressive forces or do away with social and economic obstacles in the path of development of the two nations. Quite the opposite is true. It is apt to obscure the class antagonism and to open the gate for nationalist excesses. It weakens the proletariat and strengthens imperialism in both camps.
Each side is “anti-imperialist” to the bone, busy detecting the reactionary—in the opposite camp. And imperialism is always seen—helping the other side. But this kind of exposure is oil on the imperialist fire. For the inveigling policy of imperialism is based upon agents and agencies within both camps. Therefore, we say to the Palestine people in reply to the patriotic warmongers: Make this war between Jews and Arabs, which serves the end of imperialism, the common war of both nations against imperialism!
This is the only solution guaranteeing a real peace. This must be our goal which must be achieved without concessions to the chauvinist mood prevailing at present among the masses.
How can that be done?
“The main enemy is in our own country!”—this was what Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg had to say to the workers when imperialists and social democrats were inciting them to the slaughter of their fellow workers in other countries. In this spirit we say to the Jewish and Arab workers: The enemy is in your own camp!
Jewish workers! Get rid of the Zionist provocateurs who tell you to sacrifice yourself on the altar of the Hebrew state.
Arab worker and fellah! Get rid of the chauvinist provocateurs who are getting you into a mess of blood for their own sake and pocket.
Workers of the two peoples, unite in a common front against imperialism and its agents!
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Killing Rachel Corrie Twice - by Stephen Lendman
Killing Rachel Corrie Twice
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 17 May 2011
Gaza siege
Killing Rachel Corrie Twice - by Stephen Lendman
On May 16, at 6:54AM Gaza time (3:54AM GMT), in international waters, an Israeli naval vessel attacked the Malaysian owned Spirit of Rachel Corrie ship (officially the MV Finch), carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. More details below.
Lawless Monday followed Nakba Day's bloody Sunday, Israeli security forces assaulting unprecedented numbers of nonviolent demonstrators in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and along the Lebanese/Syrian borders.
Egypt was complicit, blocking activists from reaching Rafah. So was Jordan, forcefully preventing Palestinian supporters from approaching the King Hussein Jordan River Crossing Point.
Nonetheless, the day was potentially historic. Activists hope it will inspire greater global support for Palestinian liberation and justice, what only hindsight will show.
Up to two dozen were killed, scores injured, and many arrested, soldiers and police firing high-velocity tear gas canisters at point blank range, rubber bullets, live ammunition, and tank shell warning shots, a shocking display of violence given scant coverage in America's media.
Now this, Israelis attacking Rachel Corrie's spirit after an Israeli bulldozer operator killed her in Gaza on March 16, 2003. Trying to stop a Rafah refugee camp home's demolition, witnesses said she climbed atop the giant Caterpillar tractor, spoke to the driver, climbed down, knelt 10 - 20 meters in front in clear view, blocking its path with her body. With activists screaming for it to stop, the soldier-operator crushed her to death deliberately, running her over twice to be sure.
On May 14, 2010, the MV Rachael Corrie sailed from Europe to Gaza. Other vessels, nine in all, tried to break the siege to deliver vitally needed aid, including over 10,000 tons of food, medicines, educational and construction materials.
They never made it. Israeli commandos intercepted them, killing at least nine unarmed activists on board the Mavi Marmara mother ship, injuring dozens, and arresting survivors. After stealing their property and harassing them for several days in confinement to deter future missions, they were released and sent home.
Israel miscalculated. They're coming. Besides US and other initiatives, the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG) plans new missions to deliver essentially needed aid.
It's an "umbrella body of 34 European human rights and humanitarian organizations," supporting the right of Palestinians "to live in peace and dignity," to be free from occupation, and to have "their own independent and sovereign state." It also "encourages all peoples of conscience and human rights advocates to intensify their efforts to highlight this life-threatening issue and end the catastrophe."
Its web site provides current information of its mission, including planned events and actions, accessed through the following link:
http://www.savegaza.eu/eng/
Saying they won't be intimidated, they're "putting Israel on notice," adding:
"We are Coming
We are Unarmed
We are Civilian
You have no right to threaten us
We Expect to Reach Gaza without any Interference."
In fact, Israel will confront them belligerently, including a planned FREEDOM FLOTILLA - STAY HUMAN voyage honoring slain journalist/activist Vittorio Arrigoni, a heroic freedom fighter like Rachel. Martyred for a just cause, their spirit inspires others to go on. Indeed, their right over wrong commitment won't ever be deterred, a lesson Israel insists on learning the hard way.
"There is nothing Israel - or our own governments - can do to frighten us into abandoning the 1.6 million 'prisoners' of Gaza," said ECESG spokesperson Rami Abdo. "We stand on the right side of history. If they continue their campaign of tyranny, however, we will only become more determined."
In fact, organizers of last May's "Freedom Flotilla" plan a mid-June "Freedom Flotilla Two. (FF 2)." Activists from 22 European, North American and Asian Free Gaza Movement-connected humanitarian organizations will attempt to break Israel's siege and deliver vitally needed aid.
Around 15 ships and over 1,000 activists are involved, sailing from various ports. Israel said preparations are underway to stop them, perhaps as violently as against last May's mission.
On April 9 and 10, its Steering Committee met in Athens, continuing mission preparations. Aware of Israel's plans, they're:
"calling on all our governments, the international community and the United Nations not to succumb to Israel's intimidation. Governments need to fulfill their 'responsibility to protect' their own citizens."
An ECESG initiative, FF 2 partners include participants from over 50 countries, including European Jews for a Just Peace.
Spirit of Rachel Corrie Attacked
Sponsored by the Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF), headed by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed, a May 16 press release explained what happened, accessed from the following link:
http://www.perdana4peace.net/?p=2654
Mohamed said:
"The Palestinian struggle is nothing more than a struggle for justice, to which they, as much as everyone else, have a right."
He knows and supports it. Israel, Washington, and most other Western nations spurn it, denying Palestinians their international law guaranteed rights, including to life.
On May 16, Global Research editor Michel Chossudovsky featured the incident on Global Research.ca, a link accessing his account below:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24783
He said an Israeli and Egyptian ship intercepted MV Finch in international waters, an act of piracy, adding that new details will be posted when learned.
On May 11, the ship departed Port of Piraeus, Greece, carrying vitally needed plastic sewage pipes to restore the system Israel destroyed in its 2007 - 08 Cast Lead attack. Under siege, restoration can't happen without help.
As a result, up to 95% of Gaza's aquifer water is unsafe to drink because Israeli forces destroyed 20 km of water pipes, 7.5 km of sewage pipes, and 5,700 mobile water tanks. In 2009, Amnesty International (AI) addressed the problem in its report titled, "Troubled Waters - Palestinians Denied Fair Access to Water."
Moreover, Military Orders applying only to Palestinians give Israel control over water, including:
-- No. 92 controlling all West Bank and Gaza water;
-- No. 158 stipulating that Palestinians can't construct water installations without (nearly impossible to get) permits; moreover, those built without them will be confiscated; and
-- No. 291 annulling all land and water-related arrangements prior to the occupation.
Destroyed and under siege, Gaza's Coastal Aquifer is polluted by raw sewage from waste collection pond cesspits and seawater, itself contaminated by about 80 million liters of untreated or partially treated daily discharges into the Mediterranean Sea.
As a result, waterborne diseases are common, UNWRA reporting in February 2009 that:
"Water diarrhea as well as acute bloody diarrhea remain the major causes of morbidity among reportable infectious diseases in (Gaza's) refugee population...."
In September 2009, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP):
"The pollution of groundwater is contributing to two main types of water contamination in the Gaza Strip. First and most importantly, it is causing the nitrate levels in the groundwater to increase. In most parts of (Gaza), especially around areas of intensive sewage infiltration, the nitrate level in groundwater is far above (accepted) guidelines....Second, because the water abstracted now is high in salt, the sewage is also very saline. (It's well known that higher drinking water nitrate levels) can induce methemoglobinaemia (a blood disorder) in young children."
Moreover, Gaza's shoreline is polluted, posing serious health hazards because raw sewage is dumped daily into the Mediterranean Sea through 16 discharge sites along the coast.
Gaza TV News.com quoted PGPF member Shamsul Azhar saying:
After Israeli forces fired warning shots, it forced MV Finch "to anchor in Egyptian waters, 30 nautical miles from Gaza."
Malaysian journalist on board, Alang Mendahara, said:
"The Israeli naval vessel fired a warning shot at us upon approaching and asked us to leave the waters, but the ship's captain refused and the Israelis fired again, circling the MV Finch before firing twice more."
Bendahara said ship participants included seven Malaysians, two Irish, two Indians and a Canadian. No one was hurt. Events like this are fluid. A follow-up article will explain more if relevant information permits.
For now, Israeli remains a global menace and no fit state to live in, including for Jews.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 17 May 2011
Gaza siege
Killing Rachel Corrie Twice - by Stephen Lendman
On May 16, at 6:54AM Gaza time (3:54AM GMT), in international waters, an Israeli naval vessel attacked the Malaysian owned Spirit of Rachel Corrie ship (officially the MV Finch), carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. More details below.
Lawless Monday followed Nakba Day's bloody Sunday, Israeli security forces assaulting unprecedented numbers of nonviolent demonstrators in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and along the Lebanese/Syrian borders.
Egypt was complicit, blocking activists from reaching Rafah. So was Jordan, forcefully preventing Palestinian supporters from approaching the King Hussein Jordan River Crossing Point.
Nonetheless, the day was potentially historic. Activists hope it will inspire greater global support for Palestinian liberation and justice, what only hindsight will show.
Up to two dozen were killed, scores injured, and many arrested, soldiers and police firing high-velocity tear gas canisters at point blank range, rubber bullets, live ammunition, and tank shell warning shots, a shocking display of violence given scant coverage in America's media.
Now this, Israelis attacking Rachel Corrie's spirit after an Israeli bulldozer operator killed her in Gaza on March 16, 2003. Trying to stop a Rafah refugee camp home's demolition, witnesses said she climbed atop the giant Caterpillar tractor, spoke to the driver, climbed down, knelt 10 - 20 meters in front in clear view, blocking its path with her body. With activists screaming for it to stop, the soldier-operator crushed her to death deliberately, running her over twice to be sure.
On May 14, 2010, the MV Rachael Corrie sailed from Europe to Gaza. Other vessels, nine in all, tried to break the siege to deliver vitally needed aid, including over 10,000 tons of food, medicines, educational and construction materials.
They never made it. Israeli commandos intercepted them, killing at least nine unarmed activists on board the Mavi Marmara mother ship, injuring dozens, and arresting survivors. After stealing their property and harassing them for several days in confinement to deter future missions, they were released and sent home.
Israel miscalculated. They're coming. Besides US and other initiatives, the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG) plans new missions to deliver essentially needed aid.
It's an "umbrella body of 34 European human rights and humanitarian organizations," supporting the right of Palestinians "to live in peace and dignity," to be free from occupation, and to have "their own independent and sovereign state." It also "encourages all peoples of conscience and human rights advocates to intensify their efforts to highlight this life-threatening issue and end the catastrophe."
Its web site provides current information of its mission, including planned events and actions, accessed through the following link:
http://www.savegaza.eu/eng/
Saying they won't be intimidated, they're "putting Israel on notice," adding:
"We are Coming
We are Unarmed
We are Civilian
You have no right to threaten us
We Expect to Reach Gaza without any Interference."
In fact, Israel will confront them belligerently, including a planned FREEDOM FLOTILLA - STAY HUMAN voyage honoring slain journalist/activist Vittorio Arrigoni, a heroic freedom fighter like Rachel. Martyred for a just cause, their spirit inspires others to go on. Indeed, their right over wrong commitment won't ever be deterred, a lesson Israel insists on learning the hard way.
"There is nothing Israel - or our own governments - can do to frighten us into abandoning the 1.6 million 'prisoners' of Gaza," said ECESG spokesperson Rami Abdo. "We stand on the right side of history. If they continue their campaign of tyranny, however, we will only become more determined."
In fact, organizers of last May's "Freedom Flotilla" plan a mid-June "Freedom Flotilla Two. (FF 2)." Activists from 22 European, North American and Asian Free Gaza Movement-connected humanitarian organizations will attempt to break Israel's siege and deliver vitally needed aid.
Around 15 ships and over 1,000 activists are involved, sailing from various ports. Israel said preparations are underway to stop them, perhaps as violently as against last May's mission.
On April 9 and 10, its Steering Committee met in Athens, continuing mission preparations. Aware of Israel's plans, they're:
"calling on all our governments, the international community and the United Nations not to succumb to Israel's intimidation. Governments need to fulfill their 'responsibility to protect' their own citizens."
An ECESG initiative, FF 2 partners include participants from over 50 countries, including European Jews for a Just Peace.
Spirit of Rachel Corrie Attacked
Sponsored by the Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF), headed by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed, a May 16 press release explained what happened, accessed from the following link:
http://www.perdana4peace.net/?p=2654
Mohamed said:
"The Palestinian struggle is nothing more than a struggle for justice, to which they, as much as everyone else, have a right."
He knows and supports it. Israel, Washington, and most other Western nations spurn it, denying Palestinians their international law guaranteed rights, including to life.
On May 16, Global Research editor Michel Chossudovsky featured the incident on Global Research.ca, a link accessing his account below:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24783
He said an Israeli and Egyptian ship intercepted MV Finch in international waters, an act of piracy, adding that new details will be posted when learned.
On May 11, the ship departed Port of Piraeus, Greece, carrying vitally needed plastic sewage pipes to restore the system Israel destroyed in its 2007 - 08 Cast Lead attack. Under siege, restoration can't happen without help.
As a result, up to 95% of Gaza's aquifer water is unsafe to drink because Israeli forces destroyed 20 km of water pipes, 7.5 km of sewage pipes, and 5,700 mobile water tanks. In 2009, Amnesty International (AI) addressed the problem in its report titled, "Troubled Waters - Palestinians Denied Fair Access to Water."
Moreover, Military Orders applying only to Palestinians give Israel control over water, including:
-- No. 92 controlling all West Bank and Gaza water;
-- No. 158 stipulating that Palestinians can't construct water installations without (nearly impossible to get) permits; moreover, those built without them will be confiscated; and
-- No. 291 annulling all land and water-related arrangements prior to the occupation.
Destroyed and under siege, Gaza's Coastal Aquifer is polluted by raw sewage from waste collection pond cesspits and seawater, itself contaminated by about 80 million liters of untreated or partially treated daily discharges into the Mediterranean Sea.
As a result, waterborne diseases are common, UNWRA reporting in February 2009 that:
"Water diarrhea as well as acute bloody diarrhea remain the major causes of morbidity among reportable infectious diseases in (Gaza's) refugee population...."
In September 2009, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP):
"The pollution of groundwater is contributing to two main types of water contamination in the Gaza Strip. First and most importantly, it is causing the nitrate levels in the groundwater to increase. In most parts of (Gaza), especially around areas of intensive sewage infiltration, the nitrate level in groundwater is far above (accepted) guidelines....Second, because the water abstracted now is high in salt, the sewage is also very saline. (It's well known that higher drinking water nitrate levels) can induce methemoglobinaemia (a blood disorder) in young children."
Moreover, Gaza's shoreline is polluted, posing serious health hazards because raw sewage is dumped daily into the Mediterranean Sea through 16 discharge sites along the coast.
Gaza TV News.com quoted PGPF member Shamsul Azhar saying:
After Israeli forces fired warning shots, it forced MV Finch "to anchor in Egyptian waters, 30 nautical miles from Gaza."
Malaysian journalist on board, Alang Mendahara, said:
"The Israeli naval vessel fired a warning shot at us upon approaching and asked us to leave the waters, but the ship's captain refused and the Israelis fired again, circling the MV Finch before firing twice more."
Bendahara said ship participants included seven Malaysians, two Irish, two Indians and a Canadian. No one was hurt. Events like this are fluid. A follow-up article will explain more if relevant information permits.
For now, Israeli remains a global menace and no fit state to live in, including for Jews.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
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