Demonstrators call for end to bombing in Gaza
ILLINOIS
Thousands jam Warren Ave. to make their feelings known
By Jason Carmel Davis , Press & Guide Newspapers Press&Guide dot com
DEARBORN - Huge gusts of wind and chilly temps on Tuesday didn't deter several thousand demonstrators from marching, chanting, honking horns and waving flags, signs and banners across a long stretch of Warren Avenue in East Dearborn that started at Chase and moved to Schaefer.
The large, peaceful group gathered in protest of Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip that have killed several hundred people in the last week, according to United Nations figures. Those in attendance could be heard — by the large number of vehicles that stopped in the area — yelling out several chants, including "Bring free Palestine," "One, two, three, four, stop the killing, stop the war," and "Bush and Olmert, you can't hide. You are guilty of genocide."
"This is a call for justice and a call for peace," said Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Several local and national groups are also urging concerned parties to contact elected officials with the hopes of ending the war, as well.
"This whole war has been very ugly and what the people of Gaza are facing is true genocide," said Hamad, who added the crowd was one of the biggest he has seen for a protest.
Following Tuesday's gathering, a number of special events have taken place in protest of the fighting. A prayer and memorial service took place Thursday at the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights. A candlelight vigil took place Friday outside Dearborn City Hall, as well.
Dearborn Police Department Special Events personnel did not return calls from the Press & Guide Friday requesting information about the size of Tuesday's crowd.
For the last two years, Israel has imposed an economic siege on the more than one million Palestinians living in Gaza. Humanitarian organizations have long warned of impending disaster in Gaza, where Israel has prevented food and fuel from entering and people are starving to death.
"We call on the current and the incoming American administrations to take immediate action to prevent any more deaths of innocent civilians, by starvation and by bombing," said Congress of Arab American Organizations Spokesman Osama Siblani.
"The United States stands alone in the world in its unconditional support of Israeli aggression and genocide, and that is inexcusable. The economic siege should be lifted now, adequate food and fuel allowed in to warm and feed the people and all military aggression against this civilian population stopped immediately."
Following the outside protest, about 600 of the protestors gathered inside the Byblos Banquet Hall, 7258 Chase, for a memorial service. All of those in attendance hoped to attend the service, but the size of the hall prevented that, Hamad said.
It isn't just the Arab-American community supporting the stoppage of the fighting. Massachusetts-based American Jews for a Just Peace issued a statement Dec. 28 saying it strongly condemns the Israeli invasion of Gaza as a cruel and barbarous attack upon a captive civilian population.
"Israel justifies its attack as a defensive response to Hamas rockets fired into Israel," the statement read. "While the firing of Hamas rockets into civilian areas is not a justifiable response, the reality is that those rocket attacks were provoked by Israel's own violation of the cease-fire in early November, before it expired, when Israel mounted a series of unprovoked attacks against Gaza that killed six Palestinians.
"As American Jews, we are compelled to oppose these violations of widely held and agreed upon rules of ethical conduct by Israel — and by the U.S., in complicity with it."
One of the protestors in attendance, Mohammad Ali Elahi of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, likened what is going on in Gaza to the Holocaust. He said what Israel is perpetrating is "stupid aggression."
"What people have been seeing on TV every day is unacceptable, with babies dying and people being without food and water," Elahi said. "Something has to be done about what these criminals are doing. There has to be justice."
Contact News Editor Jason Carmel Davis at (734) 246-2652 or jadavis@heritage.com.
**************
TEXAS
Protest the Israeli invasion of Gaza!
WHEN: Sunday, January 4, 2009 from 3:00-6:00 PM
WHERE: Galleria area in front of Starbucks (on the corner of Westheimer and Post Oak) 2521 Post Oak Blvd Houston, TX 77056,
WHY: A peaceful gathering to protest the Israeli military assault on Gaza
SPONSORED BY: Houston Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine (HCJPP)
*** 713-240-9766, info@hcjpp.org ***
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=43411812565
***********
WASHINGTON DC
LET GAZA LIVE!
Stop the U.S./Israeli War
Against the Palestinian People
National March on Washington
Saturday, January 10
Assemble at the White House (north side) at 1:00 PM
Tens of thousands have marched across the country.
Above: Chicago, January 2
Sponsoring organizations: ANSWER Coalition, Muslim American Society Freedom, Free Palestine Alliance, American Muslim Task Force, National Council of Arab Americans, Al-Awda - International Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and hundreds of others
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Israel's Looming Catastrophe
consortiumnews dot com
Israel's Looming Catastrophe
By Robert Parry
January 4, 2009
For the past three decades, Israel has charted a course that invites its own destruction by relying on two risky propositions: first, that it could extend its security perimeter beyond the reach of a devastating missile attack, and second, that it could permanently control the political debate inside its crucial ally, the United States.
Israel’s current assault on Gaza is only the latest manifestation of this dangerous strategy, but – whether or not Israel succeeds in its stated goal of stopping the launching of short-range Hamas rockets – the more troubling writing for Israel remains on the wall.
If Israel continues to engender hatred across the Muslim world – and thus feeds the growth of Islamic extremism – eventually some radical government or group will get hold of a missile or some other means of delivering a payload against Tel Aviv that would wreak mass devastation.
In that event, Israel would almost surely turn to its sophisticated nuclear arsenal and launch a massive retaliatory strike. But to what end? Whatever counter-devastation could be delivered, it would not solve the strategic dilemma facing Israel.
Indeed, retaliation would likely make matters worse by engendering even a stronger determination among Muslims to eliminate whatever would be left of Israel. The situation might even be beyond the military power of the United States to set right.
Yet, this Israeli conundrum is not discussed inside the United States, where – for the past three decades – American neocons have led a powerful propaganda apparatus that demonizes any public figure who dares question hard-line Israeli strategy.
Even Americans with strong affection for Israel are denounced as “anti-Semites” or “pro-terrorist” if they challenge the Israel-is-always-right conventional wisdom that dominates modern Washington, where Democrats and Republicans alike line up to pander to the annual American-Israel Public Affairs Committee conference.
Former President Jimmy Carter, for instance, has become almost a political pariah although he arguably did more than any U.S. official to advance Israel’s security by negotiating the Camp David accords in 1978.
However, it was that event – the agreement between Israel and Egypt, returning the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for a lasting peace commitment – that marked the strategic turning point for both Israel and the United States.
Begin’s Fury
Though Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the peace deal, he was furious over the pressure Carter put on him.
Begin – who had led a Zionist terrorist group before Israel’s independence in 1948 and founded the right-wing Likud Party in 1973 – decided he must take steps to prevent Carter from pushing for a broader Israel-Arab peace deal in a potential second term.
Begin’s views were described by Israeli intelligence and foreign affairs official David Kimche in his 1991 book, The Last Option. Kimche wrote that Begin’s government believed that Carter was overly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and was conspiring to force Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.
“Begin was being set up for diplomatic slaughter by the master butchers in Washington,” Kimche wrote. “They had, moreover, the apparent blessing of the two presidents, Carter and [Egyptian President Anwar] Sadat, for this bizarre and clumsy attempt at collusion designed to force Israel to abandon her refusal to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem, and to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
Kimche continued, “This plan – prepared behind Israel’s back and without her knowledge – must rank as a unique attempt in United States’s diplomatic history of short-changing a friend and ally by deceit and manipulation.”
Begin particularly dreaded the prospect of a second Carter presidential term.
“Unbeknownst to the Israeli negotiators, the Egyptians held an ace up their sleeves, and they were waiting to play it,” Kimche wrote. “The card was President Carter’s tacit agreement that after the American presidential elections in November 1980, when Carter expected to be re-elected for a second term, he would be free to compel Israel to accept a settlement of the Palestinian problem on his and Egyptian terms, without having to fear the backlash of the American Jewish lobby.”
Begin’s fear of Carter’s reelection – combined with alarm over Carter's perceived bungling in Iran where Islamic extremists took power in 1979 – set the stage for secret collaboration between Begin and the Republican presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, according to another Israeli intelligence official, Ari Ben-Menashe.
In his 1992 memoir, Profits of War, Ben-Menashe said the view of Begin and other Likud leaders was one of contempt for Carter.
“Begin loathed Carter for the peace agreement forced upon him at Camp David,” Ben-Menashe wrote. “As Begin saw it, the agreement took away Sinai from Israel, did not create a comprehensive peace, and left the Palestinian issue hanging on Israel’s back.”
Ben-Menashe, an Iranian-born Jew who had immigrated to Israel as a teen-ager, became part of a secret Israeli program to reestablish its intelligence network in Iran after it had been decimated by the Islamic revolution.
Ben-Menashe wrote that Begin authorized shipments to Iran of small arms and some spare parts, via South Africa, as early as September 1979. In November of that year, events in Iran took another troubling turn when Islamic radicals seized the U.S. Embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, prompting a U.S. trade embargo.
Carter Catches On
By April 1980, however, Carter had learned about the covert Israeli shipments, which included 300 tires for Iran’s U.S.-supplied jet fighters. That prompted an angry complaint from Carter to Begin.
“There had been a rather tense discussion between President Carter and Prime Minister Begin in the spring of 1980 in which the President made clear that the Israelis had to stop that, and that we knew that they were doing it, and that we would not allow it to continue, at least not allow it to continue privately and without the knowledge of the American people,” Carter’s press secretary Jody Powell told me.
“And it stopped,” Powell said. At least, it stopped temporarily.
Questioned by congressional investigators a dozen years later, Carter said he felt that by April 1980, “Israel cast their lot with Reagan,” according to notes I found among the unpublished documents in the files of a congressional investigation in 1992.
Carter traced the Israeli opposition to his reelection to a “lingering concern [among] Jewish leaders that I was too friendly with Arabs.”
Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski also recognized the Israeli hostility. Brzezinski said the Carter White House was well aware that the Begin government had “an obvious preference for a Reagan victory.”
Extensive evidence now exists, too, that Begin’s preference for a Reagan victory led Israelis to join in a covert operation with Republicans to contact Iranian leaders behind Carter’s back and delay release of the 52 American hostages until after Reagan defeated Carter in November 1980.
In his book and in sworn testimony about this so-called “October Surprise” controversy, Ben-Menashe asserted that then-vice presidential candidate George H.W. Bush personally participated in a key meeting in October 1980 in Paris. Bush denied that claim at two press conferences in 1992 but was never questioned under oath in any formal government investigation.
More Evidence
Since then, additional evidence has emerged linking the senior Bush to the clandestine Republican contacts with Iran during the 1980 campaign. Chicago Tribune reporter John Maclean said he was informed by a well-placed Republican Party source in mid-October 1980 that Bush was heading to Paris for a meeting with Iranians about the hostage crisis.
David Andelman, a former New York Times correspondent who was assisting French intelligence chief Alexandre deMarenches on his memoir, said deMarenches described arranging meetings between Republicans and Iranians in Paris but insisted that be left out of the book for fear it would hurt his friend, George H.W. Bush.
After checking its intelligence files at the request of the U.S. Congress, the Russian government submitted an extraordinary report in January 1993 that identified the senior George Bush as one of several Republicans who negotiated with the Iranians in Paris during the 1980 campaign.
The congressional task force that requested the Russian report as part of its “October Surprise” investigation in 1992 never made the report public or even disclosed its existence.
I discovered the Russian document in a storage box left behind by the task force, which – by the time the Russian report arrived – had already decided to “debunk” the allegations of a Republican-Iranian hostage deal. The task force cleared Bush without ever questioning him.
In 1993, former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who followed Begin to power in Israel, became another voice endorsing the allegations of a Republican-Iranian “October Surprise” deal back in 1980.
When asked in an interview whether there had been a Republican “October Surprise” operation, Shamir responded, “Of course, it was.” [For details on this mystery, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]
The 52 American hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981, just as Ronald Reagan was beginning his inaugural address.
Though the allegations of a Republican-Iranian deal have remained in dispute, investigations into the controversy confirmed that Israel did resume military shipments to Iran in 1981 with the knowledge of Reagan-Bush officials who permitted the secret deliveries to go forward.
By the mid-1980s, the Reagan-Bush administration was playing both sides of the Iran-Iraq war, funneling financial and some military support to Iraq while also selling missiles to Iran, both through third countries such as Israel and directly from U.S. stockpiles.
Rise of the Neoconservatives
The election of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in 1980 also coincided with the emergence of a political movement known as neoconservatism.
Many neoconservatives had been liberals or even leftists but broke with the Democratic Party in the 1970s to favor a more aggressive policy toward the Soviet Union. The neoconservatives also wanted a more staunchly pro-Israeli position in the Middle East.
The Reagan-Bush administration rewarded the neocons for their support in the 1980 campaign with their first taste of executive power, giving them credentials that would prove crucial more than two decades later in their ability to push through the Iraq War.
Elliott Abrams and Paul Wolfowitz became assistant secretaries of state in the Reagan-Bush administration. Abrams now handles Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, and Wolfowitz was an architect of the Iraq policy as deputy secretary of defense. One of Wolfowitz’s protégés from the Reagan-Bush era, I. Lewis Libby Jr., became Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff and a leading hawk on Iraq.
Another key neocon -- and Iraq policy architect -- was Richard Perle, an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan. Perle’s former counsel was Douglas Feith, who returned as under secretary of defense for policy under George W. Bush and strongly promoted the invasion of Iraq.
Besides bringing intellectual firepower to the Reagan-Bush team, the neocons tapped into a powerful right-wing media apparatus that began to take shape in the late 1970s and pushed propaganda that advocated a more aggressive U.S. approach toward Israel’s “terrorist” adversaries in the Middle East.
Over the ensuing three decades, the neocons – and their right-wing Republican allies – came to dominate the Washington news media, especially on Middle East policy. Critics of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians were routinely denounced as “anti-Semites” and found little space on the major editorial pages to argue their positions.
Once the neocons returned to power under George W. Bush (and especially after the 9/11 attacks), the space for any debate shrank further, with anyone who questioned hard-line policies toward Iraq or Israel’s other Muslim enemies called “soft on terror.”
With debate suppressed, the neocons pushed for the invasion of Iraq almost without opposition. Though the war was pitched as necessary to protect the American people from Iraq’s supposed stockpiles of WMD, the invasion was viewed by many neocons as necessary to protect Israel’s long-term security.
The idea was that by transforming Iraq into a permanent base for the American military, U.S. power could be projected throughout the Middle East, forcing “regime change” in Iran and Syria and undermining other groups threatening Israel, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.
The neocons saw the U.S. military in Iraq as the guarantors against any long-range assault on Israel. In other words, if Israel couldn’t reach some of those distant threats, the United States could.
The neocons also assumed that their tough-talking ways – especially President Bush’s then-popular swagger – would keep the American people in line with Washington’s Israel-is-always-right consensus.
Strategic Defeat
President Bush’s strategic defeat in Iraq – defined by the new “status-of-forces agreement” that prohibits permanent U.S. bases and insists on a full U.S. withdrawal by the end of 2011 – marks a major turning point in the Middle East.
Plus, the American neocons have been severely damaged domestically by their overreach in Iraq. Though they remain influential – especially inside the national press corps with control of the Washington Post’s editorial pages and other influential media outlets – the neocons are increasingly despised by the broad American public.
One of their chief advocates, Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, went down to decisive defeat on Nov. 4, 2008, to a political newcomer in Barack Obama, despite right-wing and neocon smear campaigns emphasizing his middle name “Hussein” and claiming that he is a secret Muslim who would be sworn in using a Koran.
Though Obama has given the neocons some hope by handing the State Department to the staunchly pro-Israel Hillary Clinton and by keeping on Bush’s Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the neocons will probably never reclaim the kind of sweeping influence they had during George W. Bush's presidency.
These new facts-on-the-ground – both in the Middle East and in Washington – add to the imperative for the Israeli people to reassess the three-decade strategy of balking at reconciliation with their Arab neighbors and counting on the neocon dominance of the U.S. political debates.
Israeli leaders might want to do whatever they can to turn back the clock to the late 1970s when Jimmy Carter showed a possible route to long-term security for Israel – by making respectful peace deals with its Arab neighbors.
Rather than trying to bomb and kill their way to security, Israeli leaders might want to consider a new strategy that steps away from endless confrontation with Arab enemies and instead seeks to integrate Israel into the economic life of the Middle East, as a center of science, technology, industry and finance.
Surely, this approach would not be easy. Given the past three decades of tit-for-tat atrocities, there would be extremists on both sides who would commit additional outrages to derail any progress.
It would have been much easier if Menachem Begin and his successors had understood that some of their greatest American friends were those – like Jimmy Carter – who recognized legitimate interests on both sides of the conflict, rather than those – like George W. Bush – who embraced the most extreme neoconservative positions.
So, whatever the outcome of Israel’s Gaza offensive, it cannot disguise how untenable Israel’s long-term position has become.
Even if Hamas’s little short-range missiles can be silenced for the time-being, the hatreds will continue to fester. The Arab Street will turn, increasingly, against authoritarian Arab leaders in countries such as Egypt and Jordan who have taken the most moderate positions regarding Israel’s right to exist.
And beyond Israel’s immediate neighbors – assuming those mutual hatreds are not defused – Muslim extremists will eventually get hold of a weapon of mass destruction, possibly in Pakistan if its current fragile civilian government falls. At some point, someone will have a missile or some other means of delivering a powerful weapon against Israel.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Bush and his neocon advisers may have imagined themselves ensuring security for Israel by taking aggressive action against its regional adversaries but have instead worsened Israel’s predicament. Now, the neocons find themselves widely discredited inside the U.S. political process.
It is this combination of realities – Bush’s failed adventurism in the Middle East and the decline of the neoncons at home – that could become the impetus for a new and serious peace initiative in the Middle East, as the best hope for Israel’s success and survival.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.
Israel's Looming Catastrophe
By Robert Parry
January 4, 2009
For the past three decades, Israel has charted a course that invites its own destruction by relying on two risky propositions: first, that it could extend its security perimeter beyond the reach of a devastating missile attack, and second, that it could permanently control the political debate inside its crucial ally, the United States.
Israel’s current assault on Gaza is only the latest manifestation of this dangerous strategy, but – whether or not Israel succeeds in its stated goal of stopping the launching of short-range Hamas rockets – the more troubling writing for Israel remains on the wall.
If Israel continues to engender hatred across the Muslim world – and thus feeds the growth of Islamic extremism – eventually some radical government or group will get hold of a missile or some other means of delivering a payload against Tel Aviv that would wreak mass devastation.
In that event, Israel would almost surely turn to its sophisticated nuclear arsenal and launch a massive retaliatory strike. But to what end? Whatever counter-devastation could be delivered, it would not solve the strategic dilemma facing Israel.
Indeed, retaliation would likely make matters worse by engendering even a stronger determination among Muslims to eliminate whatever would be left of Israel. The situation might even be beyond the military power of the United States to set right.
Yet, this Israeli conundrum is not discussed inside the United States, where – for the past three decades – American neocons have led a powerful propaganda apparatus that demonizes any public figure who dares question hard-line Israeli strategy.
Even Americans with strong affection for Israel are denounced as “anti-Semites” or “pro-terrorist” if they challenge the Israel-is-always-right conventional wisdom that dominates modern Washington, where Democrats and Republicans alike line up to pander to the annual American-Israel Public Affairs Committee conference.
Former President Jimmy Carter, for instance, has become almost a political pariah although he arguably did more than any U.S. official to advance Israel’s security by negotiating the Camp David accords in 1978.
However, it was that event – the agreement between Israel and Egypt, returning the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for a lasting peace commitment – that marked the strategic turning point for both Israel and the United States.
Begin’s Fury
Though Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the peace deal, he was furious over the pressure Carter put on him.
Begin – who had led a Zionist terrorist group before Israel’s independence in 1948 and founded the right-wing Likud Party in 1973 – decided he must take steps to prevent Carter from pushing for a broader Israel-Arab peace deal in a potential second term.
Begin’s views were described by Israeli intelligence and foreign affairs official David Kimche in his 1991 book, The Last Option. Kimche wrote that Begin’s government believed that Carter was overly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and was conspiring to force Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.
“Begin was being set up for diplomatic slaughter by the master butchers in Washington,” Kimche wrote. “They had, moreover, the apparent blessing of the two presidents, Carter and [Egyptian President Anwar] Sadat, for this bizarre and clumsy attempt at collusion designed to force Israel to abandon her refusal to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem, and to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
Kimche continued, “This plan – prepared behind Israel’s back and without her knowledge – must rank as a unique attempt in United States’s diplomatic history of short-changing a friend and ally by deceit and manipulation.”
Begin particularly dreaded the prospect of a second Carter presidential term.
“Unbeknownst to the Israeli negotiators, the Egyptians held an ace up their sleeves, and they were waiting to play it,” Kimche wrote. “The card was President Carter’s tacit agreement that after the American presidential elections in November 1980, when Carter expected to be re-elected for a second term, he would be free to compel Israel to accept a settlement of the Palestinian problem on his and Egyptian terms, without having to fear the backlash of the American Jewish lobby.”
Begin’s fear of Carter’s reelection – combined with alarm over Carter's perceived bungling in Iran where Islamic extremists took power in 1979 – set the stage for secret collaboration between Begin and the Republican presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, according to another Israeli intelligence official, Ari Ben-Menashe.
In his 1992 memoir, Profits of War, Ben-Menashe said the view of Begin and other Likud leaders was one of contempt for Carter.
“Begin loathed Carter for the peace agreement forced upon him at Camp David,” Ben-Menashe wrote. “As Begin saw it, the agreement took away Sinai from Israel, did not create a comprehensive peace, and left the Palestinian issue hanging on Israel’s back.”
Ben-Menashe, an Iranian-born Jew who had immigrated to Israel as a teen-ager, became part of a secret Israeli program to reestablish its intelligence network in Iran after it had been decimated by the Islamic revolution.
Ben-Menashe wrote that Begin authorized shipments to Iran of small arms and some spare parts, via South Africa, as early as September 1979. In November of that year, events in Iran took another troubling turn when Islamic radicals seized the U.S. Embassy and took 52 Americans hostage, prompting a U.S. trade embargo.
Carter Catches On
By April 1980, however, Carter had learned about the covert Israeli shipments, which included 300 tires for Iran’s U.S.-supplied jet fighters. That prompted an angry complaint from Carter to Begin.
“There had been a rather tense discussion between President Carter and Prime Minister Begin in the spring of 1980 in which the President made clear that the Israelis had to stop that, and that we knew that they were doing it, and that we would not allow it to continue, at least not allow it to continue privately and without the knowledge of the American people,” Carter’s press secretary Jody Powell told me.
“And it stopped,” Powell said. At least, it stopped temporarily.
Questioned by congressional investigators a dozen years later, Carter said he felt that by April 1980, “Israel cast their lot with Reagan,” according to notes I found among the unpublished documents in the files of a congressional investigation in 1992.
Carter traced the Israeli opposition to his reelection to a “lingering concern [among] Jewish leaders that I was too friendly with Arabs.”
Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski also recognized the Israeli hostility. Brzezinski said the Carter White House was well aware that the Begin government had “an obvious preference for a Reagan victory.”
Extensive evidence now exists, too, that Begin’s preference for a Reagan victory led Israelis to join in a covert operation with Republicans to contact Iranian leaders behind Carter’s back and delay release of the 52 American hostages until after Reagan defeated Carter in November 1980.
In his book and in sworn testimony about this so-called “October Surprise” controversy, Ben-Menashe asserted that then-vice presidential candidate George H.W. Bush personally participated in a key meeting in October 1980 in Paris. Bush denied that claim at two press conferences in 1992 but was never questioned under oath in any formal government investigation.
More Evidence
Since then, additional evidence has emerged linking the senior Bush to the clandestine Republican contacts with Iran during the 1980 campaign. Chicago Tribune reporter John Maclean said he was informed by a well-placed Republican Party source in mid-October 1980 that Bush was heading to Paris for a meeting with Iranians about the hostage crisis.
David Andelman, a former New York Times correspondent who was assisting French intelligence chief Alexandre deMarenches on his memoir, said deMarenches described arranging meetings between Republicans and Iranians in Paris but insisted that be left out of the book for fear it would hurt his friend, George H.W. Bush.
After checking its intelligence files at the request of the U.S. Congress, the Russian government submitted an extraordinary report in January 1993 that identified the senior George Bush as one of several Republicans who negotiated with the Iranians in Paris during the 1980 campaign.
The congressional task force that requested the Russian report as part of its “October Surprise” investigation in 1992 never made the report public or even disclosed its existence.
I discovered the Russian document in a storage box left behind by the task force, which – by the time the Russian report arrived – had already decided to “debunk” the allegations of a Republican-Iranian hostage deal. The task force cleared Bush without ever questioning him.
In 1993, former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who followed Begin to power in Israel, became another voice endorsing the allegations of a Republican-Iranian “October Surprise” deal back in 1980.
When asked in an interview whether there had been a Republican “October Surprise” operation, Shamir responded, “Of course, it was.” [For details on this mystery, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]
The 52 American hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981, just as Ronald Reagan was beginning his inaugural address.
Though the allegations of a Republican-Iranian deal have remained in dispute, investigations into the controversy confirmed that Israel did resume military shipments to Iran in 1981 with the knowledge of Reagan-Bush officials who permitted the secret deliveries to go forward.
By the mid-1980s, the Reagan-Bush administration was playing both sides of the Iran-Iraq war, funneling financial and some military support to Iraq while also selling missiles to Iran, both through third countries such as Israel and directly from U.S. stockpiles.
Rise of the Neoconservatives
The election of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in 1980 also coincided with the emergence of a political movement known as neoconservatism.
Many neoconservatives had been liberals or even leftists but broke with the Democratic Party in the 1970s to favor a more aggressive policy toward the Soviet Union. The neoconservatives also wanted a more staunchly pro-Israeli position in the Middle East.
The Reagan-Bush administration rewarded the neocons for their support in the 1980 campaign with their first taste of executive power, giving them credentials that would prove crucial more than two decades later in their ability to push through the Iraq War.
Elliott Abrams and Paul Wolfowitz became assistant secretaries of state in the Reagan-Bush administration. Abrams now handles Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, and Wolfowitz was an architect of the Iraq policy as deputy secretary of defense. One of Wolfowitz’s protégés from the Reagan-Bush era, I. Lewis Libby Jr., became Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff and a leading hawk on Iraq.
Another key neocon -- and Iraq policy architect -- was Richard Perle, an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan. Perle’s former counsel was Douglas Feith, who returned as under secretary of defense for policy under George W. Bush and strongly promoted the invasion of Iraq.
Besides bringing intellectual firepower to the Reagan-Bush team, the neocons tapped into a powerful right-wing media apparatus that began to take shape in the late 1970s and pushed propaganda that advocated a more aggressive U.S. approach toward Israel’s “terrorist” adversaries in the Middle East.
Over the ensuing three decades, the neocons – and their right-wing Republican allies – came to dominate the Washington news media, especially on Middle East policy. Critics of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians were routinely denounced as “anti-Semites” and found little space on the major editorial pages to argue their positions.
Once the neocons returned to power under George W. Bush (and especially after the 9/11 attacks), the space for any debate shrank further, with anyone who questioned hard-line policies toward Iraq or Israel’s other Muslim enemies called “soft on terror.”
With debate suppressed, the neocons pushed for the invasion of Iraq almost without opposition. Though the war was pitched as necessary to protect the American people from Iraq’s supposed stockpiles of WMD, the invasion was viewed by many neocons as necessary to protect Israel’s long-term security.
The idea was that by transforming Iraq into a permanent base for the American military, U.S. power could be projected throughout the Middle East, forcing “regime change” in Iran and Syria and undermining other groups threatening Israel, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.
The neocons saw the U.S. military in Iraq as the guarantors against any long-range assault on Israel. In other words, if Israel couldn’t reach some of those distant threats, the United States could.
The neocons also assumed that their tough-talking ways – especially President Bush’s then-popular swagger – would keep the American people in line with Washington’s Israel-is-always-right consensus.
Strategic Defeat
President Bush’s strategic defeat in Iraq – defined by the new “status-of-forces agreement” that prohibits permanent U.S. bases and insists on a full U.S. withdrawal by the end of 2011 – marks a major turning point in the Middle East.
Plus, the American neocons have been severely damaged domestically by their overreach in Iraq. Though they remain influential – especially inside the national press corps with control of the Washington Post’s editorial pages and other influential media outlets – the neocons are increasingly despised by the broad American public.
One of their chief advocates, Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, went down to decisive defeat on Nov. 4, 2008, to a political newcomer in Barack Obama, despite right-wing and neocon smear campaigns emphasizing his middle name “Hussein” and claiming that he is a secret Muslim who would be sworn in using a Koran.
Though Obama has given the neocons some hope by handing the State Department to the staunchly pro-Israel Hillary Clinton and by keeping on Bush’s Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the neocons will probably never reclaim the kind of sweeping influence they had during George W. Bush's presidency.
These new facts-on-the-ground – both in the Middle East and in Washington – add to the imperative for the Israeli people to reassess the three-decade strategy of balking at reconciliation with their Arab neighbors and counting on the neocon dominance of the U.S. political debates.
Israeli leaders might want to do whatever they can to turn back the clock to the late 1970s when Jimmy Carter showed a possible route to long-term security for Israel – by making respectful peace deals with its Arab neighbors.
Rather than trying to bomb and kill their way to security, Israeli leaders might want to consider a new strategy that steps away from endless confrontation with Arab enemies and instead seeks to integrate Israel into the economic life of the Middle East, as a center of science, technology, industry and finance.
Surely, this approach would not be easy. Given the past three decades of tit-for-tat atrocities, there would be extremists on both sides who would commit additional outrages to derail any progress.
It would have been much easier if Menachem Begin and his successors had understood that some of their greatest American friends were those – like Jimmy Carter – who recognized legitimate interests on both sides of the conflict, rather than those – like George W. Bush – who embraced the most extreme neoconservative positions.
So, whatever the outcome of Israel’s Gaza offensive, it cannot disguise how untenable Israel’s long-term position has become.
Even if Hamas’s little short-range missiles can be silenced for the time-being, the hatreds will continue to fester. The Arab Street will turn, increasingly, against authoritarian Arab leaders in countries such as Egypt and Jordan who have taken the most moderate positions regarding Israel’s right to exist.
And beyond Israel’s immediate neighbors – assuming those mutual hatreds are not defused – Muslim extremists will eventually get hold of a weapon of mass destruction, possibly in Pakistan if its current fragile civilian government falls. At some point, someone will have a missile or some other means of delivering a powerful weapon against Israel.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Bush and his neocon advisers may have imagined themselves ensuring security for Israel by taking aggressive action against its regional adversaries but have instead worsened Israel’s predicament. Now, the neocons find themselves widely discredited inside the U.S. political process.
It is this combination of realities – Bush’s failed adventurism in the Middle East and the decline of the neoncons at home – that could become the impetus for a new and serious peace initiative in the Middle East, as the best hope for Israel’s success and survival.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.
Prosecution of Juvenile GTMO detainees & other Rights News
1/4, Carol J. Williams, Chicago Tribune, Prosecution of juvenile Gitmo detainees spurs outrage
Go here
Find many more RIGHTS items such as the following titles....at Bill of Rights Defense Committee bordc dot com...(NOTE: these are NOT yet archived, so you may want to access & file RIGHT AWAY)
1/4, Brian Montopoli, CBS News, Cheney: We Didn't Violate Anyone's Civil Liberties
1/4, Editorial, The Independent (UK), Our role in closing Guantanamo
1/4, Lisa Rein & Josh White, Washington Post, More Groups Than Thought Monitored in Police Spying
Current News
1/4, David Leppard, Times (UK), Police set to step up hacking of home PCs
1/3, Meraiah Foley & Mark McDonald, New York Times, Australia Says No on Detainees, and Britain Is Reluctant
1/3, United Press International, Last uncharged Canada terror inmate freed
1/3, Sanjay Suri, FinalCall.com News, Western democracies losing freedoms?
1/2, Adam Liptak, New York Times, Early Test of Obama View on Power Over Detainees
1/2, Associated Press, Virginia bill would reject national ID program
1/2, Jason Leopold, Public Record, FBI E-Mail Says Bush Authorized Abuse of Iraqi Detainees
Find these at here
(scroll down on The Bill of Rights home page OR go directly to bordc dot org/news OR sign up for FREE DAILY DIGESTS -- this is one of the most helpful rights digests I receive.
Go here
Find many more RIGHTS items such as the following titles....at Bill of Rights Defense Committee bordc dot com...(NOTE: these are NOT yet archived, so you may want to access & file RIGHT AWAY)
1/4, Brian Montopoli, CBS News, Cheney: We Didn't Violate Anyone's Civil Liberties
1/4, Editorial, The Independent (UK), Our role in closing Guantanamo
1/4, Lisa Rein & Josh White, Washington Post, More Groups Than Thought Monitored in Police Spying
Current News
1/4, David Leppard, Times (UK), Police set to step up hacking of home PCs
1/3, Meraiah Foley & Mark McDonald, New York Times, Australia Says No on Detainees, and Britain Is Reluctant
1/3, United Press International, Last uncharged Canada terror inmate freed
1/3, Sanjay Suri, FinalCall.com News, Western democracies losing freedoms?
1/2, Adam Liptak, New York Times, Early Test of Obama View on Power Over Detainees
1/2, Associated Press, Virginia bill would reject national ID program
1/2, Jason Leopold, Public Record, FBI E-Mail Says Bush Authorized Abuse of Iraqi Detainees
Find these at here
(scroll down on The Bill of Rights home page OR go directly to bordc dot org/news OR sign up for FREE DAILY DIGESTS -- this is one of the most helpful rights digests I receive.
Friday, January 2, 2009
SIGN for a just & lasting peace (from those who mobilized for a ceasefire in Lebanon)
Hi,
I've just heard about this emergency campaign urging for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Already 370 people have been killed in this escalating conflict. Now is the time to issue a demand to world leaders that the spiraling violence that has characterized the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must come to an end. In 2009 let's push for real peace to be achieved between Israel and Palestine. To learn more and to take action, read the email below:
Dear friends,
As we watch the Gaza bloodshed with horror, appalled at how the crisis is spiraling further out of control, one thing is clear −− this violence will only lead to further civilian suffering and an escalation of the conflict.
There must be another way. Over 370 are dead and hundreds more injured -- rockets are striking Ashdod deep inside Israel for the very first time, and the sides are mobilising for invasion. A global response has begun, but it'll take more than words -- the immediate violence won't end, nor will wider peace be secured, without firm action from the international community.
Today, we're launching an emergency campaign which will be delivered to the UN Security Council and key world powers, urging them to act to ensure an immediate ceasefire, address the growing humanitarian crisis, and take steps to build real and lasting peace.1 Follow this link now to sign the emergency petition and send it to everyone you know:
here
After eight or more years of ineffective US and global diplomacy - and now Gaza's bloodiest day in recent memory - we must issue a global outcry demanding that world leaders do more than make statements if they're to bring peace to this region. The UN, the European Union, the Arab League and the USA should now act together to ensure a ceasefire - which includes an end to rocket attacks into Israel and opening the checkpoints for fuel, food, medicine and other humanitarian aid deliveries.
With a new US President taking office in less than a month, a real opportunity exists to breathe new life into peace efforts. These latest hostilities require not only an immediate ceasefire but a commitment from Obama and other world leaders that resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the very top of their agendas. As the whole world is impacted by this ongoing conflict - we should demand nothing less.
In 2006 we mobilized for a ceasefire in Lebanon. For years we've worked to encourage a just and lasting peace, taking out billboards and ads across Israel and Palestine. Now as we head into 2009, we need to come together again to demand a peaceful and lasting resolution, instead of a further escalation of violence. Follow this link to put your name forward for peace:
here
All sides to the conflict will continue to act as they have in the past if they believe that the world will stand by and allow them to do so. 2009 is a year that things can be different. As we face this crisis, and the possibilities of a new year, it's time for us to demand a ceasefire and work together to finally put an end to this cycle of violence.
With hope and determination,
Brett, Ricken, Alice, Ben, Pascal, Paul, Graziela, Paula, Luis, Iain and the whole Avaaz team
I've just heard about this emergency campaign urging for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Already 370 people have been killed in this escalating conflict. Now is the time to issue a demand to world leaders that the spiraling violence that has characterized the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must come to an end. In 2009 let's push for real peace to be achieved between Israel and Palestine. To learn more and to take action, read the email below:
Dear friends,
As we watch the Gaza bloodshed with horror, appalled at how the crisis is spiraling further out of control, one thing is clear −− this violence will only lead to further civilian suffering and an escalation of the conflict.
There must be another way. Over 370 are dead and hundreds more injured -- rockets are striking Ashdod deep inside Israel for the very first time, and the sides are mobilising for invasion. A global response has begun, but it'll take more than words -- the immediate violence won't end, nor will wider peace be secured, without firm action from the international community.
Today, we're launching an emergency campaign which will be delivered to the UN Security Council and key world powers, urging them to act to ensure an immediate ceasefire, address the growing humanitarian crisis, and take steps to build real and lasting peace.1 Follow this link now to sign the emergency petition and send it to everyone you know:
here
After eight or more years of ineffective US and global diplomacy - and now Gaza's bloodiest day in recent memory - we must issue a global outcry demanding that world leaders do more than make statements if they're to bring peace to this region. The UN, the European Union, the Arab League and the USA should now act together to ensure a ceasefire - which includes an end to rocket attacks into Israel and opening the checkpoints for fuel, food, medicine and other humanitarian aid deliveries.
With a new US President taking office in less than a month, a real opportunity exists to breathe new life into peace efforts. These latest hostilities require not only an immediate ceasefire but a commitment from Obama and other world leaders that resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the very top of their agendas. As the whole world is impacted by this ongoing conflict - we should demand nothing less.
In 2006 we mobilized for a ceasefire in Lebanon. For years we've worked to encourage a just and lasting peace, taking out billboards and ads across Israel and Palestine. Now as we head into 2009, we need to come together again to demand a peaceful and lasting resolution, instead of a further escalation of violence. Follow this link to put your name forward for peace:
here
All sides to the conflict will continue to act as they have in the past if they believe that the world will stand by and allow them to do so. 2009 is a year that things can be different. As we face this crisis, and the possibilities of a new year, it's time for us to demand a ceasefire and work together to finally put an end to this cycle of violence.
With hope and determination,
Brett, Ricken, Alice, Ben, Pascal, Paul, Graziela, Paula, Luis, Iain and the whole Avaaz team
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Helen Suzman, South African lawmaker who spoke out against apartheid dies at 91
Helen Suzman dies - December 31, 2008 New Years' Eve Morning
Article published January 2009, 14:19 Pretoria News, South Africa
(Suzman was the sole representative in Parliament of the liberal Progressive Party)
Helen Suzman has died at the age of 91, her daughter said on Thursday.
Her daughter Frances Joel said she died peacefully on Thursday morning at the age of 91 at her home in Johannesburg.
Joel added we are waiting for family and all grandchildren to arrive.
Joel said a private funeral would take place this weekend.
A public memorial would be held in Feburary and details would be announced nearer the time.
Helen Suzman has a special place in South African history, being generally recognised as the most effective parliamentary fighter against the old National Party's apartheid policies when the NP was at the heyday of its power.
For 13 years - from 1961 to 1974 - she was the sole representative in Parliament of the liberal Progressive Party, forerunner of the Democratic Party.
Suzman was born in Germiston, Gauteng, on 7 November, 1917 to a Jewish Lithuanian immigrant couple, Samuel and Frieda Gavronsky.
Her mother died two weeks later and her father remarried a few years afterwards.
Suzman matriculated in 1933 from Parktown Convent, Johannesburg, where a rose garden honouring "her lifelong struggle for justice and human rights for all South Africans" was unveiled 70 years later in 2003.
A rose was also named after her later in her life.ee the Breaking News in full - Go...
here
Follow-up Article from Pretoria News -
Suzman mourned and celebrated - 1 January 2009, 16:57
While the loss of Helen Suzman is to be mourned, her life must be celebrated, the Helen Suzman Foundation said on Thursday.
"Whilst we mourn Helen's passing we simultaneously celebrate not only her many achievements in a life dedicated to bringing change to South Africa but more fundamentally the essence of a remarkable woman," the foundation said in a statement.
"[Her] spirit touched those she encountered as much as her vigour and clear unambiguous sense of right and wrong inspired them."
Earlier, Suzman's daughter, Frances Jowell, said her mother died peacefully on Thursday morning at the age of 91 at her home in Johannesburg.
The foundation said it was deeply saddened at the loss of its patron-in-chief.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and loved ones at this time of personal loss and grief. We extend our deepest condolences to them."
The foundation said Helen's life deeply touched those whom she came into contact with in both the private and public sphere.
"Those who knew her will attest to her sparkling yet resolute nature and deep commitment to and love for the causes of justice, human rights and peace.
"It is this very core set of beliefs that led Helen to a noteworthy public life in South Africa where she dedicatedly fought for the cause of equality and dignity for all and diligently fought the apartheid regime from where she was with what she had."
For 13 years - from 1961 to 1974 - Suzman was the sole representative in Parliament of the liberal Progressive Party, forerunner of the Democratic Alliance.
Suzman has been generally recognised as the most effective parliamentary fighter against the old National Party's apartheid policies when the NP was at the heyday of its power.
The foundation said Helen never lost focus on the daily lives of South Africans and what they endured under apartheid.
"[She] shone the bright light of truth in every nook and cranny of our beloved country's tortured past with commitment and fortitude...
"Go...
here
Killing Without Consequences in Gaza (or one shudders to consider the consequences!)
Killing Without Consequences in Gaza
By Mustafa Qadri , Foreign Policy in Focus
Posted on January 1, 2009, Printed on January 1, 2009
Alternat dot org
"One shudders, nevertheless, to think what fury a third intifada would unleash."
It was about midnight last Sunday when my phone rang. “I’m not sure I will survive tonight, the Israelis are bombing us everywhere.” It was Mahmoud, a young resident of Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt. We first met when I visited the troubled coastal territory after Israel dismantled its settlements there in September 2005. On December 27, just before midday, Israel’s powerful air force, the fourth largest in the world, commenced a deadly air assault on over 40 separate locations in the Gaza Strip. The strikes were as calculated as they were cold – the targets were almost entirely people and facilities vital to the Hamas government. In one of the areas hit, where police officers had gathered for a parade, body parts were strewn along a courtyard.
The present conflict is the deadliest since Israel occupied Gaza and the West Bank in the Six Day War of 1967. That is a surprising achievement given the bloody history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, particularly during the Palestinian uprisings, or intifadas, of 1987 and 2000.
Israel has targeted Hamas, but the vast majority of the casualties from its attacks have been civilian police officers, government workers, and other civilians. The Palestinian death toll currently stands at 350 while more than a thousand have sustained injuries. The figure is expected to increase as Israel’s bombardment continues. Since Monday morning, Israel’s navy has commenced bombing Gaza from the coast. Compounding the suffering is the fact that medical and other humanitarian supplies are in a dire state thanks to Israel’s three-year-old blockade of the territory. Half the population of Gaza, even before this most recent attack, was living below the poverty line.
So far, rockets fired from Gaza have killed two Israelis and injured several others.
The Israeli government argues that the bombardment is a response to these rockets attacks. But the calls of self-defense must be understood within the broader context of the continued annexation of Palestine. It is the greatest of reverse-psychology ploys. Israel calls Hamas and other Palestinian resistance movements existential threats while, at the same time, it continues to ensure that a viable Palestinian state can never hope to exist by imprisoning Gaza and expropriating much of the West Bank.
The UN Security Council quickly released a non-binding statement calling for an end to hostilities. But the document failed to name either Israel or Hamas by name and glibly called for a return to the ceasefire. It did not mention any justice for the hundreds killed. The international community – and particularly the Middle East Quartet consisting of the European Union, UN, United States, and Russia – have been completely incapable of protecting those most exposed to the conflict – the Palestinians of the occupied territories who are killed, harassed and humiliated on a daily basis.
There is good reason to be critical of Hamas too. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has cited Hamas’ inability to renew a ceasefire with Israel for this most recent assault. But Israel must shoulder the lion’s share of culpability for the carnage presently unfolding in the occupied territories.
It is becoming increasingly clear that Israel’s latest attack on Gaza was a pre-meditated attempt to destabilize the Hamas regime. The Israeli Ha’aretz newspaper recently revealed that even while it was negotiating a ceasefire, the Israeli government drew up a detailed plan to destroy Hamas in Gaza six months ago.
No member of the international community is more complicit in Israel’s crimes than the United States. The Bush White House was quick to blame the violence on Hamas even though Israel is responsible for the vast majority of the death and destruction. A spokesperson for President Bush described the movement as a bunch of “thugs.” Such statements legitimate Israeli aggression by dehumanizing a democratically elected government.
There is little hope, however, of a shift toward a more balanced U.S. role under President Barack Obama. Ever fearful of the powerful Israel lobby, he has gone to great lengths to prove his loyalty. “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night,” Obama said during a visit to Israel earlier this year, “I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that.” Sadly, that logic does not appear to apply to the Palestinians. According to the UN, 105 Palestinian children have been killed this year, thanks largely to Israeli forces armed and supported by the United States.
While grand rhetoric has been a feature of Barack Obama’s political career, he has so far opted to remain silent as Israel wreaks havoc on Gaza this week.
Others have not been silent, however. Already protesters have taken to the street throughout the world, including in Israel, to voice their opposition to the strikes. The Turkish government has rejected calls from Israel and the Palestinian Fatah Movement of President Mahmoud Abbas to broker another ceasefire with Hamas. Turkey has also pulled out of landmark peace negotiations it had hitherto been conducting between Israel and Syria over the occupied Golan Heights. Israel’s attacks in Gaza are also expected to dominate discussions this week by Arab leaders at the Gulf Cooperation Council ahead of an extraordinary meeting of the Arab League on Wednesday. Arab leaders have called for a unified position on the current conflict, no doubt under significant domestic pressure to do something to protest Israel’s actions.
Meanwhile, the exiled leader of the Hamas movement in Syria called on Palestinians to commence a third intifada in response to Israel’s offensive. Given Israel’s full spectrum dominance of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, such an uprising might be well nigh impossible. One shudders, nevertheless, to think what fury a third intifada would unleash.
© 2009 Foreign Policy in Focus All rights reserved.
View this story online at: here
By Mustafa Qadri , Foreign Policy in Focus
Posted on January 1, 2009, Printed on January 1, 2009
Alternat dot org
"One shudders, nevertheless, to think what fury a third intifada would unleash."
It was about midnight last Sunday when my phone rang. “I’m not sure I will survive tonight, the Israelis are bombing us everywhere.” It was Mahmoud, a young resident of Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt. We first met when I visited the troubled coastal territory after Israel dismantled its settlements there in September 2005. On December 27, just before midday, Israel’s powerful air force, the fourth largest in the world, commenced a deadly air assault on over 40 separate locations in the Gaza Strip. The strikes were as calculated as they were cold – the targets were almost entirely people and facilities vital to the Hamas government. In one of the areas hit, where police officers had gathered for a parade, body parts were strewn along a courtyard.
The present conflict is the deadliest since Israel occupied Gaza and the West Bank in the Six Day War of 1967. That is a surprising achievement given the bloody history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, particularly during the Palestinian uprisings, or intifadas, of 1987 and 2000.
Israel has targeted Hamas, but the vast majority of the casualties from its attacks have been civilian police officers, government workers, and other civilians. The Palestinian death toll currently stands at 350 while more than a thousand have sustained injuries. The figure is expected to increase as Israel’s bombardment continues. Since Monday morning, Israel’s navy has commenced bombing Gaza from the coast. Compounding the suffering is the fact that medical and other humanitarian supplies are in a dire state thanks to Israel’s three-year-old blockade of the territory. Half the population of Gaza, even before this most recent attack, was living below the poverty line.
So far, rockets fired from Gaza have killed two Israelis and injured several others.
The Israeli government argues that the bombardment is a response to these rockets attacks. But the calls of self-defense must be understood within the broader context of the continued annexation of Palestine. It is the greatest of reverse-psychology ploys. Israel calls Hamas and other Palestinian resistance movements existential threats while, at the same time, it continues to ensure that a viable Palestinian state can never hope to exist by imprisoning Gaza and expropriating much of the West Bank.
The UN Security Council quickly released a non-binding statement calling for an end to hostilities. But the document failed to name either Israel or Hamas by name and glibly called for a return to the ceasefire. It did not mention any justice for the hundreds killed. The international community – and particularly the Middle East Quartet consisting of the European Union, UN, United States, and Russia – have been completely incapable of protecting those most exposed to the conflict – the Palestinians of the occupied territories who are killed, harassed and humiliated on a daily basis.
There is good reason to be critical of Hamas too. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has cited Hamas’ inability to renew a ceasefire with Israel for this most recent assault. But Israel must shoulder the lion’s share of culpability for the carnage presently unfolding in the occupied territories.
It is becoming increasingly clear that Israel’s latest attack on Gaza was a pre-meditated attempt to destabilize the Hamas regime. The Israeli Ha’aretz newspaper recently revealed that even while it was negotiating a ceasefire, the Israeli government drew up a detailed plan to destroy Hamas in Gaza six months ago.
No member of the international community is more complicit in Israel’s crimes than the United States. The Bush White House was quick to blame the violence on Hamas even though Israel is responsible for the vast majority of the death and destruction. A spokesperson for President Bush described the movement as a bunch of “thugs.” Such statements legitimate Israeli aggression by dehumanizing a democratically elected government.
There is little hope, however, of a shift toward a more balanced U.S. role under President Barack Obama. Ever fearful of the powerful Israel lobby, he has gone to great lengths to prove his loyalty. “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night,” Obama said during a visit to Israel earlier this year, “I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that.” Sadly, that logic does not appear to apply to the Palestinians. According to the UN, 105 Palestinian children have been killed this year, thanks largely to Israeli forces armed and supported by the United States.
While grand rhetoric has been a feature of Barack Obama’s political career, he has so far opted to remain silent as Israel wreaks havoc on Gaza this week.
Others have not been silent, however. Already protesters have taken to the street throughout the world, including in Israel, to voice their opposition to the strikes. The Turkish government has rejected calls from Israel and the Palestinian Fatah Movement of President Mahmoud Abbas to broker another ceasefire with Hamas. Turkey has also pulled out of landmark peace negotiations it had hitherto been conducting between Israel and Syria over the occupied Golan Heights. Israel’s attacks in Gaza are also expected to dominate discussions this week by Arab leaders at the Gulf Cooperation Council ahead of an extraordinary meeting of the Arab League on Wednesday. Arab leaders have called for a unified position on the current conflict, no doubt under significant domestic pressure to do something to protest Israel’s actions.
Meanwhile, the exiled leader of the Hamas movement in Syria called on Palestinians to commence a third intifada in response to Israel’s offensive. Given Israel’s full spectrum dominance of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, such an uprising might be well nigh impossible. One shudders, nevertheless, to think what fury a third intifada would unleash.
© 2009 Foreign Policy in Focus All rights reserved.
View this story online at: here
USA--DC/NC: GAZA related: Vigils, Demonstrations, Educational Events
Friday, Janurary 2, 2009 -- Demonstration in DC
Ride the bus with MAS-Freedom to a mass demonstration in DC; march from the Israeli Embassy to the Eqyptian Consulate. For tickets from the Triangle call Khalilah at 919 345-8105
WHO: MAS Freedom, ANSWER Coalition, Free Palestine Alliance, National Council of Arab Americans, Al-Awada, and the International Palestine Right to Return Coalition
WHAT: Rally to End the Siege and Killing in Gaza
WHEN: Friday, Jan. 2, 2009 at 4:00 PM
WHERE
Israeli Embassy
3514 International Drive, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008
(Between Connecticut Ave. and Reno Road)
Friday, January 2, 2009 - Vigil/Demo in Chapel Hill
4:00-5:30 PM, January 2, corner of Elliott Road and East Franklin Street.
Contact: 919-942-2535.
Saturday, January 3, 2009 - Vigil in Durham
Stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza
Noon to 1:00-- Brightleaf Square in Durham, Main and
Gregson Streets
Our common humanity must be recognized.The attacks on Gaza and the ongoing Israeli blockade must end!
Co-sponsored by Ubuntu
Monday, January 5, 2009 - Demo in Raleigh
Demonstration and rally at the NC Capitol Building
3:00-6:00pm
Organized by Palestine United!
1 East Edenton Street
Anyone who has a Palestine shirt please wear it. If not lets have as
many people as possible wearing the colors of the flag (red, black,
white and green) Also anyone who has a Palestinian Flag please bring it with you as well, no matter if it is big or small. Please bring your own creative signs, posters, banners, and pictures; racial slurs and disruptive behavior will not be tolerated.
Contact: Feras Abdelquader- 919-538-9583
Friday, January 9, 2009 - Education Event in Raleigh
7pm in Raleigh off Jackson St., near the Masjid
Join MAS-Freedom to hear and talk with a visitor from Gaza who will be speaking. Community is invited to
participate in local discussion.
Contact Khalilah Sabra for more info: 919 345-8105
Ride the bus with MAS-Freedom to a mass demonstration in DC; march from the Israeli Embassy to the Eqyptian Consulate. For tickets from the Triangle call Khalilah at 919 345-8105
WHO: MAS Freedom, ANSWER Coalition, Free Palestine Alliance, National Council of Arab Americans, Al-Awada, and the International Palestine Right to Return Coalition
WHAT: Rally to End the Siege and Killing in Gaza
WHEN: Friday, Jan. 2, 2009 at 4:00 PM
WHERE
Israeli Embassy
3514 International Drive, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008
(Between Connecticut Ave. and Reno Road)
Friday, January 2, 2009 - Vigil/Demo in Chapel Hill
4:00-5:30 PM, January 2, corner of Elliott Road and East Franklin Street.
Contact: 919-942-2535.
Saturday, January 3, 2009 - Vigil in Durham
Stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza
Noon to 1:00-- Brightleaf Square in Durham, Main and
Gregson Streets
Our common humanity must be recognized.The attacks on Gaza and the ongoing Israeli blockade must end!
Co-sponsored by Ubuntu
Monday, January 5, 2009 - Demo in Raleigh
Demonstration and rally at the NC Capitol Building
3:00-6:00pm
Organized by Palestine United!
1 East Edenton Street
Anyone who has a Palestine shirt please wear it. If not lets have as
many people as possible wearing the colors of the flag (red, black,
white and green) Also anyone who has a Palestinian Flag please bring it with you as well, no matter if it is big or small. Please bring your own creative signs, posters, banners, and pictures; racial slurs and disruptive behavior will not be tolerated.
Contact: Feras Abdelquader- 919-538-9583
Friday, January 9, 2009 - Education Event in Raleigh
7pm in Raleigh off Jackson St., near the Masjid
Join MAS-Freedom to hear and talk with a visitor from Gaza who will be speaking. Community is invited to
participate in local discussion.
Contact Khalilah Sabra for more info: 919 345-8105
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