April 05, 2008
Avi Lewis examines the powerful Israeli lobby and its affects on Capitol Hill.
Part 1
Part 2
Showing posts with label israel lobby. Show all posts
Showing posts with label israel lobby. Show all posts
Sunday, 6 April 2008
Saturday, 15 March 2008
Blinkers off for the other side of story
Alan Ramsey, Sydney Morning Herald, March 15, 2008
At 11.58am on Wednesday one half of the Australian Parliament "celebrated" the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel. More than a third of that one-half was absent, whatever their reasons. A number of MPs deliberately excluded themselves. Labor's Kevin Rudd, as the host, did not. He spoke for eight minutes. "Celebrate" was the word Rudd used to begin his remarks. "Congratulations" was the word he used to end them. The Liberals' Brendan Nelson spoke for seven minutes in supporting the Prime Minister. He concluded: "Shabat shalom forever."
Nobody else spoke. The whole affair, carefully orchestrated, carefully bi-partisan, lasted just 15 minutes. The press gallery was almost empty.
So, too, were the two public galleries. About 100 invited guests, each wearing a security pass, filled the first three rows of the Speaker's gallery upstairs and spilled into the fourth. These were the people who, after Rudd's seven-part, 191-word motion had been "put and passed" without a vote, applauded enthusiastically. The only other person who spoke - or attempted to - was a middle-aged woman.
She got to her feet, in the seats behind the VIP guests, and held up a T-shirt, exclaiming, "What about UN resolution 242?", as Rudd had begun speaking. Two attendants moved in quickly. Taking her by the arm, they escorted the woman outside, without fuss. Unlike what is still happening in Israel's military occupation, after 41 years, of the Palestinian people of the West Bank and its siege of the Gaza strip, it was a very civilised eviction.
On this day, in the Australian Parliament, normal legislative business resumed at 12.13pm. The VIP guests upstairs in the Speaker's gallery filed out. Most of the MPs downstairs drifted away to their offices. At 4pm the Israeli ambassador hosted a reception in the Parliament's second-floor Mural Hall for invited guests only. Rudd and Nelson reappeared, as suitably Uriah Heepish as their midday speeches had been.
That night, back on the floor of the House of Representatives, the woman MP who took Tim Fischer's southern NSW seat off the Nationals in 2001 and, in two elections, turned it into safe Liberal territory, did an extremely courageous thing.
Her name is Sussan Penelope Ley.
She is the daughter of a British colonial police officer who served in British-mandated Palestine in the 1930s, before the United Nations ceded half of it to become a Jewish state in May 1948. Born in Nigeria in 1961, Ley spent most of the first 13 years of her life in what was then the Trucial States, later the United Arab Emirates. Her family migrated to Australia in 1974. She has lived here ever since, working as an air traffic controller, a commercial pilot, a shearer's cook, a farmer, and a senior taxation department official. She has a bunch of degrees, three children and is now a member of the Nelson shadow ministry.
What Sussan Ley did in Parliament on Wednesday night was speak for the Palestinian people. She was the only MP who did. In fact, the only MHR of the House's 150, apart from the two leaders, to even raise the issue.
When Rudd and Nelson had spoken at midday I counted 53 Government MPs present, including six ministers, and 39 Coalition MPs. When Ley got the call 7½ hours later, at 7.38pm, to speak on the adjournment, there were five people in the public gallery, four Labor MPs and two Coalition MPs in the chamber, and one journalist in the press gallery. She was the fourth-last speaker before Parliament shut down for the day, after 11 hours, and she was allowed five minutes.
Here is an edited version of what she said:
"Today the Parliament passed a motion honouring Israel's 60 years. My purpose tonight is not to diminish Israel's achievements but to note the interests and legitimate aspirations of the people of Palestine.
"Israel has many friends in this country and in this Parliament. The Palestinians, by comparison, have few. Theirs is not a popular cause. But it is one I support, in part out of knowledge that the victors of World War II, including Australia, wrote a 'homeland' cheque to cover the sins of the holocaust and centuries of anti-Semitism in Europe, but it was the Palestinians who had to cash it.
"Israel has much to celebrate after 60 years. It has built a modern, accomplished and intelligent society, one whose scientific and technological expertise offers a great deal to the world. It has a robust democracy, a free press, a secular state with freedom of faith, and an unfettered opposition, regrettably rare in the Middle East. If there were peace between Israelis and Palestinians, one can only imagine the achievements of these two cultures today.
"Israel's 40-year occupation of the Palestinian territories, its continued expansion of [illegal Israeli] settlements [on Palestinian land] and its refusal to allow the return of expelled refugees have caused deep resentment in the Arab world. Palestinian corruption in government and failure to abandon violence against civilians as a political tool have meant Israel does not feel secure behind secure borders. Sixty years have seen a great deal of bloodshed - Arab, Israeli and others, including 34 US soldiers killed by Israeli forces on the USS Liberty during the 1967 war. I do not find it helpful to engage in a forensic apportionment of blame; each side has legitimate grievances.
"The current blockade of Gaza, confiscation of Palestinian land, and the expansion of settlements must be mentioned in the context of today's motion. Gaza is besieged, contained and on the brink of starvation. Rockets are fired into Israel every day, and Israel has a right to self-defence, but the crushing economic embargo feeds fury and resentment both in Gaza and the West Bank. [A total] 2679 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli [military] forces in the Gaza Strip since September 2000, [while] an Israeli human rights organisation reported 1259 of those were not participating in hostilities when they were killed, and 567 were minors …
"We ought not be naive or simplistic about the challenge faced by the Israelis in moving towards peace with a [popularly elected] counterpart, in Hamas, that is funded and supported by a foreign power [Syria] and which retains an explicit commitment to [terrorism] as a political instrument. But may I remind the House of the example of the Northern Ireland peace process [which succeeded] after a more than 40-year struggle.
"There are signs the Israeli people are developing a renewed hunger for peace. A recent Tel Aviv University poll indicates 64 per cent of Israelis believe the [Israeli] Government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza towards a ceasefire. Military occupation, blockades and hostility against civilians in the name of security will result in [more] violence and terror. We must think what we can do [for] ordinary Israelis and Palestinians to give them some faith in the peace process …
"We are the leaders of our generation. We are accountable for results. If the principal protagonists and the rest of the world community hand Palestine on to the next generation as a twisted mess of grievance, hatred and retribution, then we have failed. The last two generations of leaders have failed to produce peace. Let us renew our efforts."
Unlike earlier in the day, nobody applauded - though I wished I could have. Many Australians, too, had they been present, surely would have wanted to acknowledge such a speech of such honesty and sensibility, about the Israelis as much as it was about the Palestinians. Ley put the grovelling Rudd and Nelson to shame. The truth is there is no real debate in this country about the travesty of what is happening in the Middle East, and there are those in the community who, with their money and influence, do all they can to ensure no such open debate occurs, either in the national Parliament, in the media or anywhere else.
So why was the Rudd Government, in its first four months of office, doing what no Australian government or parliament had done, to acknowledge any of the decades of Israeli statehood since the Six-Day War in 1967 saw the Israeli military occupy the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza and ignore 40 years of mutual violence and barbarity as well as 40 years of United Nations resolutions, to withdraw?
The Howard government did not "honour" Israel's 50th anniversary in 1998, nor the Hawke government the 40th anniversary in 1988, nor the Fraser government the 30th anniversary in 1978. Why the 60th in 2008 the instant a Labor Government comes to power?
When the Labor caucus met on Tuesday, as it does every week the Parliament sits, Sydney's Julia Irwin asked Rudd this very question.
Why? Irwin never takes a backward step in her defence of Palestinian rights, but all she got from Rudd this time was waffle. He did not explicitly respond as to why 60 might be different from earlier decades when the Parliament had done nothing and neither had earlier governments. And no Labor MP supported Irwin in pushing it.
She was a lone voice in the Labor caucus as Sussan Ley was in the Parliament. How's that for political ticker?
Leaders vie to ladle on the gush
When our Prime Minister spoke in the Parliament this week before a select audience of 100 VIP guests, including the Israeli ambassador, he was speaking to a 191-word proposal he had drafted, in consultation with a range of people, which read:
"That the House [of Representatives]
"(1) celebrate and commend the achievements of the state of Israel in the 60 years since its inception;
"(2) remember with pride and honour the important role which Australia played in the establishment of the state of Israel as both a member state of the United Nations and as an influential voice in the introduction of Resolution 181 which facilitated Israel's statehood [in 1948], and as the country which proudly became the first to cast a vote in support of Israel's creation;
"(3) acknowledge the unique relationship which exists between Australia and Israel, a bond highlighted by our commitment to the rights and liberty of our citizens and encouragement of cultural diversity;
"(4) commend the state of Israel's commitment to democracy, the rule of law and pluralism;
"(5) reiterate Australia's commitment to Israel's right to exist and our ongoing support to the peaceful establishment of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue;
"(6) reiterate Australia's commitment to the pursuit of peace and stability throughout the Middle East; and
"(7) on this, the 60th anniversary of independence of the state of Israel, pledge our friendship, commitment and enduring support to the people of Israel as we celebrate this important occasion together."
Make of this splendid piece of mutual back scratching what you will, but know that the supposed virtue of Australia "proudly" becoming "the first to cast a vote in support of Israel's creation" at the United Nations in 1948 is sophistry. We were the first for no other reason than, in voting by alphabetical order, Australia was the first country to vote.
Some excerpts from the speeches of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in support of the bipartisan motion make the point that when politicians seek to trowel on the gush, Australia loses nothing now that Rudd and Nelson have replaced Howard and Beazley.
Rudd: "… The 60 years since the establishment of Israel have been full of challenges and full of trials. Similarly, the process for the emergence of a Palestinian state has come along a tortuous path. There has been too much bloodshed. But over those 60 years there has also been cause for hope.
"We think today of prime minister Menachem Begin standing with Jimmy Carter and Egypt's Anwar Sadat at the White House on March 26, 1979 at the signing of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty that followed the Camp David accords. Prime minister Begin used both the Hebrew and Arabic words for peace when he urged: 'No more war, no more bloodshed, no more bereavement. Peace unto you. Shalom, salaam, forever.' "
Nelson: "In a region of the world that is characterised more by theocracies and autocracies, the state of Israel is the custodian of the most fragile yet powerful of human emotions, and that is hopeful belief in the freedom of man, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly. There are many things for which Israel stands and which characterise the modern state of Israel, but included among them is the celebration of knowledge for its own sake and knowledge as the driver of economic development and emancipation from human poverty…
"Israel, like all democracies, is far from perfect, but it is, in every sense of the word, on the front line of the struggle for the things that we hold dear, not only as Australians and free people but as human beings. And it is far too frequently on the front line of the struggle against all the things repugnant to universal human ideals …
"Israel is home to many things that are spiritual, but it is home in the end to the human spirit of resilience, of confidence, of determination and of respect for one another, irrespective of political, religious or other affiliations … No Australian who believes in the dignity of man, in freedom and in democratic principles should ever, through neglectful indifference, allow Israel to be a stranger. To do so would be to diminish ourselves and our own true security …"
How can you top that lot?
At 11.58am on Wednesday one half of the Australian Parliament "celebrated" the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel. More than a third of that one-half was absent, whatever their reasons. A number of MPs deliberately excluded themselves. Labor's Kevin Rudd, as the host, did not. He spoke for eight minutes. "Celebrate" was the word Rudd used to begin his remarks. "Congratulations" was the word he used to end them. The Liberals' Brendan Nelson spoke for seven minutes in supporting the Prime Minister. He concluded: "Shabat shalom forever."
Nobody else spoke. The whole affair, carefully orchestrated, carefully bi-partisan, lasted just 15 minutes. The press gallery was almost empty.
So, too, were the two public galleries. About 100 invited guests, each wearing a security pass, filled the first three rows of the Speaker's gallery upstairs and spilled into the fourth. These were the people who, after Rudd's seven-part, 191-word motion had been "put and passed" without a vote, applauded enthusiastically. The only other person who spoke - or attempted to - was a middle-aged woman.
She got to her feet, in the seats behind the VIP guests, and held up a T-shirt, exclaiming, "What about UN resolution 242?", as Rudd had begun speaking. Two attendants moved in quickly. Taking her by the arm, they escorted the woman outside, without fuss. Unlike what is still happening in Israel's military occupation, after 41 years, of the Palestinian people of the West Bank and its siege of the Gaza strip, it was a very civilised eviction.
On this day, in the Australian Parliament, normal legislative business resumed at 12.13pm. The VIP guests upstairs in the Speaker's gallery filed out. Most of the MPs downstairs drifted away to their offices. At 4pm the Israeli ambassador hosted a reception in the Parliament's second-floor Mural Hall for invited guests only. Rudd and Nelson reappeared, as suitably Uriah Heepish as their midday speeches had been.
That night, back on the floor of the House of Representatives, the woman MP who took Tim Fischer's southern NSW seat off the Nationals in 2001 and, in two elections, turned it into safe Liberal territory, did an extremely courageous thing.
Her name is Sussan Penelope Ley.
She is the daughter of a British colonial police officer who served in British-mandated Palestine in the 1930s, before the United Nations ceded half of it to become a Jewish state in May 1948. Born in Nigeria in 1961, Ley spent most of the first 13 years of her life in what was then the Trucial States, later the United Arab Emirates. Her family migrated to Australia in 1974. She has lived here ever since, working as an air traffic controller, a commercial pilot, a shearer's cook, a farmer, and a senior taxation department official. She has a bunch of degrees, three children and is now a member of the Nelson shadow ministry.
What Sussan Ley did in Parliament on Wednesday night was speak for the Palestinian people. She was the only MP who did. In fact, the only MHR of the House's 150, apart from the two leaders, to even raise the issue.
When Rudd and Nelson had spoken at midday I counted 53 Government MPs present, including six ministers, and 39 Coalition MPs. When Ley got the call 7½ hours later, at 7.38pm, to speak on the adjournment, there were five people in the public gallery, four Labor MPs and two Coalition MPs in the chamber, and one journalist in the press gallery. She was the fourth-last speaker before Parliament shut down for the day, after 11 hours, and she was allowed five minutes.
Here is an edited version of what she said:
"Today the Parliament passed a motion honouring Israel's 60 years. My purpose tonight is not to diminish Israel's achievements but to note the interests and legitimate aspirations of the people of Palestine.
"Israel has many friends in this country and in this Parliament. The Palestinians, by comparison, have few. Theirs is not a popular cause. But it is one I support, in part out of knowledge that the victors of World War II, including Australia, wrote a 'homeland' cheque to cover the sins of the holocaust and centuries of anti-Semitism in Europe, but it was the Palestinians who had to cash it.
"Israel has much to celebrate after 60 years. It has built a modern, accomplished and intelligent society, one whose scientific and technological expertise offers a great deal to the world. It has a robust democracy, a free press, a secular state with freedom of faith, and an unfettered opposition, regrettably rare in the Middle East. If there were peace between Israelis and Palestinians, one can only imagine the achievements of these two cultures today.
"Israel's 40-year occupation of the Palestinian territories, its continued expansion of [illegal Israeli] settlements [on Palestinian land] and its refusal to allow the return of expelled refugees have caused deep resentment in the Arab world. Palestinian corruption in government and failure to abandon violence against civilians as a political tool have meant Israel does not feel secure behind secure borders. Sixty years have seen a great deal of bloodshed - Arab, Israeli and others, including 34 US soldiers killed by Israeli forces on the USS Liberty during the 1967 war. I do not find it helpful to engage in a forensic apportionment of blame; each side has legitimate grievances.
"The current blockade of Gaza, confiscation of Palestinian land, and the expansion of settlements must be mentioned in the context of today's motion. Gaza is besieged, contained and on the brink of starvation. Rockets are fired into Israel every day, and Israel has a right to self-defence, but the crushing economic embargo feeds fury and resentment both in Gaza and the West Bank. [A total] 2679 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli [military] forces in the Gaza Strip since September 2000, [while] an Israeli human rights organisation reported 1259 of those were not participating in hostilities when they were killed, and 567 were minors …
"We ought not be naive or simplistic about the challenge faced by the Israelis in moving towards peace with a [popularly elected] counterpart, in Hamas, that is funded and supported by a foreign power [Syria] and which retains an explicit commitment to [terrorism] as a political instrument. But may I remind the House of the example of the Northern Ireland peace process [which succeeded] after a more than 40-year struggle.
"There are signs the Israeli people are developing a renewed hunger for peace. A recent Tel Aviv University poll indicates 64 per cent of Israelis believe the [Israeli] Government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza towards a ceasefire. Military occupation, blockades and hostility against civilians in the name of security will result in [more] violence and terror. We must think what we can do [for] ordinary Israelis and Palestinians to give them some faith in the peace process …
"We are the leaders of our generation. We are accountable for results. If the principal protagonists and the rest of the world community hand Palestine on to the next generation as a twisted mess of grievance, hatred and retribution, then we have failed. The last two generations of leaders have failed to produce peace. Let us renew our efforts."
Unlike earlier in the day, nobody applauded - though I wished I could have. Many Australians, too, had they been present, surely would have wanted to acknowledge such a speech of such honesty and sensibility, about the Israelis as much as it was about the Palestinians. Ley put the grovelling Rudd and Nelson to shame. The truth is there is no real debate in this country about the travesty of what is happening in the Middle East, and there are those in the community who, with their money and influence, do all they can to ensure no such open debate occurs, either in the national Parliament, in the media or anywhere else.
So why was the Rudd Government, in its first four months of office, doing what no Australian government or parliament had done, to acknowledge any of the decades of Israeli statehood since the Six-Day War in 1967 saw the Israeli military occupy the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza and ignore 40 years of mutual violence and barbarity as well as 40 years of United Nations resolutions, to withdraw?
The Howard government did not "honour" Israel's 50th anniversary in 1998, nor the Hawke government the 40th anniversary in 1988, nor the Fraser government the 30th anniversary in 1978. Why the 60th in 2008 the instant a Labor Government comes to power?
When the Labor caucus met on Tuesday, as it does every week the Parliament sits, Sydney's Julia Irwin asked Rudd this very question.
Why? Irwin never takes a backward step in her defence of Palestinian rights, but all she got from Rudd this time was waffle. He did not explicitly respond as to why 60 might be different from earlier decades when the Parliament had done nothing and neither had earlier governments. And no Labor MP supported Irwin in pushing it.
She was a lone voice in the Labor caucus as Sussan Ley was in the Parliament. How's that for political ticker?
Leaders vie to ladle on the gush
When our Prime Minister spoke in the Parliament this week before a select audience of 100 VIP guests, including the Israeli ambassador, he was speaking to a 191-word proposal he had drafted, in consultation with a range of people, which read:
"That the House [of Representatives]
"(1) celebrate and commend the achievements of the state of Israel in the 60 years since its inception;
"(2) remember with pride and honour the important role which Australia played in the establishment of the state of Israel as both a member state of the United Nations and as an influential voice in the introduction of Resolution 181 which facilitated Israel's statehood [in 1948], and as the country which proudly became the first to cast a vote in support of Israel's creation;
"(3) acknowledge the unique relationship which exists between Australia and Israel, a bond highlighted by our commitment to the rights and liberty of our citizens and encouragement of cultural diversity;
"(4) commend the state of Israel's commitment to democracy, the rule of law and pluralism;
"(5) reiterate Australia's commitment to Israel's right to exist and our ongoing support to the peaceful establishment of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue;
"(6) reiterate Australia's commitment to the pursuit of peace and stability throughout the Middle East; and
"(7) on this, the 60th anniversary of independence of the state of Israel, pledge our friendship, commitment and enduring support to the people of Israel as we celebrate this important occasion together."
Make of this splendid piece of mutual back scratching what you will, but know that the supposed virtue of Australia "proudly" becoming "the first to cast a vote in support of Israel's creation" at the United Nations in 1948 is sophistry. We were the first for no other reason than, in voting by alphabetical order, Australia was the first country to vote.
Some excerpts from the speeches of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in support of the bipartisan motion make the point that when politicians seek to trowel on the gush, Australia loses nothing now that Rudd and Nelson have replaced Howard and Beazley.
Rudd: "… The 60 years since the establishment of Israel have been full of challenges and full of trials. Similarly, the process for the emergence of a Palestinian state has come along a tortuous path. There has been too much bloodshed. But over those 60 years there has also been cause for hope.
"We think today of prime minister Menachem Begin standing with Jimmy Carter and Egypt's Anwar Sadat at the White House on March 26, 1979 at the signing of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty that followed the Camp David accords. Prime minister Begin used both the Hebrew and Arabic words for peace when he urged: 'No more war, no more bloodshed, no more bereavement. Peace unto you. Shalom, salaam, forever.' "
Nelson: "In a region of the world that is characterised more by theocracies and autocracies, the state of Israel is the custodian of the most fragile yet powerful of human emotions, and that is hopeful belief in the freedom of man, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly. There are many things for which Israel stands and which characterise the modern state of Israel, but included among them is the celebration of knowledge for its own sake and knowledge as the driver of economic development and emancipation from human poverty…
"Israel, like all democracies, is far from perfect, but it is, in every sense of the word, on the front line of the struggle for the things that we hold dear, not only as Australians and free people but as human beings. And it is far too frequently on the front line of the struggle against all the things repugnant to universal human ideals …
"Israel is home to many things that are spiritual, but it is home in the end to the human spirit of resilience, of confidence, of determination and of respect for one another, irrespective of political, religious or other affiliations … No Australian who believes in the dignity of man, in freedom and in democratic principles should ever, through neglectful indifference, allow Israel to be a stranger. To do so would be to diminish ourselves and our own true security …"
How can you top that lot?
Wednesday, 19 December 2007
The right wing's Jerusalem gambit
A new coalition of religious hard-liners with ties to President Bush seeks to scuttle any plans for dividing Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians.
Gregory Levey, Salon.com, December 13, 2007
On Nov. 26, the U.S. State Department got hit with an unexpected barrage of phone calls. The Coordinating Council on Jerusalem, a new coalition of American groups with hard-line views on Israel, was on the line -- all of the lines. Or so the group said two days later in a press release, proudly proclaiming that with 10,000 calls in less than 48 hours it had managed to overload the State Department's voice-mail system. The group was making known its opposition to any Israeli concessions on dividing Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians -- an issue that was swirling around the Bush administration's peace summit taking place in Annapolis, Md.
The new coalition's dubious achievement wasn't much noticed by the media, and perhaps isn't in itself important, but it was a sign of battles to come in the year ahead, as Israeli and Palestinian leaders struggle to move forward with any real progress after Annapolis. Although most appraisals of the conference were reservedly positive -- after all, at least the two sides were talking seriously again after a seven-year drought -- the event also opened a can of worms.
On the eve of Annapolis, the new right-wing coalition's representatives directly lobbied a top Bush official with their concerns about the summit. Even Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took notice and seemed threatened by their potential to obstruct progress -- leveling some harsh words just before the Annapolis conference apparently directed at the coalition.
Annapolis was only the beginning of a renewed series of high-level negotiations, and the joint Israeli-Palestinian statement read by President Bush at the event was purposefully vague so as to avoid angering either leader's constituents or allies. Anyone reading between the lines, however, could see that the most explosive issue of all, dividing Jerusalem, had reemerged. The new coalition of religious groups seeks to use the incendiary Jerusalem question to scuttle any of the progress promised by Annapolis. Its efforts also threaten to cause painful rifts among American Jews, and perhaps shake up some pro-Israel political alliances.
Although the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group in the U.S., seems to be taking a wait-and-see approach to the new high-level negotiations, some of AIPAC's major donors and allies are involved with the Coordinating Council on Jerusalem. The coalition is also being aided in its efforts by evangelical Christian groups and supported by figures such as G. Gordon Liddy. It is directed by an influential former fundraiser for George W. Bush, Jeff Ballabon.
Ballabon is a Washington lobbyist who served as a major fundraiser for the 2004 Bush reelection campaign and was the architect of a strategy that has sought to bring Orthodox Jews into the Republican fold, in an effort to balance the overwhelmingly Democratic voting habits of mainstream American Jews. Just before the conference in Annapolis, Ballabon, along with Christian leaders and representatives of various Orthodox groups, met with Bush's national security advisor, Stephen Hadley, to make sure their point of view, and the force of their commitment, were understood by the administration. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Hadley reportedly assured them that, for the time being, the issue of Jerusalem was in fact not on the negotiating table.
Some interesting fissures have begun to crop up along with the new coalition. A few weeks before the Annapolis meeting, a congressional letter requesting increased aid for the Palestinian Authority -- which would help it meet some of its obligations toward achieving peace -- was endorsed by AIPAC, surprising many in Washington lobbying circles. (The Israeli government had not opposed the aid.) That decision earned AIPAC a sharp rebuke by one of its most important donors, billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who said, "If someone is going to jump off a bridge, it is incumbent upon their friends to dissuade them." Adelson, reportedly the third richest person in the United States and a prominent donor to the Republican Party, is also a major donor to the Zionist Organization of America, a group that, although lacking anything near the clout that AIPAC wields, is still influential among Middle East hawks in the GOP. And it is a core member of the new Coordinating Council. The national president of ZOA, Mort Klein, told Salon in an interview that "Israel should not be willing to give away any part of Jerusalem to another entity, just as the U.S. wouldn't give away any part of Washington." He added, "Jerusalem is mentioned 700 times in our holy book. It's not mentioned even once in the Quran."
ZOA has been active for a long time, but has never gotten the kind of political attention enjoyed by AIPAC and other more mainstream groups, or by the Christian evangelical groups pushing hawkish Middle East polices who have joined the Coordinating Council. What has changed is that the obstructionist agenda of the ZOA and the evangelical groups is now being aided by the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish member organizations of the newly formed coalition -- many of which have, prior to now, stayed aloof from international politics.
Agudath Israel, for example, an umbrella organization of ultra-Orthodox American Jews and a member group of the Coordinating Council, recently broke its long-held rule of not delving into Middle East politics by speaking out against the division of Jerusalem. The Orthodox Union, the largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization in the United States, also recently broke its tradition of supporting the policies of the Israeli government, issuing a press release that sharply criticized Olmert's statements at Annapolis because he "did not explicitly resist Palestinian President [Mahmoud] Abbas' claim to a piece of Jerusalem."
That a successful peace deal would necessitate some sharing of Jerusalem is at this point essentially a given in the eyes of most political leaders. It has been floated subtly by Prime Minister Olmert's Cabinet allies, is quite clearly supported by many in the State Department and is thought of as an absolute minimum for agreement by Abbas.
To Orthodox Jews, however, Jerusalem is a red line (just as it is to their opposites on the Muslim side). Any perceived threat to sole ownership of the holy city summons dangerous levels of emotion and energy, even from those who would not normally pause from their prayers and everyday lives to wade into the swamp of Middle East politics. It is these thousands of Americans, normally not involved in Middle East discourse, that may give the Coordinating Council for Jerusalem the strength and potential to be a real obstacle to peace in the year to come.
These stirrings stateside have not gone unnoticed by the Israeli government. In response to the lobbying intended to preempt any talk of dividing Jerusalem, Olmert stated, "Israel is sovereign to decide on any issue regarding Israel." The message was that Jerusalem is an issue to be determined by Israel itself, and not by its hard-line American cheerleaders.
To be sure, the views of this new American coalition of religious right-wingers don't come anywhere near representing the consensus of American Jewry or of Israel's mainstream supporters in the United States -- whose views, unlike those of the CCJ, don't generally turn on Scripture but rather on issues of peace and security. Still, the vigor with which these actors have recently entered the debate, and the determined efforts with which they will likely proceed over the next year, aren't going to make anything easy for those striving for a Middle East accord of any kind.
The Annapolis conference may have been a start, but it has also unleashed a zealotry on U.S. shores that may once again help demonstrate how nearly impossible achieving Middle East peace could really be.
Gregory Levey, Salon.com, December 13, 2007
On Nov. 26, the U.S. State Department got hit with an unexpected barrage of phone calls. The Coordinating Council on Jerusalem, a new coalition of American groups with hard-line views on Israel, was on the line -- all of the lines. Or so the group said two days later in a press release, proudly proclaiming that with 10,000 calls in less than 48 hours it had managed to overload the State Department's voice-mail system. The group was making known its opposition to any Israeli concessions on dividing Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians -- an issue that was swirling around the Bush administration's peace summit taking place in Annapolis, Md.
The new coalition's dubious achievement wasn't much noticed by the media, and perhaps isn't in itself important, but it was a sign of battles to come in the year ahead, as Israeli and Palestinian leaders struggle to move forward with any real progress after Annapolis. Although most appraisals of the conference were reservedly positive -- after all, at least the two sides were talking seriously again after a seven-year drought -- the event also opened a can of worms.
On the eve of Annapolis, the new right-wing coalition's representatives directly lobbied a top Bush official with their concerns about the summit. Even Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took notice and seemed threatened by their potential to obstruct progress -- leveling some harsh words just before the Annapolis conference apparently directed at the coalition.
Annapolis was only the beginning of a renewed series of high-level negotiations, and the joint Israeli-Palestinian statement read by President Bush at the event was purposefully vague so as to avoid angering either leader's constituents or allies. Anyone reading between the lines, however, could see that the most explosive issue of all, dividing Jerusalem, had reemerged. The new coalition of religious groups seeks to use the incendiary Jerusalem question to scuttle any of the progress promised by Annapolis. Its efforts also threaten to cause painful rifts among American Jews, and perhaps shake up some pro-Israel political alliances.
Although the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group in the U.S., seems to be taking a wait-and-see approach to the new high-level negotiations, some of AIPAC's major donors and allies are involved with the Coordinating Council on Jerusalem. The coalition is also being aided in its efforts by evangelical Christian groups and supported by figures such as G. Gordon Liddy. It is directed by an influential former fundraiser for George W. Bush, Jeff Ballabon.
Ballabon is a Washington lobbyist who served as a major fundraiser for the 2004 Bush reelection campaign and was the architect of a strategy that has sought to bring Orthodox Jews into the Republican fold, in an effort to balance the overwhelmingly Democratic voting habits of mainstream American Jews. Just before the conference in Annapolis, Ballabon, along with Christian leaders and representatives of various Orthodox groups, met with Bush's national security advisor, Stephen Hadley, to make sure their point of view, and the force of their commitment, were understood by the administration. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Hadley reportedly assured them that, for the time being, the issue of Jerusalem was in fact not on the negotiating table.
Some interesting fissures have begun to crop up along with the new coalition. A few weeks before the Annapolis meeting, a congressional letter requesting increased aid for the Palestinian Authority -- which would help it meet some of its obligations toward achieving peace -- was endorsed by AIPAC, surprising many in Washington lobbying circles. (The Israeli government had not opposed the aid.) That decision earned AIPAC a sharp rebuke by one of its most important donors, billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who said, "If someone is going to jump off a bridge, it is incumbent upon their friends to dissuade them." Adelson, reportedly the third richest person in the United States and a prominent donor to the Republican Party, is also a major donor to the Zionist Organization of America, a group that, although lacking anything near the clout that AIPAC wields, is still influential among Middle East hawks in the GOP. And it is a core member of the new Coordinating Council. The national president of ZOA, Mort Klein, told Salon in an interview that "Israel should not be willing to give away any part of Jerusalem to another entity, just as the U.S. wouldn't give away any part of Washington." He added, "Jerusalem is mentioned 700 times in our holy book. It's not mentioned even once in the Quran."
ZOA has been active for a long time, but has never gotten the kind of political attention enjoyed by AIPAC and other more mainstream groups, or by the Christian evangelical groups pushing hawkish Middle East polices who have joined the Coordinating Council. What has changed is that the obstructionist agenda of the ZOA and the evangelical groups is now being aided by the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish member organizations of the newly formed coalition -- many of which have, prior to now, stayed aloof from international politics.
Agudath Israel, for example, an umbrella organization of ultra-Orthodox American Jews and a member group of the Coordinating Council, recently broke its long-held rule of not delving into Middle East politics by speaking out against the division of Jerusalem. The Orthodox Union, the largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization in the United States, also recently broke its tradition of supporting the policies of the Israeli government, issuing a press release that sharply criticized Olmert's statements at Annapolis because he "did not explicitly resist Palestinian President [Mahmoud] Abbas' claim to a piece of Jerusalem."
That a successful peace deal would necessitate some sharing of Jerusalem is at this point essentially a given in the eyes of most political leaders. It has been floated subtly by Prime Minister Olmert's Cabinet allies, is quite clearly supported by many in the State Department and is thought of as an absolute minimum for agreement by Abbas.
To Orthodox Jews, however, Jerusalem is a red line (just as it is to their opposites on the Muslim side). Any perceived threat to sole ownership of the holy city summons dangerous levels of emotion and energy, even from those who would not normally pause from their prayers and everyday lives to wade into the swamp of Middle East politics. It is these thousands of Americans, normally not involved in Middle East discourse, that may give the Coordinating Council for Jerusalem the strength and potential to be a real obstacle to peace in the year to come.
These stirrings stateside have not gone unnoticed by the Israeli government. In response to the lobbying intended to preempt any talk of dividing Jerusalem, Olmert stated, "Israel is sovereign to decide on any issue regarding Israel." The message was that Jerusalem is an issue to be determined by Israel itself, and not by its hard-line American cheerleaders.
To be sure, the views of this new American coalition of religious right-wingers don't come anywhere near representing the consensus of American Jewry or of Israel's mainstream supporters in the United States -- whose views, unlike those of the CCJ, don't generally turn on Scripture but rather on issues of peace and security. Still, the vigor with which these actors have recently entered the debate, and the determined efforts with which they will likely proceed over the next year, aren't going to make anything easy for those striving for a Middle East accord of any kind.
The Annapolis conference may have been a start, but it has also unleashed a zealotry on U.S. shores that may once again help demonstrate how nearly impossible achieving Middle East peace could really be.
Monday, 10 December 2007
British Jewry Again Finds Itself Embroiled in a Labor Party Scandal
The Forward : Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Manchester, England — When the political scandal that is dominating Britain's front pages broke last week, the man at the center of it, David Abrahams, was at a charity dinner in London for Israel's Technion Institute of Technology.
Abrahams, a British real estate magnate, is one of the leading British donors to Jewish and Israeli causes, but on Sunday, November 25, all eyes were on his donations to the Labor Party. Earlier that day, The Mail on Sunday first reported that Abrahams had secretly funneled political donations through much less wealthy intermediaries. Abrahams had turned a small-time construction worker named Ray Ruddick into the third-largest donor to Britain's governing party.
When asked about the scandal before the Technion event, Abrahams told the Forward that his method of donation was linked to being taught "that you do things on the quiet and don't make a song and dance of it," adding, "This is my own ethos, influenced by my Jewish background."
Abrahams's explanations have not placated critics, and the scandal has since gone on to consume much of the top ranks of the Labor Party. Last Monday, the party's general secretary, Peter Watt, resigned, admitting he knew about the arrangement.
For Britain's Jewish community, the scandal has implications that are similarly broad. Further reporting has indicated that one of the key players on the receiving end of Abrahams's donation was also a prominent Jewish philanthropist and communal leader.
"There is wide concern in this story, and clearly there is a potential for it to turn against us," Jon Benjamin, chief executive of Board of Deputies of British Jews, told the Forward. "We have been there before." The Board of Deputies is an umbrella group for British Jewish organizations.
As Benjamin suggested, this is only the latest Labor Party scandal to involve major Jewish communal leaders. Last year, Tony Blair's envoy to the Middle East, Michael Levy, came under criminal investigation for allegedly trading peerages for donations and for breaching a law that says donations of more than 5,000 pounds (roughly $10,000) must be declared. The investigation ended in the summer, and Levy faced no charges.
The current scandal, nicknamed Donorgate, was kicked off by evidence that Abrahams had circumvented laws designed to ensure transparency in political funding. In addition to the 200,000 pounds ($400,000) that was given to the Labor Party by an employee at one of Abraham's construction firms, three more intermediaries were outed, including Abrahams's secretary. The donations added up to 600,000 pounds, slightly more than $1.2 million.
Labor Party officials initially denied knowing about Abrahams's unorthodox methods of giving, but evidence has since emerged that Abrahams was in close contact with Prime Minister Gordon Brown's election campaign adviser, Jon Mendelsohn, who also happens to be the ex-chairman of the lobby group Labor Friends of Israel.
Brown acknowledged that the donations broke transparency laws and promised that the party would pay them back, but Mendelsohn and Abrahams have been sniping at each other through the press.
The problem for British Jewry is that this scandal involves not merely characters who happen to be Jewish, but rather two men who are key communal players and strong advocates for Israel.
Mendelsohn, said to be one of the most connected power brokers in Parliament, is former head of the Union of Jewish Students and of the Holocaust Educational Trust, among other organizations.
Abrahams has been a vice chairman of the Jewish Labor Movement and a board member of the Trade Union Friends of Israel. He is a member of St. John's Wood Synagogue, a prosperous London congregation considered the jewel in the crown of the Orthodox Union's British equivalent, the United Synagogue.
Abrahams released a statement Sunday saying he was placed next to Mendelsohn at dinner in London on April 25.
"I told him," Abrahams said in his statement, "that I regularly donated to the party and I described how it was done through intermediaries for the purposes of anonymity, to which he replied, 'That sounds like a good idea.'"
Mendelsohn has hit back, releasing his own statement, saying: "This latest statement is fictional and completely untrue. I will be cooperating fully with the police in their investigation."
The tension between the two men has its roots in their time together in Labor Friends of Israel. When Mendelsohn became head of the organization in 2002, he reportedly threw Abrahams off the executive board.
Already, reporters have been looking at other Jewish roots of the current scandal. The Daily Telegraph reported fears that Abrahams "may himself have been a conduit for another mystery benefactor." The newspaper outlined some Israel connections and pointed out that last year Abrahams was photographed with the Israeli ambassador to London.
Within the Jewish community, Abrahams is known for his friendships with Israeli politicians. He met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during Olmert's recent visit to Britain.
Andrew Dismore, a Labor Member of Parliament who represents a heavily Jewish London constituency, told The Jewish Chronicle that people are "looking for links to Jewish interests and evidence of a Jewish conspiracy. The press are turning every stone to find one."
==============================
BBC - Profile: David Abrahams
Jewish Chronicle defends its coverage of David Abrahams
Haroon Siddique and agencies, Guardian Unlimited, Friday December 7, 2007
The editor of the Jewish Chronicle today insisted that his paper had run an accurate record of its interview with David Abrahams about his donations to the Labour party, after the property developer's spokesman claimed he had been "misrepresented". An interview in today's Jewish Chronicle quotes Abrahams as saying he did not want to be identified because he "didn't want Jewish money and the Labour party being put together".
He said the media had proved him to be right in trying to keep his name out of the limelight by printing allegations of a "Jewish conspiracy" in relation to the donations. The cash gifts were made through agents and not registered in Abrahams' name with the Electoral Commission, as required under party funding law.
David Abrahams hints at frequent meetings with PM
Nick Allen, Paul Stokes and Richard Edwards
The Telegraph, 30/11/2007
It emerged yesterday he is a provincial vice-chairman of the Jewish Labour Movement, serves on the board of the Trade Union Friends of Israel, and was among communal leaders who met the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, during his recent visit to Britain.
He was also the northern convenor of the Labour Friends of Israel and, in 1991, was elected to the LFI national executive. It is likely that it was at LFI where he first met Jon Mendelsohn, Labour's chief fundraiser, who became its director in 2002.
The shadowy role of Labour Friends of Israel
Such lobbyists and their back-room influence should make us very uneasy
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, The Independent, 03 December 2007
I rang some of my Jewish friends who support LFI and are well acquainted with Abrahams and Mendelsohn. Two have known both professionally for some time and others have personal relationships with these men. I felt their unease as we talked about this latest unsavoury New Labour scandal. Some of these contacts confirm that Abrahams and Mendelsohn fell out at a dramatic LFI meeting when Abrahams wanted the group to make contact with a particular Palestinian organisation and Mendelsohn vehemently disagreed.
OK. Internal strife among campaigners is part of the deal, and Palestine, as we know, divides Jewish opinion the whole world over. Such things happen all the time when communal champions gather. It happens within Palestinian forums too. But LFI is not only an activist network. It enviably attracts the support of top parliamentarians, almost all prime ministers for a start. Its fringe meetings are packed because, on the platform, they can guarantee the biggest names from the political parties.
Manchester, England — When the political scandal that is dominating Britain's front pages broke last week, the man at the center of it, David Abrahams, was at a charity dinner in London for Israel's Technion Institute of Technology.
Abrahams, a British real estate magnate, is one of the leading British donors to Jewish and Israeli causes, but on Sunday, November 25, all eyes were on his donations to the Labor Party. Earlier that day, The Mail on Sunday first reported that Abrahams had secretly funneled political donations through much less wealthy intermediaries. Abrahams had turned a small-time construction worker named Ray Ruddick into the third-largest donor to Britain's governing party.
When asked about the scandal before the Technion event, Abrahams told the Forward that his method of donation was linked to being taught "that you do things on the quiet and don't make a song and dance of it," adding, "This is my own ethos, influenced by my Jewish background."
Abrahams's explanations have not placated critics, and the scandal has since gone on to consume much of the top ranks of the Labor Party. Last Monday, the party's general secretary, Peter Watt, resigned, admitting he knew about the arrangement.
For Britain's Jewish community, the scandal has implications that are similarly broad. Further reporting has indicated that one of the key players on the receiving end of Abrahams's donation was also a prominent Jewish philanthropist and communal leader.
"There is wide concern in this story, and clearly there is a potential for it to turn against us," Jon Benjamin, chief executive of Board of Deputies of British Jews, told the Forward. "We have been there before." The Board of Deputies is an umbrella group for British Jewish organizations.
As Benjamin suggested, this is only the latest Labor Party scandal to involve major Jewish communal leaders. Last year, Tony Blair's envoy to the Middle East, Michael Levy, came under criminal investigation for allegedly trading peerages for donations and for breaching a law that says donations of more than 5,000 pounds (roughly $10,000) must be declared. The investigation ended in the summer, and Levy faced no charges.
The current scandal, nicknamed Donorgate, was kicked off by evidence that Abrahams had circumvented laws designed to ensure transparency in political funding. In addition to the 200,000 pounds ($400,000) that was given to the Labor Party by an employee at one of Abraham's construction firms, three more intermediaries were outed, including Abrahams's secretary. The donations added up to 600,000 pounds, slightly more than $1.2 million.
Labor Party officials initially denied knowing about Abrahams's unorthodox methods of giving, but evidence has since emerged that Abrahams was in close contact with Prime Minister Gordon Brown's election campaign adviser, Jon Mendelsohn, who also happens to be the ex-chairman of the lobby group Labor Friends of Israel.
Brown acknowledged that the donations broke transparency laws and promised that the party would pay them back, but Mendelsohn and Abrahams have been sniping at each other through the press.
The problem for British Jewry is that this scandal involves not merely characters who happen to be Jewish, but rather two men who are key communal players and strong advocates for Israel.
Mendelsohn, said to be one of the most connected power brokers in Parliament, is former head of the Union of Jewish Students and of the Holocaust Educational Trust, among other organizations.
Abrahams has been a vice chairman of the Jewish Labor Movement and a board member of the Trade Union Friends of Israel. He is a member of St. John's Wood Synagogue, a prosperous London congregation considered the jewel in the crown of the Orthodox Union's British equivalent, the United Synagogue.
Abrahams released a statement Sunday saying he was placed next to Mendelsohn at dinner in London on April 25.
"I told him," Abrahams said in his statement, "that I regularly donated to the party and I described how it was done through intermediaries for the purposes of anonymity, to which he replied, 'That sounds like a good idea.'"
Mendelsohn has hit back, releasing his own statement, saying: "This latest statement is fictional and completely untrue. I will be cooperating fully with the police in their investigation."
The tension between the two men has its roots in their time together in Labor Friends of Israel. When Mendelsohn became head of the organization in 2002, he reportedly threw Abrahams off the executive board.
Already, reporters have been looking at other Jewish roots of the current scandal. The Daily Telegraph reported fears that Abrahams "may himself have been a conduit for another mystery benefactor." The newspaper outlined some Israel connections and pointed out that last year Abrahams was photographed with the Israeli ambassador to London.
Within the Jewish community, Abrahams is known for his friendships with Israeli politicians. He met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during Olmert's recent visit to Britain.
Andrew Dismore, a Labor Member of Parliament who represents a heavily Jewish London constituency, told The Jewish Chronicle that people are "looking for links to Jewish interests and evidence of a Jewish conspiracy. The press are turning every stone to find one."
==============================
BBC - Profile: David Abrahams
Jewish Chronicle defends its coverage of David Abrahams
Haroon Siddique and agencies, Guardian Unlimited, Friday December 7, 2007
The editor of the Jewish Chronicle today insisted that his paper had run an accurate record of its interview with David Abrahams about his donations to the Labour party, after the property developer's spokesman claimed he had been "misrepresented". An interview in today's Jewish Chronicle quotes Abrahams as saying he did not want to be identified because he "didn't want Jewish money and the Labour party being put together".
He said the media had proved him to be right in trying to keep his name out of the limelight by printing allegations of a "Jewish conspiracy" in relation to the donations. The cash gifts were made through agents and not registered in Abrahams' name with the Electoral Commission, as required under party funding law.
David Abrahams hints at frequent meetings with PM
Nick Allen, Paul Stokes and Richard Edwards
The Telegraph, 30/11/2007
It emerged yesterday he is a provincial vice-chairman of the Jewish Labour Movement, serves on the board of the Trade Union Friends of Israel, and was among communal leaders who met the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, during his recent visit to Britain.
He was also the northern convenor of the Labour Friends of Israel and, in 1991, was elected to the LFI national executive. It is likely that it was at LFI where he first met Jon Mendelsohn, Labour's chief fundraiser, who became its director in 2002.
The shadowy role of Labour Friends of Israel
Such lobbyists and their back-room influence should make us very uneasy
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, The Independent, 03 December 2007
I rang some of my Jewish friends who support LFI and are well acquainted with Abrahams and Mendelsohn. Two have known both professionally for some time and others have personal relationships with these men. I felt their unease as we talked about this latest unsavoury New Labour scandal. Some of these contacts confirm that Abrahams and Mendelsohn fell out at a dramatic LFI meeting when Abrahams wanted the group to make contact with a particular Palestinian organisation and Mendelsohn vehemently disagreed.
OK. Internal strife among campaigners is part of the deal, and Palestine, as we know, divides Jewish opinion the whole world over. Such things happen all the time when communal champions gather. It happens within Palestinian forums too. But LFI is not only an activist network. It enviably attracts the support of top parliamentarians, almost all prime ministers for a start. Its fringe meetings are packed because, on the platform, they can guarantee the biggest names from the political parties.
Thursday, 22 November 2007
AUDIO: Review of "Foreign Agents: The AIPAC"
Martin Short, a British author and producer, Tim Llewellyn the BBC's Middle East correspondent for nearly a decade, and Abe Haim, of Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine sat down to discuss the book "Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee" by Grant Smith.
MP3
Windows Media Audio
MP3
Windows Media Audio
Wednesday, 31 October 2007
Courting the Jewish vote
Antony Loewenstein - 25 October 2007
For Australian Jews this election is about a variety of issues and Israel is just one of them. Like all citizens, concerns about health, education, foreign policy and industrial relations are paramount, but Israel is central.
======================
Local Jewish leaders warn off Labor’s “anti-Israel ratbags” - 21 September, 2007
Please somebody, anybody, love Israel - 25 September, 2007
Howard and Rudd show their love for Israel - 2 October, 2007
How dare Jews speak out of turn? - 3 October, 2007
Asking for common sense - 4 October, 2007
The Rudd Delusion - 30 October 2007
For Australian Jews this election is about a variety of issues and Israel is just one of them. Like all citizens, concerns about health, education, foreign policy and industrial relations are paramount, but Israel is central.
======================
Local Jewish leaders warn off Labor’s “anti-Israel ratbags” - 21 September, 2007
Please somebody, anybody, love Israel - 25 September, 2007
Howard and Rudd show their love for Israel - 2 October, 2007
How dare Jews speak out of turn? - 3 October, 2007
Asking for common sense - 4 October, 2007
The Rudd Delusion - 30 October 2007
Monday, 1 October 2007
A Conversation with John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
A Conversation with John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
Domestic Politics and International Relations, September 19, 2007
The Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley
Saying the unsayable
Andrew Stephen, The New Statesman, 13 September 2007
The links between the Israel lobby and US foreign policy are a Washington taboo. But a controversial new study is opening up a long-stifled debate.
Newsweek Senior Editor Says 'Israeli Lobby' Is Shaping U.S. Policy Toward Iran
Philip Weiss, September 27, 2007
Neocon 'godfather' Norman Podhoretz tells Bush: bomb Iran
Sarah Baxter, Washington, The Sunday Times, September 30, 2007
Domestic Politics and International Relations, September 19, 2007
The Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley
Saying the unsayable
Andrew Stephen, The New Statesman, 13 September 2007
The links between the Israel lobby and US foreign policy are a Washington taboo. But a controversial new study is opening up a long-stifled debate.
Newsweek Senior Editor Says 'Israeli Lobby' Is Shaping U.S. Policy Toward Iran
Philip Weiss, September 27, 2007
Neocon 'godfather' Norman Podhoretz tells Bush: bomb Iran
Sarah Baxter, Washington, The Sunday Times, September 30, 2007
Saturday, 29 September 2007
Why Did Israel Attack Syria?
An Opening Shot for War on Iran?
Jonathan Cook, September 27, 2007
Israel's air strike on northern Syria earlier this month should be understood in the context of events unfolding since its assault last summer on neighboring Lebanon.
From the leaks so far, it seems that more than half a dozen Israeli warplanes violated Syrian airspace to drop munitions on a site close to the border with Turkey. We also know from the US media that the raid occurred in close coordination with the White House. But what was the purpose and significance of the attack?
It is worth recalling that, in the wake of Israel's month-long war against Lebanon a year ago, a prominent American neoconservative, Meyrav Wurmser, wife of Vice-President Dick Cheney's recently departed Middle East adviser, explained that the war had dragged on because the White House delayed in imposing a ceasefire. The neocons, she said, wanted to give Israel the time and space to expand the attack to Damascus.
The reasoning was simple: before an attack on Iran could be countenanced, Hizbullah in Lebanon had to be destroyed and Syria at the very least cowed. The plan was to isolate Tehran on these two other hostile fronts before going in for the kill.
But faced with constant rocket fire from Hizbullah last summer, Israel's public and military nerves frayed at the first hurdle. Instead Israel and the US were forced to settle for a Security Council resolution rather than a decisive military victory.
The immediate fallout of the failed attack was an apparent waning of neocon influence. The group's program of "creative destruction" in the Middle East -- the encouragement of regional civil war and the partition of large states that threaten Israel -- was at risk of being shunted aside.
Instead the "pragmatists" in the Bush Administration, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the new Defense Secretary Robert Gates, demanded a change of tack. The standoff reached a head in late 2006 when oilman James Baker and his Iraq Study Group began lobbying for a gradual withdrawal from Iraq -- presumably only after a dictator, this one more reliable, had again been installed in Baghdad. It looked as if the neocons' day in the sun had finally passed.
Israel's leadership understood the gravity of the moment. In January 2007 the Herzliya conference, an annual festival of strategy-making, invited no less than 40 Washington opinion-formers to join the usual throng of Israeli politicians, generals, journalists and academics. For a week the Israeli and American delegates spoke as one: Iran and its presumed proxy, Hizbullah, were bent on the genocidal destruction of Israel. Tehran's development of a nuclear program -- whether for civilian use, as Iran argues, or for military use, as the US and Israel claim -- had to be stopped at all costs.
While the White House turned uncharacteristically quiet all spring and summer about what it planned to do next, rumors that Israel was pondering a go-it-alone strike against Iran grew noisier by the day. Ex-Mossad officers warned of an inevitable third world war, Israeli military intelligence advised that Iran was only months away from the point of no return on developing a nuclear warhead, prominent leaks in sympathetic media revealed bombing runs to Gibraltar, and Israel started upping the pressure on several tens of thousands of Jews in Tehran to flee their homes and come to Israel.
While Western analysts opined that an attack on Iran was growing unlikely, Israel's neighbors watched nervously through the first half of the year as the vague impression of a regional war came ever more sharply into focus. In particular Syria, after witnessing the whirlwind of savagery unleashed against Lebanon last summer, feared it was next in line in the US-Israeli campaign to break Tehran's network of regional alliances. It deduced, probably correctly, that neither the US nor Israel would dare attack Iran without first clobbering Hizbullah and Damascus.
For some time Syria had been left in no doubt of the mood in Washington. It failed to end its pariah status in the post-9/11 period, despite helping the CIA with intelligence on al-Qaeda and secretly trying to make peace with Israel over the running sore of the occupied Golan Heights. It was rebuffed at every turn.
So as the clouds of war grew darker in the spring, Syria responded as might be expected. It went to the arms market in Moscow and bought up the displays of anti-aircraft missiles as well as anti-tank weapons of the kind Hizbullah demonstrated last summer were so effective at repelling Israel's planned ground invasion of south Lebanon.
As the Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld reluctantly conceded earlier this year, US policy was forcing Damascus to remain within Iran's uncomfortable embrace: "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad finds himself more dependent on his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, than perhaps he would like."
Israel, never missing an opportunity to wilfully misrepresent the behavior of an enemy, called the Syrian military build-up proof of Damascus' appetite for war. Apparently fearful that Syria might initiate a war by mistaking the signals from Israel as evidence of aggressive intentions, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, urged Syria to avoid a "miscalculation". The Israeli public spent the summer braced for a far more dangerous repeat of last summer's war along the northern border.
It was at this point -- with tensions simmeringly hot -- that Israel launched its strike, sending several fighter planes into Syria on a lightning mission to hit a site near Dayr a-Zawr. As Syria itself broke the news of the attack, Israeli generals were shown on TV toasting in the Jewish new year but refusing to comment.
Details have remained thin on the ground ever since: Israel imposed a news blackout that has been strictly enforced by the country's military censor. Instead it has been left to the Western media to speculate on what occurred.
One point that none of the pundits and analysts have noted was that, in attacking Syria, Israel committed a blatant act of aggression against its northern neighbor of the kind denounced as the "supreme international crime" by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal.
Also, no one pointed out the obvious double standard applied to Israel's attack on Syria compared to the far less significant violation of Israeli sovereignty by Hizbullah a year earlier, when the Shia militia captured two Israel soldiers at a border post and killed three more. Hizbullah's act was widely accepted as justification for the bombardment and destruction of much of Lebanon, even if a few sensitive souls agonized over whether Israel's response was "disproportionate". Would these commentators now approve of similar retaliation by Syria?
The question was doubtless considered unimportant because it was clear from Western coverage that no one -- including the Israeli leadership -- believed Syria was in a position to respond militarily to Israel's attack. Olmert's fear of a Syrian "miscalculation" evaporated the moment Israel did the maths for Damascus.
So what did Israel hope to achieve with its aerial strike?
The stories emerging from the less gagged American media suggest two scenarios. The first is that Israel targeted Iranian supplies passing through Syria on their way to Hizbullah; the second that Israel struck at a fledgling Syrian nuclear plant where materials from North Korea were being offloaded, possibly as part of a joint nuclear effort by Damascus and Tehran.
(Speculation that Israel was testing Syria's anti-aircraft defences in preparation for an attack on Iran ignores the fact that the Israeli air force would almost certainly choose a flightpath through friendlier Jordanian airspace.)
How credible are these two scenarios?
The nuclear claims against Damascus were discounted so quickly by experts of the region that Washington was soon downgrading the accusation to claims that Syria was only hiding the material on North Korea's behalf. But why would Syria, already hounded by Israel and the US, provide such a readymade pretext for still harsher treatment? Why, equally, would North Korea undermine its hard-won disarmament deal with the US? And why, if Syria were covertly engaging in nuclear mischief, did it alert the world to the fact by revealing the Israeli air strike?
The other justification for the attack was at least based in a more credible reality: Damascus, Hizbullah and Iran undoubtedly do share some military resources. But their alliance should be seen as the kind of defensive pact needed by vulnerable actors in a Sunni-dominated region where the US wants unlimited control of Gulf oil and supports only those repressive regimes that cooperate on its terms. All three are keenly aware that it is Israel's job to threaten and punish any regimes that fail to toe the line.
Contrary to the impression being created in the West, genocidal hatred of Israel and Jews, however often Ahmadinejad's speeches are mistranslated, is not the engine of these countries' alliance.
Nonetheless, the political significance of the justifications for the Israeli air strike is that both neatly tie together various strands of an argument needed by the neocons and Israel in making their case for an attack on Iran before Bush leaves office in early 2009. Each scenario suggests a Shia "axis of evil", coordinated by Iran, that is actively plotting Israel's destruction. And each story offers the pretext for an attack on Syria as a prelude to a pre-emptive strike against Tehran -- launched either by Washington or Tel Aviv -- to save Israel.
That these stories appear to have been planted in the American media by neocon fanatics like John Bolton is warning enough -- as is the admission that the only evidence for Syrian malfeasance is Israeli "intelligence", the basis of which cannot be questioned as Israel is not officially admitting the attack.
It should hardly need pointing out that we are again in a hall of mirrors, as we were during the period leading up to America's invasion of Iraq and have been during its subsequent occupation.
Bush's "war on terror" was originally justified with the convenient and manufactured links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, as well as, of course, those WMDs that, it later turned out, had been destroyed years earlier. But ever since Tehran has invariably been the ultimate target of these improbable confections.
There were the forged documents proving both that Iraq had imported enriched uranium from Niger to manufacture nuclear warheads and that it was sharing its nuclear know-how with Iran. And as Iraq fell apart, neocon operatives like Michael Ledeen lost no time in spreading rumors that the missing nuclear arsenal could still be accounted for: Iranian agents had simply smuggled it out of Iraq during the chaos of the US invasion.
Since then our media have proved that they have no less of an appetite for such preposterous tales. If Iran's involvement in stirring up its fellow Shia in Iraq against the US occupation is at least possible, the same cannot be said of the regular White House claims that Tehran is behind the Sunni-led insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. A few months ago the news media served up "revelations" that Iran was secretly conspiring with al-Qaeda and Iraq's Sunni militias to oust the US occupiers.
So what purpose does the constant innuendo against Tehran serve?
The latest accusations should be seen as an example of Israel and the neocons "creating their own reality", as one Bush adviser famously observed of the neocon philosophy of power. The more that Hizbullah, Syria and Iran are menaced by Israel, the more they are forced to huddle together and behave in ways to protect themselves -- such as arming -- that can be portrayed as a "genocidal" threat to Israel and world order.
Van Creveld once observed that Tehran would be "crazy" not to develop nuclear weapons given the clear trajectory of Israeli and US machinations to overthrow the regime. So equally Syria cannot afford to jettison its alliance with Iran or its involvement with Hizbullah. In the current reality, these connections are the only power it has to deter an attack or force the US and Israel to negotiate.
But they are also the evidence needed by Israel and the neocons to convict Syria and Iran in the court of Washington opinion. The attack on Syria is part of a clever hustle, one designed to vanquish or bypass the doubters in the Bush Administration, both by proving Syria's culpability and by provoking it to respond.
Condoleezza Rice, it emerged at the weekend, wants to invite Syria to attend the regional peace conference that has been called by President Bush for November. There can be no doubt that such an act of détente is deeply opposed by both Israel and the neocons. It reverses their strategy of implicating Damascus in the "Shia arc of extremism" and of paving the way to an attack on the real target: Iran.
Syria, meanwhile, is fighting back, as it has been for some time, with the only means available: the diplomatic offensive. For two years Bashar al-Assad has been offering a generous peace deal to Israel on the Golan Heights that Tel Aviv has refused to consider. This week, Syria made a further gesture towards peace with an offer on another piece of territory occupied by Israel, the Shebaa Farms. Under the plan, the Farms -- which the United Nations now agrees belongs to Lebanon, but which Israel still claims is Syrian and cannot be returned until there is a deal on the Golan Heights -- would be transferred to UN custody until the dispute over its sovereignty can be resolved.
Were either of Damascus' initiatives to be pursued, the region might be looking forward to a period of relative calm and security. Which is reason enough why Israel and the neocons are so bitterly opposed. Instead they must establish a new reality -- one in which the forces of "creative destruction" so beloved of the neocons engulf yet more of the region. For the rest of us, a simpler vocabulary suffices. What is being sold is catastrophe.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. He is the author of the forthcoming "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" published by Pluto Press, and available in the United States from the University of Michigan Press. His website is www.jkcook.net
Jonathan Cook, September 27, 2007
Israel's air strike on northern Syria earlier this month should be understood in the context of events unfolding since its assault last summer on neighboring Lebanon.
From the leaks so far, it seems that more than half a dozen Israeli warplanes violated Syrian airspace to drop munitions on a site close to the border with Turkey. We also know from the US media that the raid occurred in close coordination with the White House. But what was the purpose and significance of the attack?
It is worth recalling that, in the wake of Israel's month-long war against Lebanon a year ago, a prominent American neoconservative, Meyrav Wurmser, wife of Vice-President Dick Cheney's recently departed Middle East adviser, explained that the war had dragged on because the White House delayed in imposing a ceasefire. The neocons, she said, wanted to give Israel the time and space to expand the attack to Damascus.
The reasoning was simple: before an attack on Iran could be countenanced, Hizbullah in Lebanon had to be destroyed and Syria at the very least cowed. The plan was to isolate Tehran on these two other hostile fronts before going in for the kill.
But faced with constant rocket fire from Hizbullah last summer, Israel's public and military nerves frayed at the first hurdle. Instead Israel and the US were forced to settle for a Security Council resolution rather than a decisive military victory.
The immediate fallout of the failed attack was an apparent waning of neocon influence. The group's program of "creative destruction" in the Middle East -- the encouragement of regional civil war and the partition of large states that threaten Israel -- was at risk of being shunted aside.
Instead the "pragmatists" in the Bush Administration, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the new Defense Secretary Robert Gates, demanded a change of tack. The standoff reached a head in late 2006 when oilman James Baker and his Iraq Study Group began lobbying for a gradual withdrawal from Iraq -- presumably only after a dictator, this one more reliable, had again been installed in Baghdad. It looked as if the neocons' day in the sun had finally passed.
Israel's leadership understood the gravity of the moment. In January 2007 the Herzliya conference, an annual festival of strategy-making, invited no less than 40 Washington opinion-formers to join the usual throng of Israeli politicians, generals, journalists and academics. For a week the Israeli and American delegates spoke as one: Iran and its presumed proxy, Hizbullah, were bent on the genocidal destruction of Israel. Tehran's development of a nuclear program -- whether for civilian use, as Iran argues, or for military use, as the US and Israel claim -- had to be stopped at all costs.
While the White House turned uncharacteristically quiet all spring and summer about what it planned to do next, rumors that Israel was pondering a go-it-alone strike against Iran grew noisier by the day. Ex-Mossad officers warned of an inevitable third world war, Israeli military intelligence advised that Iran was only months away from the point of no return on developing a nuclear warhead, prominent leaks in sympathetic media revealed bombing runs to Gibraltar, and Israel started upping the pressure on several tens of thousands of Jews in Tehran to flee their homes and come to Israel.
While Western analysts opined that an attack on Iran was growing unlikely, Israel's neighbors watched nervously through the first half of the year as the vague impression of a regional war came ever more sharply into focus. In particular Syria, after witnessing the whirlwind of savagery unleashed against Lebanon last summer, feared it was next in line in the US-Israeli campaign to break Tehran's network of regional alliances. It deduced, probably correctly, that neither the US nor Israel would dare attack Iran without first clobbering Hizbullah and Damascus.
For some time Syria had been left in no doubt of the mood in Washington. It failed to end its pariah status in the post-9/11 period, despite helping the CIA with intelligence on al-Qaeda and secretly trying to make peace with Israel over the running sore of the occupied Golan Heights. It was rebuffed at every turn.
So as the clouds of war grew darker in the spring, Syria responded as might be expected. It went to the arms market in Moscow and bought up the displays of anti-aircraft missiles as well as anti-tank weapons of the kind Hizbullah demonstrated last summer were so effective at repelling Israel's planned ground invasion of south Lebanon.
As the Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld reluctantly conceded earlier this year, US policy was forcing Damascus to remain within Iran's uncomfortable embrace: "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad finds himself more dependent on his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, than perhaps he would like."
Israel, never missing an opportunity to wilfully misrepresent the behavior of an enemy, called the Syrian military build-up proof of Damascus' appetite for war. Apparently fearful that Syria might initiate a war by mistaking the signals from Israel as evidence of aggressive intentions, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, urged Syria to avoid a "miscalculation". The Israeli public spent the summer braced for a far more dangerous repeat of last summer's war along the northern border.
It was at this point -- with tensions simmeringly hot -- that Israel launched its strike, sending several fighter planes into Syria on a lightning mission to hit a site near Dayr a-Zawr. As Syria itself broke the news of the attack, Israeli generals were shown on TV toasting in the Jewish new year but refusing to comment.
Details have remained thin on the ground ever since: Israel imposed a news blackout that has been strictly enforced by the country's military censor. Instead it has been left to the Western media to speculate on what occurred.
One point that none of the pundits and analysts have noted was that, in attacking Syria, Israel committed a blatant act of aggression against its northern neighbor of the kind denounced as the "supreme international crime" by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal.
Also, no one pointed out the obvious double standard applied to Israel's attack on Syria compared to the far less significant violation of Israeli sovereignty by Hizbullah a year earlier, when the Shia militia captured two Israel soldiers at a border post and killed three more. Hizbullah's act was widely accepted as justification for the bombardment and destruction of much of Lebanon, even if a few sensitive souls agonized over whether Israel's response was "disproportionate". Would these commentators now approve of similar retaliation by Syria?
The question was doubtless considered unimportant because it was clear from Western coverage that no one -- including the Israeli leadership -- believed Syria was in a position to respond militarily to Israel's attack. Olmert's fear of a Syrian "miscalculation" evaporated the moment Israel did the maths for Damascus.
So what did Israel hope to achieve with its aerial strike?
The stories emerging from the less gagged American media suggest two scenarios. The first is that Israel targeted Iranian supplies passing through Syria on their way to Hizbullah; the second that Israel struck at a fledgling Syrian nuclear plant where materials from North Korea were being offloaded, possibly as part of a joint nuclear effort by Damascus and Tehran.
(Speculation that Israel was testing Syria's anti-aircraft defences in preparation for an attack on Iran ignores the fact that the Israeli air force would almost certainly choose a flightpath through friendlier Jordanian airspace.)
How credible are these two scenarios?
The nuclear claims against Damascus were discounted so quickly by experts of the region that Washington was soon downgrading the accusation to claims that Syria was only hiding the material on North Korea's behalf. But why would Syria, already hounded by Israel and the US, provide such a readymade pretext for still harsher treatment? Why, equally, would North Korea undermine its hard-won disarmament deal with the US? And why, if Syria were covertly engaging in nuclear mischief, did it alert the world to the fact by revealing the Israeli air strike?
The other justification for the attack was at least based in a more credible reality: Damascus, Hizbullah and Iran undoubtedly do share some military resources. But their alliance should be seen as the kind of defensive pact needed by vulnerable actors in a Sunni-dominated region where the US wants unlimited control of Gulf oil and supports only those repressive regimes that cooperate on its terms. All three are keenly aware that it is Israel's job to threaten and punish any regimes that fail to toe the line.
Contrary to the impression being created in the West, genocidal hatred of Israel and Jews, however often Ahmadinejad's speeches are mistranslated, is not the engine of these countries' alliance.
Nonetheless, the political significance of the justifications for the Israeli air strike is that both neatly tie together various strands of an argument needed by the neocons and Israel in making their case for an attack on Iran before Bush leaves office in early 2009. Each scenario suggests a Shia "axis of evil", coordinated by Iran, that is actively plotting Israel's destruction. And each story offers the pretext for an attack on Syria as a prelude to a pre-emptive strike against Tehran -- launched either by Washington or Tel Aviv -- to save Israel.
That these stories appear to have been planted in the American media by neocon fanatics like John Bolton is warning enough -- as is the admission that the only evidence for Syrian malfeasance is Israeli "intelligence", the basis of which cannot be questioned as Israel is not officially admitting the attack.
It should hardly need pointing out that we are again in a hall of mirrors, as we were during the period leading up to America's invasion of Iraq and have been during its subsequent occupation.
Bush's "war on terror" was originally justified with the convenient and manufactured links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, as well as, of course, those WMDs that, it later turned out, had been destroyed years earlier. But ever since Tehran has invariably been the ultimate target of these improbable confections.
There were the forged documents proving both that Iraq had imported enriched uranium from Niger to manufacture nuclear warheads and that it was sharing its nuclear know-how with Iran. And as Iraq fell apart, neocon operatives like Michael Ledeen lost no time in spreading rumors that the missing nuclear arsenal could still be accounted for: Iranian agents had simply smuggled it out of Iraq during the chaos of the US invasion.
Since then our media have proved that they have no less of an appetite for such preposterous tales. If Iran's involvement in stirring up its fellow Shia in Iraq against the US occupation is at least possible, the same cannot be said of the regular White House claims that Tehran is behind the Sunni-led insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. A few months ago the news media served up "revelations" that Iran was secretly conspiring with al-Qaeda and Iraq's Sunni militias to oust the US occupiers.
So what purpose does the constant innuendo against Tehran serve?
The latest accusations should be seen as an example of Israel and the neocons "creating their own reality", as one Bush adviser famously observed of the neocon philosophy of power. The more that Hizbullah, Syria and Iran are menaced by Israel, the more they are forced to huddle together and behave in ways to protect themselves -- such as arming -- that can be portrayed as a "genocidal" threat to Israel and world order.
Van Creveld once observed that Tehran would be "crazy" not to develop nuclear weapons given the clear trajectory of Israeli and US machinations to overthrow the regime. So equally Syria cannot afford to jettison its alliance with Iran or its involvement with Hizbullah. In the current reality, these connections are the only power it has to deter an attack or force the US and Israel to negotiate.
But they are also the evidence needed by Israel and the neocons to convict Syria and Iran in the court of Washington opinion. The attack on Syria is part of a clever hustle, one designed to vanquish or bypass the doubters in the Bush Administration, both by proving Syria's culpability and by provoking it to respond.
Condoleezza Rice, it emerged at the weekend, wants to invite Syria to attend the regional peace conference that has been called by President Bush for November. There can be no doubt that such an act of détente is deeply opposed by both Israel and the neocons. It reverses their strategy of implicating Damascus in the "Shia arc of extremism" and of paving the way to an attack on the real target: Iran.
Syria, meanwhile, is fighting back, as it has been for some time, with the only means available: the diplomatic offensive. For two years Bashar al-Assad has been offering a generous peace deal to Israel on the Golan Heights that Tel Aviv has refused to consider. This week, Syria made a further gesture towards peace with an offer on another piece of territory occupied by Israel, the Shebaa Farms. Under the plan, the Farms -- which the United Nations now agrees belongs to Lebanon, but which Israel still claims is Syrian and cannot be returned until there is a deal on the Golan Heights -- would be transferred to UN custody until the dispute over its sovereignty can be resolved.
Were either of Damascus' initiatives to be pursued, the region might be looking forward to a period of relative calm and security. Which is reason enough why Israel and the neocons are so bitterly opposed. Instead they must establish a new reality -- one in which the forces of "creative destruction" so beloved of the neocons engulf yet more of the region. For the rest of us, a simpler vocabulary suffices. What is being sold is catastrophe.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. He is the author of the forthcoming "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" published by Pluto Press, and available in the United States from the University of Michigan Press. His website is www.jkcook.net
Wednesday, 9 May 2007
Finkelstein at the Doha Debates at Oxford Union (on the pro-Israel lobby in the US)
THE DOHA DEBATES AT THE OXFORD UNION
At the latest Doha Debate held at the prestigious Oxford Union in the United Kingdom on May 1st, two-thirds of the student audience approved a motion claiming that Israel's supporters are stifling Western debate about Israel's actions.
The event at the world famous debating society of Oxford University marked the first time the Doha Debates have been held outside Qatar.
The Debate took place amid mounting controversy over the role of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States and accusations that it has suppressed criticism of Israel - a charge that the lobby vigorously denies.
Norman Finkelstein, an American academic and a leading critic of Israeli policies, argued in favour of the motion claiming that the pro-Israel lobby sows confusion to avoid being held to account. The journalist and writer Andrew Cockburn also supported this view, claiming there are "red lines" in discussing Israel that no politician or journalist in the US would dare cross for fear of being demonised or driven out of public life.
Dr Martin Indyk, former US Ambassador to Israel and Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, argued strongly against the motion, saying that the recent 'firestorms' around President Carter's book and the Walt and Mearsheimer report are proof of a lively debate on the subject . His fellow panellist David Aaronovitch, the British journalist and broadcaster, dismissed accusations of conspiracy around the lobby and said that there simply isn't a lobby in the UK in the same way that there is in the United States.
A group of students from universities and high schools in Doha travelled to the UK to join students from Oxford to question the speakers.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
At the latest Doha Debate held at the prestigious Oxford Union in the United Kingdom on May 1st, two-thirds of the student audience approved a motion claiming that Israel's supporters are stifling Western debate about Israel's actions.
The event at the world famous debating society of Oxford University marked the first time the Doha Debates have been held outside Qatar.
The Debate took place amid mounting controversy over the role of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States and accusations that it has suppressed criticism of Israel - a charge that the lobby vigorously denies.
Norman Finkelstein, an American academic and a leading critic of Israeli policies, argued in favour of the motion claiming that the pro-Israel lobby sows confusion to avoid being held to account. The journalist and writer Andrew Cockburn also supported this view, claiming there are "red lines" in discussing Israel that no politician or journalist in the US would dare cross for fear of being demonised or driven out of public life.
Dr Martin Indyk, former US Ambassador to Israel and Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, argued strongly against the motion, saying that the recent 'firestorms' around President Carter's book and the Walt and Mearsheimer report are proof of a lively debate on the subject . His fellow panellist David Aaronovitch, the British journalist and broadcaster, dismissed accusations of conspiracy around the lobby and said that there simply isn't a lobby in the UK in the same way that there is in the United States.
A group of students from universities and high schools in Doha travelled to the UK to join students from Oxford to question the speakers.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Friday, 29 December 2006
12.12.06
Who Makes the Middle East?
Ran HaCohen, 29 November, 2006
A revealing book I have recently read about the present Middle East is Joris Luyendijk's Almost Human. Luyendijk was a Dutch journalist who spent several years (1998-2003) in Arab countries as well as in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, working for two Dutch quality newspapers and for the television. His background as a social science student, his command of Arabic and his academic research in Egypt, as well as the fact that he deserted the journalistic profession, all give him a unique critical perspective on the "Middle East," both as an actual reality and as a permanent media item. In fact, the gap between these two – between the Mideast's reality and its Western image – is the true subject of the book.
The book is currently available in Dutch only; I hope some English-language publisher will pick up the glove and translate it.
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Elbow to Elbow, Like Cattle - The Cruel Line into Gaza
Gideon Levy, December 11, 2006
Without anyone paying attention, the Gaza Strip has become the most closed-off strip of land in the world--after North Korea. But while North Korea is globally known to be a closed and isolated country, how many people know that the same description applies to a place just an hour away from hedonist Tel Aviv?
When You Annoy a Soldier ...The Checkpoint Generation
Amira Hass, December 2 / 3, 2006
For nearly a month now, a young Palestinian has been hospitalized at Beilinson Hospital; soldiers shot him at a checkpoint in northern Nablus on Saturday, November 4. Haitem Yassin, 25, is conscious now,but he is still hooked up to a respirator. In recent days, he has been suffering from a high fever, apparently caused by an infection in his abdomen, which was wounded in the shooting. His family is still waiting for a report from the hospital about the number or type of bullets that caused the serious injury.
Cancer didn't kill my mother, the occupation did
Raed M. Sharif writing from Syracuse, U.S., Live from Palestine, 11 December 2006
Allegra Pacheco on the Israeli Policy of Closure
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A shocking statement: HRW condemns Palestinians' use of nonviolence to protect homes from destruction (Human Rights Watch: "OPT: Civilians Must Not Be Used to Shield Homes Against Military Attacks"; The Associated Press : "American nun, priest join Gaza standoff") 11.23.2006
Palestinians Are Being Denied the Right of Non-Violent Resistance?
Would HRW Have Attacked Martin Luther King, Too?
Jonathan Cook, November 30, 2006
UN EXPERT URGES ISRAEL TO STOP DESTRUCTION OF HOUSES AND INFRASTRUCTURES IN GAZA, CALLS FOR MILITARY SANCTIONS
10 November 2006
The following statement was issued today by the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, Miloon Kothari:
"As Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, I condemn in the strongest possible terms the artillery shelling of Palestinian homes by the Israeli defence force in Beit Hanoun that killed 19 innocent civilians and injured 60, including women and children. The explanation by Israeli authorities that this wantonly criminal act was a mistake is unacceptable. The shelling and subsequent killing of civilians indicates a premeditated military tactic constituting a form of collective punishment against the Palestinian people.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ran HaCohen, 29 November, 2006
A revealing book I have recently read about the present Middle East is Joris Luyendijk's Almost Human. Luyendijk was a Dutch journalist who spent several years (1998-2003) in Arab countries as well as in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, working for two Dutch quality newspapers and for the television. His background as a social science student, his command of Arabic and his academic research in Egypt, as well as the fact that he deserted the journalistic profession, all give him a unique critical perspective on the "Middle East," both as an actual reality and as a permanent media item. In fact, the gap between these two – between the Mideast's reality and its Western image – is the true subject of the book.
The book is currently available in Dutch only; I hope some English-language publisher will pick up the glove and translate it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elbow to Elbow, Like Cattle - The Cruel Line into Gaza
Gideon Levy, December 11, 2006
Without anyone paying attention, the Gaza Strip has become the most closed-off strip of land in the world--after North Korea. But while North Korea is globally known to be a closed and isolated country, how many people know that the same description applies to a place just an hour away from hedonist Tel Aviv?
When You Annoy a Soldier ...The Checkpoint Generation
Amira Hass, December 2 / 3, 2006
For nearly a month now, a young Palestinian has been hospitalized at Beilinson Hospital; soldiers shot him at a checkpoint in northern Nablus on Saturday, November 4. Haitem Yassin, 25, is conscious now,but he is still hooked up to a respirator. In recent days, he has been suffering from a high fever, apparently caused by an infection in his abdomen, which was wounded in the shooting. His family is still waiting for a report from the hospital about the number or type of bullets that caused the serious injury.
Cancer didn't kill my mother, the occupation did
Raed M. Sharif writing from Syracuse, U.S., Live from Palestine, 11 December 2006
Allegra Pacheco on the Israeli Policy of Closure
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A shocking statement: HRW condemns Palestinians' use of nonviolence to protect homes from destruction (Human Rights Watch: "OPT: Civilians Must Not Be Used to Shield Homes Against Military Attacks"; The Associated Press : "American nun, priest join Gaza standoff") 11.23.2006
Palestinians Are Being Denied the Right of Non-Violent Resistance?
Would HRW Have Attacked Martin Luther King, Too?
Jonathan Cook, November 30, 2006
UN EXPERT URGES ISRAEL TO STOP DESTRUCTION OF HOUSES AND INFRASTRUCTURES IN GAZA, CALLS FOR MILITARY SANCTIONS
10 November 2006
The following statement was issued today by the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, Miloon Kothari:
"As Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, I condemn in the strongest possible terms the artillery shelling of Palestinian homes by the Israeli defence force in Beit Hanoun that killed 19 innocent civilians and injured 60, including women and children. The explanation by Israeli authorities that this wantonly criminal act was a mistake is unacceptable. The shelling and subsequent killing of civilians indicates a premeditated military tactic constituting a form of collective punishment against the Palestinian people.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The End of Academic Freedom and the Israel Lobby
Juan Cole, November 28, 2006
The general tone of the participants' comments suggested that academic blogging has severe drawbacks and, with regard to Middle East bloggers, has not produced a 'second generation' after the crop of 2002. One reason in my view is that academics who blog on the Middle East are relentlessly harassed and cyberstalked by Likudnik crazies and other sorts of wingnut. You have to have very thick skin and, I think, you have to just not care about the career ladder or social climbing of other sorts to risk it. In my case, I think it helped to have been an army brat. You're always being transferred to another base and you can't count on friendships lasting very long, so you just become self-reliant. And, of course, the ethos of the army encourages you to stand up to bullies. But I take Mark Lynch's point that it isn't everyone's cup of tea.
There is something wrong with our society if simply sharing one's expertise for free is actually punished. We should do something about that.
Mideast studies accused
Rebecca Weisser, November 22, 2006
Allegations of bias in Australian universities were made in federal parliament in August when Labor MP Michael Danby singled out Andrew Vincent from Macquarie University's Centre for Middle Eastern and North African Studies and Amin Saikal of the Australian National University's Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies.
Video - 11.11.2006
One viewer's impression of the Norman Finkelstein - Alan Dershowitz debate.
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BIRZEIT STUDENTS AND LECTURERS CALL FOR ACADEMIC BOYCOTT
Right to Education Student Committee, Birzeit University, 28 November 2006
Juan Cole, November 28, 2006
The general tone of the participants' comments suggested that academic blogging has severe drawbacks and, with regard to Middle East bloggers, has not produced a 'second generation' after the crop of 2002. One reason in my view is that academics who blog on the Middle East are relentlessly harassed and cyberstalked by Likudnik crazies and other sorts of wingnut. You have to have very thick skin and, I think, you have to just not care about the career ladder or social climbing of other sorts to risk it. In my case, I think it helped to have been an army brat. You're always being transferred to another base and you can't count on friendships lasting very long, so you just become self-reliant. And, of course, the ethos of the army encourages you to stand up to bullies. But I take Mark Lynch's point that it isn't everyone's cup of tea.
There is something wrong with our society if simply sharing one's expertise for free is actually punished. We should do something about that.
Mideast studies accused
Rebecca Weisser, November 22, 2006
Allegations of bias in Australian universities were made in federal parliament in August when Labor MP Michael Danby singled out Andrew Vincent from Macquarie University's Centre for Middle Eastern and North African Studies and Amin Saikal of the Australian National University's Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies.
Video - 11.11.2006
One viewer's impression of the Norman Finkelstein - Alan Dershowitz debate.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BIRZEIT STUDENTS AND LECTURERS CALL FOR ACADEMIC BOYCOTT
Right to Education Student Committee, Birzeit University, 28 November 2006
Open letter in support of Irish academics,
We, the undersigned, members of the Birzeit University' community ofstudents, teachers, faculty staff and employees, congratulate and thank the group of Irish academics who called for a moratorium on theEuropean Union's financing of Israeli academic institutions until Israel withdraws from the occupied Palestinian territories and abides by international humanitarian and human rights laws, including theright of return.
The recent attacks and re-invasion of Gaza and Lebanon expose the contempt with which Israel treats the UN, its resolution and its own bilateral agreements. We strongly condemn the death, chaos and destruction inflicted upon Gazans and Lebanese, and call upon the students, academics and staff of universities worldwide to collectively condemn these acts and take action to support us in our struggle to end Israeli military aggression and occupation.
Academic Boycott: "We do not want to continue business as usual"
Birgit Althaler, The Electronic Intifada, 8 November 2006
Jonathan Rosenhead (67) has been a member of the British Committee for Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) for the past two years. He has been a member of staff at the London School of Economics since 1967 and Professor of Operational Research from 1987.
Sue Blackwell, a lecturer at Birmingham University is interviewed about the Academic Boycott on Radio BBAD.
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Principled Dutch ASN Bank ends relations with Veolia
Adri Nieuwhof, November 26, 2006
This week, ASN Bank, a Dutch bank based in The Hague,1 announced that it would end its relationship with Veolia Transport, and all companies that benefit from Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. Since it first announced its intentions to become involved in an Israeli project to build a light rail / tramline system, to be constructed in occupied East Jerusalem, Veolia Transport, a French multi-national corporation, faced a lot of criticism from all over the world. The tramline aims to connect the illegally-constructed settlements in East Jerusalem with towns and cities in Israel.
Labour Youth calls for Israel Boycott to mark UN Day of Solidarity with Palestine
Labour Youth (Ireland) November 28, 2006
Labour Youth will mark November 29th, the United Nations day of solidarity with Palestine by calling for a boycott of all Israeli goods and services as well as support for the educational and cultural boycott of Israel. Speaking ahead of the UN day of solidarity, Labour Youth National Chairperson Patrick Nulty said "As an organisation, Labour Youth has a proud tradition of solidarity actions with the Palestinian people and wishes to mark this year's international day of solidarity by reiterating its call for a boycott of all Israeli goods until such time as they respect international law and norms for human rights."
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A rare voice: An interview with author Ilan Pappe
Christopher Brown, 11 December 2006
I think the problem with Avigdor Lieberman is not his own views but the fact that he reflects what most Israeli Jews think, and definitely what most of his colleagues in the Olmert government think but don't dare to say, or don't think is desirable to say for tactical reasons. But I do think that we should be worried about Lieberman, not as an extreme fascist but rather as a person who represents the mood of Israel in 2006.
Peace through equality for all
Bernard Sabella, IMEU, Nov 16, 2006
In the land where Jesus once walked, Palestinian Christians face extinction. With nearly 500,000 Palestinian Christians worldwide, only 170,000 remain in the Holy Land. They belong to 15 different Churches,some still using Aramaic, the language Christ spoke. But the traditions of service and continuity of Christian communities in the very birthplace of Christianity may soon disappear.
Refugees Are The Key
Sam Bahour, The Electronic Intifada, 11 December 2006
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As'ad Abukhalil - Thursday, November 03, 2005
Yes. Jimmy Carter has a new book out.
As'ad Abukhalil - Monday, December 11, 2006
Jimmy Carter who has just--just now--discovered the power of the pro-Israel lobby defines the state of Israel as a place "where democracy prevails and citizens live together and are legally guaranteed equal status."
Norman G Finkelstein: Jimmy cracks fibs, and I do care
12.01.2006
See 01 min 17 sec into the video: Jimmy Carter: "Inside Israel... Arabs and Jews both have the same priveleges. There's no allegation of any kind of discrimination."(Anderson Cooper 360, 11.30.2006)
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APARTHEID - Israelis adopt what South Africa dropped
John Dugard The Atlanta Journal-Constitution November 29, 2006
Former President Jimmy Carter's new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," is igniting controversy for its allegation that Israel practices a form of apartheid. As a South African and former anti-apartheid advocate who visits the Palestinian territories regularly to assess the human rights situation for the U.N. Human Rights Council, the comparison to South African apartheid is of special interest to me.
Two laws, one trap for family unification
Shahar Ilan, Ha'aretz, November 30, 2006
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Disregard for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
AL-HAQ PRESS RELEASE FOR RELEASE ON 10 DECEMBER 2006REF.: 38.2006E
9 December 2006
Today the United Nations (UN) observes the 58th International HumanRights Day, commemorating the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by the UN General Assembly, on 10 December 1948. On this occasion, Al-Haq is compelled to note the stark contrast between the fundamental standards enshrined in the UDHR, and the situation of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
U.N. group: Israel laid mines in Lebanon
Zeina Karam, Associated Press, Sat, Nov. 25, 2006
BEIRUT, Lebanon - A U.N. agency said Saturday that Israel laid mines in Lebanon during this summer's war between the Jewish state and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group - the first time Israel has been accused of planting mines during the latest fighting.
Prime suspects
Jonathan Cook, November 24, 2006
While many seem to have made up their minds that Pierre Gemayel's murder was down to Syria, the blame could still lie elsewhere.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
72-year-old left-wing activist decries repeated 'harassment' by B-G security
Rebecca Anna Stoil, November 21, 2006
Ingrid Steinitz, a 72-year-old Danish Jew, has alleged she was strip-searched and harassed by Ben-Gurion Airport security for hours and on a second occasion told to spread her legs and place her hands against a wall. But Ben-Gurion security officials said Monday that everything was done according to procedures, and that the treatment the grandmother and left-wing activist had received was entirely justified.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As'ad Abukhalil - Friday, December 08, 2006
I am not in the habit of defending Jimmy Carter. Never. But for Dennis Ross to make a claim of plagiarism over this? Give me a break. What? Ross invents maps of lands that do not exist except in worlds that he alone can see and in planets that he inhabits by himself? What is next? Dennis Ross claims exclusive ownership over the word "potato."? And since when Dennis Ross "makes" maps? I mean, I know that he makes great contributions to the absence of peace in the Middle East, but I never knew that he has other skills besides not knowing much about the Middle East, and merely advancing the cause of Zionist militancy.
We, the undersigned, members of the Birzeit University' community ofstudents, teachers, faculty staff and employees, congratulate and thank the group of Irish academics who called for a moratorium on theEuropean Union's financing of Israeli academic institutions until Israel withdraws from the occupied Palestinian territories and abides by international humanitarian and human rights laws, including theright of return.
The recent attacks and re-invasion of Gaza and Lebanon expose the contempt with which Israel treats the UN, its resolution and its own bilateral agreements. We strongly condemn the death, chaos and destruction inflicted upon Gazans and Lebanese, and call upon the students, academics and staff of universities worldwide to collectively condemn these acts and take action to support us in our struggle to end Israeli military aggression and occupation.
Academic Boycott: "We do not want to continue business as usual"
Birgit Althaler, The Electronic Intifada, 8 November 2006
Jonathan Rosenhead (67) has been a member of the British Committee for Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) for the past two years. He has been a member of staff at the London School of Economics since 1967 and Professor of Operational Research from 1987.
Sue Blackwell, a lecturer at Birmingham University is interviewed about the Academic Boycott on Radio BBAD.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Principled Dutch ASN Bank ends relations with Veolia
Adri Nieuwhof, November 26, 2006
This week, ASN Bank, a Dutch bank based in The Hague,1 announced that it would end its relationship with Veolia Transport, and all companies that benefit from Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. Since it first announced its intentions to become involved in an Israeli project to build a light rail / tramline system, to be constructed in occupied East Jerusalem, Veolia Transport, a French multi-national corporation, faced a lot of criticism from all over the world. The tramline aims to connect the illegally-constructed settlements in East Jerusalem with towns and cities in Israel.
Labour Youth calls for Israel Boycott to mark UN Day of Solidarity with Palestine
Labour Youth (Ireland) November 28, 2006
Labour Youth will mark November 29th, the United Nations day of solidarity with Palestine by calling for a boycott of all Israeli goods and services as well as support for the educational and cultural boycott of Israel. Speaking ahead of the UN day of solidarity, Labour Youth National Chairperson Patrick Nulty said "As an organisation, Labour Youth has a proud tradition of solidarity actions with the Palestinian people and wishes to mark this year's international day of solidarity by reiterating its call for a boycott of all Israeli goods until such time as they respect international law and norms for human rights."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A rare voice: An interview with author Ilan Pappe
Christopher Brown, 11 December 2006
I think the problem with Avigdor Lieberman is not his own views but the fact that he reflects what most Israeli Jews think, and definitely what most of his colleagues in the Olmert government think but don't dare to say, or don't think is desirable to say for tactical reasons. But I do think that we should be worried about Lieberman, not as an extreme fascist but rather as a person who represents the mood of Israel in 2006.
Peace through equality for all
Bernard Sabella, IMEU, Nov 16, 2006
In the land where Jesus once walked, Palestinian Christians face extinction. With nearly 500,000 Palestinian Christians worldwide, only 170,000 remain in the Holy Land. They belong to 15 different Churches,some still using Aramaic, the language Christ spoke. But the traditions of service and continuity of Christian communities in the very birthplace of Christianity may soon disappear.
Refugees Are The Key
Sam Bahour, The Electronic Intifada, 11 December 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As'ad Abukhalil - Thursday, November 03, 2005
Yes. Jimmy Carter has a new book out.
As'ad Abukhalil - Monday, December 11, 2006
Jimmy Carter who has just--just now--discovered the power of the pro-Israel lobby defines the state of Israel as a place "where democracy prevails and citizens live together and are legally guaranteed equal status."
Norman G Finkelstein: Jimmy cracks fibs, and I do care
12.01.2006
See 01 min 17 sec into the video: Jimmy Carter: "Inside Israel... Arabs and Jews both have the same priveleges. There's no allegation of any kind of discrimination."(Anderson Cooper 360, 11.30.2006)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
APARTHEID - Israelis adopt what South Africa dropped
John Dugard The Atlanta Journal-Constitution November 29, 2006
Former President Jimmy Carter's new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," is igniting controversy for its allegation that Israel practices a form of apartheid. As a South African and former anti-apartheid advocate who visits the Palestinian territories regularly to assess the human rights situation for the U.N. Human Rights Council, the comparison to South African apartheid is of special interest to me.
Two laws, one trap for family unification
Shahar Ilan, Ha'aretz, November 30, 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Disregard for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
AL-HAQ PRESS RELEASE FOR RELEASE ON 10 DECEMBER 2006REF.: 38.2006E
9 December 2006
Today the United Nations (UN) observes the 58th International HumanRights Day, commemorating the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by the UN General Assembly, on 10 December 1948. On this occasion, Al-Haq is compelled to note the stark contrast between the fundamental standards enshrined in the UDHR, and the situation of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
U.N. group: Israel laid mines in Lebanon
Zeina Karam, Associated Press, Sat, Nov. 25, 2006
BEIRUT, Lebanon - A U.N. agency said Saturday that Israel laid mines in Lebanon during this summer's war between the Jewish state and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group - the first time Israel has been accused of planting mines during the latest fighting.
Prime suspects
Jonathan Cook, November 24, 2006
While many seem to have made up their minds that Pierre Gemayel's murder was down to Syria, the blame could still lie elsewhere.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
72-year-old left-wing activist decries repeated 'harassment' by B-G security
Rebecca Anna Stoil, November 21, 2006
Ingrid Steinitz, a 72-year-old Danish Jew, has alleged she was strip-searched and harassed by Ben-Gurion Airport security for hours and on a second occasion told to spread her legs and place her hands against a wall. But Ben-Gurion security officials said Monday that everything was done according to procedures, and that the treatment the grandmother and left-wing activist had received was entirely justified.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As'ad Abukhalil - Friday, December 08, 2006
I am not in the habit of defending Jimmy Carter. Never. But for Dennis Ross to make a claim of plagiarism over this? Give me a break. What? Ross invents maps of lands that do not exist except in worlds that he alone can see and in planets that he inhabits by himself? What is next? Dennis Ross claims exclusive ownership over the word "potato."? And since when Dennis Ross "makes" maps? I mean, I know that he makes great contributions to the absence of peace in the Middle East, but I never knew that he has other skills besides not knowing much about the Middle East, and merely advancing the cause of Zionist militancy.
Friday, 22 December 2006
Academic Boycott: "We do not want to continue business as usual"
We overcame our fear
Jameela al-Shanti in Beit Hanoun
Thursday November 9, 2006
Yesterday at dawn, the Israeli air force bombed and destroyed my home. I was the target, but instead the attack killed my sister-in-law, Nahla, a widow with eight children in her care. In the same raid Israel's artillery shelled a residential district in the town of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, leaving 19 dead and 40 injured, many killed in their beds. One family, the Athamnas, lost 16 members in the massacre: the oldest who died, Fatima, was 70; the youngest, Dima, was one; seven were children. The death toll in Beit Hanoun has passed 90 in one week.
Israel kills 18 in shelling of Gaza town
08 Nov 2006 07:43:17 GMT, Source: Reuters
Nidal al-Mughrabi
BEIT HANOUN, Gaza, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Israeli tank shells killed 18 civilians in Gaza on Wednesday including 13 members of one family, Palestinian officials and residents said, in one of Israel's deadliest strikes in the territory in months.UN officials voice 'shock and dismay' at deadly
Israeli shelling of Gaza civilians
Report, UN News, 8 November 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Women of Beit Hanoun
Eliza Ernshire, November 7, 2006
The winter rains have started and the temperatures are falling everyday. Unsealed roads are fast becoming muddy tracks. The heavens are weeping too, witness to the frightful events that are unfolding now in that devastated and forgotten strip of land that we call Gaza, home to 3 million Palestinians.
Gaza women killed in mosque siege
Friday, 3 November 2006, 22:15 GMT
The BBC's Matthew Price in Jerusalem says that in television footage of the incident, some men are visible in the crowd, but there is no evidence that they were carrying guns.
Israeli troops open fire on women outside mosque
Staff and agencies, 3 November 2006
Video: http://multimedia.repubblica.it/home/463524
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/help/3681938.stm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A blog by Dr. Mona El-Farra, a physician by training, a human rights and women's rights activist by practice, in the occupied Gaza Strip.
http://fromgaza.blogspot.com/
Laila El-Haddad, journalist, mom, occupied Palestinian-all packed into one.
http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Casualties Mount in New Israeli Attack on Gaza
Thursday, November 2nd, 2006
Amy Goodman interviews Jennifer Loewenstein, visiting research fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University, currently in Gaza City.
Listen to Maj. Gen. Stern
Gideon Levy, 7 November, 2006
In recent months, almost no day has gone by without Palestinians being killed in Gaza. Instead of asking why, we get a prime minister who boasts to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee about "300 terrorists" dead within four months, as if killing in itself were an enormous achievement. This is the lesson from Ehud Olmert, and it is immeasurably more grievous than all his alleged corruption affairs.
Another Hamas Peace Plan Ignored
Ira Chernus, 4 November 2006
Video: Norman Finkelstein on Hamas, current crisis
Lebanon, Hezbollah (Burlington, VT, 09.30.2006)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After a six-day barrage, Israel leaves Gaza town to count dead
Sa'id Ghazali in Beit Hanoun and Eric Silver in Jerusalem
Published: 08 November 2006
Beit Hanoun: Israelis pull out leaving trail of death
Rory McCarthy in Beit Hanoun
Wednesday November 8, 2006
Hours after the Israeli military pulled out of the town of Beit Hanoun yesterday morning, Talal Nasr was at the cemetery to search for a spot to bury the body of his 13-year-old daughter.
Olmert to press on with Gaza offensive
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
Monday November 6, 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gaza: ICRC deplores the death of two Palestine Red Crescent volunteers carrying out their humanitarian duties
5-11-2006 Press Release 06/121
International Red Cross says Israeli forces hit clearly marked ambulance workers November 5, 2006
The Associated Press
Red Cross deplores the deaths of two paramedics in Gaza
Report, ICRC, 6 November 2006
Palestinian friends and relatives attend the funeral of paramedic Ahmed al-Madhoun, 43, who was killed during clashes with Israeli forces in Beit Hanoun in Gaza, 4 November 2006.
Red Cross: IDF hit clearly marked ambulance workers
Last update - 07:59 06/11/2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Transcripts of Campus Conflict & Vincent/Danby Interview
Dateline, SBS - November 8, 2006
Targeting the University
Joseph Massad, 3 June 2005
Neocon Man
Eyal Press - April 22, 2004
Pipes conceded to me that there was an element of "wishful thinking" among supporters of the war, "including in myself." He might have been more sober-minded had he listened to some of the arguments being made by members of the profession he once, a long time ago, aspired to join.
Pipes' personal views on the conflict can be traced back to the early days of the struggle. In 1923, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, an ideological father to the Israeli right wing, wrote that there would be no peace until the Arabs in Israel were psychologically crushed. "As long as the Arabs preserve a gleam of hope that they will succeed in getting rid of us, nothing in the world can cause them to relinquish that hope," he declared.
"AIPAC has undertaken a massive effort to educate all congressional candidates on the value of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Nearly every candidate has met with AIPAC professional staff members and submitted a position paper summarizing his or her views on U.S. policy toward the Middle East. A non-partisan organization, AIPAC has for decades worked with Republican, Democratic and Independent members of Congress to strengthen the ties between the United States and Israel."
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2006/11/aipac-has-undertaken-massive-effort-to.html
Israel Comes First - Pelosi at AIPAC
Joshua Frank, 31 May 2005
Blaming the lobby
Joseph Massad, March 2006
A Note of Dissent: On the Israel Lobby Piece by Mearsheimer and Walt
As'ad AbuKhalil, Friday, March 17, 2006
Since I returned from Qatar on Thursday, I must have received a copy of the Israel Lobby article by Mearsheimer and Walt from more than 20 different sources, at least. It is clear that this is one of those pieces that get wide circulation over the internet (the internet? that is where Walid Jumblat "found" evidence that Shib`a Farms are not Lebanese). I of course read it with interest. This is what I think. I will be referring to the full text that appeared as a Faculty Research Working Papers Series by the Kennedy School of Government.
Debating the Lobby in Manhattan - Israel Sends in the Clowns
Michael J. Smith, 29 September 2006
The Demographics of American Jews
Lenni Brenner, 24 October 2003
The Lobby and the Great Protestant Crusader
The NYT Confronts Mearsheimer and Walt--Not Quite Head On
Lenni Brenner, 17 March 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Academic Boycott: "We do not want to continue business as usual"
Birgit Althaler, 8 November 2006
Final Report of the Conference
"The Struggle Continues: Boycotting Israeli Apartheid"
Jameela al-Shanti in Beit Hanoun
Thursday November 9, 2006
Yesterday at dawn, the Israeli air force bombed and destroyed my home. I was the target, but instead the attack killed my sister-in-law, Nahla, a widow with eight children in her care. In the same raid Israel's artillery shelled a residential district in the town of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, leaving 19 dead and 40 injured, many killed in their beds. One family, the Athamnas, lost 16 members in the massacre: the oldest who died, Fatima, was 70; the youngest, Dima, was one; seven were children. The death toll in Beit Hanoun has passed 90 in one week.
Israel kills 18 in shelling of Gaza town
08 Nov 2006 07:43:17 GMT, Source: Reuters
Nidal al-Mughrabi
BEIT HANOUN, Gaza, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Israeli tank shells killed 18 civilians in Gaza on Wednesday including 13 members of one family, Palestinian officials and residents said, in one of Israel's deadliest strikes in the territory in months.UN officials voice 'shock and dismay' at deadly
Israeli shelling of Gaza civilians
Report, UN News, 8 November 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Women of Beit Hanoun
Eliza Ernshire, November 7, 2006
The winter rains have started and the temperatures are falling everyday. Unsealed roads are fast becoming muddy tracks. The heavens are weeping too, witness to the frightful events that are unfolding now in that devastated and forgotten strip of land that we call Gaza, home to 3 million Palestinians.
Gaza women killed in mosque siege
Friday, 3 November 2006, 22:15 GMT
The BBC's Matthew Price in Jerusalem says that in television footage of the incident, some men are visible in the crowd, but there is no evidence that they were carrying guns.
Israeli troops open fire on women outside mosque
Staff and agencies, 3 November 2006
Video: http://multimedia.repubblica.it/home/463524
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/help/3681938.stm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A blog by Dr. Mona El-Farra, a physician by training, a human rights and women's rights activist by practice, in the occupied Gaza Strip.
http://fromgaza.blogspot.com/
Laila El-Haddad, journalist, mom, occupied Palestinian-all packed into one.
http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Casualties Mount in New Israeli Attack on Gaza
Thursday, November 2nd, 2006
Amy Goodman interviews Jennifer Loewenstein, visiting research fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University, currently in Gaza City.
Listen to Maj. Gen. Stern
Gideon Levy, 7 November, 2006
In recent months, almost no day has gone by without Palestinians being killed in Gaza. Instead of asking why, we get a prime minister who boasts to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee about "300 terrorists" dead within four months, as if killing in itself were an enormous achievement. This is the lesson from Ehud Olmert, and it is immeasurably more grievous than all his alleged corruption affairs.
Another Hamas Peace Plan Ignored
Ira Chernus, 4 November 2006
Video: Norman Finkelstein on Hamas, current crisis
Lebanon, Hezbollah (Burlington, VT, 09.30.2006)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After a six-day barrage, Israel leaves Gaza town to count dead
Sa'id Ghazali in Beit Hanoun and Eric Silver in Jerusalem
Published: 08 November 2006
Beit Hanoun: Israelis pull out leaving trail of death
Rory McCarthy in Beit Hanoun
Wednesday November 8, 2006
Hours after the Israeli military pulled out of the town of Beit Hanoun yesterday morning, Talal Nasr was at the cemetery to search for a spot to bury the body of his 13-year-old daughter.
Olmert to press on with Gaza offensive
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
Monday November 6, 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gaza: ICRC deplores the death of two Palestine Red Crescent volunteers carrying out their humanitarian duties
5-11-2006 Press Release 06/121
International Red Cross says Israeli forces hit clearly marked ambulance workers November 5, 2006
The Associated Press
Red Cross deplores the deaths of two paramedics in Gaza
Report, ICRC, 6 November 2006
Palestinian friends and relatives attend the funeral of paramedic Ahmed al-Madhoun, 43, who was killed during clashes with Israeli forces in Beit Hanoun in Gaza, 4 November 2006.
Red Cross: IDF hit clearly marked ambulance workers
Last update - 07:59 06/11/2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Transcripts of Campus Conflict & Vincent/Danby Interview
Dateline, SBS - November 8, 2006
Targeting the University
Joseph Massad, 3 June 2005
Neocon Man
Eyal Press - April 22, 2004
Pipes conceded to me that there was an element of "wishful thinking" among supporters of the war, "including in myself." He might have been more sober-minded had he listened to some of the arguments being made by members of the profession he once, a long time ago, aspired to join.
Pipes' personal views on the conflict can be traced back to the early days of the struggle. In 1923, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, an ideological father to the Israeli right wing, wrote that there would be no peace until the Arabs in Israel were psychologically crushed. "As long as the Arabs preserve a gleam of hope that they will succeed in getting rid of us, nothing in the world can cause them to relinquish that hope," he declared.
"AIPAC has undertaken a massive effort to educate all congressional candidates on the value of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Nearly every candidate has met with AIPAC professional staff members and submitted a position paper summarizing his or her views on U.S. policy toward the Middle East. A non-partisan organization, AIPAC has for decades worked with Republican, Democratic and Independent members of Congress to strengthen the ties between the United States and Israel."
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2006/11/aipac-has-undertaken-massive-effort-to.html
Israel Comes First - Pelosi at AIPAC
Joshua Frank, 31 May 2005
Blaming the lobby
Joseph Massad, March 2006
A Note of Dissent: On the Israel Lobby Piece by Mearsheimer and Walt
As'ad AbuKhalil, Friday, March 17, 2006
Since I returned from Qatar on Thursday, I must have received a copy of the Israel Lobby article by Mearsheimer and Walt from more than 20 different sources, at least. It is clear that this is one of those pieces that get wide circulation over the internet (the internet? that is where Walid Jumblat "found" evidence that Shib`a Farms are not Lebanese). I of course read it with interest. This is what I think. I will be referring to the full text that appeared as a Faculty Research Working Papers Series by the Kennedy School of Government.
Debating the Lobby in Manhattan - Israel Sends in the Clowns
Michael J. Smith, 29 September 2006
The Demographics of American Jews
Lenni Brenner, 24 October 2003
The Lobby and the Great Protestant Crusader
The NYT Confronts Mearsheimer and Walt--Not Quite Head On
Lenni Brenner, 17 March 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Academic Boycott: "We do not want to continue business as usual"
Birgit Althaler, 8 November 2006
Final Report of the Conference
"The Struggle Continues: Boycotting Israeli Apartheid"
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