Bolivian president Evo Morales says December 21 marks ‘end of an anthropocentric life and the beginning of a bio-centric life. It is the end of hatred and the beginning of love, the end of lies and beginning of truth’. (Photograph: Martin Alipaz/EPA)In an open invitation to celebrate the day, Morales explained that “the Mayan calendar‘s  21 of December is the end of the non-time and the beginning of time. It is the end of the Macha and the beginning of the Pacha, the end of selfishness and the beginning of brotherhood, it is the end of individualism and the beginning of collectivism.”

The ‘end of the world’ it is not, says president of Bolivia, but rather an opportunity to dispose of ‘capitalism’s greed’ and unite in happiness and unselfishness

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Syrian Rebels Set Up ‘Religious Police’ Around Aleppo

Islamist Factions Imposing Saudi-Style Religious Codes on Residents

The police are charged with enforcing an extremely harsh interpretation of Sunni Islam, and while the rebels insist they are aimed at “fighting crime,” the locals say that mostly they are forcing people to pray and stopping women from driving cars.

Women are expressing serious concern about the trend, saying that they were on board for a “revolution for freedom” but the rebels are determined to take away social and individual freedoms they enjoyed under the Assad regime.

Secular rebel factions insisted that the entire story was “made up” by the regime to discredit the rebellion, but Islamist factions seemed to endorse the move, saying that a virtue-and-vice squad is “part-and-parcel of the freedom revolution” and that since Sunnis are a majority in Syria they have a right to impose such rules on society.

Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz

• Israeli Troops Wound Five Farmers in Northeast Gaza Strip - December 21st, 2012
• Israel’s Religious Right Parties Splinter Ahead of Vote - December 21st, 2012
• At Least 39 Killed in Kenya Tribal Clashes - December 21st, 2012
• Cameron: Afghan Troop Cuts Could Be Accelerated - December 21st, 2012
• British Court Blocks Lawsuit Over US Drone Strikes - December 21st, 2012

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This is not the first time the Israeli occupation authority withholds Palestinian tax revenues; in the last few years, the Israeli government has used this money as a Damocles sword hanging over the head of the Palestinians. It was used to blackmail them and as a tool to pressure them when needed.

Unfortunately, the Israeli government practices this policy in a way closer to a gang mentality rather than a civilized, modern or democratic country which respects international law and treaties.

Palestinians know and admit they are the weak party in the conflict equation; the world community knows this fact but they are doing and saying nothing in order to make Israel retract its policy.

Since the Palestinians announced their intention to go to the United Nations to demand upgrading the status of Palestine to observer non- member status, the Israeli occupation leaders haven’t stopped their threats to not transfer the tax revenue, in an attempt to make Palestinians reconsider their plans.

Israel said it wouldn’t transfer the Palestinian money until March at the earliest, in a protest measure against the successful Palestinian bid to upgrade its status.

The Israeli step is coming amid Arab and international silence, inability and compliance, despite the fact that this step would have disastrous effects on more than a million Palestinians.

Anger and frustration is overwhelming the Palestinians who have not received their salaries regularly like other people in the world.

In 10 days, the second month — December — will end, and the salary of November remains in the hands of the Israelis. This is no more or less than official theft and robbery, Palestinians believe.

It is not true that Israel is holding the tax revenue for electricity debts, especially when it was announced several months ago by many Israeli leaders that Palestinians must pay a price for going to the UN. It seems that the time has come, and the Palestinians must pay for the support they had at the UN.

The Israeli intention to punish the Palestinians was no secret, and knowing the fact that the world community would not react, the Israeli government didn’t hesitate to realize its threats; it was clear that this policy has nothing to do with electricity debts.

Withholding the tax money is another collective punishment that Israel is practicing against the Palestinian people. The same policy was practiced against the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip; more than 1.5 million Palestinians facing an unjust and illegal siege over many years.

The financial problem which the Palestinians face is directly linked to the Oslo accords signed in 1993. The direct blame falls on the shoulders of those who lift the financial responsibility and obligation from the Israeli shoulders as an occupying power.

Since 1967 until 1994 when the Palestinian Authority was founded, there was no problem regarding the salaries of the Palestinian employees. At that time Israel was in charge as an occupying power, and Israel didn’t do it as a favor, but because it is obliged by international law to do it.

The Oslo accords lift this responsibility from the Israeli shoulders and put it on the PA and world donors, with whom they became direct partners in one way or another in this occupation, and the PA is paying what Israel is supposed to pay from its own treasury.

When describing the Israeli occupation as the cheapest occupation on earth in modern history, or an occupation without a price, it is not only because of the lack of resistance or because there are no losses among the occupation troops, but also because of the financial issues, which the Israelis are supposed to carry, but they don’t.

These territories are run by Palestinian employees, who are supposed to have their salaries from the occupation authorities, not from the world donors, or from the Arab League countries.

Asking the Arab countries to form a “safety net” by paying $100 million a month is another mistaken message to Israel, a message that says “Israel can do what ever it wants and the Arabs are ready to pay what Israel holds or even steals”.

The Arab countries which the PA is calling on to help the Palestinians are the same countries involved in the “revolutions” of the “Arab spring”, some of which have paid billions of dollars to destroy countries like Libya, Syria, and before that Iraq.

By Israel not paying the Palestinian money it becomes a double-edged sword; no one can guarantee the consequences if this policy continues, no one can tell the reaction of the Palestinians when they feel they cant buy food or medicine or milk for their children, in which case, somebody must be held accountable.

To have food, medicine and shelter are basic human rights; by not paying the Palestinians their money, the Israeli authorities are violating these rights. It is an apartheid system in Israel which is trying to take away the rights of the people of Palestine, linked to the most basic right, which is the right to life. This is what the international charter and law states.

Withholding almost $100 million a month will worsen the lives of the Palestinians, prevent them from having their basic needs and putting more than a million Palestinians beneath the poverty line.

The mentality of theft and robbery is not the correct solution or the remedy. It will backfire on Israel and the PA which is, in fact, a need for Israel and the region.

Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote:

do not hate people nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper’s flesh will be my food
Beware…Beware…
Of my hunger and my anger!
Beware…
Beware of my hunger and anger

The author is a Palestinian journalist and writer based in Bethlehem.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) — The European Union and Russia on Friday denounced Israel’s plans to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank and urged Israelis and Palestinians to take “bold and concrete steps towards peace”.

Israeli officials said this week they would press on with plans to build 6,000 homes for settlers on land claimed by Palestinians, defying criticism from Western powers who fear the move will damage already faint hopes for a peace accord.

“The European Union and the Russian Federation are deeply dismayed by and strongly oppose Israeli plans to expand settlements in the West Bank and in particular plans to develop the E1 area,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement.

E1 is a wedge of land between East Jerusalem and the West Bank where Israel had previously held off under US pressure.

“The EU and the Russian Federation underline the urgency of renewed, structured and substantial peace efforts in 2013,” said the joint statement after an EU-Russia summit in Brussels.

Stung by de facto recognition of Palestinian sovereignty by the UN General Assembly last month, Israel announced it would expand settlements in the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem.

The EU and Russia, which together with the United States and the United Nations make up the Quartet of Middle East mediators, said the settlements were illegal under international law and were an obstacle to peace.

“The EU and the Russian Federation will not recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties,” they said.

It was time to take “bold and concrete steps towards peace between Palestinians and Israelis”, they said, calling for “direct and substantial negotiations without preconditions”.

The EU and Russia called for the unconditional opening of crossings for the flow of goods and people to and from the Gaza Strip, and urged Israel to avoid any step that would undermine the financial situation of the Palestinian Authority.

They urged the Palestinian leadership to use Palestine’s new UN status constructively and avoid steps that would deepen lack of trust and lead further away from a negotiated solution.

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Israeli forces shot and injured five Palestinians on Friday in the northern Gaza Strip, a health ministry spokesman said.

Ashraf al-Qidra said five Palestinians were hospitalized with moderate wounds after being shot near the border with Israel.

Medics told Ma’an a number of injured Palestinians were brought to the Kamal Udwan and al-Awdah hospitals.

An Israeli military spokesman said several Palestinians “approached the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip.

Soldiers acted “according to the rules of engagement,” the spokesman told Ma’an, declining to comment on whether or not live fire was used.

Israeli troops have shot at Gazans near the border at least 10 times since the end of an eight-day offensive last month. Some 30 people have been wounded in the incidents, Gaza officials said.

Over 170 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed in last month’s offensive. Six Israelis, including two soldiers, were also killed during the war that Israel launched with the declared aim of curbing cross-border rocket fire.

A Callous and Corrupt Industry That Sells and Sows Violence

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Linguistics professor Noam Chomsky has been America’s premier political dissident since the Vietnam War. As a vocal critic of US foreign policy, the self-described “libertarian socialist” has been beloved by generations of students and activists. In the wake of the recent presidential election, I scaled Mount MIT to pose questions to the academic Yogi.

Steven Durel: President Obama was just re-elected with a majority of the vote. How do you feel about his first term in office?

Noam Chomsky: I frankly never expected much. I never liked him much in the first place and did not succumb to the beliefs about the great changes that would take place. In fact, I wrote about him before the 2008 primaries, critically, just using his web site. So I can’t say I was much surprised, except by some things I was.

I hadn’t anticipated his attacks on civil liberties, which went way beyond what I would have expected. I don’t really understand them. I don’t think they did him any good politically or otherwise.

I didn’t anticipate the expansion of the global assassination campaign, or the methods of it.

There were some things that were sort of half-positive. The healthcare reform is an improvement over the existing situation, but doesn’t go anywhere near where it should have gone, nor where I think it could have gone.

There were a couple of other things, but nothing particular, and I don’t expect anything more in the second term.

Durel: You’ve said that various administrations have pursued many of the same policies. Do you think that any administrations were better than any others?

Chomsky: I think that Obama is better than McCain or Romney would have been. If I had been in a swing state in the last two elections, I would have uncomfortably voted for Obama.

Over the years, and there’s some pretty good studies of this, by and large the Democratic administrations have been somewhat more advantageous for the general population than Republican administrations. Larry Bartels is one political scientist who has studied this in some depth.

So, sure, there are differences.

Who would you say was the best President that this country has ever had?

It’s hard to compare the 19th, 18th centuries with today. But, keeping to the 20th Century, I’d say Roosevelt, probably.

Durel: Franklin Roosevelt?

Chomsky: Yes, Franklin Roosevelt, not Theodore.

Durel: And who would you say was the worst?

Chomsky: A lot of them did some pretty awful things. But George W. Bush, I guess, might win.

Durel: You mentioned swing states. I know you endorsed Jill Stein earlier this year, the Green Party candidate.

Chomsky: In the primaries. And toward the end I did think that in safe states it was a good idea to vote for her. That’s what I did.

Durel: I remember back in 2004 it seemed as though you were encouraging voters in swing states not to vote for Ralph Nader.

Chomsky: I did the same this time, except it was Stein, not Nader.

Durel: What do you think about Ralph Nader? Do you think he has helped the political dialogue at all?

Chomsky: I think he did extremely important work, and still does, on public interest issues. He has all of his life.

On the political sphere, there were some good aspects. He brought into the public domain things that weren’t being talked about. But I don’t think that he did it in the proper way.

For example, I think it’s wrong not to participate in the primaries. That’s the one place where you get some coverage. So Dennis Kucinich got some coverage. He could bring up issues of the kind that Nader might have brought up.

Keeping just to the presidential campaign guarantees that you’ll get no coverage. Then you can’t complain that you didn’t get any coverage because once you get to the presidential campaign, the media focuses like 100 percent, virtually, on the electoral campaign.

He argues, and a lot of his supporters argue, that his participation in the campaigns didn’t undermine the Democratic candidates. I don’t agree with that. I think that it did, predictably. It might have spoiled the 2000 election.

Also, I understand Jill Stein. She’s not intending to be elected President; she’s party-building. She’s developing a party.

But what does it mean for an individual to run for President? Suppose, by some miracle, Nader was elected. He wouldn’t have a single Congressional representative, not a single governor, no institutional support, nothing in state legislatures, nothing in local city councils. Even if he were elected, he’d be totally paralyzed.

Durel: Going back to the primaries, on the other end of the two-party spectrum, do you feel as though Ron Paul had any positive influence on the dialogue within the Republican Party?

Chomsky: The Republican Party is so off-the-wall, it’s really hard to describe. In the last 20 or 30 years, Republicans have basically abandoned any pretense of being a political party.

Literally, they’re not like any parliamentary party anywhere. They’re totally committed to service to the very rich in the corporate sector, in lockstep uniformity. Everyone has to say the same words and sign the same demands, kind of like the caricature of the old Communist Party.

There’s a little deviation around the fringe—Olympia Snowe and so on—but not much. And as a result, they lost any possible voting base.

So to even be able to run, they had to create a voting base, which is putting together segments of the population that are, by world standards or even historical American standards, pretty strange.

This is a very religious country, much more so than any other that I know of. So they’ve kind of mobilized the religious Christian right, who are kind of off the spectrum internationally.

It’s a very frightened country. It has been all the way through in history. A lot of people are very scared. And that’s probably the reason for the crazy gun culture—you’ve got to defend yourself.

So they’ve kind of organized this nativist element. You know, “They’re coming after us. We have to defend ourselves.” Now we move into not-so-hidden racism and anti-immigrant feelings. It’s a strange conglomerate of what are called anti-government elements. That’s what Ron Paul appealed to. But they’re a very strange bunch when you look at them.

There are studies of the attitudes of people who call themselves anti-government. You know, “Get the government off my back,” the Tea Party. It turns out they’re pretty much social democrats. They want increased spending on health, on education, on aid for families with dependent children, but of course not “welfare,” because “welfare” was demonized by Reagan’s racism.

They say, “Don’t get involved with the world, but do it sometimes.” It’s a very strange collection.

You remember this guy who stood up at a town hall meeting somewhere and said something like, “Don’t fiddle with my Medicare.” Though the government people laughed, it’s not a joke.

If you look at studies of opinion, it turns out that, by and large, the more people get from the government, the less they think they get, and the more they’re opposed to government. It’s pretty steady. There are some deeply conservative, rural counties in California, which are radically libertarian, which are practically funded by the government.

Those people just don’t seem to understand what’s happening in the world. And, in fact, this anti-government feeling itself is pretty interesting. It’s a kind of pathology in the United States, which reflects a lack of functioning democracy.

Take, say, taxes. Everybody’s against taxes. In a functioning democracy you’d be in favor of them. April 15th would be a day of celebration. You’re getting together to fund the programs that you decided on.

Here it’s a day of mourning. Some alien entity is pouncing on us to take away our hard-earned money, meaning we don’t have a democracy that way.

Ron Paul plays a very strange roll. Whatever his personal goals are, or whatever his understanding is, I have no idea. But if you look at his policies, first of all, they’re pretty vicious. And also, I think they lead to a kind of corporate tyranny. He might not want that or think it, but I think that’s what it means.

The anti-redistributive policies say everybody’s on their own. If you’re a disabled widow across town and your husband didn’t happen to make enough money, you starve.

Durel: In the past you were critical of the Soviet Union, saying that it was a “State capitalist” country, and that it was totalitarian. Do other supposedly Communist countries—China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam—deserve similar criticism?

Chomsky: They deserve plenty of criticism, but they’re quite different from one another. I’m not giving grades, but there are some things that they do that are okay.

Take Maoist China, which everyone is supposed to hate. If you look at it, during the years of Maoist China, about 100 million lives were saved, as compared to democratic capitalist India, just by virtue of rural health programs. Saving 100 million lives, that’s not a small number, including the great famine, incidentally.

Nobody can talk about this. And, in fact, if you look at the capitalist reforms, the mortality rates declined very sharply under Mao, but in 1979 they started to level off. They’re now about where they were then.

Those are aspects of society too.

Durel: Which nation-states do you think are the closest to getting it right in terms of your idea of libertarian socialism?

Chomsky: In terms of libertarian socialism, there are all kinds of dimensions.

So, for example, take the United States. There’s a project around Cleveland, the Cleveland Model, an interesting project. Gar Alperovitz is the main person working on it. It’s developing elements of a libertarian socialist society.

There are a lot of worker-owned enterprises, a lot of cooperatives. The United Steelworkers are linking up with Mondragon, which isn’t libertarian socialist, but it’s kind of up in that direction—it’s worker-owned, big conglomerates and so on, hospitals, banks, manufacturing, communities. If they could bring the Mondragon style, constructive institutional structures, into the United States, it would be pretty revolutionary.

But that’s the United States, the most extreme so-called capitalist society. If you look around the world, I think there are more or less decent societies.

Norway is pretty decent in many ways. In fact, even culturally.

Like, if you followed the Breivik trial, this mass-murderer, this guy who murdered 80 people. It’s kind of remarkable to see how humanely, and in what a civilized way he was treated. It was ridiculed here because it was so civilized.

They didn’t kill him right away, which we would have done. He had a trial in which he was allowed to rave and do every crazy thing. He is, of course, guilty. There is no question. In fact, he’s proud of it. But he wasn’t sentenced to a maximum security prison that makes Guantanamo look decent. He got pretty humane prison conditions. That’s civilized.

And if you look at the attitudes, in fact, he’s coming up for parole in 20 years. He won’t get it, but at least in principle he’s not there forever. By our standards, that’s kind of unimaginable. We’re a very vengeful, brutal society. We don’t do things like that.

Durel: Do you believe that there’s any truth behind American exceptionalism? Do you think that there is anything that sets this country apart, in its ideals, from the rest of the world?

Chosmky: In its ideals, sure. In the 18th Century, the US became probably the most free society in the world, which isn’t saying a lot. But look at the slaves, Native Americans, women. Still, by 18th Century standards, it was pretty free.

A lot of the ideals have been, to some extent, developed. There are some dimensions of freedom, like say freedom of speech, which I think is really important, where the United States is in the world lead—not since the 18th Century, but since the civil rights movement, which changed things. Supreme Court decisions in the 60’s established a very high standard of freedom of speech, which is a good thing.

We have freedom of speech, freedom of the press. On the other hand, the press can be more uniform than in a totalitarian state on crucial issues. And I’m not exaggerating.

So take right this minute. If you listened to the last Presidential debate, on foreign affairs, the big issue was Iran, the great threat to world peace. That’s just repeated in the press as though it comes straight out of the gospels.

Who thinks in those terms? It turns out it’s mainly a US obsession. Some third world Arab dictators might agree, but not the populations. The Non-Aligned Movement doesn’t agree. Europe is kind of mixed.

Is there a way to deal with the threat, whatever it is? There’s a very simple way: they could move towards establishing a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the region, with inspections. It would certainly reduce the threat.

Probably the entire world is in favor of that and has been for years. The US is blocking it. There’s an international conference coming up in Helsinki in a couple of months, which will try to deal with it. It’s an obvious way to deal with what is regarded as the greatest threat to peace in the world.

Let’s turn back to the press: not one single word. I’ve had some friends do some database searches on it. You couldn’t achieve that in a totalitarian state. And with no government pressure; it’s just kind of internalized. You don’t talk about things the government doesn’t want.

Durel: But what about liberal comedy shows that focus on the news—The Daily Show with John Stewart, The Colbert Report, Real Time with Bill Maher? Do they add any kind of other perspective?

Chomsky: I don’t look at television. I don’t know.

Durel: Haven’t you been on Real Time? I thought you were on Bill Maher’s show.

Chomsky: I was once on for about five minutes or so, which was kind of silly. I didn’t watch the follow-up, but I was told that after my five minutes the rest of it was hysterical denunciations.

Durel: Do you give any credence to Christian conservatives when they say that the corporate media is debasing our culture and undermining traditional family values? Is there any truth to that?

Chomsky: In their sense of “traditional family values.”

The corporate media, like CEOs of corporations for that matter, tend to be socially what’s called “liberal.” Not Fox News, but most of them, say the New York Times. The corporate elite, they tend to be socially liberal. They’re not opposed to gay rights, they think women should have a degree of rights of choice over their bodies, they are generally opposed to patriarchy, harsh patriarchal structures.

So that is, if you like, “undermining traditional values.”

They’re also opposed to the imposition of Sharia law, which the Salafis would say undermines traditional values.

So the criticism is kind of true. I’m glad it’s true.

Durel: How do you view criticism of the Federal Reserve?

Chomsky: I’m not under any illusions about the Fed. I mean, you just can’t have a modern State capitalist society without a central bank. And if money isn’t printed, fiat currency, you’re going to have radical contractions in the economy will be terrible for most of the population. Not bad for creditors, they don’t care much about economic growth.

I think all of this is wild delusions. And, in fact, compared to the European counterpart, the European Central Bank, the Fed is pretty progressive.

Durel: Do you think that we are facing global financial collapse, or do you think that it won’t happen?

Chomsky: It could happen, but I don’t think that’s the worst crisis we face.

Durel: What do you think is?

Chomsky: The environmental crisis is the worst. And the second-worst is the possibility of nuclear war, which is not small.

Steven Durel is a freelance writer living in Connecticut.

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Israel persecutes them for not being Jews. Praying to the wrong God is criminalized. Hungerstrikers defy Israeli lawlessness. Abstinence is their only weapon.

Widespread actions persisted for weeks last spring. Some lasted over two months. Miraculously no one died. Victories remain elusive. Negotiations produced Israeli promises to ease prison harshness. Most strikers resumed eating.

Pledges made were broken. Israel’s word is worthless. Promises aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

Imprisoned or free, Palestinians have no rights. Racism is policy. So is institutionalized persecution and violence. Arabs are despised. Israel calls them sub-human.

Many end up lawlessly imprisoned. Some languish there months or years uncharged. Rogue states ignore rule of law principles. Israel is one of the worst. Democracy exists in name only. State terror is official policy. Palestinians endure extreme harshness.

Hunger striker Samer Al-Eesawy refused food for over four and half months. He’s been hunger striking for justice.

Israel does nothing gently. Rogue governments inflict pain aggressively.

 

Samer Tareq al-‘Issawi (32 years old) – al-‘Eisawiyya (Jerusalem governorate)

On December 18, Samer was abusively brought to court on a wheelchair. He’s too weak to walk. He was painfully cuffed and shackled. Prosecutors claimed he “violated a legal order.” 

He was bogusly charged with “tr(ing) to manipulate witnesses.” Doing so from inside Israel’s gulag is impossible. Prisoners are largely isolated.

Samer tried to greet family members in court. Nachshon Brigade forces attacked him brutally. They assaulted his loved ones. They dragged him out of court. They took him back to prison.

They raided his home. They arrested his sister, Shirin. They detained her short-term. She’s now under house arrest.

Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) Legal Unit head Jawad Boulos called this type viciousness “an act of vengeance against the detainee and all striking detainees.”

Samer needs urgent medical care. He’s physically deteriorated. His life hangs by a thread. Boulos wants him hospitalized. He suffers severe chest pain and other symptoms. Bodily cuts need treatment.

A brief session was held. The judge acknowledged Samer’s “difficult” condition. He “needs to be seen by a doctor,” he said. He stopped short of ordering it. On December 27, another session is planned.

Boulos also said soldiers beat Samer again when he tried to talk to reporters. PPS head,Qaddoura Fares, said Israel often attacks and humiliates detainees and family members in court. Presiding military judges don’t intervene.

Israel brutalizes Palestinians. Justice isn’t just denied. It’s trampled and stomped on ruthlessly.

Ayman Sharawneh refused food for over 170 days. Palestine’s Ministry of Prisoner Affairs said he suffers from muscle spasms, memory loss, and severe kidney and abdominal pains.

He and Samer refused Israel’s release offer. It’s conditional on exile. Israeli prison services spokeswoman Siwan Weizman dismissively said they were “both fine.”

In October 2011, they were freed as part of the Israeli/Hamas prisoner exchange. Later they were rearrested. They’re hunger striking for long-denied freedom and justice.

On November 22, Israel arrestedJafar Azzadine, Tarek Qa’adan andYousef Yassin. They’ve been hunger striking for 22 days. They issued a joint statement, saying:

“Our open hunger strike is to protest the Intelligence and their policies. Our goal is not just to gain our individual freedom but to end the practice of administrative detention, the pointed sword on the neck of the Palestinians.”

“This is a battle in the fight for freedom and dignity despite all the continuing pain and torments that impair us, and despite all the pressure that we endure and is practiced against us by the Israeli Prison Service and Shabak to break our will from our steadfastness.”

“However, the cowardly enemy will never undermine our steadfastness and our determination to achieve justice and freedom for all our imprisoned and hunger striking brothers, and the oppressed and those who were tortured by the fiery tormentors for decades.”

“We call on the sons of our people to stand by us and to show responsibility for our fellow prisoners, especially Samer Issawi and Ayman Sharawna who are nearing death.”

“We also call on all local and international institutions and those that are specifically for human rights to intensify their efforts and to raise our voices high in international forums to expose the barbaric occupation and its practices.”

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On December 19, Addameer provided additional information. Israel detained 41-year old Jafar seven times. He was last arrested on March 21. He was detained uncharged.

On May 14, he began hunger striking. On June 19, he was released. His ordeal took a horrific toll. He suffers fromlow blood pressure, dizziness, headaches, protein deficiency, and constant joint, knees, hands, and spinal cord pain.

Since 1989, Israel detained Tarek 13 times. Its lawlessness has no limits. Most recently, Israel imprisoned him for 15 months. He was charged with speaking at an American University of Jenin commemoration event.

Earlier he hunger struck in solidarity with Khader Adnan and Hana Shalabi.

Israel detained Yousef three times. He was last arrested in February. Israel sentenced him to eight months imprisonment. He, Tarek, and Jafar are uncharged. They committed no crimes.

They’re among thousands of other Israeli political prisoners. They’re held lawlessly. They’re brutalized. Torture is official Israeli policy. Nearly everyone detained is affected. Children young as 10 are treated like adults.

Addameer, other Palestinian human rights groups, Israeli and international ones condemn Israeli lawlessness.

On June 26 annually, the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, is commemorated. Global victims and survivors are honored.

This year, a Detainees and Ex-Detainees Society report discussed horrific Israeli torture, abuse and humiliating treatment. It called Israeli policy ethically and legally corrupt.

Photos showed brutalized children. Others displayed handcuffed and blindfolded male and female prisoners. They were in “disgraceful positions.” Soldiers mocked them. Excessive brutality is standard practice.

PPS head Qaddoura Fares said 178 UN decisions condemned Israeli torture, abuse, and serious mistreatment since 1967. Israel ignores them. Brutality is institutionalized. Its officialpolicy. Palestinians bear the brunt of Israeli ruthlessness at its worst.

On December 20, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) appealed to international community leaders to save Ayman and Samer. It urged they demand immediate unconditional release.

PCHR holds Israel fully accountable. They’ve been hunger striking for 174 and 144 days respectively.

Ayman began on July 1. Samer followed on August 1. They’re protesting lawless rearrest and detention uncharged. In October 2011, both were part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap deal.

Israel reneged on its promise. Released Palestinian prisoners were ruthlessly harassed. Many were rearrested.

Long hunger strikes cause considerable physical deterioration. Both men now refuse water and other liquids.

They lost considerable body mass. They suffer from general weakness, anemia, protein deficiency, low sugar, deteriorated vision, and considerable pain and discomfort.

Their lives hang in the balance. Israel won’t release them. Adequate medical care is denied. Heavy pressure is applied. Prisoners are told either resume eating or face extreme harshness for refusing.

PCHR also expressed grave concern for thousands of other mistreated Palestinian prisoners. Israel’s gulag assures brutalizing inhumane treatment.

Since 1967, over 700,000 Palestinians experienced it. Over 20% of the population was affected. For males, it’s 40%. For women, it’s about 10,000. For children around 7,000 were imprisoned since 2000 alone.

No other country comes close to these figures. None calling themselves democracies dare. With the world’s largest prison population by far, America comes closest.

Both countries spurn rule of law principles. Both institutionalized prison hell. Both prioritize pain and suffering. Nothing too abusive is avoided.

Palestinians perhaps suffer worst of all. They endure the worst forms of cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment.

Israel spares nothing to inflict torment. Collective punishment is official policy. World leaders able to enforce accountability do nothing. Palestinian suffering continues. It’s unabated out of sight and mind.

Article by Stephen Lendman | © Sabbah Report: http://sabbah.biz/mt/?p=16195

More posts by Stephen Lendman

• Stephen Lendman: Netanyahu’s Rage to Judaize Palestine
• Stephen Lendman: Tortured in Sinai, Imprisoned in Israel
• Stephen Lendman: Israel’s Lieberman Resigns
• Stephen Lendman: Holding Israel Accountable for War Crimes
• Stephen Lendman: Netanyahu Mocks Legitimate Governance

 

Controversial artwork by Hong Sung-dam depicting president elect Park Geun-hye giving birth to her father, the late president Park Chung-hee, signifying a revival of his conservative leadership in her administration.

NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli authorities on Thursday released Fatah member Mohammad Hashah Abu Salam after detaining him for 10 years.

Crowds gathered at the entrances of Nablus and Balata refugee camp to welcome Abu Salam with fireworks and songs.

Abu Salam said his happiness was not complete because thousands of Palestinians remained in Israeli jails. He called for solidarity with prisoners and greater efforts to release them.

The father of three was born in Balata camp in 1969 and is locally renowned for being wanted by Israel since he was a child.

Abu Salem‘s family was expelled from Yaffa in 1948 during the creation of the state of Israel.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) — In a rare move on Wednesday, all but one of the 15 members of the UN Security Council made statements at the United Nations opposing Israeli plans to expand Jewish settlements around Jerusalem after the United States repeatedly blocked attempts to take stronger action.

India’s UN ambassador, Hardeep Singh Puri, described the four separate statements — made by the eight council members from the Non-Aligned Movement, the four European members, Russia and China — as a “Plan B” after it was clear the United States, was likely to veto a legally binding resolution on the issue.

“Consultations (on a resolution) were held amongst the members of the council and an attempt was made … (to see) if the 15th member could be accommodated,” said Puri, referring to the United States.

“But when we came to the conclusion that that was not likely to happen … it was felt that Plan B – which is what this is essentially – was for members of the council to come out individually and in groupings to make statements,” he said.

All the statements were made at UN headquarters after a Security Council briefing on the situation in the Middle East. While the United States has also condemned Israel’s plans, it did not make a statement at the United Nations.

The United States — traditionally Israel’s protector on the Security Council — blocked a resolution in February last year condemning Israeli settlements. Any of the five permanent members of the council — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — can veto a resolution.

When asked about the planned statements by Security Council members at the United Nations, US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that “each country ought to make its own representations … and that’s the way we’ve proceeded.”

The Security Council resumed talks on a resolution condemning settlements after Israel said last month it would build 3,000 more homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — areas Palestinians want for a future state, along with Gaza.

But it became apparent that the United States was unwilling to support a resolution, diplomats said.

Approximately 500,000 Israelis and 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Israeli announcement came a day after the UN General Assembly upgraded the Palestinians’ status at the world body to “non-member state” – a de facto UN recognition of statehood.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday his government would press ahead with expanding Jewish settlements around Jerusalem, despite Western criticism.

Speaking in Washington, Nuland said the United States said it was “deeply disappointed” by the plan and said it put the goal of a two-state solution at risk.”

‘Fatal blow’

The current European members of the Security Council — permanent members Britain and France, as well as Germany and Portugal — said Israel’s announcement of an acceleration of settlement construction was “undermining faith in its willingness to negotiate.”

Diplomats made clear that the issuance of the statements were targeted as much at the United States as they were at Israel and the Palestinians for a lack of progress towards a peace plan.

“We’re making clear to both parties and the US that the window of opportunity (for peace) is closing,” said a senior Western diplomat.

The Non-Aligned Movement caucus of the Security Council — Togo, South Africa, Morocco, Pakistan, India, Guatemala, Colombia and Azerbaijan — expressed grave concern at the “continuing illegal Israeli settlement activities,” which it said breached international humanitarian law.

Russia and China also separately said they were concerned by the settlement plans. All the statements on the issue were made outside the Security Council on Wednesday.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman told the Security Council on Wednesday that settlement construction in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, violated international law.

“If implemented, these plans would represent an almost fatal blow to remaining chances of securing a two-state solution,” Feltman said. “We strongly urge the Israeli government to heed the wide international calls to rescind these plans.”

Israeli analysts see the settlement drive as an effort by Netanyahu to enhance support for his right-wing Likud party against other hawkish rivals in a Jan. 22 parliamentary election he is expected to win.

Israel’s UN Ambassador Ron Prosor questioned why the Security Council should single out the settlements’ dispute all the other events going on in the Middle East this week, including a bombing in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria and the explosion of a Hezbollah warehouse in Lebanon.

I

France is insisting on ‘rapid’ military intervention in Mali. Its unmanned drones have reportedly been scouring the desert of the troubled West African nation – although it claims that the drones are seeking the whereabouts of six French hostages believed to be held by Al-Qaeda. The French are likely to get their wish, especially following the recent political fiasco engineered by the country’s strong man and coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo. The Americans also covet intervention, but one that would serve their growing interests in the Sahel region. African countries are divided and have no clear alternative on how to restore Mali’s territorial integrity – and equally important political sovereignty – disjointed between Tuareg secessionists and Islamic militants in the north and factionalized army in the south.

The current crisis in Mali is the recent manifestation of a recurring episode of terrible suffering and constant struggles. It goes back much earlier than French officials in particular wish to recall. True, there is much bad blood between the various forces that are now fighting for control, but there is also much acrimony between Mali and France, the latter having conquered Mali (then called French Sudan) in 1898. After decades of a bitter struggle, Mali achieved its independence in 1960 under the auspices of a socialist government led by President Modibo Keita. One of his very early orders of business was breaking away with French influence and the Franc zone.

Former colonial powers rarely abandon their ambitions, even after their former colonies gain hard-earned freedom. They remain deeply entrenched by meddling in various ways that destabilize the former colonies. Then when opportune, they militarily intervene to uphold the status quo. In 1968 Keita was ousted from power, and few years later in 1977, he died in a lonely cell. His death ushered in mass protests, compelling few cosmetic gestures towards a new constitution and half-hearted democracy.

Turmoil defined Mali for many years since then, even after the country achieved a level of political stability in 1992. At the time it was believed that Mali was fast becoming a model for democracy, at least in the West Africa region. Few years later, thousands of refugees from the ever-neglected and under-represented Tuaregs began returning to their towns and villages mostly in the vast desert region in northern Mali. That return was introduced by a peace agreement signed between Tuaregs and the central government. Little on the ground has changed. Various bands of Islamic groups, some homegrown, others fleeing fighting in neighboring countries, especially Algeria, found haven in Mali’s north and west. At times, they fought amongst each other, at times they served some unclear agendas of outside parties, and at times they created temporary alliances amongst themselves.

While France attempted to keep Mali in its sphere of influence – thus its decision in 2002 to cancel over a third of Mali’s debt – the United States was also taking interest in Mali’s crucial position in the Sahel regions and the prospects created by the ungovernability of the northern regions.

Of course, the all-inclusive definition of Al-Qaeda served as the ever-convenient ruse to justify American involvement. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has been used by Washington to rationalize the establishment of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM). It was set up in 2008 to manage US military interests in the whole continent with the exception of Egypt. The US State Department claimed that AFRICOM “will play a supportive role as Africans build democratic institutions and establish good governance across the continent.”

The importance of the Al-Qaeda narrative to the American role in the Sahel was highlighted in the last presidential debate between President Barack Obama and his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney. To flex some political muscles, perhaps Romney warned of ‘Al-Qaeda type individuals” threatening to turn Mali into a new Afghanistan. Other western experts on the Sahel dispute the analogy, however claiming that Mali is descending into a Sudan-like model instead. Either way, the people of Mali are currently suffering the consequences of the burgeoning conflict, which reflects a convoluted mix of foreign agendas, extremist ideologies and real grievances of Malian tribes in the north and west.

The south of the country is not exactly an oasis of stability. The ongoing territorial struggle and political volatility are threatening the whole country, which has been battling a cruel famine and pitiless warlords. The most dominant faction in the Malian army is led by US-trained Army Capt. Amadou Sanogo, who on March 22 led a coup against President Amadou Toumani Toure. Sanogo’s reasoning – blaming Toure for failing to stamp out growing militant influence in the north – sounded more like a pretense than a genuine attempt at recovering the disintegrating country.

It remains unclear who Sanogo’s backers are, especially since France and the US are relatively tolerant of his political transgressions and violent conduct. Sanogo’s coup came shortly before elections, scheduled for last April. While the African Union (AU) reacted assertively to the coup by suspending Mali’s membership, western powers remained indecisive. Despite a half-hearted handing over of power from the coup leaders to a civilian government of President Dioncounda Traore, Sanogo remain firmly in charge. In May, the junta struck again, retaking power, as pro-Sanogo mobs almost beat president Traore to death inside his presidential compound.

Sanogo, empowered by the lack of decisiveness to his conduct, continued to play some political game or another. A short lived ‘national unity government’ under Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra was more or less toppled when Diarra was arrested by Sanogo’s men. He was forced to concede power and install a little known government administrator as his predecessor. Sonogo’s political show continues, especially as the West African regional grouping (ECOWAS), along with the AU remains focused on what they perceive as a more urgent priority: ending the territorial disintegration in the north and west.

The conflict in the north is in a constant influx. Alliances change, thus the nature of the conflict is in perpetual alteration. Large consignments of weapons that were made available during NATO’s war in Libya early last year, made their way to various rebel and militant groups throughout the region. The Tuaregs had received support from the ousted Libyan government and were dispersed during and following the war. Many of them returned to Mali, battle-hardened and emboldened by the advanced weapons.

Fighting in the north began in stages, most notably in January 2012. Sanogo’s coup created the needed political vacuum for Tuaregs’ National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) to declare independence in the north a mere two weeks later. The declaration was the result of quick military victories by MNLA and its militant allies, which led to the capture of Gao and other major towns. These successive developments further bolstered Islamic and other militant groups to seize cities across the country and hold them hostage to their ideologies and other agendas. For example, Ansar al-Din had reportedly worked jointly with the MNLA, but declared a war “against independence” and “for Islam” in June, as soon as it secured its control over Timbuktu. Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad, along with AQIM made their moves. The allies soon became bitter enemies.

Last September, rebels from various Islamic groupings in control of the north began advancing onto other strategic areas in the center and south-west parts of the country. Their territorial advances are now made against government-held towns and areas that are still controlled by Azawad Tuareg rebels.

There is now semi-consensus on the need for military intervention in Mali, although some differences persist over the nature and scope of that intervention. Sanogo himself has little interest in seeing other West African powers jockeying for influence in Bamako, which could threaten his thus far unchallenged rule. Moreover, it is unclear how affective military force can be, as the territorial fragmentation, many militant groupings and political discord throughout the country are almost impossible to navigate.

The stability of West Africa is surely at stake. The chances of a political solution are all but completely dissipated. The growing chaos will likely benefit interventionist states – France and the US in particular. A long-drawn new ‘war on terror,’ will justify further intervention in West Africa and more meddling in the affairs of ECOWAS countries.

A few years ago, a new ‘scramble for Africa’ was unleashed due to China’s growing influence in the continent. It was heightened by a more recent North African turmoil caused by the so-called Arab Spring. Opportunities are now abound for those ready to stake more claims over a long exploited region.

Ramzy Baroud is editor of PalestineChronicle.com. He is the author of The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle  and  “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London).

On December 19, the US was saved from having to whip out its veto to defend Israel. The UN Security Council (UNSC) debated the issue of settlement building by Israel on the occupied Palestinian Territories. The bloc of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) hoped for a vote that would condemn Israeli action, with the NAM statement calling for Israel “to put a stop to settlement construction and to provocative announcements about building the settlements.” “Settlement activities and illegal actions by extremist Israeli settlers,” the NAM bloc underscored, “are also causing extensive physical, economic and social devastation throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” India’s Ambassador to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri read out the NAM statement. Puri’s India was one of the parties of the IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa) statement which called settlement building a violation of international law and “a major obstacle to peace efforts.”

Even the British, otherwise yoked to the side of the US, pointed out that this new settlement activity, in the E-1 area between the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem, goes far beyond the pale. “The construction of settlements threatens the two-state solution,” said UK Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, a Middle Temple lawyer who knows more than a thing or two about international law. Actually you don’t even need to be a lawyer to know that international law is being violated brazenly. The 1949 Geneva Conventions (article 49) says quite plainly, “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” No one doubts that Israeli seized the West Bank in the 1967 war and has occupied it since then. No doubt either that it is article 49 of Geneva that has motivated the UN to keep track of this settlement issue (it was what framed Resolution 446 of the UNSC, which affirmed “once more that the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 1/ is applicable to the Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem” and so “determines that the policy and practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East”).

Settlement activity picked up over the course of these two year, and so too has UN unease. In February 2011, at the high point of the Arab Spring, fourteen members of the UNSC were prepared to vote on a resolution that condemned Israel’s settlement activity. The US vetoed the resolution. Ambassador Susan Rice played a delicate game. The veto, she said, must “not be misunderstood to mean we support settlement activity. For more than four decades, Israeli settlement activity in territories occupied in 1967 has undermined Israel’s security and corroded hopes for peace and stability in the region. Continued settlement activity violates Israel’s international commitments, devastates trust between the parties and threatens the prospects for peace.” The US, in other words, was on the side of the majority but could not possibly vote with them. Too much was at risk.

Such high-stakes cynicism returned once more this summer. The UN Human Right Council empaneled a fact-finding mission (FFM) led by the respected French jurist Christine Chanet, with Pakistani lawyer Asma Jahangir and Botswana judge Unity Dow as the other two members. The US voted against the creation of this FFM, but could not stop it (there is no veto in the UN-HRC). The FFM tried several times to enter Israel, and via Israeli permission, the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Israel refused. A week before the most recent attack on Gaza, the FFM wound up its work. Judge Chanet noted, “We continue to regret that we were not granted access to the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel in order to carry out further work.” The FFM’s work has been stalled. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers went to work attacking Palestinian olive groves at harvest time. The UN’s envoy Robert Serry told the press: “Israel must live up to its commitments under international law to protect Palestinians and their property in the occupied territory so that the olive harvest—a crucial component of Palestinian livelihoods and the Palestinian economy—can proceed unhindered and in peace.” His comment went unheeded.

Shortly after the UN General Assembly vote to grant Palestine non-member observer status, Israel announced that it would begin to build on E-1, thereby slicing the West Bank into two parts. This was intolerable to the majority in the UN, which then pushed for UNSC condemnation. The Palestinians, in their new position, pushed for a presidential statement (which has to be unanimous) to condemn Israel’s actions or else a council vote (where the veto might be wielded). The US refused to allow either action. It would not sign onto the unanimous presidential statement – the other fourteen members, including the four Europeans (Britain, France, Portugal and Germany), had signed the statement that condemned settlement activity. It would not allow a council vote – that would have been too embarrassing. The President of the UNSC for this month, Morocco’s Mohammed Loulichiki, I am told, did not insist.

The State Department’s Victoria Nuland said that the US was “deeply disappointed that Israel insists on continuing their pattern of provocative action,” but the US nonetheless would not allow the UN to vote on the resolution to condemn Israeli settlement construction.

A whisper outside the UN suggested that it is time for Palestine to take the UN documentation around Operation Cast Lead (2009) to the International Criminal Court and ask for action on it. Ehud Olmert would be brought into the dock if the ICC decided to act. Beaten up by the Israeli courts (and perhaps by his left-wing wife Aliza), Olmert might betray a few confidences held fast by the Israeli elite. He has always been an untrustworthy figure for the hardline, who prefers their people not to be as idiosyncratic (he had, after all, supported the UN bid by the Palestinians).

Such a move is not inconceivable. Palestine’s UN envoy, Riyad Mansour, said after the non-vote, “If the Israelis continue to ignore the wishes of all of us, and if they continue to decide to destroy the two-state solution then we will be able to resort to all possible options available to us to defend ourselves and our people in a better way.” All possible optionsshall include a trip to the ICC with a big binder.

Pressure has begun to mount on the Palestinians to drop this potential maneuver. A letter has begun to circulate in the US Congress to revoke the license of the General Delegation of the PLO in Washington, DC. Maen Rashid Areikat, the PLO’s chief representative in DC, sent members of Congress a letter in response on December 14, asking them to consider what it might mean to expel the PLO from the US. “History has shown time and again that the language of threats, financial pressure, and punitive measures simply does not work. Withholding our Economic Support Funds (the majority of which goes towards humanitarian assistance and development work) as Congress has been doing over the past year, or threatening to shut down our office will not lead to changes in the Palestinian position.” These are as strong words as one can expect from a generally pliable Palestinian leadership. Whether it shall make sense to the ulcerated US Congress is another matter.

Vijay Prashad’s most recent book is Arab Spring, Libyan Winter (AK Press). 

Almost immediately after the armed attack in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012, which resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, along with Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glen Doherty, added to the destruction and looting of the U.S. facility in Benghazi, various columnists immediately took to issuing pronouncements on what had happened in Libya and what it meant. They all sounded so certain. Yet, the only certainty has been the deliberate production of uncertainty, with multiple layers of obfuscation, questions asked and never answered, and some questions not even asked yet. This is largely the case even now, four months after the attack and with the December 18 release of the findings of a State Department investigation into the attack. The report was produced by the “Accountability Review Board” convened by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself, and is thus lacking the impartiality of an independent body without ties to the Obama administration or the vested interests of those in charge of the State Department. The investigation was led by Thomas R. Pickering (a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador during the height of its dirty war against opposition movements and guerrillas tied to the FMLN), and Admiral Michael Mullen.

As someone with a background in ethnohistory and archival research of colonial documents, plus seeing that this report is “unclassified” and is thus being circulated to various media, it struck me that the intent of this release was to produce not answers to a problem, but rather the State Department’s preferred version of events as the party to a conflict in Libya that the U.S. internationalized, widened and escalated since February 2011. There is actually little that is new in the report that has not already been presented and debated and left unsettled in the public sphere. Indeed, the report itself ultimately reduces everything to a need for more security measures and better training. This report is a very stark contrast to what some journalists were promising us would be a “State Department bombshell.” Well it’s a dud.

The Untold Story

Imagine this: a government that regularly executes alleged enemies abroad, using drone strikes based on supposed “intelligence,” that routinely claims to kill “terrorist” leaders and prevent “impending” attacks, is still not able—not even four months later—to identify the group responsible for the attack in Benghazi. Not able, or perhaps not willing. Instead, this report refers us to the FBI, which still has an investigation underway. This is the same FBI that was too frightened to send agents to Benghazi to investigate the attack, even weeks after the attack, and well after the “crime scene” had been extensively looted and “degraded.” Instead, this is the state of U.S. intelligence on Benghazi: “the key questions surrounding the identity, actions and motivations of the perpetrators remain to be determined by the ongoing criminal investigation” (p. 2). Even if we take the report at face value, this missing element—who are the attackers—should give anyone reason enough for lengthy pause. The U.S. government is claiming to not know which group attacked its staff in Benghazi, let alone the identities of the individual attackers. This says something about the state of U.S. “knowledge” of Libya. If we do not take the report at face value, then it reads like a deliberate attempt to cover up what the U.S. does not want the public to know.

In this regard, there are many possibilities, and no certainties. The report itself offers passing acknowledgment of the “continued presence of pro-Qaddafi supporters” (p. 15)—but does not even for a moment consider who might have a motive to attack the U.S. facility in Benghazi. The report does not even once mention the presence of CIA agents in its so-called “Special Mission Compound” in Benghazi, even though multiple reports surfaced that the attack had targeted a CIA base, exposing the presence of CIA personnel in significant numbers, and delivered a huge blow to CIA efforts in Libya—and to efforts to illicitly send arms to Syrian rebels via Turkey. And what was the CIA doing there? Reportedly their work focused on “securing” weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals during the NATO war, such as surface-to-air missiles, the SA-7’s. It was also reported that Ambassador Chris Stevens’ work in Benghazi involved the transshipment of heavy weapons from Libya and into the hands of jihadists fighting to overthrow the government of Syria. Is it just a coincidence then that Syrian rebels havestarted using SA-7’s that they never had before? A CIA operation such as this would thus not only be violating international law, it would also reveal the lie that is Obama’s claim that the U.S. is not supplying Syrian rebels with weapons. This again widens the options concerning the motives of possible attackers, including those who might want to put a stop to such covert operations against Syria.

What is not clear is why “Islamists” in Libya would want to attack the Benghazi “mission.” After all, these would be some of the same people who benefitted from NATO’s air cover, for which they pleaded, and from Western weapons shipments during the war to overthrow the Libyan government, and who are reportedly benefitting again by being supported by the U.S. and its NATO partner, Turkey, in sending weapons to Syria, with some Libyans already active in that war. How would they gain anything, and would they not lose a great deal in launching such an inexplicable attack against their own partners?

Unmentionable Friends

Indeed this is a major conceptual shortcoming of the report: how it abruptly converts “militias” into “terrorists” (see p. 4). For all of the report writers’ insistence that their job is not to identify the attackers, the report speaks of the activities and nature of Al Qaeda and its affiliates (p. 2). But then a question arises: if “Islamists” and “jihadists” are a problem, why does the U.S. work with them in Libya? Likewise, if they are as “anti-American” as is commonly assumed, why do some actively collaborate with the U.S.? How among what the report acknowledges is a dizzying array of militias, do U.S. officials determine which are the good “Islamists” and which are the bad ones? The report itself provides some interesting answers.

The authors of the report comment on how the U.S. backed war against the USSR in Afghanistan, and the U.S.’ subsequent invasion and occupation of Iraq, provided the networks, training, and experience that empowered the “jihadis” that Gaddafi fought, and that continue to destabilize Libya under U.S. auspices. Here there is not even a pause in the report when the former monarchy based in Benghazi, U.S. interests, and jihadists all cohabit the same paragraph, as if they were natural partners (p. 13). Indeed, the report casually notes that the “Special Mission’s Libyan security contingent was composed of four armed members of the February 17 Martyrs’ Brigade (February 17)—a local umbrella organization of militias dominant in Benghazi (some of which were Islamist)” (p. 19). Some of which were Islamist?

Then there is the assertion of the Libyans’ supposed love affair with Ambassador Stevens. If Stevens, and other foreign officials, had truly “earned the admiration of countless numbers of Libyans” (p. 14) as presented in the State Department’s hagiography, there should not have been a river of attacks (a list of 20 attacks is provided, pp. 15-16, for Benghazi alone) against U.S. and related Western targets, and Stevens should still be alive today. In this inability to get over themselves, the obsessive self-praise of U.S. officialdom, amounting to what often seems like an institutionalized narcissism and hubris, there is no discussion of why the reality of Libya is one where U.S. officials get killed. The report only offers a remarkably simplified picture of two kinds of potential Libyan opponents: protesters and terrorists.

The report, however, does note that a kind of tunnel vision developed among U.S. officials in Libya—perhaps blaming them for their own demise—a vision in which violence against the U.S. and other international targets was normalized and effectively pushed aside. The report comments on the possibility—at least this possibility earns their commentary—that with so many attacks against U.S. and international targets, it all came to be seen as normal: “the longer a post is exposed to continuing high levels of violence the more it comes to consider security incidents which might otherwise provoke a reaction as normal, thus raising the threshold for an incident to cause a reassessment of risk and mission continuation” (p. 16). On the other hand, the concept of “resistance” appears to be forbidden, precluded from discussion. Moreover, as I will discuss below, this line of argument holds no water and is part of a subtle subtext of the report that places the blame for Stevens’ death partly on Stevens himself.

Questionable Friends

It is odd, but not surprising, that the report offers the public no considerations of the risk that results as a blowback effect of U.S. destabilization, just as it erases any notion of resistance. Instead all the U.S. has is friends in Libya. So how did four Americans get killed? They were, we are told, guarded by a local militia, the February 17 militia. Unfortunately, “February 17 militia members had stopped accompanying Special Mission vehicle movements in protest over salary and working hours” (p. 5). Moreover, the investigators “found little evidence that
the armed February 17 guards offered any meaningful defense” of the “special mission” (p. 6). As for the Libyan government, the investigators found “the Libyan government’s response to be profoundly lacking on the night of the attacks, reflecting both weak capacity and near absence of central government influence and control in Benghazi” (pp. 6-7). That sounds like the Libyan “government,” such as it is, had no capacity to help—which is quite likely true. However, that does not explain why “an unknown individual in a Libyan Supreme Security Council (SSC) police uniform” was spotted on the day of the attack “apparently taking photos of the compound villas with a cell phone from the second floor of a building under construction across the street to the north” of the “special mission” (p. 19).

Rewriting History

The authors of this report seem compelled to provide the preferred rendition of Libyan history, consistently making remarks that are noteworthy for lacking almost any relevance at all to the nature and purpose of their report. At the same time, the report adds to recent official comments that go strikingly against the Obama narrative at the start of the war in 2011, as if these officials suffered from amnesia and forgot what was in the last set of talking points on the approved and authorized view of Libya.

For example, while Obama repeatedly insisted he was against regime change back in March of 2011, and that international intervention was needed to protect civilians, his sole concern, there is no attempt to maintain this illusion any longer. Thus the report, like Secretary Clinton earlier, points out that Christopher Stevens was the U.S. “Special Envoy” to “the rebel-led government that eventually toppled Muammar Qaddafi in fall 2011,” and that was even before the U.S. publicly recognized that “government” as the “sole, legitimate representative of the Libyan people.” Stevens and his “special mission,” worked to bolster “U.S. support for Libya’s democratic transition through engagement with eastern Libya, the birthplace of the revolt against Qaddafi and a regional power center” (p. 2). Put simply, this was a diplomat actively working to overthrow a foreign government. This was a “diplomat” whose work consisted of regime change—despite early official pronouncements to the contrary—and in addition one whose commitment to Libya was restricted to the eastern portion. Subverting a government was accompanied by pandering to regionalist sentiments that have worked to divide and destabilize Libya since the bloody coup against Gaddafi.

If anything, the report seems to suggest that “diplomacy as subversion” is the State Department’s favored model for international engagement, noting: “significantly increased demands on U.S. diplomats to be present in the world’s most dangerous places to advance American interests and connect with populations beyond capitals, and beyond host governments’ reach” (p. 2). “Beyond host governments’ reach” is a pleasant way of saying that U.S. diplomats advance U.S. interests by circumventing the same legally constituted national authorities that the U.S. officially recognizes because it requires their prior permission to even establish an embassy. However, this model does not necessarily rely on establishing formal embassies, a formality that can be dispensed with in the new American diplomacy. This is the case even with Libya today, after Gaddafi—the so-called “consulate” in Benghazi, as some media called it, “was never a consulate,” and the report states that its presence was “never formally notified to the Libyan government”—the current government (pp. 14-15). Elsewhere the report speaks of the “special mission” as having a “non-status” as a “temporary, residential facility” (p. 5). One wonders how the Libyan government was supposed to come to the rescue of an entity that remained a mystery.

With reference to at least unofficially legitimizing Libyan regionalism, which reaches the point of organized secessionism in eastern Libya, the report acknowledges that “Stevens’ presence in the city [Benghazi] was seen as a significant sign of U.S. support for the TNC and a recognition of the resurgence of eastern Libya’s political influence” (p. 13). The report then validates without any question the Benghazi narrative that, “throughout Qaddafi’s decades-long rule, eastern Libya consistently lagged behind Tripoli in terms of infrastructure and standard of living even as it was responsible for the vast majority of Libya’s oil production” (p. 13). (Perhaps the U.S. should consider moving its capital to Texas.) What the report does not consider is that under Gaddafi other historically much more neglected areas—those that were not the privileged seat of the old monarchy—finally began to receive attention, and this bothered some in Benghazi who then (as now) continue to demand nearly exclusive attention to their own interests.

There are many other examples of the rewriting of history to better accord with U.S. interests and designs, but none is more glaring than the complete absence of any mention of U.S. and NATO bombings over eight months and the presence of U.S. and British special forces on the ground, along with hundreds of Qatari troops. The war against Libya never happened. Instead we get a pretty portrait of valiant rebels single-handedly defeating Gaddafi, for example: “The TNC continued attacking the remaining Qaddafi strongholds, and Tripoli fell earlier than expected at the end of August” (p. 14). Indeed, Libya had been visited by “a popular uprising” (p. 13), one so popular that it required U.S. intervention because it had no chances of success otherwise. There is a reminder also that the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli shut down merely days after the first street protests began—a curiously rapid decision (p. 13).

“Oh for the love of Chris!”

The production of this report, and its intended public consumption, is part of what might be kindly called the U.S. government’s “public diplomacy” effort, or in more disquieting terms, strategic information operations. The report is largely an exercise in impression management. The result is hagiography. Ambassador Stevens, we are told, “personified the U.S. commitment to a free and democratic Libya” (p. 2). The Americans who were killed possessed “selfless courage” (p. 3), and their duties were also “performed with courage” (p. 7). Lest ye forget, the report writers recommend that government agencies take yet another opportunity “to recognize their exceptional valor and performance, which epitomized the highest ideals of government service” (p. 12). Christopher Stevens was loved, as reflected by “his ability to move in all sectors of the population” (p. 2)—all sectors. Indeed, then he must still be moving. Often the report reads like a self-aggrandizing lobbying effort, self-conscious of its role as a means of marketing State Department goals in a time of reduced budgets, and often seems as if it had been penned directly by Secretary Clinton herself.

What is odd is that at times the report seems to almost blame Stevens for his own death: “Embassy Tripoli did not demonstrate strong and sustained advocacy with Washington for increased security for Special Mission Benghazi” (p. 4). This is despite publicly available evidence to the contrary, with a number of emails from Stevens that have beenpublished, showing that Stevens had issued “multiple warnings” of security threats. The report nevertheless seems to find fault with him—“but you did not persuade me” you can almost hear them say. And yet, elsewhere the report states that Washington gave “unusual deference to his judgments” (p. 6)—so there is a bit of a contradiction that remains unresolved.

As part of the fog of diplomacy, what remains occluded by this report is the real story of “Benghazi Gate.” That Obama may have been keen to cover up any role of Al Qaeda, which he had loudly proclaimed to be decimated and left adrift after the execution of Bin Laden, is possible. His limited symbolic capital going into the last elections, which he barely won, could not stand to be tarnished. What seems more compelling, occurring precisely at the time when Syria is being targeted by the U.S. and its allies, is the role of Libya as a proxy in a covert war against Syria. This is, after all, an administration that is almost neurotic when it comes to maintaining secrecy (except for when leaks serve the greater glory of the leader’s reputation). In a report that does not even conceive of a Libyan resistance, in the midst of so many dubious friends with agendas that may sometimes overlap with those of the U.S. (and others times, not), one cannot expect to find a sober and rational engagement with the realities of a Libya dismantled by U.S. intervention. That would be like accepting blame, and the report is driven by the need to (re)gain credit, at the expense of continuing to sow misinformation and confusion.

Maximilian Forte, an anthropologist at Concordia University in Montreal, is the author of Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa, and is a CounterPunch contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion. Readers can also view hisdocumentary website on the war in Libya. He usually writes for Zero Anthropology.

Fr Manuel Musallam (R) with Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. (Supplied)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UN: Syria’s Rebels Come From 29 Countries

Influx of Sunni Fighters Adds to Sectarian Tone of Civil War

A report by the UN says that rebel fighters have come from 29 countries, and are overwhelmingly Sunnis flocking to the nation to fight against the Alawite President Bashar Assad.

As the fighting gets more sectarian in nature, it has encouraged more religious fighters from abroad, and as those fighters arrive, they fuel the sectarian tensions all the more, a dangerous cycle that seems likely to just keep getting worse.

The shift has been readily apparent to those watching, as the rebel leadership has gone from overwhelmingly military defectors to a collection of Islamist clerics and Muslim Brotherhood activistscalling the shots in a matter of months, and groups with open endorsements from al-Qaeda like the al-Nusra Front taking center stage in major offensives.

Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz

• House Passes $633 Billion Defense Spending Bill - December 20th, 2012
• Mass Arrests in Iraq: Maliki Moves Against Finance Minister’s Staff - December 20th, 2012
• US Lost More Troops to Suicide Than Combat in 2012 - December 20th, 2012
• Palestinians: If Netanyahu Reelected, We’ll Cut Ties - December 20th, 2012
• Settlers: Latest Approvals First Stage of a New West Bank City - December 20th, 2012

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Numerous commentators have rightly lamented the difference in how these childrens’ deaths are perceived. What explains it?

Tariq Aziz (centre, second row) attending a meeting about drones strikes in Waziristan, held in Islamabad, Pakistan oin 28 October 2011. Three days later, the 16 year old was reported killed by a drone-launched missile. (Photograph: Pratap Chatterjee/BIJ)Over the last several days, numerous commentators have lamented the vastly different reactions in the US to the heinous shooting of children in Newtown, Connecticut as compared to the continuous killing of (far more) children and innocent adults by the US government in Pakistanand Yemen, among other places. The blogger Atrios this weeksuccinctly observed:

“I do wish more people who manage to fully comprehend the broad trauma a mass shooting can have on our country would consider the consequences of a decade of war.”

My Guardian colleague George Monbiot has a powerful and eloquent column this week provocatively entitled: “In the US, mass child killings are tragedies. In Pakistan, mere bug splats”. He points out all the ways that Obama has made lethal US attacks in these predominantly Muslim countries not only more frequent but also more indiscriminate – “signature strikes” and “double-tap” attacks on rescuers and funerals - and then argues:

“Most of the world’s media, which has rightly commemorated the children of Newtown, either ignores Obama’s murders or accepts the official version that all those killed are ‘militants’. The children of north-west Pakistan, it seems, are not like our children. They have no names, no pictures, no memorials of candles and flowers and teddy bears. They belong to the other: to the non-human world of bugs and grass and tissue.

“‘Are we,’ Obama asked on Sunday, ‘prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?’ It’s a valid question. He should apply it to the violence he is visiting on the children of Pakistan.”

Political philosophy professor Falguni Sheth similarly writes that “the shooting in Newtown, CT is but part and parcel of a culture of shooting children, shooting civilians, shooting innocent adults, that has been waged by the US government since September 12, 2001.” She adds:

“And let there be no mistake: many of ‘us’ have directly felt the impact of that culture: Which ‘us’? Yemeni parents, Pakistani uncles and aunts, Afghan grandparents and cousins, Somali brothers and sisters, Filipino cousins have experienced the impact of the culture of killing children. Families of children who live in countries that are routinely droned by the US [government]. Families of children whose villages are raided nightly in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Meanwhile, University of Michigan professor Juan Cole, at the peak of mourning over Newtown, simply urged: “Let’s also Remember the 178 children Killed by US Drones“. He detailed the various ways that children and other innocents have had their lives extinguished by President Obama’s policies, and then posted this powerful (and warning: graphic) one-and-a-half-minute video from a new documentary on drones by filmmaker Robert Greenwald (no relation):

 

Finally, the Yemeni blogger Noon Arabia posted a moving plea on Monday: “Our children’s blood is not cheaper than American blood and the pain of loosing [sic] them is just as devastating. Our children matter too, Mr. President! These tragedies ‘also’ must end and to end them ‘YOU’ must change!”

There’s just no denying that many of the same people understandably expressing such grief and horror over the children who were killed in Newtown steadfastly overlook, if not outright support, the equally violent killing of Yemeni and Pakistani children. Consider this irony: Monday was the three-year anniversary of President Obama’s cruise missile and cluster-bomb attack on al-Majala in Southern Yemen that ended the lives of 14 women and 21 children: one more child than was killed by the Newtown gunman. In the US, that mass slaughter received not even a small fraction of the attention commanded by Newtown, and prompted almost no objections (in predominantly Muslim nations, by contrast, it received ample attention and anger).

It is well worth asking what accounts for this radically different reaction to the killing of children and other innocents. Relatedly, why is the US media so devoted to covering in depth every last detail of the children killed in the Newtown attack, but so indifferent to the children killed by its own government?

To ask this question is not – repeat: is not – to equate the Newtown attack with US government attacks. There are, one should grant, obvious and important differences.

To begin with, it is a natural and probably universal human inclination to care more about violence that seems to threaten us personally than violence that does not. Every American parent sends their children to schools of the type attacked in Newtown and empathy with the victims is thus automatic. Few American parents fear having their children attacked by US drones, cruise missiles and cluster bombs in remote regions in Pakistan and Yemen, and empathy with those victims is thus easier to avoid, more difficult to establish.

One should strive to see the world and prioritize injustices free of pure self-interest – caring about grave abuses that are unlikely to affect us personally is a hallmark of a civilized person – but we are all constructed to regard imminent dangers to ourselves and our loved ones with greater urgency than those that appear more remote. Ignoble though it is, that’s just part of being human – though our capacity to liberate ourselves from pure self-interest means that it does not excuse this indifference.

Then there’s the issue of perceived justification. Nobody can offer, let alone embrace, any rationale for the Newtown assault: it was random, indiscriminate, senseless and deliberate slaughter of innocents. Those who support Obama’s continuous attacks, or flamboyantly display their tortured “ambivalence” as a means of avoiding criticizing him, can at least invokea Cheneyite slogan along with a McVeigh-taught-military-term to pretend that there’s some purpose to these killings: We Have To Kill The Terrorists, and these dead kids are just Collateral Damage. This rationale is deeply dishonest, ignorant, jingoistic, propagandistic, andsociopathic, but its existence means one cannot equate it to the Newtown killing.

But there are nonetheless two key issues highlighted by the intense grief for the Newtown victims compared to the utter indifference to the victims of Obama’s militarism. The first is that it underscores how potent and effective the last decade’s anti-Muslim dehumanization campaign has been.

Every war – particularly protracted ones like the “War on Terror” – demands sustained dehumanization campaigns against the targets of the violence. Few populations will tolerate continuous killings if they have to confront the humanity of those who are being killed. The humanity of the victims must be hidden and denied. That’s the only way this constant extinguishing of life by their government can be justified or at least ignored. That was the key point made in the extraordinarily brave speech given by then-MSNBC reporter Ashleigh Banfield in 2003 after she returned from Iraq, before she was demoted and then fired: that US media coverage of US violence is designed to conceal the identity and fate of its victims.

The violence and rights abridgments of the Bush and Obama administrations have been applied almost exclusively to Muslims. It is, therefore, Muslims who have been systematically dehumanized. Americans virtually never hear about the Muslims killed by their government’s violence. They’re never profiled. The New York Times doesn’t put powerful graphics showing their names and ages on its front page. Their funerals are never covered. President Obama never delivers teary sermons about how these Muslim children “had their entire lives ahead of them – birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own.” That’s what dehumanization is: their humanity is disappeared so that we don’t have to face it.

But this dehumanization is about more than simply hiding and thus denying the personhood of Muslim victims of US violence. It is worse than that: it is based on the implicit, and sometimes overtly stated, premise that Muslims generally, even those guilty of nothing, deserve what the US does to them, or are at least presumed to carry blame.

Just a few months ago, the New York Times reported that the Obama administration has re-defined the term “militant” to mean: “all military-age males in a strike zone” – the ultimate expression of the rancid dehumanizing view that Muslims are inherently guilty of being Terrorists unless proven otherwise. When Obama’s campaign surrogate and former Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about the US killing by drone strike of 16-year-old American citizen Abdulrahman Awlaki two weeks after his father was killed, Gibbs unleashedone of the most repulsive statements heard in some time: that Abdulrahman should have “had a more responsible father”. Even when innocent Muslim teenagers are killed by US violence, it is their fault, and not the fault of the US and its leaders.

All of this has led to rhetoric and behavior that is nothing short of deranged when it comes to discussing the Muslim children and other innocents killed by US violence. I literally have never witnessed mockery over dead children like that which is spewed from some of Obama’s hard-core progressive supporters whenever I mention the child-victims of Obama’s drone attacks. Jokes like that are automatic. In this case at least, the fish rots from the head: recall President Obama’s jovial jokes at a glamorous media dinner about his use of drones to kill teeangers (sanctioned by the very same political faction that found Bush’s jokes about his militarism – delivered at the same media banquet several years earlier – so offensive). Just as is true of Gibbs’ deranged and callous rationale, jokes like that are possible only when you have denied the humanity of those who are killed. Would Newtown jokes be tolerated by anyone?

Dehumanization of Muslims is often overt, by necessity, in US military culture. The Guardian headline to Monbiot’s column refers to the term which Rolling Stones’ Michael Hastingsreported is used for drone victims: “bug splat”. And consider this passage from an amazing story this week in Der Spiegel (but not, notably, in US media) on a US drone pilot, Brandon Bryant, who had to quit because he could no longer cope with the huge amount of civilian deaths he was witnessing and helping to cause:

“Bryant and his coworkers sat in front of 14 computer monitors and four keyboards. When Bryant pressed a button in New Mexico, someone died on the other side of the world. . . .

“[H]e remembers one incident very clearly when a Predator drone was circling in a figure-eight pattern in the sky above Afghanistan, more than 10,000 kilometers (6,250 miles) away. There was a flat-roofed house made of mud, with a shed used to hold goats in the crosshairs, as Bryant recalls. When he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser. The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact. . . .

“With seven seconds left to go, there was no one to be seen on the ground. Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point. Then it was down to three seconds. Bryant felt as if he had to count each individual pixel on the monitor. Suddenly a child walked around the corner, he says.

“Second zero was the moment in which Bryant’s digital world collided with the real one in a village between Baghlan and Mazar-e-Sharif.

“Bryant saw a flash on the screen: the explosion. Parts of the building collapsed.The child had disappeared. Bryant had a sick feeling in his stomach.

“‘Did we just kill a kid?’ he asked the man sitting next to him.

“‘Yeah, I guess that was a kid,’ the pilot replied.

“‘Was that a kid?’ they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.

“Then, someone they didn’t know answered, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack. ‘No. That was a dog,’ the person wrote.

“They reviewed the scene on video. A dog on two legs?”

Seeing Muslim children literally as dogs: few images more perfectly express the sustained dehumanization at the heart of US militarism and aggression over the last decade.

Citizens of a militaristic empire are inexorably trained to adopt the mentality of their armies: just listen to Good Progressive Obama defenders swagger around like they’re decorated, cigar-chomping combat veterans spouting phrases like “war is hell” and “collateral damage” to justify all of this. That is the anti-Muslim dehumanization campaign rearing its toxic head.

There’s one other issue highlighted by this disparate reaction: the question of agency and culpability. It’s easy to express rage over the Newtown shooting because so few of us bear any responsibility for it and – although we can take steps to minimize the impact and make similar attacks less likely – there is ultimately little we can do to stop psychotic individuals from snapping. Fury is easy because it’s easy to tell ourselves that the perpetrator – the shooter – has so little to do with us and our actions.

Exactly the opposite is true for the violence that continuously kills children and other innocent people in the Muslim world. Many of us empowered and cheer for the person responsible for that. US citizens pay for it, enable it, and now under Obama, most at the very least acquiesce to it if not support it. It’s always much more difficult to acknowledge the deaths that we play a role in causing than it is to protest those to which we believe we have no connection. That, too, is a vital factor explaining these differing reactions.

Please spare me the objection that the Newtown shooting should not be used to make a point about the ongoing killing of Muslim children and other innocents by the US. Over the last week, long-time gun control advocates have seized on this school shooting in an attempt to generate support for their political agenda, and they’re perfectly right to do so: when an event commands widespread political attention and engages human emotion, that is exactly when one should attempt to persuade one’s fellow citizens to recognize injustices they typically ignore. That is no more true for gun control than it is the piles of corpses the Obama administration continues to pile up for no good reason – leaving in their wake, all over the Muslim world, one Newtown-like grieving ritual after the next.

As Monbiot observed: “there can scarcely be a person on earth with access to the media who is untouched by the grief of the people” in Newtown. The exact opposite is true for the children and their families continuously killed in the Muslim world by the US government: huge numbers of people, particularly in the countries responsible, remain completely untouched by the grief that is caused in those places. That is by design – to ensure that opposition is muted – and it is brutally effective.

At the Edge of the Carbon Cliff

by Stephen Leahy

Water Is Invaluable

by Mary Grant

by SR Editor on 12/20/2012

I’M writing from Finland this week, where the omnipresence of snowflakes and festiveChristmas lights heralds another year celebrating the birth of Jesus.

In parallel, the descendants of the Messiah in Palestine are marking another year of abominable Israeli occupation.

Indulged with indifference to the collective sorrow cloaking the hearts of native Christians in the holy land, the West turns another leaf, rejoicing the birth of the Prince of Peace.

However, in present-day Palestine, Jesus is no longer a prince and peace remains a phantom.

If Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary were to venture on their historic journey to Bethlehem today, they would have to navigate roads reserved for foreignsettlers, overcome military checkpointsand scale high walls to get there.

More than 2,000 years ago they fled Herod the Great, “King of Jews”, to save their baby.

Nowadays, Palestinian Christians are fleeing descendants of the King of Khazar – an aspiring flat copy of Herod – who has Polish pedigree and was christened Benjamin Mileikowsky.

He later became known as Benjamin Netanyahu, the current Israeli Prime Minister whose main political ally is the Moldovan Evet Lvovich (Avigdor) Lieberman.

According to Israeli human rights groups, there was a portentous increase in religious hate crimes directed towards historical Christian monasteries, churches and graveyards in 2012.

The most recent was a week ago, when suspected Jewish extremists (Price Tag) associated with Israel’s settlement movement defiled the Greek Orthodox monastery in Jerusalemwith graffiti.

FILE- In this Sept. 4, 2012, file photo, a Catholic monk stands in a doorway of the Latrun Trappist Monastery where Israeli police say vandals spray-painted anti-Christian and pro-settler graffiti and set the monastery’s door on fire, in Latrun, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israel. After a series of attacks on Christian holy sites in Israel, Roman Catholic church officials recently issued a rare “declaration” calling on Israeli leaders to take action against vandalism and violence.(AP Photo/Oded Balilty, File)

In July, elected Israeli MP Michael Ben Ari desecrated the Christian Bible on camera – calling it a “despicable book” belonging “in history’s trash can” and blaming it for “the murder of millions of Jews” in Europe.

Earlier in the year, the CBS News show 60 Minutes aired a compelling programme onPalestinian Christians in the holy land. Before the broadcast, Israeli Ambassador to the US Michel Oren contacted the head of CBS News in an attempt to quash the report.

In an uncommon gesture, CBS afforded the ambassador a unique opportunity to rebut the story before it aired.

Veteran reporter Bob Simon told the diplomat in an interview before the broadcast: “I’ve never gotten a reaction before from a story that hasn’t been broadcast yet.”

Oren pompously responded: “There’s a first time for everything.”

The ambassador pre-empted the show in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, but instead of addressing Israel’s mistreatment of Christians, Oren blamed Muslims for oppressing and massacring “Christian communities throughout the Middle East”, claiming that Christianity was “thriving” in Israel.

Responding to Oren’s assertions, 80 native Christian leaders denounced his bid to blame Christians’ hardship on Muslims as “shameful manipulation of the facts intended to mask the damage that Israel has done to our community”.

As for the “thriving” Christianity in Israel, they explained that the growth was attributed to a large number of “Russian Christians whom Israel was unable to distinguish from Jewish immigrants pouring into the country after the fall of the Soviet Union”.

 

 

A native Christian activist, Philip Farah, challenged Ambassador Oren: “If your country is so good to Christians, why don’t you allow me, my family and thousands of PalestinianChristians to return to our home?”

In 1948, Israel indiscriminately razed more than 500 Palestinian villages, including predominantly Christian towns such as Iqrit and Kufr Bir’m, to name just two.

Likewise, these days Israeli settlements and the wall of separation are encroaching and confiscating land belonging to Palestinians of all persuasions.

This Christmas, new Israeli Herods abetted by Western powers are driving Christians from their land and transforming native churches into Israeli tourist attractions and grand “archaeological sites” like the Pyramids, detached from their aboriginal traditions.

Article by Jamal Kanj | Sabbah Report: http://sabbah.biz/mt/?p=16180

More posts by SR Editor

• They can attack our bodies but not our strength
• Do Arabs Cry For Their Children Too?
• Gaza to Galilee: The colonial context
• New Zealand boycott companies of Israeli settlement-builder Lev Leviev
• More Than 30 Top U.S. Officials Guilty of War Crimes, Boyle Says

by Stephen Lendman

He’s defiant. He deplores democratic values. He’s a serial lawbreaker.

International law is clear and unambiguous. Israeli settlements are illegal. Fourth Geneva’s Article 49 states:

“Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.”

Israel built illegally for decades. Around 600,000 settlers occupy over half the West Bankand parts of East Jerusalem. Netanyahu plans accelerated construction. Doing so requires stealing Palestinian land, demolishing private homes, and dispossessing residents.

Netanyahu officials said 6,000 new settler homes will be built. Controversial plans call for 2,600 in East Jerusalem. Many more are planned for E1 Ma’aleh Adumin development. More on that below.

Haaretz weighed in. Its December 19 editorial headlined “Building out of spite,” saying:

“The madness of construction in the territories is blinding the government (to) the loss of our country’s” dwindling number of friends.

Controversial building assures “serious crisis” building with important allies. At issue is what’s hard for them to countenance.

East Jerusalem and E1 construction “seem less for….solving housing problems and more” about entirely Judaizing East Jerusalem, spurning Palestinian self-determination, and preventing real conflict resolution.

Doing so punishes Palestinian officials “for daring to ask (and) receive” upgraded UN non-member international recognition.

Pleasure Netanyahu and likeminded hardliners derive comes at the expense of deteriorated international relations. Palestine’s support grows. Boycott calls increase. Spiteful construction assures “colliding with the iceberg hovering over us.”

Netanyahu shows no signs of backing off. He represents the worst of hardline governance. He embraces terror state policies. His rap sheet goes way beyond lawless construction. They’re bad enough.

Planned E1 construction exceeds how far most observers imagined he’d go. His surprises further expose his dark side. A previous article explained the following:

In 1999, Israel approved an E1 master plan. It covers about 12,000 dunams. Israel declared them “state land.” Doing so was illegal.

In 1979, Israel’s High Court Elon Moreh case decision prohibited requisitioning privatePalestinian land for settlement construction. Israel ignored the ruling. Straightaway it declared 900,000 dunams state land. It steals Palestinian land with impunity.

Ma’ale Adumim settlement claims jurisdiction over 48,000 dunams. E1 construction involves stealing private Palestinian land.

Israel wants it for residential housing, commerce, tourism, regional services, and other Jews-only development. Detailed plans were approved.

E1 and other settlement construction require land theft, home demolitions, forced dispossessions, and denying Palestinian self-determination.

In 1967, settlement construction began. It never stopped. Washington and other Western allies express rhetorical opposition only. Israel freely does what it wants. It governs with impunity.

Netanyahu dismisses world condemnation he knows has no teeth. Arrogantly he claims the right to keep “building in Jerusalem and (all other places) on the map of Israel’s strategic interests.”

International law and standards be damned. The same goes for world opinion. He considers himself above the law. He governs that way. Most Knesset members support him.

On January 22, reelection looks sure. Why worry when short-term he can do what he pleases. Longer-term becomes someone else’s problem.

Passing it on he hopes lets him off the hook. It also helps Judaize all valued parts ofPalestine Israel wants at the expense of displaced residents.

Headlines announced the latest. On December 17, 1,500 new East Jerusalem homes were approved. Netanyahu’s office claimed it’s not new construction. It’s another stage of what’s ongoing.

Jerusalem’s District Planning and Construction Committee approved units in East Jerusalem’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood.

Additional planning stages remain. Final authorization takes time. Reports said expect additional construction announcements.

Two days later one came. A new Jewish neighborhood will arise, it said. It’ll be built south of East Jerusalem. It’s over the Green Line.

More than 2,600 housing units are slated for what’s called Givat Hamatos. It’s a mobile home site. Unwanted Ethiopian immigrants used it.

It’s near Har Homa. In 1997, it was controversial when Netanyahu approved it. It was during his first prime ministerial term.

Although it’s south of the city, it’s part of greater East Jerusalem because it crosses the Green Line. Discussion about an additional 900 units suggests these and more to come.

Deliberations were postponed, not cancelled. Netanyahu plans accelerated construction. Expect new announcements to follow current ones.

They won’t stop until virtually all Palestine is colonized. Israel planned it long ago. Netanyahu’s expediting what most Knesset members approve.

In early December, Israel signaled plans for 3,000 new East Jerusalem and West Bank units. International reaction was harsh.

The State Department’s response was surprising. It accused Israel of engaging in “a pattern of provocative action.” It runs counter to claims about conflict resolution commitments.

Netanyahu dismissed it out of hand. Rhetoric has no teeth. He’s free to do what he pleases. Perhaps one day things will change. Action may back up talk.

What better time than on December 19 after Maan News headlined “Israel presses on with plans for 6,000 new settler homes.”

Israeli officials defied international criticism announcing them. Settlements across the West Bank and East Jerusalem will be expanded.

Besides numbers already approved, discussions head toward authorizing thousands more. PA unelected Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said:

“Settlement activity is unilateral and is completely adverse to the continued viability of a two-state solution and the possibility for our people to continue to exist. It’s an attack on our people’s right to life.”

Years ago two states were possible. No longer. Fayyad and other PA officials know but won’t say. One state for all its people is today’s only option.

It’s too obvious to ignore. It’s impossible. Perhaps it will become internationally recognized.

Don’t expect acknowledgement enough to shift the dynamic on the ground. Hardline Israeli obstinacy prevents it.

Netanyahu, of course, and most Knesset members reject it. Palestinians are considered sub-human. They’re denied fundamental rights.

Nothing ahead suggests change. Conflict resolution remains distant. Netanyahu and likeminded hardliners stand firm on hidebound obstinancy. International disapproval is dismissed.

A Final Comment

In mid-July 2010, Knesset members stripped MK Hanin Zoabi of key parliamentary rights and privileges. They did so for participating in the May 2010 Freedom Flotilla. It tried bringing vital humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Arab MKs are accustomed to marginalization, threats, abuse, and lawless actions against them.

Zoabi’s called a “traitor. She’s been vilified and threatened. On December 19, Haaretz announced the latest. Israel’s election committee disqualified her from seeking reelection.

Doing so is lawless. Israel’s High Court will have final say. It’s likely to overturn the disgraceful ruling. Ten previous election committee rulings attempted to disqualify parties or candidates. Only three party disqualifications were upheld.

In 1964, the Socialist Party was banned. Kach’s turn came in 1988 and Kahana Chai in 1992. Disqualified candidates were reinstated.

Knesset debate included hardline MK David Rotem claiming:

“To say that a member of Knesset was aboard the Mavi Marmara does not constitute the critical mass equaling support for a terrorist organization reflects a lack of understanding of what happened aboard that ship.”

MK Aryeh Eldad added:

“I am a doctor and believe in preventive medicine. You don’t have to wait for people to be caught spying or committing treason before barring them from running.”

Arab MK Ahmed Tibi’s rejoinder said Israel’s election committee is politically motivated. It’s comprised of “third-rate politicians and frustrated lawyers looking to make headlines at our expense.”

Minutes before the meeting started, Balad party members held a press conference.

Chairman Jamal Zahalks said:

“If Zuabi is disqualified, I will not run in this election and will advise the party to boycott it. Disqualifying me means disqualifying an entire generation of young Arabs.”

The Adalah Legal Center for Arab minority Rights in Israel denounced hardline MKs, saying:

“The petitions are based on isolated and inaccurate quotations published on various websites and therefore do not justify a serious debate.”

Labor and Meretz parties said they won’t support disqualification petitions. Labor MK Isaac Herzog said:

“We view freedom of expression and freedom of opinion as the very lifeblood of Israel’s democracy and we firmly believe in this principle.”

“Any disqualification, whether from the left or the right, is a slippery slope, especially at a time when we must stand firm to ensure the existence of democracy, despite our disgust with many of the statements and positions expressed by various parties and Knesset members whose banning is under discussion.”

“They may be very far from our own philosophy but barring them would be a dangerous mistake.”

Expect High Court reinstatement but no softening in hardline MK views.

Article by Stephen Lendman | © Sabbah Report: http://sabbah.biz/mt/?p=16188

More posts by Stephen Lendman

• Stephen Lendman: Tortured in Sinai, Imprisoned in Israel
• Stephen Lendman: Israel’s Lieberman Resigns
• Stephen Lendman: Holding Israel Accountable for War Crimes
• Stephen Lendman: Netanyahu Mocks Legitimate Governance
• Site 911: Secret US Construction in Israel

Posted by Ira Chernus at 9:24am, December 20, 2012.
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[Note for TomDispatch Readers: Once again, many thanks to all of you who contributed to our year-end funding drive.  In the last couple of weeks, amazingly enough, contributions have come in from 40 states and 12 other countries.  I can’t thank those of you who ensured that we’ll stay afloat in 2013 enough!  (Anyone who meant to send in a contribution -- and possibly get one of our signed TD books in return -- but hasn’t done so yet, don’t forget tocheck out our donation page.)  In addition, a small reminder for the Amazon customers among you.  If, in this gift-giving season, you go to Amazon via a TomDispatch book link or book-cover-image link, no matter what you then buy there, TD gets a small cut of your purchase at no extra cost to you. Tom]

The future has its surprises.  Even the most farseeing among us, even the seers of the U.S. Intelligence Community, are — for better or worse — regularly caught off-guard by what tomorrow has to offer.  Take the murderous acts of two disturbed young men.  No, not Adam Lanza, but Jared Loughner wielding his Glock semi-automatic pistol with its 33-round extended magazine, and James Holmes with his “semiautomatic variation of the military’s M-16 rifle, a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun, and at least one .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol.”

The attempted assassination of a member of the House of Representatives in Tucson in January 2011 and the mayhem and killings in a movie house in Aurora, Colorado, in July 2012 shocked the nation.  Each time, the president comforted an unnerved public, while a downsizing media leapt at the opportunity to focus on a single eyeball-gluing event for days on end (undoubtedly the cheapest way to go).  When it comes to the coverage of slaughter-by-gun in America these days — from teddy bear memorials to religious services, first responders to final burials — you can almost do it by the numbers, with a rolodex already filled with grief counselors, psychologists, gun experts, religious figures, and the like.

If you had to guess, you might have said that no two events were more likely to put the issue of guns and gun control back on the American agenda — and of course you would have been wrong.  Afterwards, if you had read the experts and the pundits, you would have known that the issue of gun control was as dead as any of the victims of those massacres and off the American agenda for years, if not forever.  The polls assured us of the same.  The conclusion seemed clear enough: American innocents could die en masse at the hands of disturbed guys with access to powerful weaponry and the public would still prefer fewer controls on weapons.

All that held true until a disturbed young man, who had killed his gun-hobbyist (possibly gun-obsessive) mother and then employed a rifle that the New York Times described as “a semiautomatic… that is similar to weapons used by troops in Afghanistan,” massacred 20 small children, a school principal, and five staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, a (gun-loving) Connecticut community.

Once again, we had days of obliterating media coverage, with the usual experts, pundits, and rites, including a community in shock, grieving, and pulling itself together, and of course President Obama comforting its citizens with “the whole world watching.”  Once again, mindboggling facts about gun-selling and gun-ownership in this country began making the rounds: there are only 14,000 more gas stations than federally licensed firearms dealers in the United States (143,839 to 129,817); more than nine times as many dealers as McDonalds (14,098); and by conservative estimate, 3.3-3.5 million of the AR-15-style rifle used by Lanza have been produced for domestic use since 1986 in the U.S.

This time, however, something different happened, something no one had expected or predicted, that, in fact, everyone knew was inconceivable: the polls showed sudden, spasmic surges of support for stricter gun laws (an overnight 18% rise in the latest CBS poll, for example).  Suddenly, gun control was on everyone’s agenda, a ban on assault weapons on lips all over Washington (andbacked by the president), and movement in the air.  In such a heavily armed and fear-ridden country, all of this may not, in the end, add up to a hill of beans (or ammo) in policy terms, but it remains striking nonetheless.

Looking ahead, the lesson is simple enough: when it comes to 2013, take the predictions of the pundits with a grain of salt.  Ignore everyone who knows that the usual will be the norm and make a New Year’s wish for the surprises that, looking backward, litter history.  One possibility that not a pundit anywhere in the U.S. mainstream is likely to consider at the moment: that next year, for the first time in memory, the U.S. and Israel, as TomDispatch regular and professor of religious studies Ira Chernus suggests, may be genuinely at odds, and that Washington may, at long last, move to put the brakes on Israeli settlement expansion into Palestinian lands. Tom

Are the U.S. and Israel Heading for a Showdown? 
No One Thinks So, But It Just Might Happen 
By Ira Chernus

Here’s the question no one is asking as 2012 ends, especially given the effusive public support the Obama administration offered Israel in its recent conflict with Hamas in Gaza: Will 2013 be a year of confrontation between Washington and Jerusalem?  It’s on no one’s agenda for the New Year. But it could happen anyway.

It’s true that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process appears dead in the water. No matter how much Barack Obama might have wanted that prize, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rebuffed him at every turn.  The president appears to have taken it on the chin, offering more than the usual support for Israel and in return getting kloom (as they say in Hebrew).  Nothing at all.

However, the operative word here is “appears.” In foreign affairs what you see — a show carefully scripted for political purposes — often bears little relation to what you actually get.

While the Obama administration has acceded to the imagery of knee-jerk support for whatever Israel does, no matter how outrageous, behind the scenes its policies are beginning to look far less predictable. In fact, unlikely as it may seem, a showdown could be brewing between the two countries. If so, the outcome will depend on a complicated interplay between private diplomacy and public theater.

The latest well-masked U.S. intervention came in the brief November war between Israel and Gaza. It began when Israel assassinated a top Hamas leader deeply involved in secret truce talks between the supposedly non-communicating foes.

Destructive as it was, the war proved brief indeed for one reason: the American president quickly stepped in. Publicly, he couldn’t have sided more wholeheartedly with Israel. (It felt as if Mitt Romney had won, not lost, the election.)  In private, though, as he pressured Egyptian President Morsi to force Hamas to a truce, he reportedly pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just as hard.

The truce agreement even had an Obama-required twist.  It forced Israel to continue negotiating seriously with Hamas about easing the blockade that, combined with repeated destructive Israeli strikes against the Palestinian infrastructure, has plunged Gaza so deep into poverty and misery. Talks on the blockade are reportedly proceeding, though wrapped in the deepest secrecy. It’s hard to imagine Israel upholding the truce and entering into a real dialogue to ease the blockade without significant pressure from Washington.

Washington is also deeply involved in the tensions between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) in the West Bank. When P.A. president Mahmoud Abbas asked the U.N. General Assembly to accord Palestine observer status, Israel publicly denounced any such U.N. resolution. The Obama administration wanted to offer a far softer resolution of its own with Israeli approval. The Israelis gave in and sent a top official to Washington to negotiate the language.

In the end, the U.S. had no success; the stronger resolution passed overwhelmingly. Israel promptly retaliated by announcing that it would build 3,000 additional housing units in various settlements on the West Bank. To make the response stronger, the Israeli government indicated that it would also make “preliminary zoning and planning preparations” for new Israeli settlements in the most contentious area of the West Bank, known as E1. Settlements there would virtually bisect the West Bank and complete a Jewish encirclement of Jerusalem,ending any hope for a two-state solution.

Washington Can Lay Down the Law

There is a history of the Israeli government publicly announcing settlement expansions for symbolic political effect, and then, under U.S. pressure, pursuing only limited construction or none at all. Some observers suspect Netanyahu is now playing the same game.

As the New York Times reported, “For years, American and European officials have told the Israelis that E1 is a red line. The leaked, somewhat vague, announcement… is a potent threat that may well, in the end, not be carried out because the Israeli government worries about its consequences.” Prominent Israeli columnist Shimon Shiffer was more certain. “Netanyahu,” he wrote, “does not plan to change the policies of his predecessors, who assured the Americans Israel would not build even one house in problematic areas” like E1.

Maybe that’s why Netanyahu sounded so tentative on the subject in an interview: “What we’ve advanced so far is only planning [in E1], and we will have to see. We shall act further based on what the Palestinians do.” Israeli officials admitted to theNew York Times that the move on E1 was “symbolism against symbolism.”

But several European nations took the E1 threat seriously and responded with unusually sharp criticism. Some Israeli insiders claimed that Obama’s hidden hand was at work here, too. The American president, they speculated, gave the Europeans “the green light to respond with extreme measures… The European move is essentially an American move.”  If so, it was all done in private, of course.  (The White House publicly denied the claim.)

However Peter Beinart, editor of the Open Zionpage at the Daily Beast and author of The Crisis of Zionism, claims administration officials have told him that such behind-the-scenes maneuvering is Obama’s new strategy. Publicly, Washington will “stand back and let the rest of the world do the confronting. Once the U.S. stops trying to save Israel from the consequences of its actions, the logic goes, and once Israel feels the full brunt of its mounting international isolation, its leaders will be scared into changing course.”

As Beinart suggests, international isolation is what worries Israelis most. A cut-off of U.S. military aid would be troubling indeed but in itself hardly fatal, since Israel already has the strongest military in the Middle East and a sizeable military-industrial-high-tech complex of its own.

What Israel needs, above all, from the U.S. is diplomatic support to protect it from international rejection, economic boycotts, and a diplomatic tsunami that could turn Israel into a pariah state. Political analysts have long assumed that any Israeli leader who loses the protection of the U.S. would pay the price at the polls.

That’s why some insiders, like Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt, think Obama can “lay down the law” to Israel on E1 — behind closed doors, of course. The influential Israeli journalist Anshel Pfeffer puts the situation in the simplest of terms: “It is clear who is boss.”

Obama’s New Diplomatic Weapon

The rules of Israel’s political game, however, may also be changing. And that’s a key to understanding why 2013 could be the year of confrontation between the leaderships of the two countries. Netanyahu has allied his Likud party with the strongest party to its right, Yisrael Beitenu. To seal his victory in the upcoming election on January 22nd, he’s put his political fate in the hands (or talons) of his country’s hawks.

If he wins (which everyone assumes he will), he’ll have to satisfy those hawks — and they don’t care about shrewd secret bargaining or holding on to allies. What they want, above all, are public displays of unilateral strength made with much fanfare, exactly like the recent settlement-expansion announcement and the accompanying threat to turn E1 into an Israeli suburb. Many observers have suggested that the primary audience was Netanyahu’s new, ever-more-right-wing partners. Plenty of them still don’t trust him, especially after the ceasefire in Gaza under pressure from Washington.

Most analysts saw the Israeli announcement as a public punishment of the Palestinians for their success at the U.N. The BBC’s Kevin Connolly had a different interpretation: Israeli hawks felt that letting the U.N. vote pass without some strong response “would be seen as a sign of weakness.”

Israeli political life has always been haunted by a fear of weakness and a conviction that Jews are condemned to vulnerability in a world full of anti-Semites eager to destroy them. The hawks’ worldview is built upon this myth of insecurity. It demands instant retaliation so that Jews can show the world — but more importantly themselves — that they are strong enough to resist every real or (more often) imagined threat.

To keep the show going, they must have enemies. So they seek out confrontations and, at the same time, “actually welcome isolation,” as the venerable Israeli commentator Uri Avnery says, “because it confirms again that the entire world is anti-Semitic, and not to be trusted.”

“For the sake of his target voter,” writes another Israeli columnist, Bradley Burston, “it’s in Netanyahu’s direct interest for the world to hate Israelis” and for Obama to be “fed up and furious with Israel. That is, at least until Election Day.”

Obama owes the Israeli prime minister nothing after the recent U.S. election season in which Netanyahu practically campaigned for Mitt Romney and publicly demanded that the U.S. threaten an attack on Iran –- a demand that the administration publicly rebuffed.  The president might finally be fed up, and so in a mood to ratchet up private pressure on the Israelis.

If Obama is planning to put more heat on them, he will undoubtedly wait until after their election. Then, in the late winter months of 2013, before spring comes and Netanyahu can revive the possibility of an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, the president might well provoke a showdown.

He has good reason. If he can secure a definitive halt to settlement expansion, he can bring the Palestinians back to the table with a promise to press Israel to negotiate seriously for a two-state solution. In a chaotic region where the U.S. seems to be losing ground weekly, Washington could score sizeable foreign policy points, especially in improving relations with regional powers Turkey and Egypt.

And faced with Netanyahu’s new post-election government, Obama would find himself with a new diplomatic weapon in his arsenal. Suppose — an administration aide might suggest to an Israeli counterpart — the U.S. publicly reveals that it’s allowing, perhaps even pushing, other nations to isolate Israel.

Some Israeli hawks would undoubtedly welcome the chance to proclaim Obama as Israel’s greatest enemy and demand that Netanyahu resist all pressure. But Israeli centrists — still a large part of the electorate — would be dismayed, or worse, at the thought of losing Washington as their last bulwark against international rejection. The fear that Israel could become a pariah state, blacklisted, embargoed, and without its lone invaluable ally would be a powerful incentive. They’d insist that Netanyahu show flexibility to avoid that fate.

Netanyahu would find himself caught in a political battle he could never hope to win. To avoid such a trap, he might well risk yielding in private to U.S. pressure, with the understanding that the two allies would publicly deny any change in policy and the U.S. would continue to offer effusive public support. (The Israelis could always find some bureaucratic excuse to explain a halt — even if termed a “delay” — to settlement expansion.)

Battle on the Home Front

That prospect should be tempting for Obama, but he has domestic political risks of his own to weigh.

There’s a common misconception that the administration worries most about “the Jews.” The latest polls, however, show 73% of U.S. Jews supporting Obama’s policies on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nearly as many want him to propose a specific plan for a two-state solution, even if it means publicly disagreeing with Israel. Nor is there too much reason to worry about Jewish money, since most Jewish contributors to the Democrats are liberals who are pro-Israel but also pro-peace.

Nor are Christian Zionists the big problem. They do have some clout in Washington, but not enough to make Obama fear them.

The administration’s main worry is undoubtedly the Republican Party and especially its representatives in Congress. Recent polls by CNN, the Huffington Post, and Pew indicate that Republicans are roughly twice as likely as Democrats to take Israel’s side, while Democrats are about five times as likely to sympathize with Palestinians. Men, whites, and older people are most likely to support Israel unreservedly in the conflict.

In the U.S. presidential campaign, Republicans were eager to play on the traditional American belief in Israel’s insecurity: an innocent victim surrounded by vicious Arabs eager to destroy the little Jewish state. Obama, the GOP charged, had “thrown Israel under the bus.”

But the issue never gained real traction, an indication that the domestic political climate may be changing. Another small sign of change: a relatively weak measure threatening a cutoff of funding to the Palestinians, which in the past would have sailed through Congress, recently died in the Senate.

If Obama and the Democrats come out of the “fiscal cliff” process looking strong, they will feel freer to put real pressure on Israel despite Republican criticism. The more they can keep that pressure hidden from public view, while mouthing all the old “we stand with Israel” clichés, the more likely they are to take the risk.

In such a situation, Israeli right-wingers might well give their GOP allies enough evidence to rip off the mask. Then, Obama would have to speak more candidly to the American people, though his honesty would surely be well tempered with political spin.

Our goal, he might say, has always been to make Israel secure, something long ago achieved. We’ve ensured that Israel maintains such a huge military advantage over its neighbors, including its Iron Dome missile defense system, that it is now effectively safe from any attack. And we’ll continue ensuring that Israel maintains its military superiority, as we are required to do by law.

But now at long last, he would continue, we are showing our friendship in a new way: by bringing Israel and its Palestinian neighbors to the negotiating table so that they can make peace. Israelis shouldn’t have to live eternally in a fortress. We refuse to condemn them to that kind of future. We are instead taking steps to help them be free to flourish in a nation that is genuinely secure because it has made peace. Some may call it tough love, but let everyone understand that it is an act of love.

Whether Obama believed such talk or not would hardly matter. Public theater deftly meshed with private diplomacy is the key to peace. And confrontation in 2013 could be the first step on the path toward it.

Ira Chernus is a TomDispatch regular and professor of religious studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  He is the author, among other works, of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin and the online collection “MythicAmerica: Essays.” He blogs at MythicAmerica.us.

Copyright 2012 Ira Chernus

Given desks, email accounts and top-level security clearances in Kabul, they pored through classified intelligence reports, participated in senior-level strategy sessions and probed the assessments of field officers in order to advise Petraeus about how to fight the war differently.

Their compensation from the US government for their efforts, which often involved 18-hour work days, seven-day weeks and dangerous battlefield visits? Zero dollars.

Although Fred Kagan said he and his wife wanted no pay in part to remain “completely independent”, the extraordinary arrangement raises new questions about the access and influence Petraeus accorded to civilian friends while he was running the Afghan war.

Petraeus allowed his biographer-turned-paramour, Paula Broadwell, to read sensitive documents and accompany him on trips. But the access granted to the Kagans, whose think-tank work has been embraced by Republican politicians, went even further.

The general made the Kagans de facto senior advisers, a status that afforded them numerous private meetings in his office, priority travel across the war zone and the ability to read highly secretive transcripts of intercepted Taliban communications, according to current and former senior US military and civilian officials who served in the HQ at the time.

The Kagans used those privileges to advocate substantive changes in the US war plan, including a harder-edged approach than some officers advocated in combating the Haqqani network, a Taliban faction in eastern Afghanistan, the officials said.

The pro bono relationship, which is now being scrutinised by military lawyers, yielded valuable benefits for the general and the couple. The Kagans’ proximity to Petraeus, the country’s most famous living general, provided an incentive for defence contractors to contribute to Kim Kagan’s think tank. For Petraeus, embracing two respected national security analysts in Republican circles helped to shore up support for the war among Republican leaders on Capitol Hill.

Fred Kagan, speaking in an interview with his wife, acknowledged the arrangement was “strange and uncomfortable” at times. “We were going around speaking our minds, trying to force people to think about things in different ways and not being accountable to the heads” of various departments in the headquarters, he said.

The extent of the couple’s involvement in Petraeus’s headquarters was not known to senior White House and Pentagon officials involved in war policy, two of those officials said. More than a dozen senior military officers and civilian officials were interviewed for this article; most spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. Petraeus, through a former aide, declined to comment for the piece.

As war-zone volunteers, the Kagans were not bound by the stringent rules that apply to military personnel and private contractors. They could  raise concerns directly with Petraeus, instead of going through subordinate officers, and were free to speak their minds without repercussion.

Some military officers and civilian US government employees in Kabul praised the couple’s contributions — one general noted that “they did the work of 20 intelligence analysts”. Others expressed deep unease about their activities in the headquarters, particularly because of their affiliations and advocacy in Washington.

Fred Kagan, who works at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, was one of the intellectual architects of President George W Bush’s troop surge in Iraq and has sided with the Republican Party on many national security issues. Kim Kagan runs the Institute for the Study of War, which favours an aggressive US foreign policy. The Kagans supported President Obama’s decision to order a surge in Afghanistan, but they later broke with the White House on the subject of troop reductions. Both argue against any significant drawdown in forces there next year.

After the couple’s most recent trip in September, they provided a briefing on the war and other foreign policy matters to the Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan.

The Kagans said they continued to receive salaries from their think-tanks while in Afghanistan. Kim Kagan’s institute is funded in part by large defence contractors. During Petraeus’s tenure in Kabul, she sent out a letter soliciting contributions so the organisation could continue its military work, according to two people who saw the letter.

On 8 August 2011, a month after he relinquished command in Afghanistan to take over at the CIA, Petraeus spoke at the institute’s first “President’s Circle” dinner, where he accepted an award from Kim Kagan. The private event, held at the Newseum in Washington, also drew executives from defence contractors who fund the institute.

“What the Kagans do is they grade my work on a daily basis,” Petraeus said, prompting chortles from the audience. “There’s some suspicion that there’s a hand up my back, and it makes my lips talk, and it’s operated by one of the Doctors Kagan.”

Before the Iraq war hit rock bottom, the Kagans were little-known academics with doctorates in military history from Yale University who taught at West Point. He specialised in the Soviets, she in the ancient Greeks and Romans.

In 2005, Fred Kagan jumped to the American Enterprise Institute and joined the fractious debate over the Iraq war, arguing against the Bush administration’s planned troop withdrawals. His follow-on research, conducted with his wife and retired General Jack Keane, the former vice chief of staff of the Army, provided the strategic underpinning for the troop surge Bush approved in January 2007. After Obama was elected, he made clear that his strategic priority was Afghanistan. In March 2009, they co-wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times that called for sending more forces to Afghanistan.

When General Stanley McChrystal assumed command of the war that summer, he invited several national security experts to help draft an assessment of the conflict for the Defence Secretary, Robert Gates. The 14-member group included experts from several Washington think-tanks. Among them were the Kagans. The Afghan assessment struck an alarming tone that helped McChrystal make his case for a troop surge, which Obama eventually authorised.

The Kagans should have been thrilled, but they soon grew concerned. They thought McChrystal’s headquarters was not providing enough information to them about the state of the war. The military began to slow-roll their requests to visit Afghanistan. In early 2010, they wrote an email to McChrystal, copied to Petraeus, that said they “were coming to the conclusion that the campaign was off track and that it was not going to be successful,” Fred Kagan said. Worried about the consequences of losing the Kagans, McChrystal authorised the trip, according to the staff members.

After their trip, which lasted about two weeks, the Kagans penned a piece for the Wall Street Journal. “Military progress is steadily improving dynamics on the ground,” they wrote.

“We obviously came away with… a more nuanced view that persuaded us that we were incorrect in the assessment that we had gone in with,” Fred Kagan said in the interview. The Defence Department permits independent analysts to observe combat operations, but the practice became far more common when Petraeus became the top commander in Iraq. He has said that conversations with outside specialists helped to shape his strategic thinking.

The take-home benefit was equally significant: when the opinion makers returned home, they inevitably wrote in newspapers, gave speeches and testified before Congress, generally imparting a favourable message about progress under Petraeus, all of which helped him sell the war effort and expand his popularity. Petraeus called them his “directed telescopes” and urged them to focus on the challenge of tackling corruption and building an effective government in Afghanistan.

When they returned in September 2010, the Kagans’ writ no longer resembled the traditional think tank visit or an assessment mission intended to inform an incoming commander.

They were given desks in the office of the Strategic Initiatives Group, the commander’s in-house think-tank, which typically is staffed with military officers and civilian government employees. The general’s staff helped upgrade their security clearances from “Secret” to “Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information, the highest-level of US government classification.

The new clearances allowed the Kagans to visit “the pit”, the high-security lower level of the Combined Joint Intelligence Operations Centre on the headquarters. There, they could read transcripts of Taliban phone and radio conversations monitored by the National Security Agency.

“They’d spend hours in there,” said one former senior civilian official at the headquarters. “They talked about how much they loved reading intel.”

Their immersion occurred at an opportune time. Petraeus was fond of speaking about the importance of using troops to protect Afghan communities from insurgents, but he recognised that summer that the Obama White House wanted to narrow the scope of the war. As a consequence, the general decided to emphasise attacking insurgent strongholds – and so did the Kagans. They focused on the Haqqani network, which US officials believe is supported by Pakistan’s intelligence service. Haqqani fighters have conducted numerous high-profile attacks against US and Afghan targets in Kabul and other major cities.

The Kagans believed US commanders needed to shift their focus from protecting key towns and cities to striking Haqqani encampments and smuggling routes, according to several current and former military and civilian officials familiar the issue.

In the summer of 2010, they shared their views with field officers during a trip to the east. “They implied to brigade commanders that Petraeus would prefer them to devote their resources to killing Haqqanis,” said Doug Ollivant, a former adviser to the two-star general in charge of eastern Afghanistan. But Petraeus had not yet issued new directives to his three-star subordinate or the two-star in the east. “It created huge confusion,” a senior officer said. “Everyone knew the Kagans were close to Petraeus, so everyone assumed they were speaking for the boss.”

While the Kagans refused to discuss their work in detail — they said it was privileged and confidential — Fred Kagan insisted that they were careful to note before every meeting “that we were not speaking for Petraeus”.

Fred Kagan said he and his wife wanted to facilitate conversations about vital tactical issues, exposing field commanders “to different ideas and different ways of looking at the problem.”

The Kagans are prolific contributors to debates about national security policy, cranking out a stream of opinion pieces and convening panel discussions at their respective institutions. But once they began working for Petraeus, they ceased writing and commenting in public. “When we were in Afghanistan… we were not playing the Washington game,” Fred Kagan said. “We were not thinking about anything … except how to defeat the enemy.”

Although they functioned as members of Petraeus’s staff, they said they did not want to be paid. “There are actual patriots in the world,” Fred Kagan said. “It was important to me not to be seen to be profiting from the war.” Military officials said the Defence Department travel rules permit civilian experts to provide services to the military without direct compensation. A spokesman for the US Central Command, Colonel John Robinson, said that the military was still examining to what extent Petraeus’s arrangement with the Kagans “satisfied regulations regarding civilian services to government organisations”.

The Kagans’ volunteerism was an open secret at the headquarters, and it bred suspicion. Some officers questioned whether they funnelled confidential information to Republicans – a claim the Kagans deny. Others worried that the couple was serving as in-house spies for Petraeus. A colonel who worked for Petraeus said the Kagans “did great work,” but “the situation was very, very weird. It’s not how you run an HQ.”

For Kim Kagan, spending so many months away from research and advocacy work in Washington could have annoyed many donors to the Institute for the Study of War. But her major backers appear to have been pleased that she cultivated such close ties with Petraeus, who went from Kabul to head the CIA before resigning this autumn over his affair with Broadwell. At the August 2011 dinner honouring Petraeus, Kagan thanked executives from two defence contractors who sit on her institute’s corporate council, DynCorp International and CACI International. The event was sponsored by General Dynamics. All three firms have business interests in the Afghan war.

Kagan told the audience that their funding allowed her to assist Petraeus. “The ability to have a 15-month deployment essentially in the service of those who needed some help – and the ability to go at a moment’s notice – that’s something you have sponsored,” she said.

After accepting the award, Petraeus heaped praise on the institute. “Thanks to all of you for supporting an organisation that General Keane very accurately described as filling a niche — a very, very important one,” he said. “It’s now a deployable organisation. We’re going to start issuing them combat service stripes.”

Timeline: David Petraeus

7 November 1952:  Born in New York.

1972: Marries Holly Knowlton.

2006: Meets Paula Broadwell, a Harvard graduate.

October 2008: Promoted to head of US Central Command.

June 2010: Appointed head of international forces in Afghanistan.

September 2011: Takes up post as director of the CIA. November 2011: Starts affair with Ms Broadwell.

January 2012: Ms Broadwell publishes book on General David Petraeus.

June 2012: FBI establishes harrassing emails between Broadwell and Jill Kelley.

22-29 October: Petraeus admits to affair with Ms Broadwell, but denies leaking any security information.

9 November: President Obama accepts his resignation.

13 November: General John Allen, the top US commander in Afghanistan, under internal investigation.

Washington Post

Syria: Palestinian Camp Empties Pending Government Counter-Attack 

By Franklin Lamb

December 20, 2012 “Information Clearing House” - A few thoughts rushed through this observers mind when he saw a distraught looking woman sitting alone, tightly holding two babies, at one corner of the vast parking lot of the central Damascus bus station known as Al-Soumariyeh. It is from here where inexpensive transportation can be had for those traveling west, east, north and south.

One thought was about a character out of a Charles Dickens novel and the other was ‘waif, frail, malnourished, frightened’, so the lady, holding the babies appeared. She managed a polite but weak smile as I passed and she said “hello.”

Long story made short, the lady and I chatted and it turned out that Souha was fleeing the al-Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood on the southern edge of Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp. This is one of the ‘hot-line’ areas of Yarmouk, where on 12/16/12 approximately 400 Jabhat al-Nusra (Nusra Front) militia fighters joined by various other salafist jihadists defeated Palestinian “popular committees” fighters supposedly loyal to Ahmed Jabil’s, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-GC (PFLP-GC). There are various unconfirmed estimates of how many ‘General Command’ fighters defected during the fighting to the rebel forces, but the PFLP-GC admits that some did. Also in the camp are some fighters from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the Popular Front (PFLP).

Souha who is studying English literature, had lost her husband and was trying to travel to Ein el Helwe refugee camp in Saida, Lebanon. She had the name of a distant relative, she thought was still living in Ein el Helwe, but she was unsure how to find her but knew that she desperately needed to get out of Syria.

Nearly 70% (UNWRA puts the figure at 90%) of the 180,000 Yarmouk camp residents in the 2.1 square-kilometer camparea have, as of this morning fled. This figure was provided by, Anwar Raja, politburo member of the ‘General Command” with whom this observer had a three hour meeting during the night of 12/18/2012 inside the north edge of Yarmouk. Any camp resident with a MTN or Syriatel mobile phone got a text message, from the Syrian military to leave the camp for their own safety.

Souha asked me if I had heard about the problems of the Palestinian people and explained that she fled the bombing at Yarmouk camp and that most of her neighbors also scattered. Some of the thousands of refugees who continue to flee Yarmouk can be seen today near central Damascus, and sitting in the streets of Midan. These areas are still safe. Other are huddled in parks and camped under concrete underpasses, in schools, mosques and basically anywhere they can find a spot. Many are sleeping on sidewalks at al-Sabaa Bahrat square. A friend and I spoke last night to a family of four who had only thin UNCHR blankets for the night.

Souha said she was afraid to seek safety in a Mosque because they are no longer a safe refuge and she explained that she passed about a dozen bodies on the steps and front ground next to the Abdul Qader Al-Hosseini mosque as she left Yarmouk.

Happy to learn that there are actually non-stop vans going from central Damascus to Saida, Lebanon, without having to change vehicles, we found the driver, agreed on a price of 30 LL (about $ 45) for Souha and the same price for her two babies. I insisted on a two-for-one price for the little ones and since it was starting to get dark, the nice fellow agreed. I gave Souha what money I had and also contact information for friends in Lebanon who I knew would help her.

As the van pulled off she waved from the window and I could not help thinking that she may not get much help from the Lebanese government on arriving. Yet I knew that Palestinians there would assist her. I recalled the words of the late murdered Khalil al Wazir (Abu Jihad) when he explained nearly three decades ago, to this observer and the American journalist, Janet Stevens,: “At the end of the day, we Palestinians can rely only on ourselves.” I did not dwell much on his words at the time but since then I have come to understand very well what the great Resistance leader meant.

Yesterday morning I assumed Souha was in Lebanon and had arrived to Saida. Then I began to hear the unsettling news of long lines at the Maznaa crossing from Syria into Lebanon. The news got worse. Thousands of Palestinian refugees were lined up, some waiting for 10 hours or more to cross and many being refused entry into by Lebanese General Security because of “inadequate documents.” Many right now are being forced to return to Damascus.

Lebanon has an international humanitarian duty to ease entry and to assist refugees, as required by well-established and globally accepted international law. But with the exception of Zionist occupied Palestine, Lebanon has the worst human rights record toward Palestinians than any country on earth. The Lebanese Parliament still refuses to grant Palestinian refugees in Lebanon the elementary right to work or to own a home. Even though according to various economic studies, if Palestinians could work, they would help dramatically to build Lebanon’s weak economy.

During the morning of 12/19/12 the news got even worse regarding Souha. Someone from Reuters sent me a published photo showing her stuck on a bus at Maznaa for over 12 hours. According to one report she was forced to return to Damascus. Wherever Souha is she is hopefully someone is helping her.

Ahmed Jebril, an ally of the Syrian government is blaming foreign paid terrorists for the attack that is forcing the emptying of Yarmouk and also the rather quick defeat of his fighters. He and his GC staff told this observer that the General Command had no plans to attempt to return to Yarmouk. Reports from the camp claim that more than half of the GC’s 1000 fighters, mainly younger ones, defected to the rebels. It is difficult to know the truth, but it is fairly clear that Yarmouk has substantially been emptied and that government forces are surrounding the camp, presumably in preparation for a massive counter-attack and or aerial bombardment.

One statement that Ahmed Jebril, who contrary to a New York Times report, has not fled to Iran or Tartous, made that is probably accurate is that “As Yarmouk goes, so goes Damascus. As Damascus goes, so goes Syria”. Jabril’s aid Anwar Raja said that the camp will be used by the rebels to destroy the airport and to launch their “final assault” into the center of Damascus. They showed this observer fragments of ‘home made’ weapons similar to those collected from around Syria by military intelligence who in late October briefed this observer.

Franklin Lamb, a former Assistant Counsel of the US House Judiciary Committee at the US Congress and Professor of International Law at Northwestern College of Law in Oregon, earned his Law Degree at Boston University and his LLM, M.Phil, and PhD degrees at the London School of Economics. fplamb@palestinecivilrightscampaign.org

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