http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/vp/31101164#31101164
By Rabbi Michael Lerner
Jews did not return to Palestine in order to be oppressors or representatives of Western colonialism or cultural imperialism. Although it is true that some early Zionist leaders sought to portray their movement as a way to serve the interests of various Western states, and although many Jews who came brought with them a Western arrogance that made it possible for them to see Palestine as "a land without a people for a people without a land," and hence to virtually ignore the Palestinian people and its own cultural and historical rights, the vast majority of those who came were seeking refuge from the murderous ravages of Western anti-Semitism or from the oppressive discrimination that they experienced in Arab countries. The Ashkenazi Jews who shaped Israel in its early years were jumping from the burning buildings of Europe--and when they landed on the backs of Palestinians, unintentionally causing a great deal of pain to the people who already lived there, they were so transfixed with their own (much greater and more acute) pain that they couldn't be bothered to notice that they were displacing and hurting others in the process of creating their own state.
Their insensitivity to the pain that they caused, and their subsequent denial of the fact that in creating Israel they had simultaneously helped create a Palestinian people most of whom were forced to live as refugees (and now, their many descendents still living as exiles and dreaming of "return" just as we Jews did for some 1800 plus years), was aided by the arrogance, stupidity and anti-Semitism of Palestinian leaders and their Arab allies in neighboring states who dreamt of ridding the area of its Jews and who, much like the Herut "revisionists" who eventually came to run Israel in the past twenty years, consistently resorted to violence and intimidation to pursue their maximalist fantasies.
By the time Palestinians had come to their senses and acknowledged the reality of Israel and the necessity of accommodating to that reality if they were ever to find a way to establish even the most minimal self-determination in the land that had once belonged to their parents and grandparents it was too late to undermine the powerful misperception of reality held by most Jews and Israelis that their state was likely to be wiped out any moment if they did not exercise the most powerful vigilance. Drenched in the memories of the Holocaust and in the internalized vision of themselves as inevitably powerless, Jews were unable to recognize that they had become the most powerful state in the region and among the top 20% of powerful countries in the world--and they used this sense of imminent potential doom to justify the continuation of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza for over thirty years.
From Tikkun Magazine
OF ALL the beautiful phrases in Barack Obama’s inauguration speech, these are the words that stuck in my mind: “You are on the wrong side of history.”He was talking about the tyrannical regimes of the world. But we, too, should ponder these wordsIn the last few days I have heard a lot of declarations from Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Olmert. And every time, these eight words came back to haunt me: “You are on the wrong side of history!”Obama was speaking as a man of the 21st century. Our leaders speak the language of the 19th century. They resemble the dinosaurs which once terrorized their neighborhood and were quite unaware of the fact that their time had already passed.DURING THE rousing celebrations, again and again the multicolored patchwork of the new president’s family was mentioned.All the preceding 43 presidents were white Protestants, except John Kennedy, who was a white Catholic. 38 of them were the descendants of immigrants from the British isles. Of the other five, three were of Dutch ancestry (Theodor and Franklin D. Roosevelt , as well as Martin van Buren) and two of German descent (Herbert Hoover and Dwight Eisenhower.)The face of Obama’s family is quite different. The extended family includes whites and the descendents of black slaves, Africans from Kenya, Indonesians, Chinese from Canada, Christians, Muslims and even one Jew (a converted African-American). The two first names of the president himself, Barack Hussein, are Arabic.This is the face of the new American nation – a mixture of races, religions, countries of origin and skin-colors, an open and diverse society, all of whose members are supposed to be equal and to identify themselves with the ”founding fathers”. The American Barack Hussein Obama, whose father was born in a Kenyan village, can speak with pride of “George Washington, the father of our nation”, of the “American Revolution” (the war of independence against the British), and hold up the example of “our ancestors”, who include both the white pioneers and the black slaves who “endured the lash of the whip”. That is the perception of a modern nation, multi-cultural and multi-racial: a person joins it by acquiring citizenship, and from this moment on is the heir to all its history.Israel is the product of the narrow nationalism of the 19th century, a nationalism that was closed and exclusive, based on race and ethnic origin, blood and earth. Israel is a “Jewish State”, and a Jew is a person born Jewish or converted according to Jewish religious law (Halakha). Like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, it is a state whose mental world is to a large extent conditioned by religion, race and ethnic origin.When Ehud Barak speaks about the future, he speaks the language of past centuries, in terms of brute force and brutal threats, with armies providing the solution to all problems. That was also the language of George W. Bush who last week slinked out of Washington, a language that already sounds to the Western ear like an echo from the distant past.The words of the new president are ringing in the air: “Our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please.” The key words were “humility and restraint”.Our leaders are now boasting about their part in the Gaza War, in which unbridled military force was unleashed intentionally against a civilian population, men, women and children, with the declared aim of “creating deterrence”. In the era that began last Tuesday, such expressions can only arouse shudders.
By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN
The record is fairly clear. You can find it on the Israeli website, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Israel broke the ceasefire by going into the Gaza and killing six or seven Palestinian militants. At that point—and now I’m quoting the official Israeli website—Hamas retaliated or, in retaliation for the Israeli attack, then launched the missiles.
Now, as to the reason why, the record is fairly clear as well. According to Ha’aretz, Defense Minister Barak began plans for this invasion before the ceasefire even began. In fact, according to yesterday’s Ha’aretz, the plans for the invasion began in March. And the main reasons for the invasion, I think, are twofold. Number one; to enhance what Israel calls its deterrence capacity, which in layman’s language basically means Israel’s capacity to terrorize the region into submission. After their defeat in July 2006 in Lebanon, they felt it important to transmit the message that Israel is still a fighting force, still capable of terrorizing those who dare defy its word.
And the second main reason for the attack is because Hamas was signaling that it wanted a diplomatic settlement of the conflict along the June 1967 border. That is to say, Hamas was signaling they had joined the international consensus, they had joined most of the international community, overwhelmingly the international community, in seeking a diplomatic settlement. And at that point, Israel was faced with what Israelis call a Palestinian peace offensive. And in order to defeat the peace offensive, they sought to dismantle Hamas.
As was documented in the April 2008 issue of Vanity Fair by the writer David Rose, basing himself on internal US documents, it was the United States in cahoots with the Palestinian Authority and Israel which were attempting a putsch on Hamas, and Hamas preempted the putsch. That, too, is no longer debatable or no longer a controversial claim.
The issue is can it rule in Gaza if Israel maintains a blockade and prevents economic activity among the Palestinians. The blockade, incidentally, was implemented before Hamas came to power. The blockade doesn’t even have anything to do with Hamas. The blockade came to—there were Americans who were sent over, in particular James Wolfensohn, to try to break the blockade after Israel redeployed its troops in Gaza.
The problem all along has been that Israel doesn’t want Gaza to develop, and Israel doesn’t want to resolve diplomatically the conflict, both the leadership in Damascus and the leadership in the Gaza have repeatedly made statements they’re willing to settle the conflict in the June 1967 border. The record is fairly clear. In fact, it’s unambiguously clear.
Every year, the United Nations General Assembly votes on a resolution entitled “Peaceful Settlement of the Palestine Question.” And every year the vote is the same: it’s the whole world on one side; Israel, the United States and some South Sea atolls and Australia on the other side. The vote this past year was 164-to-7. Every year since 1989—in 1989, the vote was 151-to-3, the whole world on one side, the United States, Israel and the island state of Dominica on the other side.
We have the Arab League, all twenty-two members of the Arab League, favoring a two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We have the Palestinian Authority favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We now have Hamas favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. The one and only obstacle is Israel, backed by the United States. That’s the problem.
Well, the record shows that Hamas wanted to continue the ceasefire, but only on condition that Israel eases the blockade. Long before Hamas began the retaliatory rocket attacks on Israel, Palestinians were facing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza because of the blockade. The former High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, described what was going on in Gaza as a destruction of a civilization. This was during the ceasefire period.
What does the record show? The record shows for the past twenty or more years, the entire international community has sought to settle the conflict in the June 1967 border with a just resolution of the refugee question. Are all 164 nations of the United Nations the rejectionists? And are the only people in favor of peace the United States, Israel, Nauru, Palau, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Australia? Who are the rejectionists? Who’s opposing a peace?
The record shows that in every crucial issue raised at Camp David, then under the Clinton parameters, and then in Taba, at every single point, all the concessions came from the Palestinians. Israel didn’t make any concessions. Every concession came from the Palestinians. The Palestinians have repeatedly expressed a willingness to settle the conflict in accordance with international law.
The law is very clear. July 2004, the highest judicial body in the world, the International Court of Justice, ruled Israel has no title to any of the West Bank and any of Gaza. They have no title to Jerusalem. Arab East Jerusalem, according to the highest judicial body in the world, is occupied Palestinian territory. The International Court of Justice ruled all the settlements, all the settlements in the West Bank, are illegal under international law.
Now, the important point is, on all those questions, the Palestinians were willing to make concessions. They made all the concessions. Israel didn’t make any concessions.
I think it’s fairly clear what needs to happen. Number one, the United States and Israel have to join the rest of the international community, have to abide by international law. I don’t think international law should be trivialized. I think it’s a serious issue. If Israel is in defiance of international law, it should be called into account, just like any other state in the world.
Mr. Obama has to level with the American people. He has to be honest about what is the main obstacle to resolving the conflict. It’s not Palestinian rejectionism. It’s the refusal of Israel, backed by the United States government, to abide by international law, to abide by the opinion of the international community.
And the main challenge for all of us as Americans is to see through the lies.
Washington Watch
January 12, 2009Dr. James J. Zogby (c)PresidentArab American Institute
As in past Mideast conflicts, both the media story line and political commentary here in the U.S. has closely followed Israel's talking points on the war. This has been an essential component in Israel's early success and in its ability to prolong fighting without U.S. pushback. Because it recognizes the importance of the propaganda war, Israel fights on this front as vigorously and disproportionately as it engages on the battlefield.
Here's how they have done it:
1) Define the terms of debate, and you win the debate. Early on, the Israelis work to define the context, the starting point, and the story line that will shape understanding of the war. In this instance, for example, they succeeded by constant repetition, in establishing the notion that the starting point of the conflict was December 19th, the end of the six-month ceasefire (which Israel described as "unilaterally ended by Hamas"). In doing so, they ignored, of course, their own early November violations, and their failure to honor their commitment in the ceasefire to open Gaza's borders. They also ignored their having reduced Gaza into a dependency, a process which began long before and continued after their withdrawal in 2005. Because they know that most Americans do not closely follow the conflict and are inclined to believe, as the line goes, "what they hear over and over again," this tactic of preemptive definition and repetition succeeds.
2) Recognize that stereotypes work. Because, for generations, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been defined with positive cultural images of Israel and negative stereotypes of Palestinians, Israel's propagandists have an advantage here that is easy to exploit. Because the story has long been seen as "Israeli humanity confronting the Palestinian problem," media coverage of any conflict begins with how "the problem" is affecting the Israeli people. As Golda Meir once put it, "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children, but we can never forgive them for making us kill their children." And so, it was not surprising that, despite the disproportionate suffering of the Palestinians, media coverage attempted to "balance" the story, giving an extensive treatment, with photos of anguished and fearful Israelis and the impact the war was having on them. Early on, when media treatment mattered most, Palestinians were reduced, as always, to mere numbers or objectified as "collateral damage."
3) Anticipate and count on your opponent's blunders. Hamas' stupidity played into Israel's strategy. From the outset, Israel could count on the fact that Hamas would launch rockets and issue the kind of threats that Israel could then parley into sympathy in the West. Knowing that these would most certainly come, and could be exploited, was an advantage in their propaganda war.
4) Be everywhere, and say the same thing -- and make sure your opponents remain as invisible as possible. Israel begins each war with a host of English-speaking spokespersons (many born in the West) available at any time for every media outlet (it's no accident, for example, that Israel has an "Arab" Consul General in Atlanta - that's where CNN is). The work of their propaganda operation, which spreads multiple spokespersons in venues across the United States with consistent talking points, guarantees success. At the same time, they are able to deny media access to Gaza, only allowing the Western reporters to operate near the war zone under IDF supervision, guaranteeing Israel the opportunity to shape every aspect of the story while removing the possibility of independent verification of the horror unfolding in Gaza.
5) Give no ground. Since half of the story will be determined by what political leaders say and do, the political apparatus in Washington is also pressed into service, ensuring that White House and Congressional leadership will "toe the line." Statements issued by Congress, therefore, reflect the talking points and, together, the Israeli spokespersons, the political commentators, and the Congressional statements serve as echoes of one another
6) Deny, deny, deny. When events and reality break through, contradicting the Israeli-established narrative, creating stories that run counter to the imposed story line, the propaganda machine works overtime to deny, deny, deny (saying quite boldly, "Who do you believe, me or your lying eyes?"), and/or concoct a counter-narrative that shifts the blame ("We didn't do it, they made us"). In this instance, that means asserting that the death of Palestinian civilians is always the fault of someone else, or that reporters or their opponents are staging the photos of grief (as if to say, "Arabs don't really grieve like we do").
7) The last refuge.... When all else fails, point to a few examples of outrageous anti-Semitism, generalize them, suggesting that that is what motivates critics. It stings, and may be over-used, but it can silence or put critics on the defensive.
According to media 155 Palestinians were killed by Israeli air-strikes, as a response to Palestinian rocket attacks against Israel.
IS IT NOT ENOUGH! Who is speaking for the children that are killed in this war? For me the conflict (or war) is not between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is between the good people and the bad people. Between those on both side who want peace and who believe that all people (Israelis and Palestinians) must receive what they need, and those people who say that only their own people have the rights.
I understand that this is an old conflict that has been going for several thousand years, and that there is much pain for many generations on both sides. But military actions will only make the other side even more hateful.
Hate will never cease with hate. Hate can only cease by love.
Cluster bombs are bombs that contain many smaller bombs inside them. Many of these bombs do not explode when they hit the ground but remain on the surface or just beneath the surface. This means that when civilians hit them by mistake later, the bombs often explode and kill or cripple the person.
Most of the people killed or crippled by cluster bombs are civilians (many of them children). Over 100 nations have now signed a ban on cluster-bombs. USA, Russia and China are among those who have not. I hope that the new administration will sign this international treaty, preventing thousands of civilians from being crippled.
"The inability to invest in healthcare, energy and infrastructure etc. in the current state of the economy" is a creation of Washington think tanks (the people paid to think by the makers of tanks - Naomi Klein). Cut the defense budget and fund everything else.
Smart Defense - Katrina Vanden Heuvel on 11/18/2008
Last month, Congressman Barney Frank called for a 25 percent cut in the defense budget--approximately $150 billion in annual spending--saying, "We don't need all these fancy new weapons. I think there needs to be additional review."..Even a senior Pentagon advisory group--the Defense Business Board --recently concluded that the current budget is "not sustainable."....Progressives are under no illusions as to the obstacles to making a real and meaningful shift in the way the US approaches the defense budget.. The Bush Administration's Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said of the scant resources devoted to the diplomatic corps as compared to military equipment, "Diplomacy simply does not have the built-in, domestic constituency of defense programs."..
Last month, Congressman Barney Frank called for a 25 percent cut in the defense budget--approximately $150 billion in annual spending--saying, "We don't need all these fancy new weapons. I think there needs to be additional review."..Even a senior Pentagon advisory group--the Defense Business Board --recently concluded that the current budget is "not sustainable."..
..Progressives are under no illusions as to the obstacles to making a real and meaningful shift in the way the US approaches the defense budget.. The Bush Administration's Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said of the scant resources devoted to the diplomatic corps as compared to military equipment, "Diplomacy simply does not have the built-in, domestic constituency of defense programs."..
Wars, Weapons, and Warnings - Plutonium Page on 11/9/2008
..The Obama transition team, according to a briefing paper prepared for the campaign's national security advisory team, may consider cuts to high-profile weapon systems, the paper states, naming three: national missile defense, the Airborne Laser and the Army's Future Combat Systems program..
November 17, 2008
Lessons That
Should Be Learned
Dr. James J. Zogby (c)
President
Arab American Institute
On November 5th, my office sent an email to tens of thousands of our members and contacts congratulating President-elect Barack Obama. In our message, we noted the historic transformation his victory represented and commended the thousands of Arab Americans who participated in this winning campaign.
The initial and near universal response was heartwarming, with many sharing moving anecdotes of their campaign experiences, their reactions to the victory, and their hopes for change.
One day and one announcement later, the tide turned.
With the naming of Congressman Rahm Emanuel as Obama's White House Chief of Staff, the euphoria of some, not all, turned to despair. The emails and calls to my office were both troubled and troubling because much of the reaction was based on misinformation and because of what the entire episode revealed about the larger political dynamics involved.
First, the facts.
Rahm Emanuel is a brilliant strategist and a practitioner of hard-ball politics who in campaigns, his time in the Clinton White House, and more recently in Congress has demonstrated that he knows how to get a job done. Because there will be critical legislation the President-elect will need to move through Congress, from an economic recovery package and health care reform to a comprehensive approach to alternative energy, Obama has tapped Emanuel for his proven political skills. It is that simple.
This, of course, was neither the content nor the concerns raised by the emails I received. Some charged that Emanuel was an Israeli citizen or a dual U.S.-Israeli national (he is neither, he was born in Chicago in 1959); or, they alleged that he served in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and lost his finger confronting a Syrian tank during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon (he did not serve in the IDF, and lost his finger in a freak accident while working as a teenager in an Arby's restaurant). A few accused Emanuel of skipping U.S. military service to join the IDF in 1991 (also not true - in the midst of the 1991 Gulf War, while U.S. forces were manning Patriot missile batteries in Israel and the Arab Gulf, Emanuel volunteered for a few weeks, as a civilian, doing maintenance on Israeli vehicles). The most recent story alleges that Rahm Emanuel was fired from the White House in 1998 after being implicated by the FBI, together with Monica Lewinsky, in a Mossad plot to spy on then-President Clinton (a total fabrication, compliments of a shady character who claims to have been a U.S. intelligence official and is a purveyor of many bizarre tales).
That stories such as these have been circulating, and have taken hold, is as reprehensible as the "Barack Obama is a secret Muslim/Manchurian candidate" tale, or the anti-Arab anti-Muslim canards to which I and many of my colleagues have been subjected over the years.
Putting aside the fiction or, more accurately, the slanderous myths, the truth is that Emanuel is an effective leader in Congress. He is a strong supporter of Israel. But then, how many members of Congress are not?
Emanuel is Jewish and his father is an Israeli. Arab Americans should be especially sensitive to attacks on anyone based on religion or ethnicity. He has worked closely with and is liked by the Arab American Members of Congress from both parties, and he was the architect of the 1993 White House lawn signing ceremony for the Oslo Accords that brought Arab Americans and American Jews together. When, in 1994, Rahm accepted my invitation to a luncheon with Arab American community leaders, those who met him were impressed by his openness and honesty.
Beyond these facts, however, there are two concerns that must be addressed.
It is deeply troubling how quickly, for some, the excitement of Barack Obama's victory was eclipsed by cynicism and suspicion, and how receptive some were to wild tales. This could only occur, on one level, because the victory itself was not understood. If it had been, the excitement would have been tempered by an appreciation of political realities.
Obama's victory, no doubt, demonstrated that change is possible - but incremental change. Pressures remain, from the right and the left as well as the interest groups of all sorts that continue to have influence, limiting political options. The economy is in free-fall and, after eight years of Bush neglect and recklessness, dangers abound in the world. An Obama victory doesn't alter those realities. And so our excitement was justified, but our euphoria should never have taken us so high as to lose our grounding and understanding of the limits of what is possible.
My concern is that, for some, the need for change became so great as to make them susceptible to wild swings - from unrealistic expectations to unwarranted despair and, therefore, to become prone to believe the worst.
But the fault here should be shared. I am concerned by the slowness of the Obama camp to respond more quickly or effectively to address the situation. Modern political operations have learned the need to confront false stories, to manage perception, and to anticipate problems -- and, here, the Obama team had been especially masterful.
During the campaign, for example, they repeatedly demonstrated how tuned-in they were to public perception - and in particular to matters that might have created discomfort in the Jewish community. They knew that these stories needed to be shot down quickly. (American Muslims understood much of this, despite feeling slighted, at times.) But in this most recent instance, the Obama camp displayed both inattentiveness and tone-deafness to Arab misperceptions about who Rahm Emanuel is, and what role he will play. (Aside from the flap over the comments made by Rahm's father, for which Rahm, himself, has now profoundly apologized.) As a result, the situation festered.
The campaign is now over, and the President-elect is playing on a world stage with more than one audience at stake. And in the Middle East, especially, sensitivities are as great and (perceived) sleights are felt as acutely as they are among any people in the world. With feelings having been rubbed raw by decades of U.S. policy miscues, with U.S. favorability ratings at all-time lows, and with extremists preying off resentment and fear - perceptions matter.
If we are to succeed in making changes in U.S.-Arab relations - and I believe that an Obama Administration can - greater attentiveness and sensitivity is in order.
Bottom line - there are lessons to learn and work to be done. Arabs and Arab Americans need to ground their expectations in political realities and be wary of slanderous attacks smacking of anti-Semitism, and U.S. political leadership must learn to be as attentive to Arab sensitivities as they are to the concerns of others.
To change the future, know the history.. I'm glad people like Bill Ayers got a voice now (never mind the reasons). Though Obama can't fight for them, their voice in the media by itself is a great benefit to our democracy.
Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn on the Weather Underground, the McCain Campaign Attacks, President-Elect Obama and the Antiwar Movement Today - Part 1 (Nov 14 2008)
In the late stages of the presidential race, no other name was used more by the McCain-Palin campaign against Barack Obama than Bill Ayers. Ayers is a respected Chicago professor who was a member of the 1960s militant antiwar group the Weather Underground. In their first joint television interview, Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn discuss the McCain campaign attacks, President-elect Obama, the Weather Underground, the legacy of 1960s social justice movements, and more.
Olmert: Israel must return to 1967 borders
(Haaretz)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1036118.html
By Shahar Ilan and Nadav Shragai
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took advantage of yesterday's special Knesset marking the 13th anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin to call for territorial withdrawals in all disputed areas and to denounce violence on the part of Jewish settlers. "We must give up Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem and return to the core of the territory that is the State of Israel prior to 1967, with minor corrections dictated by the reality created since then," he said.
"Many Israelis viciously beat up Palestinians seeking to harvest olives as they have for centuries, and there is no end [to it]. Young Israelis, smitten by messianic dreams, hit our soldiers, breaking their bones and threatening their lives, and no one stops them," Olmert said. "I will not permit this to continue," he promised. Olmert also said that, "Every government will need to tell the truth, which unfortunately will require us to tear out many parts of the homeland in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights." Addressing the settlers, he said: "You, too, will have do carry out a moral reckoning and reach a decision." The National Union-National Religious Party Knesset whip Uri Ariel and fellow party MK Aryeh Eldad left the plenum in protest. "We cannot tolerate the fact that a failed prime minister, who is accused of corruption, uses the little free time he has left between police interviews to call for the destruction of the Jewish settlement enterprise in Israel," Eldad said. Likud whip Gideon Sa'ar accused Olmert of "cynically exploiting a state ceremony for a political speech in the spirit of the extreme left." Three hours earlier, Foreign Minister and Kadima Chairwoman Tzipi Livni told a meeting of party MKs that "the murder of a prime minister in Israel must not be a subject of political disputes. [Rabin] was the prime minister of us all." Yesterday was the last day of deliberations in the Knesset plenum before the election hiatus. Party whips postponed the dissolution of the Knesset session by a few days in order to hold the Rabin memorial. The denunciation of attacks by Jewish settlers on Israel Defense Forces soldiers and pointed criticism of the media for conducting interviews with Rabin's killer, Yigal Amir, dominated yesterday's Knesset deliberations. "We cannot tolerate the calls being heard today to hurt the prime minister or IDF soldiers. We will take immediate action against lawbreakers and inciters," opposition leader and Likud Chairman MK Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset. Knesset Speaker MK Dalia Itzik (Labor) said she was astonished by the competition between the television networks over broadcasting the interview with Amir. "The name of the despicable murderer must not be mentioned among us," Itzik said. "This is not an issue of freedom of expression, rather it's an attempt by the murderer to win legitimacy. Let him rot in prison, don't give him a stage, throw him into the garbage pail of history." In large measure Olmert's Knesset speech yesterday echoed his remarks at the state memorial for Rabin earlier in the day at Jerusalem's Mt. Herzl, where Rabin is buried. He called for giving up Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and returning to the 1967 borders, with slight amendments. "We have no choice but to give up, with great torment, parts of our homeland of which we dreamed for generations of yearning and prayers," Olmert said. "For a generation an increasingly sharp disagreement has been raging in Israel over what should be here. Since the murder the dispute has only become fiercer. "Rabin was not thrilled about the decision, he was tormented before Oslo, he hesitated about the agreement and was filled with doubt even after making a decision - not out of illusions or false hopes - but rather he decided to go in a direction that more and more people today are willing to accept," Olmert said. President Shimon Peres addressed recent settler violence in his remarks at Mt. Herzl. "There is a small minority of reckless, unrestrained people who boldly defy the state's authority, attack Palestinians just for being Palestinian and challenge the law-enforcement mechanisms that, among others, protect them, too. "We must isolate and expel this violent and dangerous minority," Peres added, "and we mustn't be silent in the face of their incitement. We cannot tolerate the acts of vandalism and violence. It is as though they are a state within a state. It is the responsibility of the state to carry out justice without fear - the honor of Israel and the strength of its democracy and lawfulness depends on it."
Obama and the Future of US Foreign Policy: A Discussion
Democracy Now! Nov 06 2008
John Pilger: ..Michael Moore had it right when he said the other day, let’s hope that Obama breaks all his election promises, as politicians generally do, because all his election promises, in terms of foreign policy, are a continuation of business as usual. And even if there is a return to what used to be called a multilateral world, I think there has to be critical analysis of the return to the pretensions of America as a peacemaker around the world. We had to endure this, and I mean endure it during the Clinton years, and I don’t think that we, in the rest of the world, ought to have to endure it now through the Obama years, so that we have a continuation, if you like, of liberalism as a divisive, almost war-making ideology, being used to destroy liberalism as a reality, because that has gone on under so-called liberal presidents, from Kennedy to Clinton, Democratic presidents. And President-elect Obama suggests to us, in his promises, that he is going to continue that, bombing Pakistan and Afghanistan..Mahmood Mamdani: ..Will America recognize, as I believe South Africa has after the election of Mandela, that the election of Mandela was not change, but an opportunity to change? And whether that opportunity is realized and transformed into a program of social justice within the country and peace abroad will depend on the movement that pushes Obama and gives him the opportunity to respond to it..Ali Abunimah: ..we should be setting the standard very high, not accepting slight hints that in a few years’ time an Obama administration might accept a Palestinian state or might talk about one. The days for that are over. The situation is urgent, and we really need to see radical change. It’s not going to come from Rahm Emanuel and Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk; it’s only going to come from a groundswell demanding that the promises of change be kept..Tariq Ali: ..I mean, the British are already saying that sending in more troops isn’t going to help, because the war is lost. The United States intelligence agencies are already involved in panic discussions with the people they are fighting, the neo-Taliban, to try and persuade them to join the coalition, which they’re refusing to do as long as there are foreign troops there. So, escalating the war I don’t think is a serious option. And if he does it, it will be a very, very serious mistake, on the same level in scale as invading Iraq..Mahmood Mamdani: ..there’s a remarkable difference between the youth movement of the ’60s, which mainly organized outside the system, and the youth movement which has brought Obama to power, because this movement has organized within the system to reform the system. Obama keeps on saying that this movement must not go away, that change hasn’t come, that this is the beginning of change. Now, will the candidate be able to tame the movement, or will the movement be able to stamp itself to some extent in the coming days?
John Pilger: ..Michael Moore had it right when he said the other day, let’s hope that Obama breaks all his election promises, as politicians generally do, because all his election promises, in terms of foreign policy, are a continuation of business as usual. And even if there is a return to what used to be called a multilateral world, I think there has to be critical analysis of the return to the pretensions of America as a peacemaker around the world. We had to endure this, and I mean endure it during the Clinton years, and I don’t think that we, in the rest of the world, ought to have to endure it now through the Obama years, so that we have a continuation, if you like, of liberalism as a divisive, almost war-making ideology, being used to destroy liberalism as a reality, because that has gone on under so-called liberal presidents, from Kennedy to Clinton, Democratic presidents. And President-elect Obama suggests to us, in his promises, that he is going to continue that, bombing Pakistan and Afghanistan..
Mahmood Mamdani: ..Will America recognize, as I believe South Africa has after the election of Mandela, that the election of Mandela was not change, but an opportunity to change? And whether that opportunity is realized and transformed into a program of social justice within the country and peace abroad will depend on the movement that pushes Obama and gives him the opportunity to respond to it..
Ali Abunimah: ..we should be setting the standard very high, not accepting slight hints that in a few years’ time an Obama administration might accept a Palestinian state or might talk about one. The days for that are over. The situation is urgent, and we really need to see radical change. It’s not going to come from Rahm Emanuel and Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk; it’s only going to come from a groundswell demanding that the promises of change be kept..
Tariq Ali: ..I mean, the British are already saying that sending in more troops isn’t going to help, because the war is lost. The United States intelligence agencies are already involved in panic discussions with the people they are fighting, the neo-Taliban, to try and persuade them to join the coalition, which they’re refusing to do as long as there are foreign troops there. So, escalating the war I don’t think is a serious option. And if he does it, it will be a very, very serious mistake, on the same level in scale as invading Iraq..
Mahmood Mamdani: ..there’s a remarkable difference between the youth movement of the ’60s, which mainly organized outside the system, and the youth movement which has brought Obama to power, because this movement has organized within the system to reform the system. Obama keeps on saying that this movement must not go away, that change hasn’t come, that this is the beginning of change. Now, will the candidate be able to tame the movement, or will the movement be able to stamp itself to some extent in the coming days?
Still in a state of chock, I still can’t believe that Obama is president. We are on the dawn of a great transformation, a shift of paradigm. For me this is not primary about the election of a new president, it is about the election of a world-leader. The frontrunner of a new age of UNITY, an age of cooperation and right relations based on love and understanding, and where serving humanity is the purpose of life. It will replace the old order of “they versus us,” with its fighting of all other groups that happen to be different. And it will replace the old order of the worship of Mammon. This will maybe take a couple of hundred years to accomplish, but we start now.
And his speech exceeded my expectations. He told us that the greatness of USA is not its military strength or economy, but its idealism. Ideas are truly more powerful than military and money.
I found this opinion editorial in the Pakistani Daily Times:
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C10%5C28%5Cstory_28-10-2008_pg3_6
I regard Uri Avnery as a sage in the extremely important and difficult stage of Middle East conflict. I believe that finding his perspectives on a Pakistani website is strongly worthy of our notice.
The Idiots Who Rule America
By Chris Hedges - Oct 20 2008
Our oligarchic class is incompetent at governing, managing the economy, coping with natural disasters, educating our young, handling foreign affairs, providing basic services like health care and safeguarding individual rights. That it is still in power, and will remain in power after this election, is a testament to our inability to separate illusion from reality. We still believe in “the experts.” They still believe in themselves. They are clustered like flies swarming around John McCain and Barack Obama. It is only when these elites are exposed as incompetent parasites and dethroned that we will have any hope of restoring social, economic and political order....Our elites—the ones in Congress, the ones on Wall Street and the ones being produced at prestigious universities and business schools—do not have the capacity to fix our financial mess. Indeed, they will make it worse. They have no concept, thanks to the educations they have received, of the common good. They are stunted, timid and uncreative bureaucrats who are trained to carry out systems management. They see only piecemeal solutions which will satisfy the corporate structure. They are about numbers, profits and personal advancement. They are as able to deny gravely ill people medical coverage to increase company profits as they are able to use taxpayer dollars to peddle costly weapons systems to blood-soaked dictatorships. The human consequences never figure into their balance sheets. The democratic system, they think, is a secondary product of the free market. And they slavishly serve the market....We may elect representatives to Congress to end the war in Iraq, but the war goes on. We may plead with these representatives to halt Bush’s illegal wiretapping but the telecommunications lobbyists make sure it remains in place. We may beg them not to pass the bailout but 850 billion taxpayer dollars are funneled upward to the elites on Wall Street. We may want single-payer, not-for-profit health care but it is not even discussed as a possibility in presidential debates. We, as individuals in this system, are irrelevant....I do not think George W. Bush or Barack Obama or John McCain or Henry Paulson are fascists. Rather, they are part of a cabal of naive, mediocre and self-deluded capitalists who are steadily weakening political and economic structures to a point where our democracy will become so impotent that it can be blown aside, probably with broad popular support. The only question is how this will happen. Will there be a steady and slow decline as in the late Roman Empire when the Senate ended as a farce? Will we see a powerful right-wing backlash from those outside the mainstream political system, as we did in Yugoslavia, and the rise of a militant Christian fascism? Will there be a national crisis that allows those in power to instantly sweep away all constitutional rights in the name of national security?
Our oligarchic class is incompetent at governing, managing the economy, coping with natural disasters, educating our young, handling foreign affairs, providing basic services like health care and safeguarding individual rights. That it is still in power, and will remain in power after this election, is a testament to our inability to separate illusion from reality. We still believe in “the experts.” They still believe in themselves. They are clustered like flies swarming around John McCain and Barack Obama. It is only when these elites are exposed as incompetent parasites and dethroned that we will have any hope of restoring social, economic and political order..
..Our elites—the ones in Congress, the ones on Wall Street and the ones being produced at prestigious universities and business schools—do not have the capacity to fix our financial mess. Indeed, they will make it worse. They have no concept, thanks to the educations they have received, of the common good. They are stunted, timid and uncreative bureaucrats who are trained to carry out systems management. They see only piecemeal solutions which will satisfy the corporate structure. They are about numbers, profits and personal advancement. They are as able to deny gravely ill people medical coverage to increase company profits as they are able to use taxpayer dollars to peddle costly weapons systems to blood-soaked dictatorships. The human consequences never figure into their balance sheets. The democratic system, they think, is a secondary product of the free market. And they slavishly serve the market..
..We may elect representatives to Congress to end the war in Iraq, but the war goes on. We may plead with these representatives to halt Bush’s illegal wiretapping but the telecommunications lobbyists make sure it remains in place. We may beg them not to pass the bailout but 850 billion taxpayer dollars are funneled upward to the elites on Wall Street. We may want single-payer, not-for-profit health care but it is not even discussed as a possibility in presidential debates. We, as individuals in this system, are irrelevant..
..I do not think George W. Bush or Barack Obama or John McCain or Henry Paulson are fascists. Rather, they are part of a cabal of naive, mediocre and self-deluded capitalists who are steadily weakening political and economic structures to a point where our democracy will become so impotent that it can be blown aside, probably with broad popular support. The only question is how this will happen. Will there be a steady and slow decline as in the late Roman Empire when the Senate ended as a farce? Will we see a powerful right-wing backlash from those outside the mainstream political system, as we did in Yugoslavia, and the rise of a militant Christian fascism? Will there be a national crisis that allows those in power to instantly sweep away all constitutional rights in the name of national security?
For all of the people who support Obama but do not support Israel here are soe things that you owe a "thanks" to the people of Israel.
Israel's Accomplishments for the first 6 Months of 2008 IN THE FIRST SIX MONTHS OF 2008 ISRAEL HAS ACCOMPLISHED THE FOLLOWING: 1. Scientists in Israel, found that the brackish water, drilled from underground desert aquifers, hundreds of feet deep, could be used to raise warm-water fish. The geothermal water, less than one-tenth as saline as sea water, free of pollutants, and a toasty 98 degrees on average, proves an ideal environment. 2. Israel i-developed designer-eyeglasses, promise mobile phone and iPod users, a personalized, high-tech video display. Available to US consumers next year, Lumus-Optical's lightweight and fashionable video eyeglasses, feature a large transparent screen, floating in front of the viewer's face that projects their choice of movie, TV show, or video Game.3. When Stephen Hawkins visited Israel recently, he shared his wisdom with scientists, students, and even the Prime Minister. But the world's most renown victim of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, also learned something, due to the Israel i Association for ALS' advanced work in both embryonic and adult stem cell research, as well as its proven track record with neurodegenerative diseases. The Israel i research community is well on its way, to finding a treatment for this fatal disease, which affects 30,000 Americans. 4. Israel i start-up, Veterix, has developed an innovative new electronic capsule that sits in the stomach of a cow, sheep, or goat, sending out real-time information on the health of the herd, to the farmer via Email or cell phone. The e-capsule, which also sends out alerts if animals are distressed, injured, or lost, is now being tested on a herd of cows, in the hopes that the device will lead to tastier and healthier meat and milk supplies. 5. The millions of Skype users worldwide will soon have access to the newly developed KishKish lie-detector. This free internet service, based on voice stress analysis (a technique, commonly usedin criminal investigations), will be able to measure just how truthful that person on the other end of the line, really is. 6. Beating cardiac tissue has been created in a lab from human embryonic stem cells by researchers at the Rappaport Medical Faculty and the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology's biomedical Engineering faculty. The work of Dr. Shulamit Levenberg and Prof. Lior Gepstein, has also led to the creation of tiny blood vessels within the tissue, making possible its implantation in a human heart. 7. Israel's Magal Security Systems, is a worldwide leader in computerized security systems, with products used in more than 70 countries around the world, protecting anything from national borders, to nuclear facilities, refineries, and airports. The company's latest Product, DreamBox, a state-of-the-art security system that includes Intelligent video, audio and sensor management, is now being used by a major water authority on the US east coast to safeguard the utility's sites. 8. It is common knowledge that dogs have better night vision than humans and a vastly superior sense of smell and hearing. Israel 's Bio-Sense Technologies, recently delved further, and electronically analyzed 350 different barks. Finding that dogs of all breeds and sizes, bark the same alarm when they sense a threat, the firm has designed the dog bark-reader, a sensor that can pick up a dog's alarm bark, and alert the human operators. This is just one of a batch of innovativesecurity systems to emerge from Israel, which Forbes calls 'the go-to country for anti-terrorism technologies.' 9. Israeli company, BioControl Medical, sold its first electrical stimulator to treat urinary incontinence to a US company for $50 Million. Now, it is working on CardioFit, which uses electrical nerve stimulation to treat congestive heart failure. With nearly five million Americans presently affected by heart failure, and more than 400,000 new cases diagnosed yearly, the CardioFit is already generating a great deal of excitement as the first device with the potential to halt thisdeadly disease. 10. One year after Norway's Socialist Left Party launched its boycott Israel campaign, the importing of Israel i goods has increased by 15%, the strongest increase in many years, Statistics Norway reports. ****In contrast to the efforts of tiny Israel to make contributions to the world so as to better mankind, one has to ask what have those who have strived to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth done other than to create hate and bloodshed.
Best ad so far!
It should bring McPalin's campaign down a notch or two.
This ad should have continued for another 30 seconds: We urge you to vote for Barack Obama! He is the true candidate of change who will begin our journey to undo the damage done by George Bush and his corporate fascist friends, .............
I am donating $25 for this ad in few minutes.
See ad ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK3Y1KPzW9k&eurl=http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stateupdates/gG5q24
Our recent slip in the polls should be a reminder to all of us that nothing should or can be taken for granted.
1) We need to trip McCain and define him as the candidate he is: The same old politician, and the face of corporate fascism just like his Republican predecessor.
2) The gloves are off.
3) O needs to get mad. He needs to speak from conviction and enough of the self doubt about his funny name and him being from a different pedigree as other presidents.
4) Go for the gusto.
5) O needs to understand that he represents the hopes of hundreds of millions of Americans and act accordingly.
Losing AfghanistanProlonging this good war may be worse than persisting in the bad one in Iraq.By Leon Hadar - July 28 2008, The American Conservative
..First, we need to remember that the outside military and financial backers of the Taliban and by extension of al-Qaeda—the only governments to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government in Kabul—were our staunch allies Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates....We formed an ad hoc partnership with the Northern Alliance, providing them money and arms while at the same time pressuring the Pakistanis and the Saudis to end their support for groups responsible for the deaths of 3,000 innocent Americans. This was an example of a sensible Realpolitik policy—co-operating with a mixed bag of local and regional players to capture our enemies and destroy their military infrastructure. An ideological crusade to bring democracy to Afghanistan wasn’t part of the plan. Pursuing the same kind of realistic approach, we could have encouraged the remnants of the Northern Alliance to work with their regional backers to co-opt Pakistan and members of Afghanistan’s Pashtun majority into an imperfect political settlement. This, in turn, would probably have led to the creation of a loose confederation of ethnic groups, locally controlled and secured by backing from Russia, India, Turkey, Iran—and Pakistan and the United States. Instead, we insisted on imposing our man, the Pashtun Hamid Karzai, as head of a central government....Iraq and Afghanistan skeptics recognize that both countries are involved in civil wars, with tribal forces fighting over territory and resources in order to preserve their power and identity. Their political, economic, and religious interests don’t necessarily correspond to or conflict with American interests. After all, in Afghanistan, Pakistan backed al-Qaeda and Iran supported the Northern Alliance. In Iraq, the U.S. has partnered with a Shi’ite movement with ties to Iran....One hopes that Obama and company will resolve their cognitive dissonance by modifying their belief about the moral benefit and policy utility of nation-building. Indeed, the new administration should abandon these fantasies and instead embrace a realist policy of working with regional powers to secure the limited but actual U.S. interests in Afghanistan and the rest of South and Central Asia—weakening the influence of radical Islam; damaging the infrastructure of terrorist groups; preventing unstable regimes and terrorist organizations from gaining access to weapons of mass destruction..
..First, we need to remember that the outside military and financial backers of the Taliban and by extension of al-Qaeda—the only governments to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government in Kabul—were our staunch allies Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates..
Pursuing the same kind of realistic approach, we could have encouraged the remnants of the Northern Alliance to work with their regional backers to co-opt Pakistan and members of Afghanistan’s Pashtun majority into an imperfect political settlement. This, in turn, would probably have led to the creation of a loose confederation of ethnic groups, locally controlled and secured by backing from Russia, India, Turkey, Iran—and Pakistan and the United States. Instead, we insisted on imposing our man, the Pashtun Hamid Karzai, as head of a central government..
..Iraq and Afghanistan skeptics recognize that both countries are involved in civil wars, with tribal forces fighting over territory and resources in order to preserve their power and identity. Their political, economic, and religious interests don’t necessarily correspond to or conflict with American interests. After all, in Afghanistan, Pakistan backed al-Qaeda and Iran supported the Northern Alliance. In Iraq, the U.S. has partnered with a Shi’ite movement with ties to Iran..
..One hopes that Obama and company will resolve their cognitive dissonance by modifying their belief about the moral benefit and policy utility of nation-building. Indeed, the new administration should abandon these fantasies and instead embrace a realist policy of working with regional powers to secure the limited but actual U.S. interests in Afghanistan and the rest of South and Central Asia—weakening the influence of radical Islam; damaging the infrastructure of terrorist groups; preventing unstable regimes and terrorist organizations from gaining access to weapons of mass destruction..
Vladimir Putin accuses Bush of provoking Georgia conflict to help John McCain
Times Online - Aug 28 2008
“The suspicion arises that someone in the United States especially created this conflict with the aim of making the situation more tense and creating a competitive advantage for one of the candidates fighting for the post of US President.” Mr Putin said that his defence officials had told him that Americans were operating in the conflict zone in Georgia during the fighting. He added: “It should be admitted that they would do so only following direct orders from their leaders. Therefore, they were acting in implementing those orders, doing as they were ordered, and the only one who can give such orders is their leader.”
“The suspicion arises that someone in the United States especially created this conflict with the aim of making the situation more tense and creating a competitive advantage for one of the candidates fighting for the post of US President.”
Mr Putin said that his defence officials had told him that Americans were operating in the conflict zone in Georgia during the fighting.
He added: “It should be admitted that they would do so only following direct orders from their leaders. Therefore, they were acting in implementing those orders, doing as they were ordered, and the only one who can give such orders is their leader.”
