Peace and Justice Post

 by Paul Craig Roberts, Foreign Policy Journal,  May 12, 2011

One of the wishes that readers often express to me came true today (May 11). I was on the mainstream media. It was a program with a worldwide reach–the BBC World Service. There were others on the program as well, and the topic was Hillary Clinton’s remarks (May 10) about the lack of democracy and human rights in China.

I startled the program’s host when I compared Hillary’s remarks to the pot calling the kettle black. I was somewhat taken aback myself by the British BBC program host’s rush to America’s defense and wondered about it as the program continued. Surely, he had heard about Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo detainees, CIA secret torture prisons sprinkled around the world, invasion and destruction of Iraq on the basis of lies and deceptions, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya. Surely, he was aware of Hillary’s hypocrisy as she demonized China but turned a blind eye to Israel, Mubarak, Bahrain and the Saudis. China’s record is not perfect, but is it this bad? Why wasn’t the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs criticizing America’s human rights abuses and rigged elections? How come China minds its own business and we don’t?

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Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine is known world-wide. But few know the history of Israeli piracy in support of its occupation policies. The Free Gaza flotillas want to break the Gaza blockade and Israel’s illegal ‘occupation’ of the sea, note Huwaida Arraf, Noam Chomsky, and Gabriel Schivone.

Middle East Online, May 11, 2011

A year ago this month, Israel shocked the world when it attacked a humanitarian convoy on its way to Gaza in international waters, killing 9 civilians, injuring dozens more, and kidnapping hundreds. Today — as Hamas and Fatah negotiate internal unity and Egypt moves to permanently open Gaza’s southern border, consequences of the Arab Spring — the international solidarity movement musters an even greater flotilla of ships to challenge Israel’s illegal actions against the Palestinians. As anticipated, Israel promises to do everything it can to once again stop an organized, nonviolent force of civil society standing with Palestinians in their struggle for equal rights and self-determination.

Threatening to hijack boats in international waters and kill or kidnap passengers is, of course, a serious crime. But Israel’s threats and actual uses of force are nothing new. For decades, Israel has been hijacking international vessels throughout the Mediterranean and kidnapping or killing passengers. To understand the current situation involving civil resistance to Israeli policy, a glance at Israel’s aggressive history in international waters is in order.

In 1976, according to Knesset member Mattiyahu Peled, the Israeli Navy began to capture boats belonging to Lebanese Muslims — turning them over to Lebanese Christian allies, who killed the owners — in an effort to abort a movement towards reconciliation that had been arranged between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel.

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Calls for Immediate Peace Talks, But Won’t Allow Any Concessions

by Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com, May 10, 2011

Nine months in, the international community is increasingly wondering if the Israel-PA peace talks with ever restart. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, an outspoken opponent of the talks to begin with, came forward with an offer of immediate talks.

Which sounds good on the surface, but in the same talks with foreign diplomats, Lieberman also ruled out making any concessions, including the only one the PA actually wants, a freeze in the expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“Not for three months, not for three days, not even for three hours,” Lieberman insisted. The PA has said it is willing to return to the talks the minute a new freeze is announced. The Israeli government ended its last freeze in September, which also ended the talks.

Israeli officials have repeatedly blamed the Palestinians for the halt to talks, and have recently cited the attempted reconciliation of Fatah and Hamas as the reason behind the lack of progress is restarting them. At the end of the day, however, the only thing that can restart those talks is a settlement freeze, and that is poltiically impossible for a far-right coalition in Israel which depends on pro-settler factions for support.

by Marjorie Cohn, ZNet, May 10, 2011

When he announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed by a Navy Seal team in Pakistan, President Barack Obama said, “Justice has been done.” Mr. Obama misused the word “justice” when he made that statement. He should have said, “Retaliation has been accomplished.” A former professor of constitutional law should know the difference between those two concepts. The word “justice” implies an act of applying or upholding the law.

Targeted assassinations violate well-established principles of international law. Also called political assassinations, they are extrajudicial executions. These are unlawful and deliberate killings carried out by order of, or with the acquiescence of, a government, outside any judicial framework.

Extrajudicial executions are unlawful, even in armed conflict. In a 1998 report, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions noted that “extrajudicial executions can never be justified under any circumstances, not even in time of war.” The U.N. General Assembly and Human Rights Commission, as well as Amnesty International, have all condemned extrajudicial executions.

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By NEVE GORDON, Counterpunch, May 11, 2011

“Bad laws,” Edmund Burke once said, “are the worst sort of tyranny.”

The millions of people who have been protesting – from Tunis, Egypt and Libya, to Bahrain, Yemen and Syria – appear to have recognised this truism and are demanding the end of emergency law and the drafting of new constitutions that will guarantee the separation of powers, free, fair and regular elections, and basic political, social and economic rights for all citizens.

To put it succinctly, they are fighting to end tyranny.

Within this dramatic context it is also fruitful to look at Israel, which is considered by many as the only democracy in the Middle East and which has, in many ways, been an outlier in the region. One might ask whether Israel or not stands as a beacon of light for those fighting tyranny.

On the one hand, the book of laws under which Israel’s citizenry live is – with the exception of a handful of significant laws that privilege Jews over non-Jews – currently very similar to those used in most liberal democracies, where the executive, legislative and judicial powers are separated, there are free, fair and regular elections, and the citizens enjoy basic rights – including freedom of expression and association.

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By Badri Raina

Geronimo, Indian, you never

do die, do you?

They haven’t forgotten

how you strove

on behalf of what was yours.

The British came for us Indians,

and we caved in;

many made merry, and do

to this day;

but you would not let the Yanks

have full sway.

Your WMD was the land,

the forests, the waters,

the peace, wisdom, the civilization

of your natural nation.

But their genocidal guilt

they cannot tame;

which is why they gave

to Osama your living name.

But the more they snuff out

the acorn of sanity, Geronimo,

the more you sprout;

have no doubt

that your argument on behalf

of the earth

will either ruin and rout

the mad marauders,

or oblige the furies of Nature

to take all, yielding new birth.

And when that happens, O Apache

philosopher, little Geronimos

all across the new world

shall sing hosannas of love,

and again you shall be the king

of universal caring.

Asian Human Rights Commission, May 9, 2011

Supporters outside the Consulate General of Bangladesh in Hong Kong expressing concern about the attack on Mr. FMA Razzak

Press Release : (Hong Kong, May 9, 2011) On 9 May 2011, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), Asia Monitor Resource Centre, Asia Pacific Students and Youth Association, Hong Kong Journalists Association, Interfaith Cooperation Forum, Unison – Hong Kong, World Student Christian Federation jointly made a petition to the Consulate General of Bangladesh in Hong Kong to express concern about the recent serious attack and attempting blinding of human rights defender and journalist Mr. FMA Razzak in Bangladesh.

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Oil Wealth, U.S. Backing Enables Saudi Arabia to Crush Dissent in Bahrain and at Home

MWC News, May 6, 2011

Saudi Arabia, the oil rich kingdom that is the birthplace and former home of Osama bin Laden, has staved off the widespread popular protests that have swept across the region since January. The country’s oil-rich Eastern Province, bordering Bahrain, has witnessed protests from the minority Shia Muslim population. In March, Saudi Arabia sent troops to Bahrain to support its royal family after a month of protests. We speak with Toby Jones, author of Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia, on the role of Saudi Arabia in suppressing the Bahrain uprising, as well as its own. “We shouldn’t assume that there is a lack of interest on the part of Saudi citizens in achieving some sort of democratic or political reform. There are deep frustrations in Saudi society,” says Jones.

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Cathy  Kelly, Information Clearing House, May 9, 2011

On May 4, 2011, CNN World News asked whether killing Osama bin Laden was legal under international law. Other news commentary has questioned whether it would have been both possible and advantageous to bring Osama bin Laden to trial rather than kill him.

World attention has been focused, however briefly, on questions of legality regarding the killing of Osama bin Laden. But, with the increasing use of Predator drones to kill suspected “high value targets” in Pakistan and Afghanistan, extrajudicial killings by U.S. military forces have become the new norm.

Just three days after Osama bin Laden was killed, an attack) employing remote-control aerial drones killed fifteen people in Pakistan and wounded four. CNN reports that their Islamabad bureau has counted four drone strikes over the last month and a half since the March 17 drone attack which killed 44 people in Pakistan’s tribal region. This most recent suspected strike was the 21st this year. There were 111 strikes in 2010. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimated that 957 innocent civilians were killed in 2010.

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