Peace and Justice Post

A rule of thumb in journalism is that there are almost always two sides to a story, but that rule is often ignored by the U.S. news media in the heat of some conflict when the United States is involved. Then, the real motivations of the U.S. adversary are widely ignored in favor of demonization, as the Independent Institute’s Ivan Eland notes in this guest essay.

By Ivan Eland, Consortium News, May 17, 2011

The killing of Osama bin Laden reminds us that there are only two disciplines in which uncaused events occur — quantum physics and the history of U.S. foreign policy.

According to the version of history expounded by the American media and politicians, the passenger aircraft hitting the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11 were a diabolical surprise attack out of the blue by the evil bin Laden against unsuspecting and naïve Americans.

Of course, Americans were naïve, but principally about their government’s political and military interventions in Muslim countries since World War II, and especially since 1980.

Bin Laden was blunt about this in his pronouncements on why he attacked the United States, but America never wanted to hear.

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Comment reported in New York Times comes amid growing tensions between Washington and Jerusalem over the U.S. President’s backing of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders.

By Haaretz Service, May  20, 2011

U.S. President Barack Obama does not think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ever make the concessions necessary to achieve a Middle East peace deal, the New York Times cited Obama aides as saying on Friday.

The comments attributed to associates of the U.S. president comes amid what is turning become into a veritable war of words between Israel and the U.S., following Obama’s Mideast strategy speech on Thursday in which the American leader voiced his support for a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders.

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Then we had to hear what America’s ‘role’ was going to be in the new Middle East. We did not hear if the Arabs wanted them to have a role

The Independent, May 20, 2011

It was the same old story. Palestinians can have a “viable” state, Israel a “secure” one. Israel cannot be de-legitimised. The Palestinians must not attempt to ask the UN for statehood in September. No peace can be imposed on either party. Sometimes yesterday, you could have turned this into Obama’s forthcoming speech to pro-Israeli lobbyists this weekend. Oh yes, and the Palestinian state must have no weapons to defend itself. So that’s what “viable” means!

It was a kind of Second Coming, I suppose, Cairo re-pledged, another crack at the Middle East, as boring and as unfair as all the other ones, with lots of rhetoric about the Arab revolutions which Obama did nothing to help. Some of it was positively delusional. “We have broken the Taliban’s momentum,” the great speechifier said. What? Does he really – really – think that?

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Although President Barack Obama’s May 19 address on U.S. Middle East policy had a number of positive elements, overall it was a major disappointment. His speech served as yet another reminder that his administration’s approach to the region differs in several important ways from that of his immediate predecessor, but he failed to consistently assert principled U.S. support for human rights, democracy, or international law.

Obama was most eloquent in noting how popular nonviolent struggles were the driving agent of change in the region, and how this had in many ways made al-Qaeda decreasingly relevant even before the killing of Osama bin Laden earlier this month. Correctly recognizing that, through the use of nonviolent action, “the people of the region have achieved more change in six months than terrorists have accomplished in decades,” the president also observed, unlike the problematic efforts of “democracy promotion” in Iraq, “It is not America that put people into the streets of Tunis and Cairo – it was the people themselves who launched these movements, and must determine their outcome.”

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Camp Ofer near Ramallah is an Israeli ‘incarceration facility’ for detaining and processing Palestinian prisoners, including children (there are currently more than 200 Palestinian children in Israeli detention; a fifth of them are under 16). A delegation of three British Labour MPs who visited Camp Ofer last December told Amira Hass in Haaretz what they saw. More than two-thirds of detained children said they had been beaten. They were all ‘better off pleading guilty regardless of whether they had done something, because if they were detained until the end of proceedings, this could be three times longer than their punishment’. One of the MPs was disturbed to hear from his escort that this was a relatively good day: the children’s hands were cuffed in front of them rather than behind their backs.

A report on the prison in Haaretz last month included the case of a 14-year-old boy who had been in custody for six days before being brought before the judge (in Israel suspects have to be brought before a judge within 24 hours; in the Occupied Territories they can be held for up to eight days). His lawyer told the court that the child had been ‘interrogated in a cruel, undignified fashion’. As is common in such cases, the defendant and his lawyer didn’t know what the charges were. The boy was remanded in custody for another ten days, after which ‘he will be sentenced to another few months in prison’ for a crime he has no idea of.

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Glen Ford, uruknet.org, May 18, 2011

Source: BAR,

Americans are taking note of a recent study on massive rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but most fail to connect the horror with U.S. policy in Africa. Mass rape is one aspect of a genocide that has taken six million lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo. American proxies carried out Washington’s aims of creating chaos for the benefit of multinational corporations. “It is U.S. policy that has unleashed bands of armed men and child soldiers to inflict unspeakable horrors on women and girls.” What should be the human response to a new study that estimates two million women have been raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo? The natural reaction is horror, anger, and to demand that somebody do something. But of course, one cannot do anything effectively, unless one has some understanding of why this atrocity against womankind occurs at such horrific levels in this particular country. Continues >>

By Richard Falk, MWC News, May 19, 2011

As the American president, Barack Obama, sets forth his views on the future of the Middle East it seems a good time to take stock of the leadership vacuum in world affairs, and whether there are alternatives to the role the United States has played ever since World War II. While Obama welcomed the regional moves toward democracy and deplored those regimes that hold onto power by using violence against their own people, there was little cause given in the speech for either American balance with respect to the Israel/Palestine conflict or commitment to a more equitable world economy. In other words, the speech was mainly a courtly exercise in cheerleading for democracy in North Africa and the Middle East but not an attempt to be a creative and innovative global leader with respect to regional problem-solving.

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The Republic,  May 19, 2011

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS,

JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister has rejected a key aspect of President Barack Obama’s policy speech, saying that a return to his country’s 1967 borders would spell disaster for the Jewish state.

In a statement released late Thursday, Benjamin Netanyahu called the 1967 lines “indefensible.”

The tough stand could set the stage for a tense meeting Friday when Netanyahu goes to the White House.

In his speech, Obama said a future Palestinian state must be based in territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, with minor adjustments reached through negotiations.

Netanyahu said such a withdrawal would jeopardize Israel’s security and leave major West Bank settlements outside Israeli borders.

The Statesman, 19 May 2011

Press Trust of India
ISLAMABAD, 19 MAY: In the wake of the US raid in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden, China has “warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China”, a media report claimed today.

The warning was formally conveyed by the Chinese foreign minister at last week’s China-US strategic dialogue and economic talks in Washington, The News daily quoted diplomatic sources as saying. China also advised the USa to “respect Pakistan’s sovereignty and solidarity”, the report said.
Chinese Premier Mr Wen Jiabao informed his Pakistani counterpart Mr Yousuf Raza Gilani about the matters taken up with the US during their formal talks at the Great Hall of the People yesterday. The report said China “warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China”. The two premiers held a 45-minute one-on-one meeting before beginning talks with their delegations.
The Chinese leadership was “extremely forthcoming in assuring its unprecedented support to Pakistan for its national cause and security” and discussed all subjects of mutual interest with Mr Gilani, the report said. Mr Gilani described Pakistan-China relations and friendship as “unique”. Talking to Pakistani journalists accompanying him, he said that China had acknowledged his country’s contribution and sacrifices in the war against terrorism and supported its cause at the international level. “China supported Pakistan’s cause on its own accord,” Mr Gilani said with reference to the Sino-US strategic dialogue where the Chinese told the US that Pakistan should be helped and its national honour respected. Mr Gilani said China had asked the US to improve its relations with Pakistan, keeping in view the present scenario.

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By ALICE ROTHCHILD, Counterpunch, May 18, 2011

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is holding its annual conference May 22-24, where Congress people and many of our national leaders will rush headlong into the committee’s open arms and bountiful coffers. In an increasingly bizarre time warp they will congratulate each other and kvell about Israel’s special relationship with the US, our strategic partnership, and Israel’s commitment to democratic ideals in a “sea of dictatorships” (to quote the website).

What they will not talk about is reality. US Jews are increasingly uncomfortable with a lobby that claims to represent us, but is deeply committed to the militaristic and rightwing policies of successive Israeli governments. Jews in the US tend to be politically progressive, but we are being asked to suspend our liberal beliefs when it comes to Israel. While maintaining a steady dream beat for war against Iran and a world view that, “Israel continues to fulfill its ancient obligation as a ‘light unto the nations,'” AIPAC lobbyists with their Christian Zionist allies guarantee billions of dollars in military aid for Israel each year . Much of this goes towards buying US military weapons and machinery, cementing the massive, interconnected, and lucrative military-industrial-security complex that now exists between our two countries.

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