Peace and Justice Post

President Barack Obama struggled to explain his planned veto of UN recognition of a Palestinian state just a year after he welcomed the idea. His speech was a painful example of a leader knowing what is right and calculating that he can’t do what is right, notes Lawrence Davidson.

By Lawrence Davidson, Consortium News, Sept. 26, 2011

On Sept. 21, President Barack Obama delivered his latest message to the United Nations: “I would like to talk to you about a subject that is at the heart of the United Nations – the pursuit of peace in an imperfect world.”

Actually, one thing that makes the world imperfect is the lopsided power distribution at the UN. This allows the permanent members of the Security Council (particularly the U.S.) to decide when peace does or does not get pursued.

But Obama did not call attention to this problem. Instead he pointed to Libya and the alleged achievement of freedom, security and peace in that North African land. Actually, what Libya amounted to, at least in part, was the destruction of a nation with a standard of living approaching that of Spain.

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NEW YORK — When Mark Hatfield, who had served as a U.S. Senator from Oregon for three decades, died in early August, obituaries noted that he was one of the first U.S. soldiers to visit Hiroshima not long after the atomic bombing of the city, and that experience led him to work for nuclear arms control later, after he became a Senator.

As it happened, the day of Hatfield’s death, Aug. 7, fell between the day the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the day it did on Nagasaki, in 1945.

His death occurred, in fact, when an annual round of commentaries on those deeds were appearing. Among them, the historian Gar Alperovitz wrote to point out that “the vast majority of top American military leaders in all three services” argued after the war that the U.S. “did not need to use the atomic bomb to end the war against Japan in 1945” (“On the Sixty-Sixth Anniversary of the Bombing of Hiroshima”).

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A mourner at Issam Kamal Abed Odhe’s funeral. (Photo by Silvia Boarini)

KUSRA — Seven children no longer have a father and the Palestinian people have another martyr. Issam Kamel Abid Badran Odeh was shot in the neck and killed by Israeli soldiers, on Friday, in the latest clash in an ongoing conflict between the Israeli settlers of Esh Kadesh outpost and the Palestinian village of Kusra, near Nablus.

Kusra residents also claimed Israeli soldiers bound and blindfolded two children before letting settlers beat them and throw rocks at them. Another man was shot in the shoulder and the hip.

An official Israel Defence Forces’ statement described the events as involving “violent rioters” (Palestinians), incited during a “mutual rock hurling incident … between Israeli civilians and approximately 300 Palestinians.”

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Ever since John Mearsheimer and I began writing about the Israel lobby, some of our critics have leveled various personal charges against us. These attacks rarely addressed the substance of what we wrote — a tacit concession that both facts and logic were on our side — but instead accused us of being anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists. They used these false charges to try to discredit and/or marginalize us, and to distract people from the important issues of U.S. Middle East policy that we had raised.

The latest example of this tactic is a recent blog post from Jeffrey Goldberg, where he accused my co-author of endorsing a book by an alleged Holocaust denier and Nazi sympathizer. Goldberg has well-established record of making things up about us, and this latest episode is consistent with his usual approach. I asked Professor Mearsheimer if he wanted to respond to Goldberg’s sally, and he sent the following reply.

John Mearsheimer writes:

In a certain sense, it is hard not to be impressed by the energy and imagination that Jeffrey Goldberg devotes to smearing Steve Walt and me. Although he clearly disagrees with our views about U.S.-Israel relations and the role of the Israel lobby, he does not bother to engage what we actually wrote in any meaningful way. Indeed, given what he writes about us, I am not even sure he has read our book or related articles. Instead of challenging the arguments and evidence that we presented, his modus operandi is to misrepresent and distort our views, in a transparent attempt to portray us as rabid anti-Semites.

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Gilad Atzmon, MWC News, Sept. 25, 2011

Professor John Mearsheimer is subject to a Zionist-trans-Atlantic-attack for supporting my latest book The Wandering Who.

Earlier this year John Mearsheimer, the highly respected international relations theorist and Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, wrote the following preliminary front matter for my book:

“Gilad Atzmon has written a fascinating and provocative book on Jewish identity in the modern world. He shows how assimilation and liberalism are making it increasingly difficult for Jews in the Diaspora to maintain a powerful sense of their ‘Jewishness.’ Panicked Jewish leaders, he argues, have turned to Zionism (blind loyalty to Israel) and scaremongering (the threat of another Holocaust) to keep the tribe united and distinct from the surrounding goyim. As Atzmon’s own case demonstrates, this strategy is not working and is causing many Jews great anguish. The Wandering Who? should be widely read by Jews and non-Jews alike.”

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By Jonathan Cook, Countercurrents.com, Sept. 26, 2011

Amid the enthusiastic applause in New York and the celebrations in Ramallah, it was easy to believe — if only a for minute — that, after decades of obstruction by Israel and the United States, a Palestinian state might finally be pulled out of the United Nations hat. Will the world’s conscience be midwife to a new era ending Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians?

It seems not.

The Palestinian application, handed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon last week, has now disappeared from view — for weeks, it seems — while the United States and Israel devise a face-saving formula to kill it in the Security Council. Behind the scenes, the pair are strong-arming the Council’s members to block Palestinian statehood without the need for the US to cast its threatened veto.

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The fast developing predator drone technology, officially called unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs, is becoming so dominant and so beyond any restraining framework of law or ethics, that its use by the U.S. government around the world may invite a horrific blowback.

First some background. The Pentagon has about 7,000 aerial drones. Ten years ago there were less than 50. According to the website longwarjournal.com, they have destroyed about 1900 insurgents in Pakistan’s tribal regions. How these fighters are so clearly distinguished from civilians in those mountain areas is not clear.

Nor is it clear how or from whom the government gets such “precise” information about the guerilla leaders’ whereabouts night and day. The drones are beyond any counterattack–flying often at 50,000 feet. But the Air Force has recognized that a third of the Predators have crashed by themselves.

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US politicians continued with the condemnation of Pakistan today, with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R – SC) saying that that was broad bipartisan support in Congress for a military attack on Pakistan and that “all options are on the table” against the nation.

The most direct threat yet, it prompted a quick response from the Pakistani government, with Prime Minister Gilani recalling his Foreign Minister from a visit to the United States and ordering an emergency “all-parties” conference to discuss the prospect of a US invasion.

Gilani insisted it was important for the coalition government to establish political consensus with the opposition about handling the US threats, and called a number of opposition leaders. A unity statement is expected to be released soon.

The US has accused the Pakistani government of funding the Haqqani network as well as ordering them to attack the US embassy in Kabul. Pakistan has denied the allegation.

Venezuela Endorses Sovereignty of Palestinian State

ED NOTE: On September 17, 2011 Hugo Chávez Frias, President of The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela sent the following letter to Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, to confirm the Venezuelan government’s support for the establishment of the State of Palestine. The Venezuelan president sent this letter as the 66th UN General Assembly votes on Palestinian statehood.

mycatbirdseat.com, Sept. 26, 2011

By Hugo Chávez Frías, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

Miraflores, September 17, 2011

His Excellency
Ban Ki-moon
Secretary General of the United Nations

Mr. Secretary General:
Distinguished representatives of the peoples of the world:

I address these words to the United Nations General Assembly, to this great forum that represents all the people of earth, to ratify, on this day and in this setting, Venezuela’s full support of the recognition of the Palestinian State: of Palestine’s right to become a free, sovereign and independent state. This represents an act of historic justice towards a people who carry with them, from time immemorial, all the pain and suffering of the world.

In his memorable essay The Grandeur of Arafat, the great French philosopher Gilles Deleuze wrote with the full weight of the truth: The Palestinian cause is first and foremost the set of injustices that these people have suffered and continue to suffer. And I dare add that the Palestinian cause also represents a constant and unwavering will to resist, already written in the historic memory of the human condition. . . .

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It all started with a selfish, egotistic and insecure military dictator’s abject surrender to a threat from a superpower.

Primarily for personal gains and strengthening the military’s hold on power in the country, he succumbed to do Uncle Sam’s bidding and agreed to place Pakistan’s resources at its disposal. The airbases were handed over. Ground and airspace was open to the NATO forces. The Pakistan army was ordered to break the time-tested policy of not to militarily take on the armed pathan tribes in FATA. Thus, funds started trickling in for the services rendered. But while the dictate was readily complied with, no conditions or quid pro quo was secured in return for the commitments made.

Before he was pushed out, the general-president left the legacy of a political deal midwifed by Washington and London, which was based on a preposterous law that legitimised corruption and criminal offences committed by thousands of wayward politicians. However, these politicians later assumed the reins of power at the federal level. . . .

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