Peace and Justice Post

And Why They Must Be Debunked

Here are the Three Sacred Commandments for Americans who shape the public conversation on Israel:

1. For politicians, especially at the federal level: As soon as you say the word “Israel,” you must also say the word “security” and promise that the United States will always, always, always be committed to Israel’s security. If you occasionally label an action by the Israeli government “unhelpful,” you must immediately reaffirm the eternal U.S. commitment to Israel’s security.

2. For TV talking heads and op-ed pundits: If you criticize any policies or actions of the Israeli government, you must immediately add that Israel does, of course, have very real and serious security needs that have to be addressed.

3. For journalists covering the Israel-Palestine conflict for major American news outlets: You must live in Jewish Jerusalem or in Tel Aviv and take only occasional day trips into the Occupied Territories. So your reporting must inevitably be slanted toward the perspective of the Jews you live among. And you must indicate in every report that Jewish Israeli life is dominated by anxiety about security.

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Socialist Unity, April 17, 2011

Cuba staged a massive military parade on Saturday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1961 defeat of CIA-backed exiles at the Bay of Pigs.

President Raul Castro hosted the parade, which also marked 50 years since his brother Fidel proclaimed the socialist character of the Cuban revolution.

Raul Castro, the former head of Cuba’s armed forces before taking over the presidency from his brother Fidel, donned military fatigues for the occasion. He looked on with other dignitaries from a dais, waving and saluting the troops. There was no sign of Fidel Castro.

The parade opened with a brief speech by Maydel Gomez, president of the Federation of University Students, who said “young people will not fail to continue to support the socialist revolution.”

The first part of the parade was a “symbolic journey” throughout the Cuban military history, including a “Mambi” cavalry with 128 riders and a replica of the Granma yacht in which Fidel Castro and his followers arrived in Cuba in 1956.

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De 7000 grådige prinsers land

Prinsene i Saudi-Arabia skjelver for at opprøret skal ramme dem. De har stjålet en million oljefat daglig, røvet og ødslet vekk milliarder av dollar, viser Wikileaks-notater.

56 år gamle prins Al-Walid bin Talal, hans kone og to barn har 320 rom i sitt sandfargede palass av italiensk marmor i Riyadh. I tillegg kommer tre innendørs svømmebasseng, tennisbane, 250 TV-er, kinosal og fem kjøkken som kan lage middag til 2000 gjester. I garasjen står prinsens 200 biler, deriblant to Rolls-Royce Phantom, flere Infinti FX45, Hummer H-1, en håndfull Ferrarier og en diamantbelagt Mercedes-Benz SL 600.

Jordens rikeste araber ble verdenskjent da han betalte comebacket til Michael Jackson i 1996. Med en formue på 107 milliarder kroner er han på 26. plass på listen over verdens velstående. «Self made», ifølge Forbes og han selv.

I sitt flyvende palass – en luksuriøst innredet Airbus A321 til 1,7 milliarder kroner – flyr prinsen mellom London, New York, Paris, Singapore og Riyadh. Samtidig skriver han leserinnlegg i New York Times og etterlyser reformer for kvinnene og de fattige. Han er en sjeik etter Vestens smak. De mektige religiøse imamene i landet er ikke like begeistret. De har fordømt ham fordi han lar sin vakre kone kjøre bil i utlandet, noe som er forbudt i Saudi-Arabia. Den egenrådige prinsen har også støttet president Nicolas Sarkozys forbud mot heldekkende hodeplagg på offentlige steder.

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By Bill Van Auken, wsws.org, 16 April 2011

Hundreds protested in Saudi Arabia Friday demanding an end to the Saudi occupation of Bahrain and the release of the dictatorial kingdom’s political prisoners.

It was the second day of mass protests, which have been concentrated in the predominantly Shiite eastern region of the country, the center of Saudi Arabia’s oilfields and refineries.

Friday’s demonstrations also saw protesters rally outside the interior ministry in Riyadh in support of individuals they referred to as the “forgotten political prisoners,” who in some cases have been imprisoned for as long as 16 years without charges or trials for daring to demand political rights.

The larger demonstrations took place in the eastern city of Qatif and nearby villages, where demonstrators marched through the streets carrying banners and candles to denounce the Saudi military’s intervention in neighboring Bahrain and to demand the release of over 100 people, including children, who have been arrested in the area during protests over the last month.

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by Jeremy R. Hammond, Foreign Policy Journal, April 17, 2011

The U.S. Senate on April 14 passed a resolution “calling on the United Nations to rescind the Goldstone report”, the popular name for the report of a U.N. fact-finding mission chaired by Richard Goldstone that was charged with investigating Israel’s full-scale military assault on the Gaza Strip in 2008-09, code-named “Operation Cast Lead”.

The report of the fact-finding mission concluded that there was evidence that both Israel and the Palestinian authority in Gaza, Hamas, committed war crimes during the course of the assault.

S.RES.138 states that “Justice Richard Goldstone publicly retracted the central claims of the report he authored in an op-ed in The Washington Post on April 2, 2011″ and “also conceded that the number of civilian casualties was far smaller than the report alleged”.

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In the capital Riyadh, the protesters gathered outside the interior ministry and urged Saudi authorities to release what they called “forgotten political prisoners” who have been detained for demanding reforms in their country, a Press TV correspondent reported.

Protesters say prisoners are being held unjustly and without trial, some for as long as 16 years.

In the eastern city of Qatif, protesters poured into the streets, condemning Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Bahrain.

Expressing solidarity with anti-government protesters in Bahrain, the Saudis urged the immediate withdrawal of the Kingdom’s troops from the neighboring country.

Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Bahrain comes despite the convention of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council, which bans any interference in the regional countries’ domestic affairs.

They also called for the release of political prisoners and an end to human rights violations in the country.

Saudi Arabia’s oil-producing east has been the scene of anti-government protests over the past weeks.

According to a Saudi-based human rights group, Saudi authorities have arrested one hundred protesters for taking part or organizing anti-government demonstrations.

Human Rights First Society (HRFS) also revealed that some of the detainees were subject to torture both physically and mentally.

In Saudi Arabia, protest rallies and any public displays of dissent are forbidden and are considered illegal. Senior Wahhabi clerics in the kingdom have also censured opposition demonstrations as “un-Islamic.”

HM/MMN

By Goldy M. Georg, Countercurrents.org, April 14, 2011

I have been following all the different sets of emails and other communications since Anna Hazare began his hunger strike. Much before he paid his kudos for Modi and Nitish and his recent statement supporting MNS, it was clear to at least a few of us that it’s a modern way of placing Brahmanism on a capitalistic plank. Let me put my point very blunt. One might agree or disagree it solely rests with one’s wisdom.

The new model of Project Brahmanism is to fight against corruption and population growth not against casteism, fascism, communalism, gender inequity, capitalism or anything else. Well corruption had been always a yardstick to freeze the core issues of any region. The issues I have mentioned above that I have mentioned about. The word corruption is a misnomer, for it implies that there is something called honest capitalism. Corruption is worked into the fabric of capitalism. Sir Francis Drake made a fortune as a “privateer,” the polite word for pirate. In addition to indulging in the very lucrative slave trade, he routinely captured and ripped off French ships. One nation’s piracy was another nation’s foreign policy.

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Last week, scores were killed in Gaza after renewed Israeli air strikes.  Initial rumours of plans to launch an ‘Operation Scorching Summer’ seem to have been dispelled, although it was another bloody week for the battered yet resilient people of Gaza.

It seems that the Israeli government momentarily took Richard Goldstone’s comments last month as a green-light for a renewed attack on the Gaza Strip.  Goldstone had said that he regretted some aspects of the report he made on Operation Cast Lead, during which around 1400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died.  Four of the Israelis were killed by other Israeli soldiers in ‘friendly fire’ incidents.

The Goldstone Report concluded that individual Israelis could be held criminally responsible for potential war crimes committed by the State of Israel. But now, Goldstone, a supporter of Israel – perhaps a strange choice for an ‘impartial’ report on a war launched by Israel – has said subsequent Israeli military reports show that Israel did not target civilians as a matter of policy.  Oh, Israeli military reports, that infamous source of unbiased and accurate information.

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Asian Human Rights Commission,  April 2011

Urgent Appeal Case : The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that four activists of a nationalist political group were abducted from a crowded part of Karachi city by the police and plain clothed persons in police and military jeeps when they were ending their six day hunger strike in protest against the second disappearance of their leader who has been missing since 25 February 2011 after his arrest by persons from Army, Rangers and police. The parents of the disappeared person, in an application to different authorities, accuse Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and military intelligence (MI) for the kidnap and disappearance.

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Photo by Reuters

There is a packet of pipe tobacco sitting in my Gaza City apartment.

It’s Victor’s. He left it behind the last time I saw him, about one month ago.

Anyone who knew Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni knew that he was usually puffing away on a pipe. Like a wise sea captain.

I had hoped to give his tobacco back to him this weekend, to catch up before he left Gaza and returned to Italy.

He was heading home to see his father, who has been very ill. Also to have a break from Gaza and return refreshed on a new flotilla aiming to set sail to Gaza at the end of May and break the siege.

I last heard from him on Wednesday. It was a short text message asking me if I’d just heard the loud booms. These were sonic booms from low flying Israeli war planes. No, I replied, I hadn’t.

The following day he was kidnapped and shortly afterwards killed. Members of a Salafi group say they are responsible.

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