Peace and Justice Post

One of the least analyzed aspects of the Egyptian pro-democracy movement and US policy toward it, is the role of the influential Zionist power configuration (ZPC) including the leading umbrella organization – the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CPMAJO) – Congressional Middle East committee members, officials occupying strategic positions in the Obama Administration’s Middle East bureaus, as well as prominent editors, publicists and journalists who play a major role in the prestigious newspapers and popular weekly magazines.

The James Petras Website,  Feb 20, 2011

This essay is based on a survey of every issue of the Daily Alert (propaganda bulletin of the CPMAJO), the NY Times and the Washington Post between January 25 – February 17, 2011.

From the very beginning of the Egyptian pro-democracy movement, the ZPC, called into question the legitimacy of the anti-dictatorial demands by focusing on the “Islamic threat”. In particular the ultra-Zionist Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Daily Alert harped on the “threat” of a “Islamic takeover” by the Muslim Brotherhood even as the overwhelming number of non-Zionist experts and reporters in Egypt demonstrated that the vast majority of protestors were not members of any Islamic political movement, but largely advocates of a secular democratic republic (see the Financial Times 1/26/11-2/17/11).

Once their initial propaganda ploy failed, the ZPC developed several new propaganda lines: the most prominent of which was a sustained defense of the Mubarak dictatorship as a bulwark of Israel’s ‘security’ and guardian of the so-called “Peace Accord” of 1979. In other words the ZPC pressured the US administration, via Congressional hearings, the press and AIPAC to support Mubarak as a key guarantor and collaborator of Israel’s supremacy in the Middle East; although it meant that the Obama regime would have to openly oppose the million-member Egyptian freedom movement. Israeli journalists, officials and their US Zionist counterparts willingly admitted that although the Mubarak regime was a bloody, corrupt tyranny, he should be supported because a democratic government in Cairo might end Egypt’s decades-old collaboration with the brutal Israeli colonization of Palestine.

Once it became clear that uncritical support for Mubarak was no longer a viable position and the Obama Administration was appealing to the democratic movement to “dialogue” and negotiate with the dictator, the ZPC demanded caution in backing a “dialogue” and assurance that the dialogue did not lead to any abrupt changes in the Mubarak-Israeli treaty. The ZPC and its scribes in the Washington Post presented Mubarak’s hand picked “Vice President” Omar Suleiman, a notorious torturer and long-term collaborator of Israel’s Mossad, as the legitimate interlocutor for the dialogue – even as he was unanimously rejected by the entire pro-democracy movement.

Continues >>

by Richard Falk, Foreign Policy Journal,February 15, 2011

Citizen Pilgrimage — I am posting the official text of my most recent report to the UN Human Rights Council on Israeli human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The period covered ends in December 2010, and the report will be formally presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 21, 2011. Of course, the impact of recent events, especially in Egypt, is not considered. Of primary interest will be the approach taken by the new Egyptian leadership to the Rafah Crossing, especially whether humanitarian goods will be permitted to enter freely and whether Gazans will be allowed to leave and return without difficulty. Also, important will be whether there will be continued cooperation with the Israeli authorities with respect to maintaining the unlawful blockade. These issues will be one litmus test with respect to the depth of democratization in Egypt. We can only hope that the ordeal endured for so long by the Gazan people will be ended as a collateral benefit of the great Egyptian Revolution, but it will not happen automatically. The time for vigilance and solidarity is now!

Continues >>

The fever sweeping the Middle East is now coursing through Libya, Yemen, Iran and Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based.

In all four nations, state violence is being used to crush the rebels, and regime survival hangs on whether security forces and the army stand behind the government or stand aside.

A new Middle East is dawning. What will it look like?

Perhaps the nation to study is Turkey, which has already gone through a democratic and dramatic transformation.

In 2000, Turkey was a reliable U.S. ally, a friend to Israel, an aspiring candidate for membership in the EU. Since then, Turkey has set a different course, welcomed by her people, that has measurably enhanced her prestige.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime is far more Islamic than any Turkish government since the caliphate. He and his Justice and Development Party have effected constitutional reforms to curb the power of the judiciary and military, guardians of the secular state established by Kemal Ataturk in 1923. Scores of generals have been indicted for treason.

Turkey refused President George W. Bush permission to use its territory to invade Iraq. Denied a fast track to membership in the EU, Turkey now looks to the south and east. Relations with Syria have been repaired. Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been welcomed in Istanbul.

Continues >>

Gulf State that Attacked Pro-Democracy Demonstrators Serves as Key Port for U.S. Navy since World War II

CBS Evening News,  Feb 17, 2011

(CBSNews) THE PENTAGON – The free flow of oil, the containment of Iran and the defeat of al Qaeda, those are the stakes in the Persian Gulf and why the U.S. Navy has about 30 warships assigned to its 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

Complete Coverage: Anger in the Arab World

The world’s attention was focused Thursday on the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom. Bahrain’s capital is under lockdown after government troops attacked protesters overnight. At least five people were killed. Hundreds were wounded. In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Bahrain’s government to show restraint.

(Scroll down to watch a video of this report)

The U.S. Navy has maintained a presence in Bahrain since World War II. The kingdom plays a vital role in protecting American interests.

“This whole area depends upon the ability to maintain naval and air forces in the region,” said David Mack, a scholar at the Middle East Institute who once served as U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.

And it’s not just Bahrain. It’s Kuwait, which is the staging area for operations in Iraq. It’s Qatar, where the headquarters for U.S. military operations throughout the Middle East is located along with an air base used by bombers flying strikes in Afghanistan.

Continues >>

By JAMES ZOGBY, Counterpunch, Feb 17, 2011

If one lesson is to be learned from the remarkable events unfolding in Egypt, it is that Arab public opinion matters. For too long Arab voices have not been listened to, nor have Arab sensibilities or aspirations been respected. The Egyptian people have not only risen up, demanding to be heard, they have also challenged other Arabs and the West to pay attention to what they are saying.

Last Thursday night, I watched a remarkable scene unfolding on television. As my dinner partner, Patrick Seale, and I sat transfixed watching the BBC, there, on one half of a split screen, was president Hosni Mubarak making a last ditch effort to save his rule. On the other half screen were throngs in Tahrir Square.

The disconnect was real. Mubarak was talking, but he simply wasn’t listening. He played every card at his disposal: the caring father, the patriot, the xenophobe, the reformer and more. Maybe, I thought, he was reaching out beyond the square to those he thought might also be listening. But if his imagined and hoped-for audience was there, they were not responding. The crowd in the square was listening, and his lack of responsiveness to their concerns only served to inflame them and deepen their resolve.

Continues >>

by Jacob G. Hornberge, The Future of Freedom Foundation, Feb 16, 2011

Once it became clear that Egypt’s dictator Hosni Mubarak was on the way out, U.S. officials quickly shifted gears and took the side of the demonstrators, the people who had suffered for 30 years under the brutal Mubarak dictatorship. U.S. officials even offered their guidance for moving Egypt toward a democratic political system.

Of course, all this pro-democracy hoopla was designed to disguise the fact that the U.S. government has been the prime partner and enabler of this brutal dictatorship for the entire 30 years under which the Egyptian people have suffered. It has been the U.S. government that has been providing the $60 billion in U.S. taxpayer money to Mubarak and his henchmen in the Egyptian military and secret police. It has been the U.S. government that has been paying the salaries of Egypt’s jailors and torturers for the past three decades. It is the U.S. military that has been training the Egyptian military.

Continues >>

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — A group of well respected religious scholars in Gaza City congratulated the Egyptian people on “ending the tyranny and injustice” of the nation’s former president, and called on the new leadership to continue the trend by opening the Rafah crossing.

Calling themselves the Palestinian Scholars Association, the group issued a statement on Sunday, two days after former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced his stepping down from power.

“The scholars of Palestine have followed closely the developments of the Egyptian revolution,” the statement said, adding that the group believed the new Egyptian cabinet and the military council could make “serious changes for the better,” and said they hoped that one of the changes would be to the policy of closure at the Rafah crossing.

Closed in 2006 after the Palestinian Authority was ousted from power, the crossing remained sealed for two years, after which it was opened for four days every four months to allow students, patients and international passport holders in and out of the coastal enclave. In June, the crossing was opened permanently, but travelers still had to have officials permission to leave the Strip.

The closure of Rafah followed only a few months after Israel began imposing restrictions at its crossing points with Gaza, in the wake of the capture of an Israeli soldier by resistance factions.

Closures and openings at Rafah have been seen to be coordinated with Israel, and accusations against the Mubarak regime for collaboration have frequently been launched.

With a new leadership barely in Place, the association of scholars urged a quick reconsideration of the crossings closure policy.

By Ray McGovern, Consortium News, February 14, 2011

Twenty years ago, as Americans were celebrating Valentine’s Day, Iraqi husbands and fathers in the Amiriyah section of Baghdad were peeling the remains of their wives and children off the walls and floor of a large neighborhood bomb shelter.

The men had left the shelter the evening before, so their wives would have some measure of privacy as they sought refuge from the U.S.-led coalition bombing campaign, which was at its most intense pre-ground war stage.

All of the more than 400 women and children were incinerated or boiled to death at 4:30 a.m. on Feb. 13, 1991, when two F-117 stealth fighter-bombers each dropped a 2,000-pound laser-guided “smart bomb” on the civilian shelter at Amiriyah.

It was one of those highly accurate “surgical strikes.” The first bomb sliced through 10 feet of reinforced concrete before a time-delayed fuse exploded, destroying propane and water tanks for heating water and food.

Minutes later the second bomb flew precisely through the opening that had been cut by the first and exploded deeper in the shelter creating an inferno.
Fire rose from the lower level to the area where the women and children were seeking shelter – and so did the boiling water. Those who did not burn to death immediately or die from the bombs’ impact were boiled or steamed to death in the intense heat.

Continues >>

When the tumult in Tunisia and Egypt shattered the deep freeze that has afflicted Arabs for almost four decades, countries fond of touting democracy should have been leading the celebrations. Instead, the reigning mood among elites in the United States, and especially in Israel, was one of fear and trepidation.

Though the Obama administration sounded a supportive note for the popular rebellion near its beginning — and later, when Mubarak’s ouster was a foregone conclusion — it has also issued nervous caveats, citing the dangers of rapid change and the merits of Mubarak’s intelligence chief, torturer Omar Suleiman. The reversal came on the back of pressure exerted by America’s other clients in the Arab world and Israeli leaders, who both dread the prospect of region-wide revolt.

Accompanied by a chorus of spineless pundits, America and its allies began mouthing the rationales of the dictator himself: stability is good; change is bad; horrors will befall us if the Muslim Brotherhood wins a share of power.

The hand-wringing of other Arab autocrats should not be discounted, but it is the potential disruption to the Egypt-Israel relationship that animates American concern. The Israelis have made known their fear that change in Egypt will leave them bereft of friends “in the neighborhood” — a serious predicament for a state founded, through ethnic cleansing, on top of the neighborhood.

Continues >>

Jeremy R. Hammond, Foreign Policy Journal, February 15, 2011

According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), videos of the collapse of the 47-story World Trade Center 7 on September 11, 2001 show the building succumbing to a fire-induced progressive collapse. Many independent researchers and scientists, however, including over 1,400 professional architects and engineers who have signed a petition calling for a new investigation, disagree, pointing to evidence that it was deliberately brought down in a controlled demolition.

Despite the dramatically different conclusions drawn, there does exist widespread agreement on both sides on a number of important questions. Proponents of both hypotheses agree that the damage to WTC 7 sustained from the impact of debris from the collapse of the north tower (WTC 1) was not an initiating or determinative factor in the collapse. Both sides also agree that the system of transfer trusses and girders in the building that allowed it to be constructed above the Consolidated Edison New York electric power substation played no role in the collapse, that hypothetical fuel oil fires from tanks stored in the building for emergency generators was not a causal factor, and that the office fires did not result in any significant loss of strength of the building’s load-bearing steel columns.

Continues >>