Peace and Justice Post

THE MARK: Since the second intifada, fewer Israeli citizens have had the opportunity to interact with Palestinians living in the occupied territories, and to witness first hand how they live, as you do. How can the Israeli public come to understand the realities of Palestinian life under Israeli rule?

AMIRA HASS: It is not so rare for Israelis to see how impossible it is to live under foreign rule, and a ruthless rule. There are many Israelis, in fact, who do see: activists for Checkpoint Watch and Breaking the Silence, women activists who monitor the military courts, and the people who go every week to demonstrate against the occupation vis-à-vis the army at the security wall in several villages in the West Bank. There are many other people who can understand, as well – those who have never been in Gaza to see the reality directly, but who have imagined how impossible it is to live under this blockade.

Sure, this group is a minority, made up only of hundreds – or maybe some thousands – of Israelis, but I’m not [alone]; there are many who witness and oppose.

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Signs of the Great American Unraveling

It’s already gone, having barely outlasted its moment — just long enough for the media to suggest that no one thought it added up to much.

Okay, it was a little more than the military wanted, something less than Joe Biden would have liked, not enough for the growing crew of anti-war congressional types, but way too much for John McCain, Lindsey Graham, & Co.

I’m talking about the 13 minutes of “remarks” on “the way forward in Afghanistan” that President Obama delivered in the East Room of the White House two Wednesday nights ago.

Tell me you weren’t holding your breath wondering whether the 33,000 surge troops he ordered into Afghanistan as 2009 ended would be removed in a 12-month, 14-month, or 18-month span.  Tell me you weren’t gripped with anxiety about whether 3,000, 5,000, 10,000, or 15,000 American soldiers would come out this year (leaving either 95,000, 93,000, 88,000, or 83,000 behind)?

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Andy Worthington, uruknet.info, June 28, 2011

With what can only come across as cynical timing, the US Supreme Court on Monday, the day after the UN International Day in Support of the Victims of Torture, declined without comment to take up a lawsuit filed on behalf of 250 Iraqis — formerly prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, home of the most significant scandal in the Bush administration’s “War on Terror,” which surfaced in April 2004 with the publication of photos showing the torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners in US custody at the prison. The prisoners were seeking to hold Titan Corporation, which provided Arabic translation services, and CACI International, which provided interrogators, accountable  for their role in the torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in 2003 and 2004. Continues >>

It appears that even though a year has passed since the first flotilla fiasco, Israel is showing that it has learned just one lesson: the military lesson.

Haaretz Editorial, Haaretz, June 29, 2011

The term “flotilla” is understood in Israel as a declaration of war. This is the case with respect to the latest Gaza-bound flotilla, just as it was with the one that set off from Turkey in May 2010. Furthermore, due to unstable relations with Turkey, Israel is still feeling the repercussions of its deadly raid on that maritime convoy.

The latest flotilla, which has already begun heading toward the Gaza Strip and is scheduled to reach its shores Thursday, will apparently be far larger than the previous one. It will include about a dozen ships holding some 500 activists, along with food and medicine that is considered to be humanitarian aid for Gazans.

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by Sharif Abdel Kouddous, The Nation, June 29, 2011

Cairo, Egypt

Over 1,000 people were injured on Wednesday after Egyptian security forces responded to protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square with tear gas and rubber bullets. The crackdown began on Tuesday night after police reportedly beat and arrested family members of those killed during the eighteen-day uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, at an event commemorating martyrs of the revolution. On Sunday, the family members had erupted in angry protest and hurled rocks at police vehicles after a judge in Cairo again postponed the trial of former interior minister Habib al-Adly and six of his aides.

Al-Adly, one of the most reviled figures of the Mubarak era, was in office for fourteen years before being forced out in the early days of the January 25 revolt. Under his leadership, the Interior Ministry acted as a giant lawless militia, spying on, kidnapping, threatening, humiliating and torturing Egyptian citizens. The State Security branch employed at least 100,000 people and maintained a vast network of informants, all for the single purpose of keeping the regime in power.

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Western institutions have become caricatures of hypocrisy.

At least 29 people were slain and an unknown number of others wounded today in a pair of US drone strikes against South Waziristan Agency, Pakistan. The first strike targeted a vehicle, killing eight people in Shawwal.

The second strike hit a home full of tribesmen in Mandoi, killing the 21 people inside and wounding a number of people surrounding the area. The toll in Mandoi is expected to continue to rise through the evening, as people were continuing to be pulled from the rubble.

The attacks were the latest in a flurry of escalating attacks launched by the US since early May. In June alone the death toll is now nearly 100 killed, with all termed “suspects” but none conclusively identified as an actual militant, including one “confirmed” kill that was later retracted.

Pakistan’s government has repeatedly demanded that the US halt all drone strikes against the tribal areas. Today’s strikes once again suggest this won’t be happening any time soon and that if anything, the Obama Administration is looking to escalate even more.

Disgusting, Depraved And Illegal

By Ken Dilanian, Information Clearing House, June 26, 2011

David Petraeus, Barack Obama’s choice to be the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency, says the US should consider using special interrogation techniques when a captive is withholding information that is immediately needed to save lives.

In the vast majority of cases, General Petraeus said, the ”humane” questioning standards mandated by the US Army field manual were sufficient to persuade detainees to talk. But while he did not use the word torture, General Petraeus said ”there should be discussion … by policy makers and by Congress” of something ”more than the normal techniques”.

Speaking at his confirmation hearing before the Senate intelligence committee on Thursday, General Petraeus described an example of a detainee who knew how to disarm a nuclear device set to explode under the Empire State Building. Congress might want to give the President the option of taking extraordinary measures to extract that information, he said.

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After two days of closed-doors meetings, the ministers committee on security affairs on Monday voted in favor of the navy plans to stop the convoy of vessels known as Freedom Flotilla II from breaching the Israeli-imposed naval blockade on the Palestinian territory, giving the army authority to use “all necessary means” during the operation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

The statement also said that the cabinet has also ordered Israeli troops to operate with “maximal restraint and avoid clashes with activists on board the vessels.”

Israeli officials say navy commandos have revised their tactics in the wake of the May 31, 2010 attack, which killed nine Turkish activists on board the leading ship, Turkish-flagged MV Mavi Marmara, and drew international condemnation.

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