Peace and Justice Post

By Uri Avnery, MWC News, June 26, 2011

The Palestinians are planning something thoroughly obnoxious: they intend to apply to the UN for statehood.

Why obnoxious? Any Israeli spokesman (not to mention spokeswoman) will tell you readily: because it is a “unilateral” move. How dare they proclaim a state unilaterally? How dare they do so without the consent of the other party to the conflict – us?

A stickler for detail might ask at this point: “But was the State of Israel not proclaimed unilaterally?” Our state, it may be remembered, was declared by David Ben-Gurion and his colleagues on Mai 14, 1948, without asking anyone.

But who would dare to compare?

Continues >>

By Stephen Lendman, Countercurrents.org,  25 June, 2011

Besides its Knesset, security forces and intelligence services, Israel’s High Court and Civil Administration ravage Palestinian civil society repressively. Two examples illustrate the problem.

On June 22, a B’Tselem press release headlined, “Sharp increase in West Bank home demolitions,” saying:

Through late June, Israel’s Civil Administration, its Judea/Samaria (West Bank) governing body, illegally “demolished more Palestinians homes….than in all of last year.” Most often, soldiers and Border Police accompany them, forcefully evicting longtime residents.

Over the most recent seven day period, 33 residential buildings were demolished in Jordan Valley Fasayil, al-Hadidiyeh, and Yarza communities, as well as southern Hebron Hills Khirbet Bir al-‘Id. As a result, 238 Palestinians, including 129 minors, lost homes.

Continues >>

by Eric Margolis, CommonDreams.org, June 26, 2011

Far-called our navies melt away— On dune and headland sinks the fire— Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Rudyard Kipling “Recessional” NEW YORK – War is waged to achieve political objectives, not to kill enemies. In this sense, the United States has lost the ten-year Afghan conflict, its longest war. Afghanistan remains the “graveyard of empires.”

The US has failed to install an obedient regime in Kabul that controls Afghanistan. It has made foes of the Pashtun majority, and, in pursuing this war, gravely undermined Pakistan. Claims that US forces were in Afghanistan to hunt the late Osama bin Laden were widely disbelieved.

Last Wednesday, President Barack Obama bowed to public opinion, approaching elections, military reality and financial woes by announcing he would withdraw a third of the 100,000 US troops from Afghanistan by the end of next summer.   Pentagon brass growled open opposition.

Continues >>

Letter from head of Israel’s Government Press Office warns that taking part in convoy of boats sailing to Gaza could result in being barred from Israel for 10 years.

By Haaretz, June  26, 2011

Israel’s Government Press Office issued a letter Sunday to foreign journalists, warning them that participating in the upcoming flotilla sailing to Gaza is illegal under Israeli law, and could result in anyone who joins the convoy being barred from Israel for up to 10 years.

The letter, signed by GPO director Oren Helman, states that the flotilla “is a dangerous provocation that is being organized by western and Islamic extremist elements to aid Hamas.”

	Israel Navy forces approach one of six ships of an aid flotilla bound for Gaza on May 31, 2010.
	Photo by: Reuters

Jason Burke, The Guardian, June 25, 2011

A Saudi woman applies makeup to a woman at a cosmetics exhibition in Jeddah. Photograph: Amer Hilabi/AFP/Getty Images

Shortly after dawn, as the sun rises over the hills behind the city, tens of thousands of women will wake in the Saudi Arabian port of Jeddah and go to work. Maybe 14 or 16 hours later, their day will be over.

They are maids, almost all from the Philippines or Indonesia, working for £100-£200 a month. There are more than 500,000 of them in Saudi Arabia, among nearly nine million foreign workers who sweep roads, clean offices, staff coffee shops, drive the cars that women are banned from driving and provide the manpower on the vast construction projects.

The story of the maids rarely receives attention, except when a new shocking incident reveals once again the problems many of them face. . . .

Continues >>

REUTERS

President Obama is a hit with US troops, but don’t be fooled by his Afghan ‘withdrawal’

Alhamdulillah! President Barack Obama is finally withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.

Except he’s not – only those extras that he deployed in the “surge” of 2009; 68,000 will remain, double the number sent by his predecessor, George Bush.

Obama keeps doing this. Sounding marvellous, then, in retrospect, disappointing. After eight long and bloody years of Bush, everyone outside America, especially Muslims, welcomed this voice of reason, sobriety and perhaps even empathy. Scribbled on a bullet-punctured wall in Gaza was “Obama Inshallah!”. Even in Pakistan, the only ally of the US, which the US regularly bombs, people came out on the streets – any excuse, admittedly – to celebrate his election victory.

Continues >>

by Joseph Dana, CommonDreams.org, June 24, 2011

Source: The Nation

UPDATED

ATHENS, Greece  — Israeli diplomatic and economic pressure is looming large over preparations of the second Gaza aid flotilla, set to sail from a number Greek ports at the end of the month. Israel has clearly stated that it will use every diplomatic and military avenue to maintain its naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. The events of the past few days in Athens confirm that Israel is making good on its claim. Learning from last year’s botched military operation against the flotilla– which left eight Turkish civilians and one Turkish-American civilian dead– Israel is seemingly applying pressure directly on the Greek government to stop the flotilla boats from setting sail.

Early this morning, I discovered that a ‘private complaint’ had been filed against the US boat to Gaza. The complaint, it is still unclear who filed it, stated that the US boat to Gaza is not ’sea worthy’ and requires a detailed inspection. The harbor master where the boat is in port has declared that until the complaint is resolved the boat is not permitted to leave. Currently, lawyers representing the US boat are looking into the origins of the complaint and whether it was filed as a result of Israeli economic or diplomatic pressure on the Greek government. The boat is US flagged and registered in the United States.

Continues >>

By John Haylett, Morning Star Online, June 24, 2011

Around 10 boats carrying 500 human rights activists will set sail for Gaza to challenge Israel’s ongoing illegal blockade of the Palestinian territory.

The Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara, which was attacked in May 2010 by Israeli special forces who killed nine humanitarian campaigners, will not be part of this year’s flotilla.

Announcing last weekend that the Mavi Marmara is unable to sail, the international coalition said that this would expose Israeli government misinformation that the flotilla is exclusively a “Turkish” and “Islamist” effort.

“This is a rainbow coalition of human rights defenders. It does not only concern Muslims but everyone, be they Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, secular or whatever. This is world citizenry united,” it asserted.

The coalition added that Israel’s siege persists, pointing out that the “established channels” cited by world leaders to suggest that the flotilla is unnecessary do not meet the Palestinian people’s needs.

Continues >>

By Rob Kall, opednews.com, June 23, 2011  

The experts this morning are all agreeing that a 10,000 troop reduction is tiny and insignificant. But we knew that and didn’t need the experts to tell us that.

Michael Parenti, Information Clearing House, June 22. 2011

Imperialism has been the most powerful force in world history over the last four or five centuries, carving up whole continents while oppressing indigenous peoples and obliterating entire civilizations. Yet, it is seldom accorded any serious attention by our academics, media commentators, and political leaders. When not ignored outright, the subject of imperialism has been sanitized, so that empires become “commonwealths,” and colonies become “territories” or “dominions” (or, as in the case of Puerto Rico, “commonwealths” too). Imperialist military interventions become matters of “national defense,” “national security,” and maintaining “stability” in one or another region. In this book I want to look at imperialism for what it really is.

Across the Entire Globe

By “imperialism” I mean the process whereby the dominant politico-economic interests of one nation expropriate for their own enrichment the land, labor, raw materials, and markets of another people.The earliest victims of Western European imperialism were other Europeans. Some 800 years ago, Ireland became the first colony of what later became known as the British empire. A part of Ireland still remains under British occupation. Other early Caucasian victims included the Eastern Europeans. The people Charlemagne worked to death in his mines in the early part of the ninth century were Slavs. So frequent and prolonged was the enslavement of Eastern Europeans that “Slav” became synonymous with servitude. Indeed, the word “slave” derives from “Slav.” Eastern Europe was an early source of capital accumulation, having become wholly dependent upon Western manufactures by the seventeenth century.

Continues >>