Peace and Justice Post

· Prime minister defends actions against Gaza
· UN envoy fails to secure meeting on five-day visit

• Toni O’Loughlin in Jerusalem
• The Guardian, Monday February 18 2008

The UN’s top humanitarian, Sir John Holmes, said yesterday that the deteriorating economic and humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory was a “political crisis” that needed a “political solution”. He spoke as the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said the people of Gaza could not live normal lives while Israelis across the border were constantly targeted by rockets.

Speaking in Jerusalem at a gathering of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations, Olmert said Israel’s military had a “free hand” to hit Gaza militants. “We will reach out for anyone involved in terrorism against Israelis and will not hesitate to attack them,” he said. “That applies to everyone, first and foremost Hamas.”

Speaking separately at a briefing to journalists, Holmes said: “The problems won’t be removed without a political solution.” But the under secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, who is on a five-day visit to the region, said that as a humanitarian he had limited control over the UN’s key political decision-making body, the security council. “I don’t come expecting to work miracles. The situation is extremely difficult, the politics extremely difficult.”

Continued . . .

The unholy trinity of arms manufacturers, the Pentagon, & Congress

By Rupert  Cornwell | Global Research, Feb. 17, 2008

Obscured by the great Obama-Hillary battle and the drama of Super Tuesday, the final budget of the Bush era was published last week. It covers the 2009 financial year, and contains one startling fact. If this President has his way, the US will next year be spending more on its military (adjusted for inflation) than at any time since the Second World War.

Continued . . . 

By Bill Van Auken | World Socialist Web Site, 16 February 2008

On the eve of his weeklong trip to Africa, US President George W. Bush Friday delivered an open defense of his administration’s criminal record of torture and repression, acts that have blatantly violated international law and turned the US into a pariah nation.

Bush’s intervention followed a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign by administration officials aimed at legitimizing the use of torture by US intelligence agencies, and in particular defending the procedure known as waterboarding in which a prisoner under interrogation is strapped down and subjected to induced drowning by having water poured over his mouth and nose.

The intention of the campaign being waged by Bush and his aides is to consolidate during the little less than a year remaining to the administration the sweeping repressive measures that it has imposed since September 2001. At the same time, it has clearly signaled its desire to put terror back on the front burner of American politics with the aim of terrorizing the American people in the run-up to the 2008 election.

Continued . . .

Palestine Information Center

February 16, 2008

NABLUS, (PIC)– A Palestinian human rights advocate was subjected to torture in the Israeli detention center of Petah Tikwa that included sleep deprivation and forcing her to sit in an awkward position for three consecutive days, legal sources said.

Ahlam Jawher, 30, told the lawyer of the Nafha society defending human and prisoners’ rights that she was under constant pressure by Israeli interrogators to “confess”.

Jawher was arrested at the IOF Hawara roadblock south of Nablus city on 23/1/2008 after two hours detention. She was not allowed to see a lawyer until recently in a clear violation of the law.

The Nafha society appealed to the human and women rights organizations to save Jawher along with more than 100 other Palestinian women held in Israeli captivity and to pressure the Israeli occupation authority to improve their incarceration conditions.

Meanwhile, the same society reported that the IOA renewed administrative detention of MP Sheikh Hamed Al-Beitwai, 64, for three more months without trial or charge.

The IOA also ordered the administrative custody of Islamic Jihad leader Yousef Haj Mohammed, 65, for six months. He was released only a few weeks ago from three years of administrative detention. Both suffer from several diseases and are in need of constant medical care.

The IOA renewed the administrative detention of 18 Palestinians for periods ranging from one to six months.

The Independent, Feb. 17, 2008

By Ian Griggs and Brian Brady

The government official who wrote the first draft of the “dodgy dossier” that helped propel Britain into war in Iraq today admits, “We were wrong.”

John Williams, a former Foreign Office aide, said last night that publication of his document would expose how members of Tony Blair’s team were locked in a mindset that made military action inevitable.

On Wednesday, ministers will hit a deadline for publishing the 2002 document, after years of resistance.

The Williams draft was written in September 2002, only days after Mr Blair, then Prime Minister, announced that the Government would publish a dossier of intelligence showing that Saddam Hussein threatened the world with his weapons.

The draft was not disclosed at the Hutton inquiry into the death in 2003 of the former Iraq arms inspector David Kelly. The scientist had suggested the dossier was exaggerated to justify the UK joining the 2003 invasion.

Continued . . .

Movements in Flux and Center-Left Governments in Power

Information Clearing House

By James Petras

In contrast to North America and Europe, in Latin America political regimes, social movements and ideologies are in constant flux. Within a period of a few years, the political pendulum can swing from a seemingly radical leftist wave, to center-left and even rightwing ascendancy[1]. Likewise major social movements emerge, expand from local or regional power bases to significant actors on the national political scene, play a major role in dispatching right-wing regimes, support and even enter governmental coalitions and then decline, especially if they fail to achieve any of the minimum demands of their supporters.[2]

Despite this complex mosaic of relatively abrupt changes and shifts in political power, social configurations and ideological direction, many North American, European and Latin American writers, commentators, intellectuals and journalists are prone to sweeping generalizations covering the entire region and broad time spans, reflecting in many cases, limited experiences and time periods, which have largely become out of date.[3] In most cases, these generalizations are poorly documented, impressionistic and lacking any empirical, historical or analytical depth.

In recent years, roughly from the beginning of the 21^st century to the end of 2007 (and continuing) some of the most lauded intellectuals of North America continued to describe Latin America as a hothouse for radical change, the home of the world’s most dynamic social movements, and undergoing leftist-led social transformation.[4] Several immediate and transparent objections arise.

In the first place “Latin America” as a whole did not experience radical social movements over the period in question. In fact after 2003, in most countries where significant social movements existed, there was a sharp decline in movement activity, membership and social power. A cursory view of Argentina’s unemployed workers movement and factory occupations confirms this observation, as does the experience in Ecuador with CONAIE (the Indian movement).[5]

Continued . . .

The Observer,
Sunday February 17 2008

Peter Beaumont

Who lives there now?

The population of just under two million is split between an Albanian majority who call the country Kosova and a Serb minority who regard is as part of Serbia and call it Kosovo. Before the war of 1998-1999 it was Serbia’s southern province, and remains culturally important for Serbs. Some 120,000 ethnic Serbs live in Kosovo, many next to the border with Serbia. Half of that number live under Nato protection in scattered enclaves south of the Ibar river.

What was the war about?

A rising Albanian independence movement collided with strong Serbian nationalistic sentiment over Kosovo. When a peaceful Albanian independence movement got nowhere, the Kosovo Liberation Army emerged. Attacks and Serb police reprisals followed, until the international community became involved. A 78-day bombing campaign by Nato led to an escalation of Serb-on-Albanian violence, but attacks on Belgrade forced it to back down.

Continued . . .

Amnesty International, Feb. 14, 2008

© Stop the Wall Campaign”>

Israeli army demolishes homes and animal pens of Palestinian families in Hadidiya, 6 February 2008

© Stop the Wall Campaign

© Stop the Wall Campaign”>

Israeli army demolishes homes and animal pens of Palestinian families in Hadidiya, 6 February 2008.

© Stop the Wall Campaign

Every single home in the West Bank villages of Humsa and Hadidiya is slated for destruction. The Israeli army has declared most of the Jordan Valley, where the villages are situated, as a “closed military area” from which the local Palestinian population is barred.

The local Palestinian population – which has been there since long before Israeli forces occupied the area four decades ago – is being put under increasing pressure to leave the area. On the morning of 6 February, Israeli army bulldozers destroyed the homes and livelihoods of four Palestinian families in Hadidiya, in the Jordan Valley area of the occupied West Bank.

More than 30 people and their animals were left without shelter. The families of Mohammed Ali Sheikh Bani Odeh, Ali Sheikh Musleh Bani Odeh, Omar ‘Arif Mohammad Bisharat and Mohammed Sahad Bani Odeh included some 20 children.

Continued . . .

Photos provided by the U.S. Air Force

Inside the U.S. Air Force’s Combined Air & Space Operations Center in the Middle East.

Inside a secret high-tech control center the U.S. Air Force targets enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan. But can they bomb them legally, and without killing innocents? A Salon exclusive.

By Mark Benjamin | Salon.com, Feb. 15, 2008

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, THE MIDDLE EAST — The cavernous control room used by the U.S. Air Force to manage the air wars in Iraq and Afghanistan looks exactly how you’d expect it to look in a Hollywood movie. The lights are low. Around 50 camouflage-clad men and women lean forward in their chairs, staring intently at rows of computer screens glowing with multicolored graphs and fluctuating displays. They sometimes glance up from the banks of computer monitors to gaze at a sweeping panel of large television screens mounted on the front wall. Two massive, side-by-side screens in the center display digital maps of Iraq and Afghanistan. Swarms of U.S. aircraft above the war zones are represented by green labels that move about each map, gravitating toward wherever U.S. troops are fighting on the ground, in case they need backup.

To the left and right of those large maps are four smaller screens. Each is about 5 feet wide, displaying remarkably clear live footage from cameras mounted on the Air Force’s un-manned Predator drones that buzz incessantly above Iraq and Afghanistan. The Predator drones, however, are not filming a raging firefight, or a bridge about to be strafed from the air.

They are stalking prey.

Continued . . .

8 Palestinians killed and 60 wounded in an Israeli air strike

Palestinian Information Center

February 15, 2008 AL-BREIJ, (PIC)– The Israeli occupation has committed a new massacre in the Gaza Strip on Friday evening when US-supplied F-16’s bombed the house of Ayman al-Fayed, a commander in the Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad in the Breij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. The attack resulted in the total destruction of the house of al-Fayed as well as neighbouring houses in this crowded area of the Breij refugee camp. The PIC correspondent was informed that commander Ayman al-Fayed (42 years) was martyred in the attack along with his wife Marwah Azzam, and their two children Ayoub and Basma. Medical sources also informed our correspondent that the Aqsa Martyrs Hospital could not receive all the wounded and many of them had to be taken to Nasr and Shifa hospitals. Dr. Muaweyah Hasaneen, the general director of emergency department at the Palestinian ministry of health stated that eight Palestinians were killed and 60 were wounded in the attack, at least 10 of them in a critical condition. The sound of the huge explosion was heard many miles away and smoke was seen rising from the scene of the attack. This attack brought back to memory a similar attack when Israeli occupation airforce bombed a block of flats to kill Sheikh Salah Shehada, the general commander of the Qassam Brigades, five years ago killing 15 Palestinians many of them children. Local residents expressed anger at the massacre and called on the armed wings of Palestinian factions to retaliate.