Posts Tagged ‘President Obama’

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Gaza: Bombs, Missiles, Tanks And Bulldozers

June 20, 2009

Transcript of former US President Jimmy Carter’s Address to the United Nations Relief Works Agency’s Human Rights Graduation in Gaza, June 16, 2009.

By Jimmy Carter | Information Clearing House, June 16, 2009

Director of UNRWA operations John Ging, thank you for inviting me to Gaza. Distinguished guests, children of Gaza, I am grateful for your warm reception.

I first visited Gaza 36 years ago and returned during the 1980s and later for the very successful Palestinian elections. Although under occupation, this community was relatively peaceful and prosperous. Now, the aftermath of bombs, missiles, tanks, bulldozers and the continuing economic siege have brought death, destruction, pain, and suffering to the people here. Tragically, the international community largely ignores the cries for help, while the citizens of Gaza are being treated more like animals than human beings.

Last week, a group of Israelis and Americans tried to cross into Gaza through Erez, bringing toys and children’s playground equipment – slides, swings, kites, and magic castles for your children. They were stopped at the gate and prevented from coming. I understand even paper and crayons are treated as “security hazards” and not permitted to enter Gaza. I sought an explanation for this policy in Israel, but did not receive a satisfactory answer – because there is none.

The responsibility for this terrible human rights crime lies in Jerusalem, Cairo, Washington, and throughout the international community. This abuse must cease; the crimes must be investigated; the walls must be brought down, and the basic right of freedom must come to you.

Almost one-half of Gaza’s 1.5 million people are children, whose lives are being shaped by poverty, hunger, violence, and despair. More than 50,000 families had their homes destroyed or damaged in January, and parents are in mourning for the 313 innocent children who were killed.

The situation in Gaza is grim, but all hope is not lost. Amidst adversity, you continue to possess both dignity and determination to work towards a brighter tomorrow. That is why educating children is so important.

I have come to Gaza to help the world know what important work you are doing. UNRWA is here to ensure that the 200,000 children in its schools can develop their talent, express their dynamism, and help create the path to a better future.

The human rights curriculum is teaching children about their rights and also about their responsibilities. UNRWA is teaching about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the struggle for these rights all over the world, Gaza’s children are learning that as you seek justice for yourselves, you must be sure that your behavior provides justice for others.

They are learning that it is wrong to fire rockets that may kill Israeli children. They are learning that arbitrary detention and the summary execution of political opponents is not acceptable. They are learning that the rule of law must be honored here in Gaza.

I would like to congratulate both UNRWA and the children who have completed the human rights curriculum with distinction. They are tomorrow’s leaders.

In addition to the tragedy of occupation, the lack of unity among Palestinians is causing a deteriorating atmosphere here in Gaza, in Ramallah, and throughout the West Bank.

Palestinians want more than just to survive. They hope to lead the Arab world, to be a bridge between modern political life and traditions that date back to the Biblical era. The nation you will create must be pluralistic and democratic – the new Palestine that your intellectuals have dreamt about. Palestine must combine the best of the East and the West. The Palestinian state, like the land, must be blessed for all people. Jerusalem must be shared with everyone who loves it – Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

With our new leaders in Washington, my country will move into the forefront of this birth of a new Palestine. We were all reminded of this renewed hope and commitment by President Obama’s recent speech in Cairo.

President Obama’s resolve to resume the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic process based on the principle of two states for two peoples must be welcomed. This vision of two sovereign nations living as neighbors is not a mere convenient phrase. It is the basis for a lasting peace for this entire region, including Syria and Lebanon.

We all know that a necessary step is the ending of the siege of Gaza – the starving of 1 ½ million people of the necessities of life. Never before in history has a large community been savaged by bombs and missiles and then deprived of the means to repair itself. The issue of who controls Gaza is not an obstacle. As the World Bank has pointed out, funds can be channeled through a number of independent mechanisms and effective implementing agencies.

Although funds are available, not a sack of cement nor a piece of lumber has been permitted to enter the closed gates from Israel and Egypt. I have seen with my own eyes that progress is negligible.

My country and our friends in Europe must do all that is necessary to persuade Israel and Egypt to allow basic materials into Gaza. At the same time, there must be no more rockets and mortar shells falling on Israeli citizens.

I met this week with the parents of Corporal Gilad Shalit, and have with me a letter that I hope can be delivered to their son. I have also met with many Palestinians who plead for the freedom of their 11,700 loved ones imprisoned by the Israelis, including 400 women and children. Many of them have been imprisoned for many years, held without trial, with no access to their families or to legal counsel. Rational negotiations and a comprehensive peace can end this suffering on both sides.

I know it is difficult now, surrounded by terrible destruction, to see a future of independence and dignity in a Palestinian state, but this goal can and must be achieved. I know too that it is hard for you to accept Israel and live in peace with those who have caused your suffering. However, Palestinian statehood cannot come at the expense of Israel’s security, just as Israel’s security can not come at the expense of Palestinian statehood.

In his speech in Cairo, President Obama said that Hamas has support among Palestinians, but they also have responsibilities. To play a full role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, accept existing peace agreements, and recognize Israel’s right to exist.

I have urged Hamas leaders to accept these conditions, and they have made statements and taken actions that suggest they are ready to join the peace process and move toward the creation of an independent and just Palestinian state.

Khaled Mashaal has assured me that Hamas will accept a final status agreement negotiated by the Palestinian Authority and Israel if the Palestinian people approve it in a referendum. Hamas has offered a reciprocal ceasefire with Israel throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Unfortunately, neither the Israeli leaders nor Hamas accept the terms of the Oslo Agreement of 1993, but the Arab Peace Initiative is being considered now by all sides.

I have personally witnessed free and fair elections in Palestine when Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas were elected president and when legislative members were chosen for your parliament. I hope to return next January for a similar event that will unite all Palestinians as you seek a proud and peaceful future.

Ladies and gentlemen, children of Gaza, thank you for inviting me and for sharing this happy occasion with me. Congratulations for your achievements.

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Posted in Gaza, Human rights, Palestine, torture, Uncategorized, war, war crimes, Zionist Israel | 2 Comments »

Senate Passes $106 Billion War Funding Bill

June 19, 2009

Despite Predictions, Opposition Never Materialized

by Jason Ditz,  Antiwar.com, June 18, 2009

Despite predictions that the “emergency” war funding bill would face a battle in the Senate similar to the one it saw in the House of Representatives, the Senate overwhelmingly passed the bill with no new alterations, at a vote of 91-5.

Sen. Gregg with President Obama

Earlier in the week the House of Representative passed the bill 226-202, and that was only after weeks of haranguing Democratic Congressmen who opposed the bill to change their vote in the name of loyalty to President Obama. Even then, many expressed dissatisfaction with the bill.

Not so in the Senate, where there was considerable complaining that the bill contained a lot of superfluous funding for things that had nothing to do with the war but the only serious challenge came when Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) tried to strip a $1 billion provision. When that failed, what remained of the opposition seemed to dry up entirely. The five no votes included 3 Republicans, Sens. DeMint, Enzi and Coburn, Independent Sen. Sanders, and Democratic Sen. Feingold.

That $1 billion was set aside for a “cash for clunkers” program to subsidize the purchase of new cars. The measure was unsurprisingly praised by the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers. Other complaints, including the massive loan guarantee to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been expected to be a major issue, as it was in the House of Representatives, but at the end of the day it doesn’t appear to have cost the bill any votes.

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Obama whitewashes foreign policy

June 19, 2009

By Teo Ballve | The Advoacte,  June 19, 2009

President Obama is trying to whitewash the history of U.S. foreign policy.

In two major speeches in the last month, he has spun a fairy tale.

At the National Archives on May 21, Obama claimed, “From Europe to the Pacific, we’ve been the nation that has shut down torture chambers and replaced tyranny with the rule of law.” And in Cairo, Egypt, just two weeks later, Obama said, “America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. … America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election.”

These assertions ring entirely hollow in Latin America, where the reverse is true: Washington propped up tyrannical leaders and bankrolled murderous armies. Under the iron fist of these U.S.-backed regimes, the region’s torture chambers rang with the cries of innocent victims.

As Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza ruthlessly ruled his country like a colonial coffee plantation, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt reportedly said of his ally: “Somoza may be a son of a b—-, but he’s our son of a b—-.”

Intervention sometimes came at the behest of influential U.S. companies, as in Guatemala. In 1950, President Jacobo Arbenz won a landslide election and moved ahead with a land reform program aimed at breaking up large landholdings.

The reforms sat uneasily with executives from the United Fruit Co. (today, Chiquita), which owned vast, feudal-like fruit plantations throughout the country. The company collaborated with the CIA and the State Department to orchestrate Arbenz’s overthrow in 1954. What followed were a succession of military governments and a crescendo of violent conflict that ultimately claimed more than 200,000 Guatemalan lives.

After the socialist Salvador Allende won the presidency of Chile in 1970, national security adviser Henry Kissinger declared, “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people.”

Three years later, Chile’s Gen. Augusto Pinochet overthrew Allende with the support of the U.S. government. Pinochet then helped band together his fellow South American dictators. They formed a coordinated campaign of state terrorism, called “Operation Condor,” against leftist sympathizers. The U.S. ambassador to Paraguay at the time suggested the campaign was receiving key intelligence support from the Pentagon.

A common tactic practiced by the military in these dirty wars was to throw drugged, yet alive and conscious, prisoners out of aircraft over the ocean. Not even pregnant women were spared from electric shocks to genitalia and waterboarding.

As Congress became concerned over the intensifying repression carried out by U.S. allies, Kissinger assured his nervous Argentine counterparts: “Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed. I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported.” Those “friends” killed 30,000 innocent people in Argentina alone.

In Central America, where civil wars broke out, the destruction was even greater. The CIA and the Pentagon worked with death squads in the name of U.S. national security. In El Salvador, where Washington spent $6 billion trying to defeat rebels, 75,000 lost their lives.

Today, Washington still disregards human rights abuses in its military alliances. Colombia’s army is drenched in scandal over its execution of 1,600 innocent civilians, who were later claimed as rebels killed in combat. The United Nations has called political murder at the hands of the army “widespread and systematic.” Nevertheless, Obama’s first foreign appropriations budget has slated $270 million in military aid to Colombia.

At the National Archives, Obama made a veiled criticism of the Bush administration’s policies.

“We went off course,” Obama said.

As U.S. involvement in Latin America shows, the truth is that the ship went off course a long time ago. Acknowledging this would be the first step toward steering it straight again.

Teo Ballve is a writer for Progressive Media Project, affiliated with The Progressive magazine.

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These Are Obama’s Wars Now

June 18, 2009
by Joshua Frank, Antiwar.com, June 18, 2009

On Monday the Democrat controlled House voted 226-202 to approve a rushed $106 billion dollar war spending bill, guaranteeing more carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan (and lately Pakistan) until September 30, 2009, which marks the end of the budget year. The Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of the bill’s first draft last month, with the final vote on a compromised version to occur in the Senate sometime in the next couple of weeks.

The majority of opposition in the House came from Republicans who opposed an add-on to the bill that would open up a $5 billion International Monetary Fund line of credit for developing countries. This opposition in the House led Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday to quip, “It’ll be interesting to see what happens here. Are my Republican colleagues [in the Senate] going to join with us to fund the troops? I hope so.”

No longer can the blame for the turmoil in Iraq and Afghanistan rest at the feet of George W. Bush alone. This is now Obama’s War on Terror, fully funded and operated by the Democratic Party.

The bill that passed the House on Monday, once approved by the Senate, will not be part of the regular defense budget as it’s off the books entirely. Following the attacks on September 11, 2001, Congress has passed similar emergency spending bills to finance US military ventures in the Middle East. The combined “supplementals” are fast approaching $1 trillion, with 30% going to fund the war in Afghanistan.

In addition to the latest increase in war funds, Obama is also asking for an additional $130 billion to be added on to the defense budget for the new fiscal year starting on October 1. The president is upholding his campaign promise to escalate the war in Afghanistan, which also means increasing the use of remote controlled drone planes in neighboring Pakistan that are to blame for hundreds of civilian deaths since Obama took office last January.

Despite Obama’s historic (albeit rhetoric filled) speech in Cairo, the new Commander in Chief is still not about to radically change, let alone reform, the US’s long-standing role in the Middle East. A master of his craft, Obama is simply candy coating the delivery of US imperialism in the region.  Given the lack of opposition to Obama’s policies back home, it is becoming clear that he may well be more dangerous than his predecessor when it comes to the US’s motivations internationally.

Had Bush pushed for more military funds at this stage, the antiwar movement (if you can call it that) would have been organizing opposition weeks in advance, calling out the neocons for wasting our scarce tax dollars during a recession on a never-ending, directionless war. But since Obama’s a Democrat, a beloved one at that, mums the word.

Certainly a few progressive Democrats are dismayed by what the Obama administration is up to, but how many of these Democrats that are upset now will be willing to break rank and oppose their party when it matters most, like during the midterm elections coming up next year? Obama had the majority of antiwar support shored up while he ran for the presidency, with absolutely no demands put on his candidacy. And not surprisingly, antiwar progressives have little to show for their fawning support.

All this begs a few questions: If not now, when exactly will Obama’s policies be scrutinized with the same veracity that Bush’s were? When will the media end its love affair with Obama and hold his feet to the fire like they did Bush once the wheels fell off the war in Iraq? When will progressives see their issues as paramount and oppose Obama and the Democratic Party until they embrace their concerns?

If these questions are not answered soon, we are in many more years of war and bloodshed, funded by US taxpayers and approved by a Democrat controlled White House and Congress.

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What Kind of Two-State Solution?

June 15, 2009
Agence Global, June 15, 2009
by Immanuel Wallerstein,   Commentary No. 259, J

Now that President Obama has put his weight so openly and publicly behind the concept of a two-state “solution” for the Israel-Palestine controversy/struggle, such a “solution” may well be achieved in the coming years. The reason is simple. Stated abstractly, such a solution has overwhelming support in world political opinion. Polls show a majority of Jewish Israelis favor it, as do a majority of Jews elsewhere in the world. Support among Arab leaders is strong and wide. Even Hamas indicates it is willing to accept the concept of two states on the basis of an indefinite “truce” in the struggle. Some “truces” in the modern world have lasted four centuries. And more recently, there has been “truces” on the Korean peninsula and in Kashmir for more than a half-century. Some “truces” seem pretty permanent.

What seems to be left out of the discussion these days is what does the expression “two states” mean? Quite diverse definitions exist. We should remember that the last real negotiations, those between Yasir Arafat and Ehud Barak in 2000, foundered at the last minute at Taba over diverse definitions.

What are the issues in these contrary definitions? There are at least six different issues which the mere slogan of “two states” hides. The first issue is the definition of sovereignty. The Palestinians of course think that sovereign means sovereign – a state with the same powers as any other sovereign state. Even those Israeli political leaders who have accepted the terminology of two states have been thinking of a limited version of sovereignty. For example, what kind of military apparatus would such the Palestinian state have? Would it control completely overflight permissions? Would it have unlimited control of its borders?

The second issue is of course the borders of such a state. Both the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas feel that accepting the 1967 borders is already an enormous concession on their part. They certainly do not expect to obtain anything less. But such borders of course do not include the post-1967 Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories, nor east Jerusalem. Tiny adjustments in these borders might be acceptable. But tiny means truly tiny.

The third issue is  internal democracy  in Israel. Will non-Jewish Israelis continue to have fewer rights than Jewish Israelis? This is a central and very little discussed question.

The fourth issue is whether the two states will be defined as secular states or religious states. Will the Palestinian state be a Muslim state? Will Israel continue to be a Jewish state?

The fifth issue is the so-called right of return. Israel was founded on the unlimited right of return of any Jew who wishes to come to Israel. The Arabs who fled from Israel (or were forced out) demand a right of return. This has been the knottiest issue in the entire historic debate. It is a question of both demography and land. The Palestinians might accept a merely symbolic gesture on this question, if all other issues were resolved in ways they considered appropriate.

Finally, of course, there is the question of what would happen with the existing Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories. It is conceivable that the Palestinians might say that some of them could remain where they are. But it seems hardly likely that the settlers would agree to stay in a Palestinian state, or would willingly accept evacuation to Israel.

Now what has Obama done? He has taken a strong position on two questions the present ultra-right Israeli government refuses to accept: no further expansion of any kind of the existing settlements and a commitment to a two-state solution. This is unquestionably positive and courageous in the context of U.S. internal politics.

However, it risks being dangerous in terms of any real solution. For consider the following possibility. Under severe twisting of the arm of Israeli Prime Minister Netanhayu by Obama, Netanyahu concedes both points, and reshuffles his cabinet in the light of this shift in position. Will he then not turn around and say to Obama that now the Palestinians must make comparable concessions? But he would not really be talking about “controlling violence” by the Palestinian Authority – the usual Israeli governmental mantra. He will mean concessions on all the issues I have listed above – on none of which any Palestinian leadership can today make any significant further concession.

Obama’s courageous gestures will then turn out to be a mode of distraction from the real underlying issues.

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Obama’s Cairo speech

June 15, 2009

Dr Mahathir Mohamad, chedet.co, June 15, 2009

Finally Obama, the black President of the United States has made his much awaited speech  outlining his views and policies on Islam, the Muslims and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is a carefully crafted speech and certainly it is different from those of George W. Bush or even other US Presidents.

2. The arrogance and the preachings are out but two things American still stand out, and that is the United States is a world super power and that American loyalty to Israel is undiminished. Other things can change but not these two.

3. Hamas is asked to give up terrorism because like the struggles of the blacks of America and South Africa, violence achieves nothing. This is not quite true, at least with other national struggles for freedom and justice. The white Americans themselves fought a war against the British and another war to prevent the break-up of the United States.

4. Elsewhere the struggles for freedom and justice e.g. the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution just to name two, all involve violence.

5. It is not the Palestinians who choose violence. It was the Jews who violently seized Palestinian land, massacred the Arabs and expelled them from their country. With no one prepared to restrain the Jews, the beleaguered Palestinians had to resort to violence. The world, the United Nations, even fellow Muslims have deserted them.

6. I am against violence but when Israel seized more Palestinian land, build settlements, impose military rule, divide the Palestinians with high walls, barred the Palestinians from using roads built by the Israelis on Palestinian territory, denied the Palestinian right to a homeland, denied the right of return of the expelled Palestinian while upholding the rights of return of Jews who for centuries had been citizens of other countries, labelled Palestinians as terrorists while exonerating the Israelis for the massive attacks on Gaza and other places, left the Palestinians helpless when attacked by the Western-armed Israeli Military Forces, incarcerated thousands of Palestinians in Israeli jails, unnecessarily provoke the Palestinians by Sharon’s visit to Jerusalem and many, many more assaults and provocations, is it any wonder that the Palestinians resorted to violence?

7. And now they are asked to stop violence to respect agreements. But what about the Israelis? Shouldn’t they be told to stop their massive violence; shouldn’t they be told to respect agreements and all the UN resolutions, such as those against their setting up settlements on Palestinian soil, the occupation of land beyond the UN set boundaries for Israel?

Continued>>

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Same old, same old on Israeli settlements

June 14, 2009

Joel Brinkley | San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, June 14, 2009

It’s a familiar story: An exceeding popular president with a strong electoral mandate decides soon after taking office that, to advance Middle East peace efforts, he must push Israel to freeze construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

“The most significant action Israel could take to demonstrate good faith,” the president says, “would be a settlement freeze.”

As soon as he voices the idea, Israel’s prime minister publicly refuses. Within weeks, reporters discover that settlers are putting up even more new West Bank homes, in defiance of the president’s request. The White House expresses irritation, and the matter passes.

The episode just described took place in 1983, early in the Reagan administration. But look at the early years of almost any administration over the past 30 years, and you’ll discover a similar effort and similar disappointing results. President Jimmy Carter was an outspoken critic of settlements. Shortly after leaving office, he declared: “Settlements are illegal and an obstacle to peace.” At that time, 23,000 Israeli Jews lived in West Bank settlements.

Now it’s President Obama’s turn. “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,” Obama told an appreciative audience in Cairo this month. “The construction violates previous agreements.”

Well, Mr. President, I wish you luck. You’ll need it.

Why can’t the president of the United States, who authorizes an annual gift to Israel of at least $3 billion, persuade any Israeli government left, right or centrist to stop building settlements? The settlements violate international law, and Israel has agreed, more than once, to freeze settlement growth. The European Union, the United Nations and many other individual states have all inveighed against settlements. No other nation anywhere in the world endorses Israel’s settlement policy. In fact, the majority of Israelis disapprove of continued settlement expansion. And so it has always been.

After Reagan left office, President George H.W. Bush made settlement expansion his signature issue with Israel. At that time, tens of thousands of Soviet Jews were emigrating to Israel, and Jerusalem asked Washington for a $10 billion housing loan.

Bush said repeatedly that Israel would not get the money until it froze settlements. But the prime minister then, Yitzhak Shamir, didn’t even seem troubled.

“Settlement in every part of the country continues and will continue,” Shamir said with his characteristic nonchalant shrug. “They try to link the two things, but no one said aid will end. I don’t think it will happen.”

And he was right. Bush finally relented, late in the 1992 election campaign, when the president feared he could lose the election because he had so angered American Jews and their political allies. And, of course, he did lose.

Shortly after President Bill Clinton took office, in 1993, he cut the loan guarantee by almost 25 percent because Israel was once again refusing to stop new settlement construction. By then, 10 years after Reagan’s effort, 112,000 Israeli Jews lived in the West Bank. After the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993, Israel more or less stopped building new settlements but aggressively expanded existing ones.

President George W. Bush, chastened by his father’s loss to Clinton in 1992, chose not to make much of the settlement issue. The White House called the settlements “unhelpful,” and its “road map” for peace called for a settlement freeze. But when Bush took office 177,000 Israeli Jews lived in the West Bank. When he left, the number approached 300,000.

This month, Obama said “part of being a good friend is being honest” with Israel. Well, I would argue that Carter was honest. So were Reagan, Bush and Clinton. On the settlement issue, it did no good.

A week or so ago, TV news recorded Israeli security officers tearing down an illegal settlement outpost in the West Bank. That tape got a lot of air play. No one was there with a camera that same evening, NPR reported, when settlers came back and put up even more buildings.

Perhaps Obama will be able to do what none of his predecessors has. Maybe he can persuade Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze settlements and to make peace with the Palestinians. Maybe, though I doubt it. The political costs of following through are too high, and the Israelis know that.

Obama does at least seem to be aware of the risks. Asked this month what the president might do if Israel ignored his request, a White House official pointedly noted that holding back loan guarantees “is not under discussion.”

Joel Brinkley is a professor of journalism at Stanford University and a former foreign policy correspondent for the New York Times. To comment to him, e-mail brinkley@foreign-matters.com. Contact us at forum@sfchronicle.com.

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Neocons Using Iran Election To Push For War

June 14, 2009
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By M.J. Rosenberg | TMP, June 13, 2009, 8:40PM

It helps that the neocons in both the United States and Israel made emphatically clear how much they wanted Ahmedinejad re-elected. If they had kept their mouths shut — and pretended that they preferred the moderate Moussavi — they would have a bit more credibility now as they shout that Ahmadinejad’s election justifies an end to diplomacy.

But they didn’t prefer Moussavi; they preferred the thug and said so. The internal contradiction in their argument can be seen in these words from Israel’s very neocon deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon today.

“We had no illusions about these elections in Israel,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, “because on the nuclear issue there was no fundamental difference between the candidates.” Nevertheless, he added, Ahmadinejad’s election removes “any glimmer of hope for change in Iran.”

Got that? Even though there was no difference between the candidates, Ahmadinejad’s “victory” removes “any glimmer of hope….”

Here is Elliot Abrams: “Both the apparent victory and the apparent fraud greatly complicate the Obama strategy. My advice is that they had better be thinking about more sanctions….Sanctions that bite might be a powerful tool and might push the regime into a serious negotiation. But it is more likely that the engagement strategy has been dealt a very heavy blow.

So what do these guys want?

They want confrontation with Iran, no matter who runs the government. Above all, they want President Obama to stop thinking about diplomacy and give Israel the green light to attack Iran that George W. Bush refused to give.

It’s not going to happen that way because the argument for diplomacy, and against war, is as strong after the stolen election as it was before.

America’s interests are the same regardless of the state of democracy in Iran. And those interests (the safety of American troops in Iraq, the survival of Israel and our other allies in the region, the supply of oil, eradicating Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and preventing Pakistan’s collapse, etc) all require us to prevent the neocons from leading us into another debacle — a twin pillar of failure to erect next to the Iraq war.

I’ll leave it to the experts to explain exactly why and how to pursue diplomacy. But for now, here’s my rule of thumb. The neocons are always wrong. They were wrong when they led the American cheering for Ahmadinejad and they are wrong when they lead the moaning over his “victory.” In fact, they have not been right any issue in the 30 years or so since Norman Podhoretz invented neoconservativism.

Neocons are a great and true weathervane. They always point in the wrong direction, the very opposite of a moral compass.

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Obama’s words won’t heal Gaza’s wounds

June 12, 2009
By Monia Mazigh | rabble.ca,| June 11, 2009

President Obama was giving his speech to the Arab world while I was in Gaza, a few kilometres from the borders of Egypt along with 65 members of an international delegation.

We were, at that time, speaking with Mr. Samir Nasrallah. He is a local pharmacist who knew Rachel Corrie, the young American woman who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003 while she was trying to stop the bulldozer that was going to destroy his house.

Mr. Nasrallah, a thin tall man, and his wife came to meet us very briefly. He had a story to tell. A moving story shared by the 1.5 million Gazans trapped in this little piece of land called Gaza.

His words, while very simple and only lasting a few minutes, were very emotional and resonated in my ears for days and weeks to come. He told us that since the siege started in 2006 he can’t see his elderly parents who live in Cairo. He has been afraid they would die and he wouldn’t be able to see them again.

Many Gazans have stories to share with the rest of the world. The siege, the big prisons they live in, the lack of medication, the lack of building materials, the spare parts that need to be replaced in order to let the medical equipment (dialysis, imagery, scanner, etc) function again in order to diagnose patients’ many illnesses. Add on top of all this misery the fear and anxiety they live in on a daily basis. When will be the next incursion? Are we going to die?

I wished that President Obama could answer these questions. His words were almost scientifically chosen but they were incapable of removing the feelings of sadness and helplessness I had inside of me each time I remembered the children of the crowded streets in Jabalia camp or Nusairat camp which I visited with the delegation, running around us and following us with their hungry eyes full of curiosity.

His message of hope couldn’t erase from my memory the teary eyes of the young woman, who was working with UNRWA and helped us visit many places in Gaza, when we boarded our bus and as she was left there looking at us dreaming that maybe one day leaving and entering Gaza can be part of the normal routine.

Before leaving my comfortable and so organized country, Canada, I had my doubts about being allowed to enter Gaza and see with my own eyes the humanitarian situation there. Indeed the crossing points from the Israeli border and the Egyptian border were all closed for the last few months. Only the Rafah border from the Egyptian side was opened sporadically and some humanitarian aid was allowed to enter from there as well as some foreign delegations.

Many times during the six days I spent in Gaza, I wished the whole international community could see the level of destruction and the misery I saw in those long busy days. Some of the minarets, from which come the recorded voice of the muezzin call for prayers five times a day, were brought down to earth by some missiles or bombs. Buildings of the Islamic University of Gaza were totally destroyed; they contained laboratories where students were supposed to discover and learn. The Shifa hospital still bears the scars of the bombs and the shells that were sent towards it.

A school in Jihr El Dik, a Bedouin village near the Israeli border, was half destroyed not to mention the many houses in many neighbourhoods which were not rebuilt and still offered their wounds to the sun, wind and to visitors like us. Even the Palestinian Legislative Council wasn’t exempted from the destruction. The elected members lost the only place they had to discuss the questions relevant to the lives of the population.

Everywhere I went in Gaza, there was a picture, a person, a place, a building to testify or to remind me that a terrible war had happened and that only a lifting of the siege can bring some hope to the people.

Monia Mazigh was born and raised in Tunisia and immigrated to Canada in 1991. Mazigh was catapulted onto the public stage in 2002 when her husband, Maher Arar, was deported to Syria where he was tortured and held without charge for over a year. She campaigned tirelessly for his release during that time and has written a book, Hope and Despair, about her pursuit of justice.

Mazigh and others have participated in delegations to Palestine organized by Codepink this year. You can read more of their reflections from Gaza here.

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Obama emerged in Cairo as a true friend of Israel

June 5, 2009

By Gideon Levy | Haaretz/Israel, June 5, 2009

Neither Tel Aviv nor Ramallah held their breaths Thursday as the American president gave a speech in Cairo; the traffic in both crowded cities continued normally. Tel Aviv was indifferent, Ramallah sunk in desperation: Both cities have already had their fill of nice, historic speeches.

Nonetheless, no one can ignore the speech given by Barack Obama: The mountain birthed a mountain. Obama remained Obama. Only the Israeli analysts tried to diminish the speech’s importance (“not terrible”), to spread fear (“he mentioned the Holocaust and the Nakba in a single breath”), or were insulted on our behalf (“he did not mention our right to the land as promised in the Bible”). All these were redundant and unnecessary. Obama emerged Thursday as a true friend of Israel.

The prime minister ordered the ministers to say nothing, but of course they could not help but invade the studios. Uzi Landau said that a Palestinian state is tantamount to an “Iranian state.” Isaac Herzog appeared even more ridiculous when he said that the problem with the settlements is one of “public relations.” In essence, both were busy with the same problem: How can we manage to pull the new America’s leg as well? Israeli politicians have never before appeared as pathetic, as small as they did Thursday, compared to the bearer of promise in Cairo.

Indeed, there was promise in Cairo, of the dawn of a new age. A U.S. president talking about negotiations with Iran without preconditions or tacit threats, even willing to accept Iran having civilian nuclear capability; a president who talked about Hamas as a legitimate organization that represents part of Palestinian society, but that needs to relinquish violence; who spoke with empathy about Palestinian suffering; who spoke, believe it or not, about security not only for Israelis but also for Palestinians; who said that all the settlements are illegal; who called for nuclear disarmament of the entire region. All are sensational messages, headlines whose significance cannot be exaggerated, even if there are those who desperately tried to argue yesterday that “there was nothing new in his speech.”

Not enough? Obama also spoke in Cairo (!) against denying the Holocaust, about the rights of women and Copts, and on the need for democracy tailored to each society’s culture.

This is the thinking of a great leader, who walked with wisdom and sensitivity between the Holocaust and the Nakba, between Israelis and Palestinians, between Americans and Arabs, between Christians, Jews and Muslims. How easy it is to imagine his predecessor, George Bush the Terrible, in the same position: a complete opposite.

Our right-wingers were disappointed that he did not approve at least of Gush Etzion, and the peace lovers were disappointed that he did not offer a timetable. But a speech is just that, and the time for carrying things out is still to come.

But why waste words? Israeli news shows still opened Thursday with the Dudu Topaz story; that is what really interests Israelis. Never mind Obama; Israel has its own concerns.

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