NOVANEWS
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Ismail Khalidi: A tragic lecture, justifiying a vicious occupation, with no awareness that we killed the two-state solution
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Obama speech was shattering to liberal Zionists
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Well ain’t that America: Obama ignores Palestine in UN speech on freedom, and the world watches the US execute an innocent man
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Bill Keller still doesn’t know now what we all knew then…
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Settler violence and ‘the threat of Jewish terrorism’
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Mr. President, we don’t want a shortcut, we want our freedom
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Gideon Levy (unintentionally) lays bare the contradictions of liberal Zionism
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Neoconservative wax museum set to open in D.C. next month
Ismail Khalidi: A tragic lecture, justifiying a vicious occupation, with no awareness that we killed the two-state solution
Sep 22, 2011
Philip Weiss
A great effect of the Obama speech: Americans are going to hear clear moral voices. We will be informed. Playwright Ismail Khalidi gains a platform in the Albany Times-Union:
The only conclusion to be drawn from the ongoing row over the Palestinian plan to gain full United Nations membership is that the Palestinians have absolutely no reason to heed the advice of the United States any longer…
After two decades overseeing a “peace process,” that saw the number of illegal settlers double to more than 500,000 and Israel’s occupation entrench itself more deeply, the continued American disregard for the Palestinians’ plight is less surprise than tragedy — not only for the Palestinians, but for Israel and the United States as well.
It is a tragedy because the Palestinians, who are in their 45th year under an illegal military occupation, are no closer to achieving a viable state. This reality is courtesy of successive Israeli governments and their blindly supportive patrons in Washington who oversaw Israel’s systematic theft of Palestinian land and resources following the 1993 Oslo accords.
It is a tragedy, too, because the United States is seemingly devoid of any power to hold its favorite ally, and biggest recipient of aid, accountable to international law. The power the United States does wield, however, is expertly directed against the occupied Palestinians, who are regularly lectured and threatened with further misery and a loss of aid funding at even the slightest hint of resistance. All the while, they watch their future state disappear.
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama lectured the world and the Palestinians at the U.N. about peace and justice without even the slightest hint that he or the U.S. government was aware that their policies amount to the death of the two-state solution.
Obama speech was shattering to liberal Zionists
Sep 22, 2011
Philip Weiss
Yesterday was a staggering day. It was as bad as when Obama went to AIPAC in June 2008 and said, Jerusalem must not be divided. Obama piped the hard-right Israeli line for the purposes of winning an election. It was a naked renunciation of everything he claimed to believe.
The speech has sent shockwaves through liberal circles. As Laura Rozen of Yahoo news, tweeted last night:
Worst month in US since Katrina? Feels like Obama has basically abdicated any moral authority on anything.
Rozen’s tweet is a harbinger of the fact that Obama’s speech will have a dramatic effect on American Jewish public opinion. All the people who believe in the two-state solution know that Obama’s inflexibility spells disaster for them.
Today the New York Times ran a Save-two-states-now piece by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that contains a rebuke to Obama for his spinelessness that I boldface:
“When I addressed international forums as prime minister, the Israeli people expected me to present bold political initiatives that would bring peace — not arguments outlining why achieving peace now is not possible.“
This feeling is widely shared by American Jews who want to preserve Israel as a Jewish state. They are not in Rick Perry’s camp. Nearly 4/5 of Conservative rabbis are against the settlers, and many of them are ashamed of Israel. These are Peter Beinart Jews; they want Obama to take a stand against the occupation to save Israel. They want J Street to take on AIPAC.
The irony of course is that Obama’s collapse is a Jewish communal achievement. That is the thrust of Tom Friedman’s column of last Sunday attacking the powerful Israel lobby for holding Obama “hostage.” Friedman bit his tongue for years when it was Walt and Mearsheimer saying this– when it was just the Iraq war that was the issue. Jewish solidarity meant allowing the neocons and Jeffrey Goldberg to smear the scholars.
But now Israel is threatened by its own expansionist stiffnecked policies, and Friedman is laying the blame where it lies, on domestic political calculations.
Daniel Levy makes the same point in the New York Times:
“The U.S. cannot lead on an issue that it is so boxed in on by its domestic politics,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator in the government of Ehud Barak. “And therefore, with the region in such rapid upheaval and the two-state solution dying, as long as the U.S. is paralyzed, others are going to have to step up.”
Obama’s speech is a greater shock to liberal Zionists than the ’06 Lebanon war or the Gaza onslaught or the Mavi Marmara raid. For this is not about Palestinian lives or Turkish freedom fighters. The Jewish dream of Israel as our liberation story is plainly dying before our eyes– in expansion, in militarism, in Israel’s defiance of its neighbors.
As Ilene Cohen writes in an email: “There’s a still-small Israeli and pro-Israel ‘community’ of pundits and politicians that recognizes that Israel will never shed its growing pariah/outcast status so long as it insists on sticking with its colonial Greater Israel project. To be clear, these people are motivated by concern for Israel; justice for Palestine and Palestinians is not really on their radar.”
Expect these American liberals to grow more and more vocal in days and months to come. You will see a renewed American Jewish push against the settlements, and a breakup of the old lobby.
Last night on the Nightly News, Andrea Mitchell said woefully that Israel has not faced a greater crisis since 1967: so isolated and alienated from its neighbors. The response in 1967 was war, conquest, occupation. Liberal Zionists know that those choices only hurt Israel. And now the two-state dream– once the fantasy of “leftists,” in the words of former Obama Treasury aide Stuart Levey back in 1985– is a shell, destroyed by the militant right wing.
Henry Siegman expresses Andrea Mitchell’s anxiety in more thoughtful terms at the National Interest:
Nothing will be the same again in the Palestinians’ dealings with Israel and the United States. The notion that Israel will decide where negotiations begin and what parts of Palestine it will keep is history. It is sad that America, of all nations, has failed to understand this simple truth, even in the wake of the Arab Spring. Sadder still is Israel’s continuing blindness not only to the injustice but also to the impossibility of its colonial dream. That dream may now turn into a nightmare as the international community increasingly sees Israel as a rogue state and treats it accordingly.
Siegman is moving past Zionism, slowly but inexorably. His journey will be widely imitated in years to come.
Consider that at Foreign Affairs, Gideon Rose has run Ali Abunimah. Consider that at the Jewish Community Center on the Upper West Side, the annual Sukkot lunch will feature an anti-occupation activist from Israel. (thanks to the New Israel Fund).
It is true that the great majority of American Jews are still wed to Zionism, but our liberal intelligentsia is shocked by what Zionism has produced: Barack Obama imitating a fool, Rick Perry, to gain the approval of a racist, Avigdor Lieberman. An American Jewish spring is in the air.
P.S. Yesterday, in describing the Israel lobby as a Jewish entity, I suggested there would be no Christian Zionists demonstrating outside the U.N. I was wrong. Back to the drawing board!
Update: this post initially described Laura Rozen as a reporter for Politico. She’s now at Yahoo news.
Well ain’t that America: Obama ignores Palestine in UN speech on freedom, and the world watches the US execute an innocent man
Sep 22, 2011
Seham
Obama courts Jewish vote with UN speech
Ynet: US president’s aides advise Jewish leaders on his pro-Israel address prior to General Assembly speech in order to ensure ‘message is received’.
Obama gets a kosher seal of approval
Haaretz: In the eyes of his Israeli audience, including Netanyahu and Lieberman, Obama’s speech was nearly faultless, an assessment subsequently confirmed by the harsh criticism leveled at it by Arab and Palestinian officials.
Obama Rebuffed as Palestinians Pursue U.N. Seat
New York Times: The extraordinary tableau Wednesday at the United Nations underscored a stark new reality: the United States is facing the prospect of having to share, or even cede, its decades-long role as the architect of Middle East peacemaking.
Obama calls for peace talks but reaffirms US support for Israel
Independent: Warning that there was “no shortcut” to a Middle East peace settlement, President Barack Obama sought yesterday to persuade Israeli and Palestinian leaders to re-start direct negotiations – and thus blunt the Palestinian bid for full United Nations membership that Washington has vowed to veto.
And more news from Today in Palestine:
Obama to Abbas: U.S. will veto Palestinians at UN
U.S. President Obama appeals to Palestinian President Abbas at meeting on sidelines of UN General Assembly; Palestinian envoy says Obama ‘reiterated commitment’ to Palestinian state during meeting.
link to www.haaretz.com
Palestinian Authority Will Not Push For Immediate Security Council Vote
Although the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank said it is determined to go ahead with its full UN Membership Bid, it has decided not to push for an immediate Security Council vote on the issue.
link to www.imemc.org
Palestinians to push U.N. bid despite Obama (Reuters)
Reuters – U.S. President Barack Obama told the United Nations on Wednesday there was no short cut to Middle East peace but Palestinians said they would press on with a request for U.N. recognition of their nascent state.
Palestinians protest Obama UN speech
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have joined rallies in support of the bid for full UN membership. Al Jazeera’s Cal Perry reports from Ramallah.
link to us.rd.yahoo.com
‘Gabon will abstain from UN vote’
Son of former ambassador to Israel believes Gabon ‘will abstain from voting’ on PA’a statehood bid. African nation at center of Israeli efforts to prevent UN recognition of Palestine.
link to www.ynetnews.com
EU: Watering Down the Bid for Palestinian Statehood
The European Union (EU) is struggling to come up with a clear and unified position regarding the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN. But the likely outcome is an appeal to Palestinians that they accept a token recognition at the General Assembly.
link to english.al-akhbar.com
Bardawil: Demonstration limitations in Gaza made on mutual understanding
Senior Hamas official Salah al-Bardawil has revealed that the step to limit demonstrations both for and against the UN bid in the Gaza Strip was done in agreement by leaders of both Hamas and Fatah.
link to Palestine Information Center
Obama, Europeans press Palestinians to drop UN bid
AP – Furiously scrambling to head off a U.N. showdown, the United States warned world leaders Wednesday that trying to create a Palestinian nation by simple decree instead of through hard negotiations was bound to fail as a shortcut to peace with Israel. Europeans worked to defuse the dispute, too, France urging new talks within a month.
Israel’s FM tells Canadians: Palestinians not ready for statehood
In West Coast leg of a three-day tour to Canada, Avigdor Lieberman says a Palestinian state would resemble Arab countries currently experiencing tumultuous changes and lack of security.
link to www.haaretz.com
Lieberman Welcomes Obama’s Statements
Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, welcomed the statements of U.S. President, Barack Obama, in front of the General Assembly in New York, and described them as “encouraging”.
link to www.imemc.org
Israel says may hold Palestinian taxes on U.N. bid
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz on Tuesday threatened severe financial ramifications if Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas makes good on a plan to request U.N. membership for a Palestinian state this week. Steinitz, a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said his government could stop collecting the 40 percent of the Palestinian Authority’s budget through value added, excise and customs taxes.
link to www.huffingtonpost.com
Peru Supports Palestinian Bid to UN
LIMA, September 22, 2011 (WAFA) – Peru supports Palestine and the Palestinian bid to the United Nations Security Council, said President of Peruvian Parliament, Daniel Aboughattas, in a festival held in the Peruvian parliament headquarters on Thursday. During the festival, Second Peruvian Deputy, Omar Shihadeh, said Palestine has the right to be state number 194 in the UN council. Other Peruvian officials expressed their support for an independent Palestinian state based on 1967 borders and East Jerusalem as its capital.
link to english.wafa.ps
Around 2,000 rally in Beirut for Palestinian statehood
An elderly Palestinian refugee wearing a traditional outfit takes part in the Beirut rally.
link to www.topix.net
Demonstration in Denmark in Support of UN Bid
COPENHAGEN, September 22, 2011 (WAFA) – Hundreds of Arab and Danish activists Thursday demonstrated in front of the Danish Parliament building in Copenhagen in support of a Palestinian state membership in the United Nations. A number of Danish lawmakers and senior members in their parties participated in the demonstration calling for an end to Israeli occupation and recognition of a Palestinian state in the UN. Participants flew 194 balloons with the colors of the Palestinian flag marking Palestine as state number 194 in the UN. Palestine ambassador to Denmark, Amr al-Hourani, said the Palestinians are expecting Denmark to recognize the Palestinian state. “This recognition will enhance Danish-Arab relations and will reflect support of the Danish people for the Palestinian bid to UN,” he said.
link to english.wafa.ps
French Jewish Leaders Support Bid to UN
RAMALLAH, September 22, 2011 (WAFA) – Two leaders of the Jewish community in France expressed their support of the Palestinian bid to the United Nations and President Mahmoud Abbas’ strategy to achieve freedom and independence. European Parliament Member, Daniel Cohen-Bandit, said during a press conference that he will visit Palestine to support the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to get full recognition of a Palestinian state in the UN. Cohen-Bandit said that the Palestinian bid is a great step, and declining it will lead to a catastrophe in the Middle East.
link to english.wafa.ps
The Israeli occupation authority has forced Basem Hizaji to demolish part of his home in Abbasiya suburb in Silwan town to the south of the Aqsa Mosque.
link to Palestine Information Center
Settler violence
Report: Israeli settlers give women weapons training
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Israeli settlers began a weapons training program for women in the settlements on Wednesday, Israeli media said. The training started with a five hour course on the use of guns and M16 rifles for six women from Pnei Kedem, a Jewish-only settlement in the West Bank district of Hebron, according to Hebrew language daily Maariv.
link to www.maannews.net
Settler attack on activist
Hebrew with English towards the end
link to www.youtube.com
Settlers pelt homes in outbreak of attacks ahead of UN bid
Jewish settlers pelted homes in the West Bank village of Asira al-Qibliyya in a dangerous outbreak of racial attacks coinciding with a bid by Palestinian politicians to get full membership in the UN.
link to Palestine Information Center
Popular Committees to Launch a Documenting and Intervention Campaign Against Settler Attacks
[Popular Struggle] The popular committees will inaugurate the Refusing to Die in Silence project to allow for quick intervention in cases of settler attacks on Palestinians. In light of the recent augmentation in settler attacks on Palestinian body and property, the popular committees will initiate a volunteer-based campaign, in which several cars will patrol the West Bank to quickly respond to cases of settler attacks.
link to www.bilin-village.org
Violence by Israeli forces
PRC fighter shot by Israeli naval forces
A fighter from the Popular Resistance Committees’ military wing Al-Nasser Salaheddin Brigades was shot and injured Wednesday morning in an attack by Israel naval forces.
link to Palestine Information Center
Israeli Army Raids Villages around Jenin
JENIN, September 22, 2011 (WAFA) – The Israeli army at dawn Thursday raided Arqa village and Borqeen town west of Jenin, in the northern West Bank, as well as spreading a unit of soldiers in the olive groves in Jenin. Security sources said the Israeli army raided Arqa and Borqeen and moved its army vehicles in the streets and alleyways in a provocative manner. The army also spread its soldiers on foot among olive groves in various areas of Jenin and intensified its presence in residential areas of Jenin governorate. In addition, Jewish settlers from Mevo Dotan settlement were heavily present in the surroundings of Yabad town and the village of Bartaa al-Sharqiyya, both in Jenin governorate.
link to english.wafa.ps
Suppression & Attacks of Non-Violent Palestinian Activism & Media
Help Release Ni’ilin’s Ibrahim Srour from Israeli Prison
[Popular Struggle] Ibrahim Srour, a resident of Nil’in, has been imprisoned by Israel for nearly two years for participating in local protests. He will be released from prison on October 2nd, if the immense 12,000 NIS (3,250 USD) fine placed by a military court judge is raised in time.
link to www.bilin-village.org
Israel cracks down on Palestinian journalists “to hide the truth”
A human rights researcher has claimed that the Israeli authorities have escalated their crackdown on Palestinian journalists order to “hide the truth about Israel’s crimes”. Abdel Nasser Ferwana said that the crackdown includes “assaults on journalists, arrests and detentions”. Mr. Ferwana is a researcher specialising in prisoners’ issues. He has accused the Israelis of detaining a number of journalists without charge or any form of due process. He cited as evidence the arrests of Al Jazeera television’s Afghanistan bureau director Samer Allaw, who is a Palestinian; Al Quds TV programme coordinator Nawwaf Amer; Shehab news agency’s correspondent Amr Abu Arafa; Al Aqsa TV’s Asid Amarna; and Mohamed Bosharat from the governorate of Tobas.
link to www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk
Gaza
‘Tears of Gaza’, The Movie, ‘Tears of Gaza’
A documentary film that should be watched by every American, to see how Israel spends our taxes. Every European should watch it, to see the true face of Israel.
link to www.youtube.com
JENIN (Ma’an) — Israeli protesters prevented Palestinian families from visiting their relatives in an Israeli prison on Thursday, Palestinian Authority officials said. The PA Ministry of Detainees said that a group of Israelis chanted slogans and halted the passage of buses to the Negev prison. Israeli forces in the area did not intervene to prevent the assault on the visiting families, who had traveled from the the northern West Bank city of Jenin to see their imprisoned relatives.
link to www.maannews.net
Many international activists, organizations and movements are faced with doubts regarding the current debate regarding the initiative for membership of a Palestinian state at the UN and ways forward. Stop the Wall gives answers to some of the most asked questions.
Three campus activists talk to The Electronic Intifada about the upcoming national Students for Justice in Palestine meeting, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement on US campuses and the challenges activists face from Zionist groups and school administrations.
A Jewish human rights activist who stood up to challenge the Israeli Prime Minister’s address to the US Congress this spring and call for equal rights for Palestinians has filed charges against four security officers who she says tackled and injured her.
Join the US Campaign this week for two opportunities to learn more about Palestine’s UN membership bid. Tonight, Wednesday, September 21, 8-9pm join us at Georgetown University for a panel discussion with National Advocacy Director Josh Ruebner, Noura Erakat, and Mouin Rabbani, sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine and the Lecture Fund.
AHAVA closes London store over threats
The company’s link to Israel, however, became the greatest difficulty AHAVA has been forced to deal with in the past two years. Dozens of pro-Palestinian activists have been gathering outside the London flagship store every Saturday in the past few months, calling on British residents to boycott the company’s products. The shop’s location – at Covent Garden, one of the British capital’s most popular shopping districts – has exposed the organized protest against AHAVA to masses of British residents and tourists. The reason for the uproar is that the company’s headquarters are in Mitzpe Shalem, which is defined by the pro-Palestinian organizations as “an illegal and criminal settlement in the occupied territories.” The fact that AHAVA’s product originate in the Dead Sea, which is also considered a disputed area among the activists, has caused even greater anger among the boycotters. The protestors have reportedly been stopping shoppers outside the store and handing out leaflets explaining that the occupation is a “human crime”. Some have even clashed with the shop’s employees.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Obama urges Erdogan to resolve crisis with Israel
US president meets with Turkish PM on sidelines of UN General Assembly, asks him to find a way to end crisis with Israel for sake of regional stability.
Israel embassy officials leave Cairo again
CAIRO: Four officials from the Israeli embassy in Cairo returned to Israel on Thursday, after a short trip to assess damage at the mission headquarters after it was attacked by protesters, a report said. The consul and three other officials have left Cairo for Tel Aviv “after a three-day visit to assess the premises of the embassy following the events that took place around two weeks ago,” the official MENA news agency reported. The Sept. 9-10 attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo forced the evacuation of staff including ambassador Yitzhak Levanon. Crowds smashed through an external security wall, tossed embassy papers from balconies and tore down the Israeli flag. It was the worst incident since Israel set up its mission in Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state in 1979. It was also the latest episode in worsening relations between Egypt and Israel since the killing of six Egyptian policemen on their common border as Israel hunted militants after a deadly attack last month. Three people were killed and more than 1,000 wounded, including 300 policemen, during clashes between protesters and the security forces outside the embassy and the nearby security directorate.
A top Palestine Liberation Organization official responded to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s scathing criticisms of the PLO on Tuesday by telling The Cable that Perry’s comments were “discriminatory and racist.” Perry hosted a pro-Israel rally in New York on Tuesday morning, during which he repeatedly accused President Barack Obama of “appeasement” of the Palestinians and of bungling three years of Middle East diplomacy. He also called for the closing of the PLO mission in Washington, and the cutting off of U.S. aid to the Palestinian leadership as punishment for their drive to seek member-state status at the United Nations.
Arguing this case Tuesday to reporters at an event featuring family members of the assassinated victims, Iranian IAEA envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh said his country would not retaliate against the “ugly phenomenon of assassinating … nuclear scientists to stop Iran’s nuclear progress.” Blaming Israel for assassinating its nuclear scientists, Iran said Tuesday it would not retaliate for the “ugly phenomenon” but would seek more international support against such killings. Instead, he said, Tehran will push for greater international condemnation of such practices, adding he is “very sure about the support of almost all member states” of the 151-nation IAEA. Mansoureh Karami, the widow of assassinated scientist Masoud Ali Mohammadi, blamed the “Zionist regime” for the killings. In an indirect poke at the United States and its allies, she said nations who “falsely claim human rights share these crimes.” The Iranian delegation also showed a film featuring Majid Jamali Fashi – who Iran says is the killer of one of the scientists – asserting that he was recruited by the Zionist entity.
link to www.almanar.com.lb
That fact poses serious challenges to be faced by the Lebanese cabinet and Parliament, responsible for ensuring an internal consensus as soon as possible to prevent any foreign attack against the country’s resources. Lebanon stands today in the middle of the dispute over maritime resources, where Lebanese waters contain the largest oil reserves compared to the neighboring countries. Cyprus announced Monday that it has commenced oil and gas exploration in the Mediterranean, an announcement that pushed Turkey to start exploration in the Turkish-Cypriot waters next week.
Bahrain protesters hold traffic demonstration
Demonstrators block traffic in centre of capital Manama in bid to pressure government ahead of weekend by-elections.
(New York) – Yemeni security forces used excessive force when they opened fire on anti-government protesters in Sanaa on September 18, 2011, and in Taizz on September 19, killing at least 27 and wounding hundreds, Human Rights Watch said today.
AP – Iran was praised and Israel criticized Wednesday at a 151-nation meeting, with Cuba and Venezuela defending Tehran’s right to run a nuclear program and Syria saying the Jewish state’s undeclared nuclear arsenal is a threat to world peace.
U.S. Special Operations Forces have been increasingly aiming their nighttime raids, which have been the primary cause of Afghan anger at the U.S. military presence, at civilian noncombatants in order to exploit their possible intelligence value, according to a new study published by the Open Society Foundation and the Liaison Office.
US executes death row prisoner Troy Davis
Death row prisoner Troy Davis has been executed in the state of Georgia despite serious doubts surrounding his conviction. Amnesty International has condemned the decision by authorities in the state of Georgia to execute death row prisoner Troy Davis. Troy Davis, 42, who had been on death row since 1991, was executed by lethal injection at the Georgia state prison in Jackson on Wednesday, despite serious doubts surrounding his conviction.
Government urged to establish an immediate moratorium on executions in the kingdom after a Sudanese national was put to death this week. Saudi Arabia’s government should establish an immediate moratorium on executions in the kingdom, Amnesty International said today after a Sudanese man convicted of “sorcery” was put to death.
First French fines for veiled women a ‘travesty of justice’
A court in Meaux near Paris fined Hind Ahmas €120 and Najate Naït Ali €80 for wearing the niqab, a full face veil, in public. The first fines issued in France today against two Muslim women wearing full-face veils in public are a violation of their rights to freedom of expression and religion, Amnesty International said today.
link to www.amnesty.org
As Palestine’s bid for statehood at the UN looms closer, the world is waiting for Israel’s next move. Former Israeli intelligence head Ami Ayalon believes the solution to peace in the region is creating a new reality – of two states. Ami Ayalon believes that the recognition of Palestine in the UN would not necessarily be a “step forward on the road to state solution,” but definitely will change perception of the situation by the international community, which may lead to some economic and diplomatic sanctions.
Jewish neo-con joins Palestinian neo-con to expose those pesky Arabs
Let’s be clear. Here we have a fusion between a Zionist fundamentalist, Pipes, and a Palestinian journalist with the pro-settler Jerusalem Post, Abu Toameh, helping to “expose” the supposedly existential threat of Arabs inside Israel. Abu Toameh was recently in Australia as a guest of the Zionist lobby.
Harper’s undermining of UN bid goes against Canadian public opinion
Canada is so pro-Israel that it will vote in the United Nations against recognizing a Palestinian state on only half the land that Canadian diplomats promised Palestine sixty years ago.
link to electronicintifada.net
Interview with Jadaliyya Co-Editor Mouin Rabbani on Palestinian Statehood
With the United Nations set to debate Palestinian statehood on 20 September, Jadaliyya Co-EditorMouin Rabbani, a Middle East-based expert on Palestine and Visiting Senior Fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, discusses the background to and implications of this development. He will be in the U.S. 15 September through 10 October for media appearances and public events.
link to www.jadaliyya.com
Al-Jazeera Interview with Jadaliyya Co-Editor Noura Erakat on PLO/PA Strategy at the UN
New York – Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas (Abu-Mazen) and the sizeable delegation accompanying him to New York have yet to decide on how to proceed with the Palestinian application for admission as a UN member-state. The bid is to be submitted to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after Abbas addresses the General Assembly on Friday. During a meeting on Monday between Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and representatives of Western donor states, also attended by Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Ayalon made clear that Israel would exact economic retribution if the Palestinians went ahead with their UN membership bid. Ayalon warned that “future assistance and cooperation could be severely and irreparably compromised.” The chairman of the meeting, Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gare Store, for his part emerged with the message “that there is an urgent need, as we donors see it, that political negotiations resume.” This was read as a sign that the European donors, while committed in theory to a Palestinian state, are searching for justifications to defer to Israel and the US over the UN bid.
Biggest Losers in Palestine Veto? The American People, Philip Giraldi
If the Palestinian application for United Nations full membership actually takes place Friday and the United States uses its Security Council veto to stop the process, it will be the final step in a predictable and preventable tragedy playing out.
US President Barack Obama’s decision to use the US’ veto prerogative if the United Nations votes to recognise a Palestinian state will constitute a blow to those seeking peace in the Middle East. His administration’s claim that peace can only be achieved through dialogue and consent rather than through unilateral moves ignores the complex power relations that constitute peace-making between Israelis and Palestinians. History teaches that peace is achieved only when the conflicting sides believe that they have too much to lose by sustaining the conflict. And, at this point in history, the price Israel is paying for continuing the occupation is extremely small.
Perry’s Faith-Based Foreign Policy Directive, Justin Raimondo
If Rick Perry makes it to the White House, what will American foreign policy in the Middle East look like? We got a clear indication of that, recently, when he stated: “As a Christian I have a clear directive to support Israel, from my perspective its pretty easy both as an American and a Christian.
link to original.antiwar.com
A year ago, President Obama addressed the UNGA where he told world leaders that “when we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations – an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.” He was back today but there was no agreement. The Palestinians and the Israelis have signed an interim agreement on September 13, 1993 in Washington DC known as the Oslo Accords. The document stipulated that this arrangement is temporary, and that the two parties should negotiate and produce a permanent agreement and that the negotiations must start no later than May 1996. It is now September 21, 2012. Nearly 20 years since signing that accord and there is no permanent agreement, no negotiations. Consequently, the head of the Palestinian Authority decided to ask the world community to end the deadlock by recognizing a Palestinians state over the 1967 borders. The Israelis are opposed and they are asking the US to use its veto to deny the Palestinians statehood.
Surprisingly, as the U.S. threatens to veto in the U.N. Security Council a resolution for Palestinian statehood, President Barack Obama faces plunging poll numbers with Jewish Americans. Obama’s sinking poll numbers in the Jewish community (dropping from 80 percent in 2008 to 60 percent in July 2011), usually an extremely loyal bedrock of support for […]
Seven months after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, the popular debate on what constitutes a genuine change and revolution in Egypt rages on. The decapitated hydra of Mubarak’s regime lives on under a different guise, but average citizens seem more determined than ever to not let any special interests steal their hard-won revolution: not the military, not the neo-liberals, and not Islamists. Khalil Bendib spoke with activist and blogger Hossam el-Hamlawy in Cairo.
Maximilian C. Forte, “Al Jazeera and U.S. Foreign Policy: What WikiLeaks’ U.S. Embassy Cables Reveal about U.S. Pressure and Propaganda”
The U.S. Embassy cables published by WikiLeaks present numerous very interesting stories about how Al Jazeera was brought to heel by the U.S. Government. The U.S. Embassy in Doha, and officials from Washington, used a variety of direct and indirect methods of ensuring a greater degree of compliance on the part of Al Jazeera. These methods included placing speakers on Al Jazeera news programs; supplying information approved by the U.S. Government; providing U.S. training for Al Jazeera’s journalists; demanding editorial distortion of aired programs; securing Al Jazeera’s agreement to check first with U.S. officials before airing “sensitive” programs; monitoring of Al Jazeera in minute detail, ranging from its news coverage to its internal structure and policies; lodging complaints with Qatari government ministers; constant, personal visits to Al Jazeera’s headquarters; developing familiarity and close personal contacts with Al Jazeera staff; and going over the head of the Managing Director of Al Jazeera to ensure that “objectionable content” was removed and never repeated. Mainstreaming, professionalism, balance, and objectivity emerge as the chosen tropes for a journalism that favors U.S. foreign policy.
Bill Keller still doesn’t know now what we all knew then…
Sep 22, 2011
Lizzy Ratner
It’s been several days since I finally got around to reading former New York Timesexecutive editor Bill Keller’s hymn of self-justification – I mean, sober and self-reflective mea culpa – for his early, eager support of the Iraq war, and I’m still smoldering, still spewing small mushroom clouds of rage from my ears.
There are lots of reasons to steam, many spelled out in Matthew Taylor’s fine post on this site, others spelled out in Steve Walt’s short but eviscerating Foreign Policy knife jab. But what really gets me, zaps me like a mess of live wires, is the fact that over the course of more than 3400 words Keller can’t seem to find the keys on his computer to spell out the words, “I am sorry.” He offers no apology, no forgive me, no soul-searching, just nine oddly detached words issued in the final, limping throes of the piece: “President Bush got it wrong. And so did I.”
And so did I?
This is supposed to be the climax of Keller’s sober reflection, the pay-off for nearly a decade of forced silence (after the months and months of zealous cheer-leading), but all we get is a man dodging his own confession. There is no hint of sadness, no suggestion of repentance, no long grey beard or glittering eye. Keller is no ancient mariner leaking guilt everywhere, though far more than the albatross has been killed. Indeed, more than 100,000 Iraqis are dead and nearly 4500 U.S. soldiers have lost their lives. A country lies in chaos and ruins. The US economy is in tatters yet somehow has had to keep feeding the $3 trillion war beast. Surely all this deserves more than George-W.-Bush-was-wrong-and-oh-yeah-me-too? But that’s all we get, a feint, along with a cascade of fine-phrased excuses.
These excuses – and really, the piece is, in some ways, one large excuse – are hugely revealing. In addition to their general lameness and inadequacy, they go a long way towards suggesting why Keller doesn’t get around to an apology, why he might not even see the need for one. And the reason is that after all this time, Keller seems to believe – or his excuses suggest that he believes – that his big mistake in supporting the war was one of emotion and credulity, not morality. It was, in other words, an honest mistake, a failure of attention and skepticism, not a failure of character or conscience. Anyone could have made it, lots of good people did.
Consider one of Keller’s first excuses, what I call his Daddy Defense, which he offers up just a few paragraphs into the piece. Sounding something like a neo-Gothic horror novelist, he writes, “I remember a mounting protective instinct, heightened by the birth of my second daughter. Something dreadful was loose in the world, and the urge to stop it, to do something — to prove something — was overriding a career-long schooling in the virtues of caution and skepticism. By the time of Alice’s birth I had already turned my attention to Iraq…”
It’s all very earnest and sympathetic, very daddy-sweet. And as a newish parent myself, I get the over-protective impulse, the intensity of post-natal emotion, the vertigo of sudden responsibility for a new life. But how all these instincts add up to wanting to invade Iraq makes about as much sense to me as the Twinkie defense. Moreover, if for some unfathomable reason they do add up, then we have much, much bigger problems since we clearly have to ask ourselves whether new fathers, addled by hormones and emotion, can be trusted with any responsibility greater than changing a dirty diaper. Certainly they shouldn’t be allowed to write opinion pieces for major newspapers.
As for the rest of Keller’s excuses, they are equally pat and no more convincing. There’s the “all the cool kids were doing it” excuse – if Fareed Zakaria, George Packer, Jeffrey Goldberg, and Christopher Hitchens, among other “liberal hawks” can be considered cool – as well as Keller’s suggestion that he and his fellow cool-kid hawks were simply too “drugged” by testosterone and high on morality, their own, to maintain their powers of skepticism and discernment. In other words, his conscience and his gonads made him do it.
Still, enraging as these excuses are, none of them come close to matching the self-justificatory blather of Keller’s most audacious excuse of all, his claim that that he cheered the war because he didn’t know, couldn’t have known, that it would turn out to be an epic, bloody WMD-free disaster. As he writes:
We forget how broad the consensus was that Hussein was hiding the kind of weapons that could rain holocaust on a neighbor or be delivered to America by proxy. He had recently possessed chemical weapons (he used them against the Kurds), and it was only a few years since we had discovered he had an active ambition to acquire nuclear weapons. Inspectors who combed the country after the first gulf war discovered a nuclear program far more advanced than our intelligence agencies had believed; so it is understandable that the next time around the analysts erred on the side of believing the worst.
We now know that the consensus was wrong, and that it was built in part on intelligence that our analysts had good reason to believe was cooked. Should we — those of us without security clearances — have known it in 2003?