GEMEINSAMER AUFRUF DER 21 PARLAMENTSMITGLIEDER UND 2 EU-PARLAMENTARIER DER KKE ZUR VERSTÄRKUNG DES KAMPFES FÜR DIE ANERKENNUNG DES STAATES PALÄSTINA!
übersetzt von Jens-Torsten Bohlke
Auf Kommunisten-online am 11. Dezember 2011 – Anlässlich des 29. Novembers, des Tages der internationalen Solidarität mit dem palästinensischen Volk, bekundet die Kommunistische Partei Griechenlands (KKE) ihre Solidarität und ihre Unterstützung für den heldenhaften Kampf des palästinensischen Volkes, welches jahrzehntelang dem ideologischen, politischen und militärischen Druck der Imperialisten USA, EU und NATO in Absprache mit dem imperialistischen Staat Israel ausgesetzt worden ist.
Wir stehen fest in unserer Solidarität mit dem Kampf des Volkes von Palästina. Zugleich bekunden wir unsere Ablehnung gegenüber den Vereinbarungen der griechischen Regierungen, welche die militärische Zusammenarbeit mit Israel fördern.
Zu einem Zeitpunkt, an dem ein imperialistischer Krieg in der Region immer wahrscheinlicher wird, an dem es eine anhaltende imperialistische Einmischung in Syrien gibt, die Drohungen mit Krieg gegen Iran verstärkt werden, ist es erforderlich, den antiimperialistischen Kampf, den Kampf für die Rechte des palästinensischen Volkes und für die Lösung der Palästinafrage zu verstärken. Ihre gerechte Lösung ist von entscheidender Bedeutung für die Entwicklungen in der Region.
Daher meinen wir:
Wir unterstützen den Kampf für die Schaffung eines unabhängigen, lebensfähigen und souveränen Staates Palästina in den Grenzen von 1967 mit Ost-Jerusalem als seiner Hauptstadt, neben Israel. Wir fordern die Befreiung des palästinensischen Volkes aus den Fängen der grausamen Besatzungskräfte, der israelischen Armee.
Wir fordern die Anerkennung des Staates Palästina als UN-Vollmitglied.
Wir fordern auch:
- Schluss mit den Siedlungen, Rückzug der Siedler aus den Gebieten jenseits der Grenzen von 1967;
- Abriss der nicht hinzunehmenden Mauer, die Jerusalem und die West Bank teilt;
- Rückkehrrecht für alle palästinensischen Flüchtlinge nach West Bank und Gaza;
- Rückkehrrecht für alle palästinensischen Flüchtlinge in ihre Heimatorte gemäß der diesbezüglichen UN-Resolution;
- Aufheben jeglicher Blockade gegen die Palästinenser in der Westbank und Gaza;
- Sofortige Freilassung der palästinensischen und sonstigen politischen Flüchtlinge, die derzeit in israelischen Gefängnissen gefangen gehalten werden;
- Rückzug der israelischen Armee aus den 1967 besetzten Gebieten einschließlich der Golan-Höhen und der Sebaa-Region in Süd-Libanon.
Wir rufen das griechische Volk dazu auf, seine Stimme zu erheben und bei der griechischen Regierung die Beendigung der militärischen Zusammenarbeit unseres Landes mit Israel durchzusetzen und unverzüglich die Aktionen für die Anerkennung des Staates Palästina zu unterstützen.
Wir rufen das griechische Volk und die Arbeiterklasse dazu auf, dass sie ihre Solidarität mit dem gerechten Kampf des palästinensischen Volkes für die Anerkennung des Staates Palästina als Vollmitglied der UN bekunden.
Die Parlamentsmitglieder der KKE:
PAPARIGA Aleka
KAZAKOS Costas
GKIOKAS Yannis
HALVATZIS Spiridon
HARALAMPOUS Haralampos
IGNATIADIS Theodoros
KALANTIDOU Sofia
KANELLI Liana
KARATHANASOPOULOS Nikos
MANOLAKOU Diamando
MARINOS Giorgos
MAVRIKOS Georgios
MORAITIS Nikos
NANOS Apostolos
NIKOLAIDOU Vera
PAFILIS Athanasios
PAPACONSTANTINOU Nicolaos
PROTOULIS Yannis
SKOPELITIS Stavros
SKYLLAKOS Antonis
ZIOGAS Yannis
Die Mitglieder des EU-Parlaments der KKE
ANGOURAKIS Charalampos
TOUSSAS Giorgos
Athen, 28/11/2011, Pressebüro des ZK der KKE
Quelle: http://inter.kke.gr/
Posts mit dem Label Palestine werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Posts mit dem Label Palestine werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Montag, 19. Dezember 2011
Montag, 17. Oktober 2011
Free Ahmad Sa' adat
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
www.freeahmadsaadat.org + info@freeahmadsaadat.org
Twitter:http://twitter.com/freeahmadsaadat
Palestinian prisoners have entered their third week of hunger strike. After two weeks of hunger strike, physical symptoms become increasingly severe and prisoners' lives and health are ever more at risk. As prisoners have put their lives and bodies on the line to defend the rights of themselves and their people, international support and solidarity are continually escalating and much-needed.
The health of Ahmad Sa'adat, General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Palestinian national leader who has been in isolation for two and one-half years and whose struggle is at the center of the demand for an end to isolation, is in crisis. Two lawyers visited Sa'adat on October 7 and October 9, and reported that he was fainting and vomiting - a direct consequence of the Israeli Prison Service's confiscation of salt from prisoners. He has already lost over 7 kilos on the hunger strike. Nevertheless, no independent doctors or medical professionals have been permitted to examine Sa'adat. It is urgent that independent medical care reach Sa'adat - call and protest at your Israeli consulate or embassy or demand that the International Committee of the Red Cross take action to protect Sa'adat's life!
Despite his own health crisis, when asked about the duration of the strike, Sa'adat responded: "We are going to continue. We will not accept these degrading conditions. Either we live in dignity or we die with our heads high."
It is clear that if there are any consequences to Sa'adat's health or life, Israel and its isolation policy bear full responsibility and have yet more blood on their hands - but silence is complicity, and the world governments, officials and authorities who allow this to continue without raising a word of protest are also responsible for the ongoing crimes against Palestinian political prisoners and the Palestinian people as a whole.
As of October 9, 300 prisoners were participating in a complete open ended hunger strike and 3000 in a partial hunger strike. Additional prisoners have been joining the strike on a daily basis - on October 10 and 11, over 1500 prisoners at Nafha, Ramon, Eshel, Asqelan, and Gilboa prisons have joined in the open-ended strikes
Hunger strike tents continue to grow in cities throughout Palestine - in Ramallah, Qalqilya, Nablus, Gaza, Salfit, Tulkarem, Nazareth, Haifa. Palestinian activists have gone on solidarity hunger strike and engaged in ongoing mobilizations throughout Palestinian cities. In Gaza, three international activists have joined in the solidarity hunger strikes. Demonstrations in front of Ofer and Asqelan prisons were organized by Palestinians in '48 Occupied Palestine. On October 12, 2011, a general strike is expected to close businesses, schools and offices throughout Palestinian cities for hours, to express mass popular support for the prisoners' struggle.
Negotiations to end the strike failed on Monday as Israeli prison authorities continue to disregard Palestinian prisoners' rights. Prisoners have been repeatedly denied lawyers' visits in several prisons. Prisoners have been increasingly denied salt or their salt confiscated - a potentially deadly action for Sa'adat and other hunger strikers.
Abdel Latif Gheith, Chair of the Board of Directors of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, was today slammed with a six-month ban on entry into the West Bank (as defined by Israel.) Gheith is a resident of East Jerusalem and was called to al-Moskobiyeh interrogation center in Jerusalem to order him arbitrarily forbidden from entering the West Bank, a severe violation of his right to freedom of movement and obvious retaliation for his work in support of the prisoners' hunger strike.
International solidarity to support Palestinian hunger strikers is growing rapidly:
In Gaza, international solidarity activists have joined solidarity hunger strike tents. "Palestinian prisoners are bravely resisting a system that seeks to crush them, their families, their communities, and their national life. Their struggle deserves our full support," said Joe Catron, an activist from the U.S. engaged in an open-ended hunger strike.
éirígí, an Irish republican socialist political party, held a demonstration in Dublin demanding freedom for Ahmad Sa'adat and supporting the hunger strike.
Protests took place throughout the U.S., including in San Francisco and at Occupy Wall Street in New York, in support of the hunger strike - and in solidarity with prisoners in California on hunger strike. Protesters called for the freedom of Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners. See a video of a protest organized by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.
Greek organizations and social movements have stood in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners, including Greek trade unionists, city councillors, and the Communist Organization of Greece.
Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, an Arab prisoner in French jails, joined the hunger strike as protests took place in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Paris. Activists in Denmark, Sweden and Italyjoined in the solidarity actions across Europe.
The National Lawyers Guild in the US and the Palestinian Boycott National Committee issued statements and calls to action in support of Palestinian political prisoners.
A play, Ana Hurra, supporting Palestinian prisoners and telling their stories, began a two-week tour of the United States, and activists on Twitter plan global solidarity hunger strikes.
TAKE ACTION TO SUPPORT AHMAD SA'ADAT AND ALL PALESTINIAN PRISONERS!
1. Picket, protest or call the Israeli embassy or consulate in your location and demand the immediate freedom of Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian political prisoners. Make it clear that you support the demands of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike! Demand that independent doctors and medical experts be allowed to examine and treat Ahmad Sa'adat. Send us reports of your protests at Israeli embassies and consulates.
2. Distribute the free downloadable Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat flyer in your community at local events.
3. Write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act swiftly to demand that the Israelis ensure that Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners are freed from punitive isolation. Email the ICRC, whose humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at JER_jerusalem@icrc.org, and inform them about the urgent situation of Ahmad Sa'adat. Make it clear that Ahmad Sa'adat's life and health are gravely at risk and that he must be permitted independent medical care, and that the ICRC is aware and responsible for any risk to Sa'adat's life or health..
4. Join in the Twitter solidarity strike for Palestine - Tweet: My name is ( ) and I will go on a hunger strike on Wednesday in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners. #TweepStrike #HS4Palestine
5. Email the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat at info@freeahmadsaadat.org with announcements, reports and information about your local events, activities and flyer distributions.
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa' adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org /
info@freeahmadsaadat.org
Twitter:http://twitter.com/fre eahmadsaadat
www.freeahmadsaadat.org + info@freeahmadsaadat.org
Twitter:http://twitter.com/freeahmadsaadat
Palestinian prisoners have entered their third week of hunger strike. After two weeks of hunger strike, physical symptoms become increasingly severe and prisoners' lives and health are ever more at risk. As prisoners have put their lives and bodies on the line to defend the rights of themselves and their people, international support and solidarity are continually escalating and much-needed.
The health of Ahmad Sa'adat, General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Palestinian national leader who has been in isolation for two and one-half years and whose struggle is at the center of the demand for an end to isolation, is in crisis. Two lawyers visited Sa'adat on October 7 and October 9, and reported that he was fainting and vomiting - a direct consequence of the Israeli Prison Service's confiscation of salt from prisoners. He has already lost over 7 kilos on the hunger strike. Nevertheless, no independent doctors or medical professionals have been permitted to examine Sa'adat. It is urgent that independent medical care reach Sa'adat - call and protest at your Israeli consulate or embassy or demand that the International Committee of the Red Cross take action to protect Sa'adat's life!
Despite his own health crisis, when asked about the duration of the strike, Sa'adat responded: "We are going to continue. We will not accept these degrading conditions. Either we live in dignity or we die with our heads high."
It is clear that if there are any consequences to Sa'adat's health or life, Israel and its isolation policy bear full responsibility and have yet more blood on their hands - but silence is complicity, and the world governments, officials and authorities who allow this to continue without raising a word of protest are also responsible for the ongoing crimes against Palestinian political prisoners and the Palestinian people as a whole.
As of October 9, 300 prisoners were participating in a complete open ended hunger strike and 3000 in a partial hunger strike. Additional prisoners have been joining the strike on a daily basis - on October 10 and 11, over 1500 prisoners at Nafha, Ramon, Eshel, Asqelan, and Gilboa prisons have joined in the open-ended strikes
Hunger strike tents continue to grow in cities throughout Palestine - in Ramallah, Qalqilya, Nablus, Gaza, Salfit, Tulkarem, Nazareth, Haifa. Palestinian activists have gone on solidarity hunger strike and engaged in ongoing mobilizations throughout Palestinian cities. In Gaza, three international activists have joined in the solidarity hunger strikes. Demonstrations in front of Ofer and Asqelan prisons were organized by Palestinians in '48 Occupied Palestine. On October 12, 2011, a general strike is expected to close businesses, schools and offices throughout Palestinian cities for hours, to express mass popular support for the prisoners' struggle.
Negotiations to end the strike failed on Monday as Israeli prison authorities continue to disregard Palestinian prisoners' rights. Prisoners have been repeatedly denied lawyers' visits in several prisons. Prisoners have been increasingly denied salt or their salt confiscated - a potentially deadly action for Sa'adat and other hunger strikers.
Abdel Latif Gheith, Chair of the Board of Directors of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, was today slammed with a six-month ban on entry into the West Bank (as defined by Israel.) Gheith is a resident of East Jerusalem and was called to al-Moskobiyeh interrogation center in Jerusalem to order him arbitrarily forbidden from entering the West Bank, a severe violation of his right to freedom of movement and obvious retaliation for his work in support of the prisoners' hunger strike.
International solidarity to support Palestinian hunger strikers is growing rapidly:
In Gaza, international solidarity activists have joined solidarity hunger strike tents. "Palestinian prisoners are bravely resisting a system that seeks to crush them, their families, their communities, and their national life. Their struggle deserves our full support," said Joe Catron, an activist from the U.S. engaged in an open-ended hunger strike.
éirígí, an Irish republican socialist political party, held a demonstration in Dublin demanding freedom for Ahmad Sa'adat and supporting the hunger strike.
Protests took place throughout the U.S., including in San Francisco and at Occupy Wall Street in New York, in support of the hunger strike - and in solidarity with prisoners in California on hunger strike. Protesters called for the freedom of Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners. See a video of a protest organized by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.
Greek organizations and social movements have stood in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners, including Greek trade unionists, city councillors, and the Communist Organization of Greece.
Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, an Arab prisoner in French jails, joined the hunger strike as protests took place in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Paris. Activists in Denmark, Sweden and Italyjoined in the solidarity actions across Europe.
The National Lawyers Guild in the US and the Palestinian Boycott National Committee issued statements and calls to action in support of Palestinian political prisoners.
A play, Ana Hurra, supporting Palestinian prisoners and telling their stories, began a two-week tour of the United States, and activists on Twitter plan global solidarity hunger strikes.
TAKE ACTION TO SUPPORT AHMAD SA'ADAT AND ALL PALESTINIAN PRISONERS!
1. Picket, protest or call the Israeli embassy or consulate in your location and demand the immediate freedom of Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian political prisoners. Make it clear that you support the demands of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike! Demand that independent doctors and medical experts be allowed to examine and treat Ahmad Sa'adat. Send us reports of your protests at Israeli embassies and consulates.
2. Distribute the free downloadable Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat flyer in your community at local events.
3. Write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act swiftly to demand that the Israelis ensure that Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners are freed from punitive isolation. Email the ICRC, whose humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at JER_jerusalem@icrc.org, and inform them about the urgent situation of Ahmad Sa'adat. Make it clear that Ahmad Sa'adat's life and health are gravely at risk and that he must be permitted independent medical care, and that the ICRC is aware and responsible for any risk to Sa'adat's life or health..
4. Join in the Twitter solidarity strike for Palestine - Tweet: My name is ( ) and I will go on a hunger strike on Wednesday in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners. #TweepStrike #HS4Palestine
5. Email the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat at info@freeahmadsaadat.org with announcements, reports and information about your local events, activities and flyer distributions.
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa' adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org /
info@freeahmadsaadat.org
Twitter:http://twitter.com/fre eahmadsaadat
New Developments on Palestinian Prisoners' Hunger Strike - Action Needed + Solidarity with California, US Prison Hunger Strikers
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org /
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa' adat - info@freeahmadsaadat. org -
Twitter:http://twitter.com/fre eahmadsaadat
Solidarity with Palestinian prisoners is more urgent than ever. Since the announcement of Palestinian prisoners' hunger strikeagainst the isolation of Ahmad Sa'adat and all other prisoners held in solitary confinement, and against torture and humiliation for prisoners and their families and visitors, Israeli prison officials have stepped up their threats against Palestinian prisoners participating in the hunger strike.
The strike begins today, Tuesday, September 27. The Israeli Minister of Internal Security, at a meeting in Ramon and Naqab Prisons, has threatened to escalate repression against prisoners, threatening to move all prisoners participating in the hunger strike into isolation and solitary confinement, and to forcibly transfer those prisoners to other prisons in the occupation prison system. Prisoners are frequently transferred by occupation forces in an attempt to break up social bonds and disrupt organizing against prison repression.
For decades, Palestinian prisoners have engaged in hunger strikes to demand - and win - their rights, putting their bodies on the line once more to demand the freedom and dignity of themselves, their people, their homeland and their nation. Palestinian prisoners have announced that they will not be moved from their course by the threats of the occupiers. Prisoners' representatives have confirmed that Sa'adat and fellow isolated leader Jamal Abu al-Haija, in isolation with Sa'adat, will join in the strike themselves.
Furthermore, prisoners announced that they will reject all prison orders, refusing to wear uniforms, stand up for daily counts, or accept food. The situation is more urgent than ever as prisoners begin their strike. The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat calls upon all solidarity, international justice and human rights groups and organizations to join us to demand freedom, dignity and justice for Palestinian prisoners.
TAKE ACTION TO SUPPORT AHMAD SA'ADAT AND ALL PALESTINIAN PRISONERS!
1. Picket, protest or call the Israeli embassy or consulate in your location and demand the immediate freedom of Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian political prisoners. Make it clear that you support the demands of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike!
2. Distribute the free downloadable Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat flyer in your community at local events.
3. Write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act swiftly to demand that the Israelis ensure that Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners are freed from punitive isolation. Email the ICRC, whose humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at jerusalem.jer@icrc.org, and inform them about the urgent situation of Ahmad Sa'adat.
4. Email the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat at info@freeahmadsaadat.org with announcements, reports and information about your local events, activities and flyer distributions.
+++
Solidarity with Prison Hunger Strikers in California
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat expresses its deepest solidarity with the prisoners on hunger strike in Pelican Bay, California, the United States. These prisoners, inside the racist and brutal US prison system, have also stood together on hunger strike to demand an end to abuse and the use of isolation against prisoners, particularly long-term isolation, to demand proper food, and an end to torture and abuse. They ended their strike in July 2011 after receiving assurances that their demands would be met - however, this has not happened, and prisoners have in fact been punished and further repressed for participating in the strike. The prisoners in California have resumed their hunger strike on Monday, September 26, 2011.
Across the world, prisoners stand on hunger strike, demanding dignity and justice. The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat salutes the California hunger strikers, expresses our deepest solidarity, and joins in their demands for dignity and justice. We also note the great leaders and great struggles that have emerged from the racist dungeons of U.S. prisons, from Attica to Soledad. The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat salutes the political prisoners in U.S. jails and the Guantanamo torture camp - and all jails in the world - including Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Ghassan Elashi, and hundreds more, and demands their freedom.
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa' adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org /
info@freeahmadsaadat.org
Twitter:http://twitter.com/fre eahmadsaadat
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa' adat - info@freeahmadsaadat. org -
Twitter:http://twitter.com/fre eahmadsaadat
Solidarity with Palestinian prisoners is more urgent than ever. Since the announcement of Palestinian prisoners' hunger strikeagainst the isolation of Ahmad Sa'adat and all other prisoners held in solitary confinement, and against torture and humiliation for prisoners and their families and visitors, Israeli prison officials have stepped up their threats against Palestinian prisoners participating in the hunger strike.
The strike begins today, Tuesday, September 27. The Israeli Minister of Internal Security, at a meeting in Ramon and Naqab Prisons, has threatened to escalate repression against prisoners, threatening to move all prisoners participating in the hunger strike into isolation and solitary confinement, and to forcibly transfer those prisoners to other prisons in the occupation prison system. Prisoners are frequently transferred by occupation forces in an attempt to break up social bonds and disrupt organizing against prison repression.
For decades, Palestinian prisoners have engaged in hunger strikes to demand - and win - their rights, putting their bodies on the line once more to demand the freedom and dignity of themselves, their people, their homeland and their nation. Palestinian prisoners have announced that they will not be moved from their course by the threats of the occupiers. Prisoners' representatives have confirmed that Sa'adat and fellow isolated leader Jamal Abu al-Haija, in isolation with Sa'adat, will join in the strike themselves.
Furthermore, prisoners announced that they will reject all prison orders, refusing to wear uniforms, stand up for daily counts, or accept food. The situation is more urgent than ever as prisoners begin their strike. The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat calls upon all solidarity, international justice and human rights groups and organizations to join us to demand freedom, dignity and justice for Palestinian prisoners.
TAKE ACTION TO SUPPORT AHMAD SA'ADAT AND ALL PALESTINIAN PRISONERS!
1. Picket, protest or call the Israeli embassy or consulate in your location and demand the immediate freedom of Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian political prisoners. Make it clear that you support the demands of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike!
2. Distribute the free downloadable Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat flyer in your community at local events.
3. Write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act swiftly to demand that the Israelis ensure that Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners are freed from punitive isolation. Email the ICRC, whose humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at jerusalem.jer@icrc.org, and inform them about the urgent situation of Ahmad Sa'adat.
4. Email the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat at info@freeahmadsaadat.org with announcements, reports and information about your local events, activities and flyer distributions.
+++
Solidarity with Prison Hunger Strikers in California
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat expresses its deepest solidarity with the prisoners on hunger strike in Pelican Bay, California, the United States. These prisoners, inside the racist and brutal US prison system, have also stood together on hunger strike to demand an end to abuse and the use of isolation against prisoners, particularly long-term isolation, to demand proper food, and an end to torture and abuse. They ended their strike in July 2011 after receiving assurances that their demands would be met - however, this has not happened, and prisoners have in fact been punished and further repressed for participating in the strike. The prisoners in California have resumed their hunger strike on Monday, September 26, 2011.
Across the world, prisoners stand on hunger strike, demanding dignity and justice. The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat salutes the California hunger strikers, expresses our deepest solidarity, and joins in their demands for dignity and justice. We also note the great leaders and great struggles that have emerged from the racist dungeons of U.S. prisons, from Attica to Soledad. The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat salutes the political prisoners in U.S. jails and the Guantanamo torture camp - and all jails in the world - including Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Ghassan Elashi, and hundreds more, and demands their freedom.
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa' adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org /
info@freeahmadsaadat.org
Twitter:http://twitter.com/fre eahmadsaadat
Mittwoch, 13. Juli 2011
Gaza flotilla blocked
4 July 2011. A World to Win News Service. The international flotilla to protest the Israeli blockade of Gaza has itself been blocked in what organizers are calling an act of "Gaza-ization" – unjust and illegal political repression whose only justification is the defense of the Jewish state.
After initially claiming that the eight ships and boats docked in Greece were being held up for inspections because of a private complaint (from an Israeli group) that the ships were unseaworthy, now the Greek government has openly banned all departures for Gaza. A ninth vessel moored in Turkey has had its propeller shaft damaged in a very similar way to what happened to another flotilla boat in Greece.
At this time, the only flotilla boat on the open seas is the French "Dignité/Karama".
The Greek government officially promulgated the departure ban 1 July. The American ship called "The Audacity of Hope", the largest ship in the flotilla with 51 passengers and crew and 11 journalists on board, left port shortly before the order took effect, but armed commandos intercepted it off shore and force it to turn back. The captain was arrested on felony charges of "endangering lives" and is still being kept in jail under reportedly harsh conditions. Before sailing he had been assaulted by a group of men on the street.
On 4 July, would-be flotilla participants began a hunger strike in front of the US Embassy in Athens to protest the role that the US and Israel played in the Greek government's decision and to demand the release of the American boat and its captain. Eight people were arrested and briefly jailed.
While the American ship took its name from a phrase associated with US President Barack Obama, apparently reflecting a hope that his government could be shamed and neutralized, American officials have repeatedly called for the flotilla to be stopped. The Quartet, a body of the world's leading imperialist powers set up to mediate an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, comprising the US, UN, European Union and Russia, issued a statement calling on governments "to use their influence to discourage additional flotillas." US officials have reportedly told American flotilla participants that they may be arrested for aiding a "terrorist" group (Hamas, the Islamic organization that governs Gaza) when they return home.
The argument given in the Quartet statement and by the Greek government is the risk of injury or death to the flotilla participants at the hands of the Israeli military, which shot and killed nine passengers on a similar flotilla a year ago. This is a morally and legally outrageous position because these same governments and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon have refused to call Israel to obey international law and refrain from harming unarmed protesters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was more honest in thanking Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and other governments for supporting Israel at this crucial moment.
Emergency rallies to support the flotilla have been reported in Greece, Canada, Belgium and the UK so far.
After initially claiming that the eight ships and boats docked in Greece were being held up for inspections because of a private complaint (from an Israeli group) that the ships were unseaworthy, now the Greek government has openly banned all departures for Gaza. A ninth vessel moored in Turkey has had its propeller shaft damaged in a very similar way to what happened to another flotilla boat in Greece.
At this time, the only flotilla boat on the open seas is the French "Dignité/Karama".
The Greek government officially promulgated the departure ban 1 July. The American ship called "The Audacity of Hope", the largest ship in the flotilla with 51 passengers and crew and 11 journalists on board, left port shortly before the order took effect, but armed commandos intercepted it off shore and force it to turn back. The captain was arrested on felony charges of "endangering lives" and is still being kept in jail under reportedly harsh conditions. Before sailing he had been assaulted by a group of men on the street.
On 4 July, would-be flotilla participants began a hunger strike in front of the US Embassy in Athens to protest the role that the US and Israel played in the Greek government's decision and to demand the release of the American boat and its captain. Eight people were arrested and briefly jailed.
While the American ship took its name from a phrase associated with US President Barack Obama, apparently reflecting a hope that his government could be shamed and neutralized, American officials have repeatedly called for the flotilla to be stopped. The Quartet, a body of the world's leading imperialist powers set up to mediate an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, comprising the US, UN, European Union and Russia, issued a statement calling on governments "to use their influence to discourage additional flotillas." US officials have reportedly told American flotilla participants that they may be arrested for aiding a "terrorist" group (Hamas, the Islamic organization that governs Gaza) when they return home.
The argument given in the Quartet statement and by the Greek government is the risk of injury or death to the flotilla participants at the hands of the Israeli military, which shot and killed nine passengers on a similar flotilla a year ago. This is a morally and legally outrageous position because these same governments and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon have refused to call Israel to obey international law and refrain from harming unarmed protesters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was more honest in thanking Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and other governments for supporting Israel at this crucial moment.
Emergency rallies to support the flotilla have been reported in Greece, Canada, Belgium and the UK so far.
Gaza flotilla faces barriers as it prepares to sail
27 June 2011. A World to Win News Service. With their departure currently delayed for at least a few days, participants in the "Freedom Flotilla II" to defy the Israeli blockade on Gaza are facing new obstacles.
After the move by the Turkish government and the Islamic charity IHH to cancel plans for the ferryboat Mavi Marmara to sail as the flotilla's flagship, now the Greek government is acting against the six vessels currently docked in Greek ports, where hundreds of flotilla participants have gathered. The police are holding up the boat renamed "The Audacity of Hope" (see AWTWNS 110627) on which a number of American volunteers were to travel because of what Greek authorities say is a complaint from "a private party" questioning its seaworthiness. According to Israeli Army Radio, the Israel Law Centre is behind the complaint. The Canadian boat "Tahrir" has also been subject to an unexpected going-over and other vessels are scheduled for non-routine inspections before they are allowed to depart. There are fears that a boat anchored in the Greek city of Piraeus which was to carry Greek, Swedish and Norwegian protesters may be held back following the discovery that its propeller shaft has been severed.
The protesters from more than 20 countries were encouraged when Greek dockers joining a country-wide general strike scheduled to begin 28 June voted to make an exception to the shutdown to allow the loading of these ships. Palestinians in Gaza have been holding rallies demanding that the flotilla members be guaranteed safe passage.
Israeli officials continued to threaten the flotilla participants, claiming that the ships and boats would be carrying "dangerous incendiary chemicals" and that the protest's purpose was to "spill the blood" of Israeli soldiers.
Two cargo ships and about seven passenger boats carrying hundreds of anti-blockade protesters are supposed to assemble at an undisclosed location in the eastern Mediterranean and head for Gaza. One of two French boats involved in the flotilla, called the "Dignit
é/Karama", left Marseille after a spirited rally in which Jewish Defence League attackers were rebuffed. It stopped off in Corsica and is now on the open seas heading for the assembly point.
The ships and boats are carrying 3,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid for the population of Gaza. Israel has blocked delivery of many supplies for the strip's 1.5 million inhabitants since 2006 and kept them prisoner as a collective punishment for electing a Hamas government. The International Committee of the Red Cross, UN bodies and international law experts have declared this blockade illegal.
Yet the US and other governments continue to back the blockade in practical terms even though they may admit to its dubious legality. On 22 June the US State Department issued a "travel advisory" warning that last year's Freedom Flotilla resulted in "the injury, death and deportation of US citizens," as if the American government could do nothing to prevent this from happening again and would bear no responsibility if it did.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused the flotilla of planning "provocative actions by entering Israeli waters to create a situation in which Israelis have a right to defend themselves." This is factually and legally incorrect, since the waters off Gaza do not belong to Israel and the Mavi Marmara was in international waters when Israeli commandos attacked it and shot nine passengers to death in 2010. Of course Clinton knew this. Her statement seemed meant to give prior approval and a pre-established excuse for whatever Israel may decide to do to the passengers this time.
No "Net neutrality"
It is noteworthy that the American government that sometimes claims to support the goals of the "Arab Spring" is anxious to deny access to the Net and social media to those Arabs seeking justice who happen to be Palestinian. While the US likes to criticise other countries for Net censorship, the Barack Obama government made no protest when Apple removed a "Third Intifada" downloadable application 23 June, after it had been posted online for only a few days. In March, Facebook shut down an Arabic-language Web page also called "Third Intifada" that had quickly acquired 350,000 "friends".
In both cases these Web monopolies said they were responding to Israeli government requests. The Israeli Public Diplomacy Minister called such sites "anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist" views that are not illegal to express in most countries and are in fact shared by countless millions of people, including some Jews. Instead of making the usual claims about "terrorism" or even the threat of violence, the Israeli minister said quite frankly that any "calls for an uprising against Israel... could unite many thousands toward an objective that could be disastrous".
That is the stand the governments of the US and most other Western countries have taken in declaring the cause of justice for Palestine intolerable. The world's powerful do not argue that actions like the flotilla are morally wrong or illegal but simply that the defence of the Jewish state justifies brutal repression against even symbolic protests.
After the move by the Turkish government and the Islamic charity IHH to cancel plans for the ferryboat Mavi Marmara to sail as the flotilla's flagship, now the Greek government is acting against the six vessels currently docked in Greek ports, where hundreds of flotilla participants have gathered. The police are holding up the boat renamed "The Audacity of Hope" (see AWTWNS 110627) on which a number of American volunteers were to travel because of what Greek authorities say is a complaint from "a private party" questioning its seaworthiness. According to Israeli Army Radio, the Israel Law Centre is behind the complaint. The Canadian boat "Tahrir" has also been subject to an unexpected going-over and other vessels are scheduled for non-routine inspections before they are allowed to depart. There are fears that a boat anchored in the Greek city of Piraeus which was to carry Greek, Swedish and Norwegian protesters may be held back following the discovery that its propeller shaft has been severed.
The protesters from more than 20 countries were encouraged when Greek dockers joining a country-wide general strike scheduled to begin 28 June voted to make an exception to the shutdown to allow the loading of these ships. Palestinians in Gaza have been holding rallies demanding that the flotilla members be guaranteed safe passage.
Israeli officials continued to threaten the flotilla participants, claiming that the ships and boats would be carrying "dangerous incendiary chemicals" and that the protest's purpose was to "spill the blood" of Israeli soldiers.
Two cargo ships and about seven passenger boats carrying hundreds of anti-blockade protesters are supposed to assemble at an undisclosed location in the eastern Mediterranean and head for Gaza. One of two French boats involved in the flotilla, called the "Dignit
é/Karama", left Marseille after a spirited rally in which Jewish Defence League attackers were rebuffed. It stopped off in Corsica and is now on the open seas heading for the assembly point.
The ships and boats are carrying 3,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid for the population of Gaza. Israel has blocked delivery of many supplies for the strip's 1.5 million inhabitants since 2006 and kept them prisoner as a collective punishment for electing a Hamas government. The International Committee of the Red Cross, UN bodies and international law experts have declared this blockade illegal.
Yet the US and other governments continue to back the blockade in practical terms even though they may admit to its dubious legality. On 22 June the US State Department issued a "travel advisory" warning that last year's Freedom Flotilla resulted in "the injury, death and deportation of US citizens," as if the American government could do nothing to prevent this from happening again and would bear no responsibility if it did.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused the flotilla of planning "provocative actions by entering Israeli waters to create a situation in which Israelis have a right to defend themselves." This is factually and legally incorrect, since the waters off Gaza do not belong to Israel and the Mavi Marmara was in international waters when Israeli commandos attacked it and shot nine passengers to death in 2010. Of course Clinton knew this. Her statement seemed meant to give prior approval and a pre-established excuse for whatever Israel may decide to do to the passengers this time.
No "Net neutrality"
It is noteworthy that the American government that sometimes claims to support the goals of the "Arab Spring" is anxious to deny access to the Net and social media to those Arabs seeking justice who happen to be Palestinian. While the US likes to criticise other countries for Net censorship, the Barack Obama government made no protest when Apple removed a "Third Intifada" downloadable application 23 June, after it had been posted online for only a few days. In March, Facebook shut down an Arabic-language Web page also called "Third Intifada" that had quickly acquired 350,000 "friends".
In both cases these Web monopolies said they were responding to Israeli government requests. The Israeli Public Diplomacy Minister called such sites "anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist" views that are not illegal to express in most countries and are in fact shared by countless millions of people, including some Jews. Instead of making the usual claims about "terrorism" or even the threat of violence, the Israeli minister said quite frankly that any "calls for an uprising against Israel... could unite many thousands toward an objective that could be disastrous".
That is the stand the governments of the US and most other Western countries have taken in declaring the cause of justice for Palestine intolerable. The world's powerful do not argue that actions like the flotilla are morally wrong or illegal but simply that the defence of the Jewish state justifies brutal repression against even symbolic protests.
Montag, 27. Juni 2011
Gaza flotilla sets sail on a rip tide
20 June 2011. A World to Win News Service. As a small flotilla prepares to assemble in the eastern Mediterranean on 25 June and defy the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza toward the end of the month, it is becoming clear that these ships and boats will have to sail amid powerfully conflicting currents. A rip tide of contradictions might allow this pro-Palestinian protest to have a major impact, but at the same time it represents not only a real danger to the lives and safety of this brave group but also difficult political conditions that must be carefully navigated.
The wellsprings of this protest were articulated by the African-American writer Alice Walker, best known for her novel The Colour Purple, who is taking part in the flotilla. Speaking of the Israeli efforts to wall off and imprison the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, she said, "This is such a crime against the soul of humanity. We can't stand this. Who are we as human beings if we can even bear this? We cannot bear it. And we must not." Recognizing that all of the participants in this action face the possibility of being killed, she urged people everywhere to think about how they could live their lives in a way that gave them meaning. (Interview by Ali Abunimah posted on ElectronicIntifada.net)
This protest is up against an Israeli government, military and public opinion for which everything is justified by the goal of defending the existence of a Jewish state. "We will do anything we have to do to prevent a boat from breaking the blockade," a top Israeli naval official quoted by The New York Times told journalists 16 June. "If there is the same violence against our forces on board, there is a pretty good chance there will be injuries." According to the Washington Post, he warned "there may be injuries and casualties."
What is the "same level of violence" that would allegedly justify killing and maiming protesters?
This threat refers to the anti-blockade ship the Mavi Marmara, boarded by heavily armed airborne Israel commandos on 31 May, 2010. The "level of violence" was this: the Israelis assaulted the ship in international waters and opened fire even before they reached the decks. They killed nine passengers from Turkey, at least two of them executed while lying wounded on the deck, and injured 24 others, mostly by gunfire. The survivors were beaten and tortured. There were no deaths or gunshot wounds among the Israeli attackers. (See UN Human Rights Council report A/HRC/15/21)
The head of the Israeli Navy, Vice Admiral Eliezer Macom, provided advance political justification for "doing anything we have to do" by calling the ships a "flotilla of hatred which operates under the cover of providing humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip." If these vessels got through, he said, "Hamas would equip itself with unmonitored loads of weapons and threaten the state of Israel by means of terroristic rockets and missiles." (Haaretz, 19 June)
These comments are especially hypocritical in light of the recent signed agreement between the Gaza-based Hamas and Fatah, which governs the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to recognize Israel's 1967 borders and cease rocket attacks and other military actions against the Zionist state. (For details, see veteran journalist Robert Fisk's 7 June article in the Independent. The broad outlines of these agreements have been widely reported.)
In fact, Israel's own decades-long record shows that it considers any Palestinian protest "terroristic" and subject to violent repression, whether armed or not. Most recently, the Israeli military directed tank, artillery and rifle fire against incontestably unarmed Palestinian youth demonstrating on 15 May, Nakba Day, commemorating the violent expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from what is now Israel in 1948, and again on 5 June, the anniversary of the 1967 war in which Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights.
The Israeli authorities justified that one-sided bloodshed by claiming that they were defending their country from an invasion. There is a big lie wrapped up in this, in that Israel's definition of its own boundaries are subject to expansion. The Golan Heights, where the majority of demonstrators trying to cross Israeli lines were shot, are not considered part of Israel even by the countries that do recognize Israel's ethnically-cleansed, pre-1967 boundaries. They belong to Syria and Lebanon.
But this argument contains an element of truth: the existence of Israel as a Jewish state is inconceivable without denying the rights of the Palestinians. If Israeli troops did not use murder and the threat of murder to stop peaceful protesters carrying symbolic door keys attempting to walk back to the homes where they or their parents or grandparents were born, that would lead to the end of the Jewish state. The logic of defending the Jewish state explains not only the lack of rights for present and past Palestinian inhabitants within Israel's pre-1967 boundaries but also the Zionists' need to ensure their domination over Palestinians outside those boundaries.
In that sense, the Israeli claims – that the flotilla threatens to "delegitimize" Israel and the existence of a Jewish state – are murderously criminal but not irrational. They reflect the reality of the contradiction between the settlers on a stolen land where one people are privileged and the land's largely expelled and always oppressed original inhabitants.
However, this contradiction is set in a broader and even more complex context through which the Gaza flotilla has to steer.
The most important determinate of this situation is not Israel but the US, without whose support the Jewish state could not prevail. One thing that makes it difficult for many people to understand the situation and act effectively within it is the illusion that Washington can become a counterweight to Israel's most blatantly violent policies.
This illusion is illustrated by the name American participants have given to their boat, "The Audacity of Hope". Undoubtedly for many participants this use of US President Barack Obama's campaign slogan does not represent full support for Obama, but rather an attempt to use his own rhetoric against him.
The novelist Walker, for instance, while explaining that "We had hoped for much better from Obama," emphasises her disappointment and explains that her support for "his political career" is "not unconditional". Comparing this "Freedom Flotilla II" with the Freedom Riders who "were met with extreme violence" in the struggle against racial segregation in the American South during the early 1960s, she notes that President John F. Kennedy, who some people mistakenly think of as supporting the civil rights movement, "did not look favourably on the Freedom Riders and said that they were being provocative and that they should refrain from what they were doing. And that just struck me as almost a parallel with what's happening now." She continues that while some of her fellow participants are trying to get support or at least protection from Congress members, "at some point in all of these ventures one realizes that you're on your own and that this is something that you feel you have to do because it's a necessary work of the world".
It is very true that the Obama government has tried to dissuade the flotilla volunteers and has not issued the slightest warning to Israel that it would be held accountable for any of the threatened "injuries and casualties". But the US is not just indifferent to the fate of these self-sacrificing men and women fighting for justice, it is actively working against them, just as the Kennedy government deliberately let mobs and police attack the Freedom Riders. The Obama government blocked the UN report on the 2010 attack on the Mavi Marmara and refused to issue a protest over the killing of a US citizen, a young man from Turkey whom the report says was murdered in cold blood. Now the US has, at a minimum, encouraged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's refusal to ask for safe passage for the second flotilla despite an open letter from four women Nobel Peace prize winners, which seems to be a go-ahead signal to Israel. Ultimately it is the US that will be responsible for anything that happens to them, although on this subject there has been no difference between the US and the European Union.
US policy toward Israel has to be looked at from several angles. The first is that of the deep character of the US relationship with Israel.
Again, it is true that Obama recently reiterated the US's long-standing call for a "two-state solution", a Jewish state within the 1967 boundaries "with land swaps" and a Palestinian state on the little land left. It is also true that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave this a surly rejection during his May visit to Washington. But rather than representing an Obama shift to an even slightly less reactionary position, his proposal simply reflects the US's broader reactionary interests.
Looking at the situation objectively, there is little reason why Israel could not live with a "two-state solution" that would entail Palestinians giving up on the struggle to recover Palestine and instead settle for a tiny, geographically disconnected, economically unviable, militarily powerless and inevitably Israel-dominated state. Netanyahu himself has never totally rejected this option. If Israel stubbornly refuses to negotiate right now, despite the Palestinian Authority's documented offers to give in to most Israeli demands (see the "Palestinian Papers" archive on english.aljazeera.net), this is not because it would lead to the demise of the Jewish state (many leading Zionists argue that it would be its salvation). This reluctance seems to flow from a combination of two factors. One is a feeling that because the Palestinians are in a weaker position than ever before, this is not the time to make "compromises" but to crush them further. The other has to do with political and ideological conditions within Israeli society.
This is a society where Jewish fundamentalist are seizing more authority every day and religious fanaticism plays an increasingly central role in the armed forces. The 400,000 settlers on the West Bank have become Zionism's most reliable shock troops because they cannot help but see in their daily existence what some other Israelis would rather not admit: that their way of life depends on forcibly denying the humanity of another people. In a remarkable event for a country that prides itself on being "democratic" (for Jews), an elderly Jewish author was recently sentenced to prison for an article in which he mused that Jewish settlers – who are better armed and trained than the Israeli military and habitually carry out raids to drive out their Palestinian neighbours – should not perhaps be considered civilians. Under these circumstances, Israeli concessions on symbolic issues (such as whether or not to "Judaize" all of Jerusalem) would have powerful ideological repercussions and thus political consequences.
All this reveals the internal logic of the Zionist project, but US interests are somewhat different. In today's Middle East, the US cannot allow itself to be indivisibly identified with Israel and every single Zionist policy. While the US and Israeli have clashed in the past, sometimes violently, now especially there is a serious contradiction between Israeli interests narrowly conceived from the point of view of Israel itself and the broader necessities faced by the US in imposing and keeping together a regional configuration of regimes that in a general way (not necessarily all the time and on every level) serves its interests. The revolt sweeping the Arab counties has brought about new difficulties for the US. For example, whereas Mubarak's Egypt was all but publicly submissive to Israel, the consolidation of a new US-friendly regime requires at least a show of Egyptian independence and maybe even more real flexibility in US/Egyptian relations. That is why Egypt's new government, along with Syria, played a major role in brokering the Hamas-Fatah agreement: Many Arab regimes, and possibly the US itself, would prefer a "two-state solution" to the current, perhaps unsustainable, situation.
But at the same time, these Arab revolts have made the Jewish state even more strategically necessary to the US, because the privileges of its people make them "reliable" – from the strategic point of view of American domination of the Middle East – in a way that cannot conceivably apply to the masses of Arab peoples. Many Israeli Jews are courageously opposing the brutality of their government's policies amidst increasingly difficult political conditions. But when Israeli tanks fired on unarmed Palestinian youth in Syria and on other borders, this was generally recognized as an "existential threat" to the Jewish state and there was no broad outcry among Israelis.
The US and Israel, however, are not the only reactionary actors on this stage. At a time when people's upsurges are threatening the US-protected regional order, the ruling classes of several countries are manoeuvring to find a new place for themselves, one that may be based on a weakened US ability to impose whatever it wants but does not challenge American regional and global dominance in general.
This has directly impacted the Gaza flotilla in the form of the last-minute pull-out of what was to be its flagship, the Mavi Marmara, the 500-passenger ferry that was to represent its continuity with the flotilla of a year ago and carry as many as half of the anti-blockade protesters. The reasons for this betrayal are as complex as they are filthy.
The Turkish government frankly opposed the flotilla and can be assumed to have directed the denial of a permit to sail for insurance reasons that was the ostensible motive for cancellation of the ship's departure. Turkey's current attempts to establish regional dominance, including replacing Iran as the main foreign influence in Syria, require both a certain verbal distancing from Israel and an ever-closer working relationship with the US in deeds. The Turkish government went so far as to call the plans for the Mavi Marmara a distraction and possible danger to its efforts to "stabilise" Syria. That means the threat – or more than just a threat – of military intervention to abort the popular revolt there and ensure an outcome that in one way or another is acceptable to Turkey and the US. An increase of tensions with Israel would work against Turkish efforts, which depend on Israel's acceptance of this as, if not welcome, at least the least objectionable solution to the "problems" this revolt poses. Acting with implicit US support over the last few years, Turkey has sponsored the Israel-Syria negotiations through which Bashar al-Assad has tried to save his rule. While the Syrian regime has been an enemy of Israel on one level, it has also ruthlessly suppressed the Palestinians, and Israel fears its demise.
Now Israeli sources have also been free to reveal – since Turkey's governing party has emerged strengthened from the parliamentary elections and is less vulnerable to political damage – that the AKP has been conducting secret negotiations with Israel, with American approval. One of the main items is reportedly how to bring closure to the diplomatic scuffle over the 2010 Mavi Marmara massacre in a way that saves face for both sides, which would free Turkey's hand to act in relation to Syria with the consent of the US and Israel. (Haaretz, 21 June)
Further, the IHH, the Islamic charity that owns the Mavi Marmara, is tied to both the Turkish AKP government and more fundamentalist forces. Certainly these Islamics fully support their government's demand that Syria's Assad remove the prohibitions on the Syrian Islamic Brotherhood, and don't want Israeli anger to get in the way of that.
Treachery against the Palestinian cause extends to other Islamic forces and more broadly. The Hamas-Fatah agreement may or may not stand, but its signing represents an even further step in the abandonment of the goal of Palestinian liberation by these two organisations. This can also be seen in the pressure against and even violent repression of the 15 May and especially 5 June Palestinian demonstrations by Hamas and Fatah, along with the Jordanian security forces and the Lebanese army. Hamas and Fatah are united in threatening to ask for UN recognition of a Palestinian state in September if Israel doesn't reopen negotiations to bring this "mini-state" into being. Since the US would have to either accept this motion in the UN or suffer the embarrassment of vetoing its own proposed solution, this is an attempt to use Washington against Tel Aviv – not very different from the idea behind calling the US flotilla ship "The Audacity of Hope" to use Obama against Obama. For the sake of this bid for American approval, these two organizations need to demonstrate that they can contain and suppress Palestinian aspirations as well as the Israeli occupiers can.
Egypt, too, is playing a further dirty role by supposedly reopening the Rafah crossing with Gaza, allowing Israel to use this to argue that Gaza is no longer under blockade, while sharply restricting the number of people allowed to cross and prohibiting all imports and exports. (A 16 June posting on the Gisha Website gives details.) The European countries, Turkey and UN officials claim that the Rafah reopening means that the flotilla no longer has any justification.
In short, the Palestinians might seem "on their own" in a situation where every state is against them. In some ways this is "the darkest night" ever faced by the Palestinian people, as some radical Palestinians call it, but it has to be recognized that none of these states ever fully supported the Palestinian cause and that strategies for Palestinian liberation based on hopes for consistent aid from reactionary states and forces have always been a serious obstacle to the Palestinian movement.
This situation is very difficult for Palestinians, politically and geographically, given their division into Gaza and the West Bank, the occupier's splintering of the West Bank itself into pieces between which contact is difficult, the almost omnipresence of the occupation troops and lack of any rear area for the struggle. Strategies for liberation of the past have proved unsuccessful, and deep thinking and new looks at revolutionary goals and the paths to achieve them are required.
But there are some very favourable factors.
There is the coming onto the scene of a new generation of Palestinians with renewed determination instead of the fatigue that weighs on many of their elders. Everyone who longs for the liberation of Palestine was exhilarated by the sight of thousands of enthusiastic youth marching down the hills from refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon to confront the Israeli army.
There is the tide of revolt surging through North Africa and the Middle East. It has achieved victories and stumbled against obstacles, but forced all the reactionaries to take it into account. It has very much encouraged the Palestinian youth, just as hatred for the occupation of Palestine and the submission of Arab governments to the US and especially Israel has been one factor in the revolt itself. Never in recent decades has the line-up of US-backed and Israel-tolerant states in the region faced a greater threat. Big cracks have opened up in the reactionary "stability" within which Palestinians and other Arabs have been imprisoned.
And there is the support for the Palestinians all over the world, including Europe and the US, from people who cannot bear injustice, and those who understand that they have a common cause with the Palestinians in opposing an unjust, oppressive and exploitative world order that has visible potential cracks on more than one continent lately. The Palestinian cause both benefits from today's incipient instability in that world order and is a particularly powerful lever to crack it further apart.
These are the main currents in the seas in which the flotilla is setting sail. As the flotilla approaches Gaza at the end of June, many people everywhere will act to support it – and hold their breath
The wellsprings of this protest were articulated by the African-American writer Alice Walker, best known for her novel The Colour Purple, who is taking part in the flotilla. Speaking of the Israeli efforts to wall off and imprison the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, she said, "This is such a crime against the soul of humanity. We can't stand this. Who are we as human beings if we can even bear this? We cannot bear it. And we must not." Recognizing that all of the participants in this action face the possibility of being killed, she urged people everywhere to think about how they could live their lives in a way that gave them meaning. (Interview by Ali Abunimah posted on ElectronicIntifada.net)
This protest is up against an Israeli government, military and public opinion for which everything is justified by the goal of defending the existence of a Jewish state. "We will do anything we have to do to prevent a boat from breaking the blockade," a top Israeli naval official quoted by The New York Times told journalists 16 June. "If there is the same violence against our forces on board, there is a pretty good chance there will be injuries." According to the Washington Post, he warned "there may be injuries and casualties."
What is the "same level of violence" that would allegedly justify killing and maiming protesters?
This threat refers to the anti-blockade ship the Mavi Marmara, boarded by heavily armed airborne Israel commandos on 31 May, 2010. The "level of violence" was this: the Israelis assaulted the ship in international waters and opened fire even before they reached the decks. They killed nine passengers from Turkey, at least two of them executed while lying wounded on the deck, and injured 24 others, mostly by gunfire. The survivors were beaten and tortured. There were no deaths or gunshot wounds among the Israeli attackers. (See UN Human Rights Council report A/HRC/15/21)
The head of the Israeli Navy, Vice Admiral Eliezer Macom, provided advance political justification for "doing anything we have to do" by calling the ships a "flotilla of hatred which operates under the cover of providing humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip." If these vessels got through, he said, "Hamas would equip itself with unmonitored loads of weapons and threaten the state of Israel by means of terroristic rockets and missiles." (Haaretz, 19 June)
These comments are especially hypocritical in light of the recent signed agreement between the Gaza-based Hamas and Fatah, which governs the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to recognize Israel's 1967 borders and cease rocket attacks and other military actions against the Zionist state. (For details, see veteran journalist Robert Fisk's 7 June article in the Independent. The broad outlines of these agreements have been widely reported.)
In fact, Israel's own decades-long record shows that it considers any Palestinian protest "terroristic" and subject to violent repression, whether armed or not. Most recently, the Israeli military directed tank, artillery and rifle fire against incontestably unarmed Palestinian youth demonstrating on 15 May, Nakba Day, commemorating the violent expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from what is now Israel in 1948, and again on 5 June, the anniversary of the 1967 war in which Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights.
The Israeli authorities justified that one-sided bloodshed by claiming that they were defending their country from an invasion. There is a big lie wrapped up in this, in that Israel's definition of its own boundaries are subject to expansion. The Golan Heights, where the majority of demonstrators trying to cross Israeli lines were shot, are not considered part of Israel even by the countries that do recognize Israel's ethnically-cleansed, pre-1967 boundaries. They belong to Syria and Lebanon.
But this argument contains an element of truth: the existence of Israel as a Jewish state is inconceivable without denying the rights of the Palestinians. If Israeli troops did not use murder and the threat of murder to stop peaceful protesters carrying symbolic door keys attempting to walk back to the homes where they or their parents or grandparents were born, that would lead to the end of the Jewish state. The logic of defending the Jewish state explains not only the lack of rights for present and past Palestinian inhabitants within Israel's pre-1967 boundaries but also the Zionists' need to ensure their domination over Palestinians outside those boundaries.
In that sense, the Israeli claims – that the flotilla threatens to "delegitimize" Israel and the existence of a Jewish state – are murderously criminal but not irrational. They reflect the reality of the contradiction between the settlers on a stolen land where one people are privileged and the land's largely expelled and always oppressed original inhabitants.
However, this contradiction is set in a broader and even more complex context through which the Gaza flotilla has to steer.
The most important determinate of this situation is not Israel but the US, without whose support the Jewish state could not prevail. One thing that makes it difficult for many people to understand the situation and act effectively within it is the illusion that Washington can become a counterweight to Israel's most blatantly violent policies.
This illusion is illustrated by the name American participants have given to their boat, "The Audacity of Hope". Undoubtedly for many participants this use of US President Barack Obama's campaign slogan does not represent full support for Obama, but rather an attempt to use his own rhetoric against him.
The novelist Walker, for instance, while explaining that "We had hoped for much better from Obama," emphasises her disappointment and explains that her support for "his political career" is "not unconditional". Comparing this "Freedom Flotilla II" with the Freedom Riders who "were met with extreme violence" in the struggle against racial segregation in the American South during the early 1960s, she notes that President John F. Kennedy, who some people mistakenly think of as supporting the civil rights movement, "did not look favourably on the Freedom Riders and said that they were being provocative and that they should refrain from what they were doing. And that just struck me as almost a parallel with what's happening now." She continues that while some of her fellow participants are trying to get support or at least protection from Congress members, "at some point in all of these ventures one realizes that you're on your own and that this is something that you feel you have to do because it's a necessary work of the world".
It is very true that the Obama government has tried to dissuade the flotilla volunteers and has not issued the slightest warning to Israel that it would be held accountable for any of the threatened "injuries and casualties". But the US is not just indifferent to the fate of these self-sacrificing men and women fighting for justice, it is actively working against them, just as the Kennedy government deliberately let mobs and police attack the Freedom Riders. The Obama government blocked the UN report on the 2010 attack on the Mavi Marmara and refused to issue a protest over the killing of a US citizen, a young man from Turkey whom the report says was murdered in cold blood. Now the US has, at a minimum, encouraged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's refusal to ask for safe passage for the second flotilla despite an open letter from four women Nobel Peace prize winners, which seems to be a go-ahead signal to Israel. Ultimately it is the US that will be responsible for anything that happens to them, although on this subject there has been no difference between the US and the European Union.
US policy toward Israel has to be looked at from several angles. The first is that of the deep character of the US relationship with Israel.
Again, it is true that Obama recently reiterated the US's long-standing call for a "two-state solution", a Jewish state within the 1967 boundaries "with land swaps" and a Palestinian state on the little land left. It is also true that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave this a surly rejection during his May visit to Washington. But rather than representing an Obama shift to an even slightly less reactionary position, his proposal simply reflects the US's broader reactionary interests.
Looking at the situation objectively, there is little reason why Israel could not live with a "two-state solution" that would entail Palestinians giving up on the struggle to recover Palestine and instead settle for a tiny, geographically disconnected, economically unviable, militarily powerless and inevitably Israel-dominated state. Netanyahu himself has never totally rejected this option. If Israel stubbornly refuses to negotiate right now, despite the Palestinian Authority's documented offers to give in to most Israeli demands (see the "Palestinian Papers" archive on english.aljazeera.net), this is not because it would lead to the demise of the Jewish state (many leading Zionists argue that it would be its salvation). This reluctance seems to flow from a combination of two factors. One is a feeling that because the Palestinians are in a weaker position than ever before, this is not the time to make "compromises" but to crush them further. The other has to do with political and ideological conditions within Israeli society.
This is a society where Jewish fundamentalist are seizing more authority every day and religious fanaticism plays an increasingly central role in the armed forces. The 400,000 settlers on the West Bank have become Zionism's most reliable shock troops because they cannot help but see in their daily existence what some other Israelis would rather not admit: that their way of life depends on forcibly denying the humanity of another people. In a remarkable event for a country that prides itself on being "democratic" (for Jews), an elderly Jewish author was recently sentenced to prison for an article in which he mused that Jewish settlers – who are better armed and trained than the Israeli military and habitually carry out raids to drive out their Palestinian neighbours – should not perhaps be considered civilians. Under these circumstances, Israeli concessions on symbolic issues (such as whether or not to "Judaize" all of Jerusalem) would have powerful ideological repercussions and thus political consequences.
All this reveals the internal logic of the Zionist project, but US interests are somewhat different. In today's Middle East, the US cannot allow itself to be indivisibly identified with Israel and every single Zionist policy. While the US and Israeli have clashed in the past, sometimes violently, now especially there is a serious contradiction between Israeli interests narrowly conceived from the point of view of Israel itself and the broader necessities faced by the US in imposing and keeping together a regional configuration of regimes that in a general way (not necessarily all the time and on every level) serves its interests. The revolt sweeping the Arab counties has brought about new difficulties for the US. For example, whereas Mubarak's Egypt was all but publicly submissive to Israel, the consolidation of a new US-friendly regime requires at least a show of Egyptian independence and maybe even more real flexibility in US/Egyptian relations. That is why Egypt's new government, along with Syria, played a major role in brokering the Hamas-Fatah agreement: Many Arab regimes, and possibly the US itself, would prefer a "two-state solution" to the current, perhaps unsustainable, situation.
But at the same time, these Arab revolts have made the Jewish state even more strategically necessary to the US, because the privileges of its people make them "reliable" – from the strategic point of view of American domination of the Middle East – in a way that cannot conceivably apply to the masses of Arab peoples. Many Israeli Jews are courageously opposing the brutality of their government's policies amidst increasingly difficult political conditions. But when Israeli tanks fired on unarmed Palestinian youth in Syria and on other borders, this was generally recognized as an "existential threat" to the Jewish state and there was no broad outcry among Israelis.
The US and Israel, however, are not the only reactionary actors on this stage. At a time when people's upsurges are threatening the US-protected regional order, the ruling classes of several countries are manoeuvring to find a new place for themselves, one that may be based on a weakened US ability to impose whatever it wants but does not challenge American regional and global dominance in general.
This has directly impacted the Gaza flotilla in the form of the last-minute pull-out of what was to be its flagship, the Mavi Marmara, the 500-passenger ferry that was to represent its continuity with the flotilla of a year ago and carry as many as half of the anti-blockade protesters. The reasons for this betrayal are as complex as they are filthy.
The Turkish government frankly opposed the flotilla and can be assumed to have directed the denial of a permit to sail for insurance reasons that was the ostensible motive for cancellation of the ship's departure. Turkey's current attempts to establish regional dominance, including replacing Iran as the main foreign influence in Syria, require both a certain verbal distancing from Israel and an ever-closer working relationship with the US in deeds. The Turkish government went so far as to call the plans for the Mavi Marmara a distraction and possible danger to its efforts to "stabilise" Syria. That means the threat – or more than just a threat – of military intervention to abort the popular revolt there and ensure an outcome that in one way or another is acceptable to Turkey and the US. An increase of tensions with Israel would work against Turkish efforts, which depend on Israel's acceptance of this as, if not welcome, at least the least objectionable solution to the "problems" this revolt poses. Acting with implicit US support over the last few years, Turkey has sponsored the Israel-Syria negotiations through which Bashar al-Assad has tried to save his rule. While the Syrian regime has been an enemy of Israel on one level, it has also ruthlessly suppressed the Palestinians, and Israel fears its demise.
Now Israeli sources have also been free to reveal – since Turkey's governing party has emerged strengthened from the parliamentary elections and is less vulnerable to political damage – that the AKP has been conducting secret negotiations with Israel, with American approval. One of the main items is reportedly how to bring closure to the diplomatic scuffle over the 2010 Mavi Marmara massacre in a way that saves face for both sides, which would free Turkey's hand to act in relation to Syria with the consent of the US and Israel. (Haaretz, 21 June)
Further, the IHH, the Islamic charity that owns the Mavi Marmara, is tied to both the Turkish AKP government and more fundamentalist forces. Certainly these Islamics fully support their government's demand that Syria's Assad remove the prohibitions on the Syrian Islamic Brotherhood, and don't want Israeli anger to get in the way of that.
Treachery against the Palestinian cause extends to other Islamic forces and more broadly. The Hamas-Fatah agreement may or may not stand, but its signing represents an even further step in the abandonment of the goal of Palestinian liberation by these two organisations. This can also be seen in the pressure against and even violent repression of the 15 May and especially 5 June Palestinian demonstrations by Hamas and Fatah, along with the Jordanian security forces and the Lebanese army. Hamas and Fatah are united in threatening to ask for UN recognition of a Palestinian state in September if Israel doesn't reopen negotiations to bring this "mini-state" into being. Since the US would have to either accept this motion in the UN or suffer the embarrassment of vetoing its own proposed solution, this is an attempt to use Washington against Tel Aviv – not very different from the idea behind calling the US flotilla ship "The Audacity of Hope" to use Obama against Obama. For the sake of this bid for American approval, these two organizations need to demonstrate that they can contain and suppress Palestinian aspirations as well as the Israeli occupiers can.
Egypt, too, is playing a further dirty role by supposedly reopening the Rafah crossing with Gaza, allowing Israel to use this to argue that Gaza is no longer under blockade, while sharply restricting the number of people allowed to cross and prohibiting all imports and exports. (A 16 June posting on the Gisha Website gives details.) The European countries, Turkey and UN officials claim that the Rafah reopening means that the flotilla no longer has any justification.
In short, the Palestinians might seem "on their own" in a situation where every state is against them. In some ways this is "the darkest night" ever faced by the Palestinian people, as some radical Palestinians call it, but it has to be recognized that none of these states ever fully supported the Palestinian cause and that strategies for Palestinian liberation based on hopes for consistent aid from reactionary states and forces have always been a serious obstacle to the Palestinian movement.
This situation is very difficult for Palestinians, politically and geographically, given their division into Gaza and the West Bank, the occupier's splintering of the West Bank itself into pieces between which contact is difficult, the almost omnipresence of the occupation troops and lack of any rear area for the struggle. Strategies for liberation of the past have proved unsuccessful, and deep thinking and new looks at revolutionary goals and the paths to achieve them are required.
But there are some very favourable factors.
There is the coming onto the scene of a new generation of Palestinians with renewed determination instead of the fatigue that weighs on many of their elders. Everyone who longs for the liberation of Palestine was exhilarated by the sight of thousands of enthusiastic youth marching down the hills from refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon to confront the Israeli army.
There is the tide of revolt surging through North Africa and the Middle East. It has achieved victories and stumbled against obstacles, but forced all the reactionaries to take it into account. It has very much encouraged the Palestinian youth, just as hatred for the occupation of Palestine and the submission of Arab governments to the US and especially Israel has been one factor in the revolt itself. Never in recent decades has the line-up of US-backed and Israel-tolerant states in the region faced a greater threat. Big cracks have opened up in the reactionary "stability" within which Palestinians and other Arabs have been imprisoned.
And there is the support for the Palestinians all over the world, including Europe and the US, from people who cannot bear injustice, and those who understand that they have a common cause with the Palestinians in opposing an unjust, oppressive and exploitative world order that has visible potential cracks on more than one continent lately. The Palestinian cause both benefits from today's incipient instability in that world order and is a particularly powerful lever to crack it further apart.
These are the main currents in the seas in which the flotilla is setting sail. As the flotilla approaches Gaza at the end of June, many people everywhere will act to support it – and hold their breath
Donnerstag, 27. Januar 2011
Murder in the West Bank: Corrections and amplifications
10 January 2011. A World to Win News Service. There are two mistakes in the article "West Bank: Israel meets non-violence with murder" in AWTWNS110103.
The Israeli soldier who deliberately shot Ashraf Abu Rahmeh in the foot as he stood, hooded, arms handcuffed behind his back and tied to a jeep, did not fire a tear gas projectile. It was a so-called "rubber bullet", a rubber-coated steel projectile, that left him with a limp since that day in 2008.
Tristian Anderson, the U.S. activist shot in the head with a tear gas cannister by an Israeli soldier in March 2009, is no longer in a coma. After three brain operations, the removal of part of his brain and months in a "minimally responsive state", "he has recovered some physical and mental functions." (Haaretz, 8 December 2010)
The Haaretz article points out that these "extended range" cannisters, with a range of 250 metres, are basically 40 mm artillery rounds. Anderson was shot from about 60 metres away. Ashraf's brother was killed when shot in the chest with such a projectile in April 2009.
We also reported on the death of Ashraf and Bassem's sister Jawaher Abu Rahmeh the day after she was gassed at the weekly protest that has been held since construction began on the wall cutting off Bilin villagers from their farmland. Ever since Israeli military officials gave an off-the-record briefing to selected pro-Israeli military journalists and bloggers, there have been a number of unsubstantiated claims in the media and floating on the Net suggesting that Jawaher's death was not due to the gassing but some "previous medical condition".
The Israeli military said that the fact that she underwent a complete medical exam shortly before she was killed, including a brain scan, might mean that she had cancer. But if, as they claim, their intelligence services have (illicitly) acquired her medical records, they know that her doctors saw no serious reason for concern after viewing the results. According to her family, she had sought medical attention because of a persistent ear ache. These facts seem to further indict Israel, not exonerate it.
This disinformation campaign has been accompanied by public lies by the Israeli government, such as the totally manufactured claim that the hospital released her shortly after she was gassed and that she died at home. In fact, doctors worked on her all night but could not save her.
What this pusillanimous media manipulation reveals is little about Jawaher and a great deal about the fact that Israeli contempt for justice is matched only by its disregard for truth.
If Jawaher did have some condition that contributed to her death, that would still not change the fact that she, like 12 others who have taken part in these protests over the last six years, died after being shot or tear gassed. Even if argued by a defence lawyer for Israel, this could at best only be construed as reckless disregard for human life. But in fact, the many deaths and serious injuries suffered by non-violent West Bank protesters would lead any fair-minded jury to conclude that Israel knew exactly what it was doing when it killed these people. In the case of the Abu Rahmeh family, the facts suggest that Israel has deliberately targeted at least some of them because of their prominent role in these demonstrations.
On 7 January 2011, as on every Friday, another protest took place in Bilin. Once again Israeli soldiers fired various potentially lethal weapons from behind the barbed-wire fence. Dozens of people suffered tear gas irritation. One of the organizers was hit by a gas cannister. Two people were left unconscious by the tear gas. One of them was the wife of Ahmed Abu Rahmeh, brother of Jawaher, Bassam and Ashraf. (International Middle East Media Center, imemc.org)
For more details about Israeli disinformation in this case, see "The Lede", the New York Times Web blog where its reporters post additional information that, whether due to editorial interference or self-censorship, doesn't make it into the daily newspaper (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com.2011/01/06/Israeli-bloggers-question-Israels-use-of-tear-gas-against-protesters ).
The Israeli soldier who deliberately shot Ashraf Abu Rahmeh in the foot as he stood, hooded, arms handcuffed behind his back and tied to a jeep, did not fire a tear gas projectile. It was a so-called "rubber bullet", a rubber-coated steel projectile, that left him with a limp since that day in 2008.
Tristian Anderson, the U.S. activist shot in the head with a tear gas cannister by an Israeli soldier in March 2009, is no longer in a coma. After three brain operations, the removal of part of his brain and months in a "minimally responsive state", "he has recovered some physical and mental functions." (Haaretz, 8 December 2010)
The Haaretz article points out that these "extended range" cannisters, with a range of 250 metres, are basically 40 mm artillery rounds. Anderson was shot from about 60 metres away. Ashraf's brother was killed when shot in the chest with such a projectile in April 2009.
We also reported on the death of Ashraf and Bassem's sister Jawaher Abu Rahmeh the day after she was gassed at the weekly protest that has been held since construction began on the wall cutting off Bilin villagers from their farmland. Ever since Israeli military officials gave an off-the-record briefing to selected pro-Israeli military journalists and bloggers, there have been a number of unsubstantiated claims in the media and floating on the Net suggesting that Jawaher's death was not due to the gassing but some "previous medical condition".
The Israeli military said that the fact that she underwent a complete medical exam shortly before she was killed, including a brain scan, might mean that she had cancer. But if, as they claim, their intelligence services have (illicitly) acquired her medical records, they know that her doctors saw no serious reason for concern after viewing the results. According to her family, she had sought medical attention because of a persistent ear ache. These facts seem to further indict Israel, not exonerate it.
This disinformation campaign has been accompanied by public lies by the Israeli government, such as the totally manufactured claim that the hospital released her shortly after she was gassed and that she died at home. In fact, doctors worked on her all night but could not save her.
What this pusillanimous media manipulation reveals is little about Jawaher and a great deal about the fact that Israeli contempt for justice is matched only by its disregard for truth.
If Jawaher did have some condition that contributed to her death, that would still not change the fact that she, like 12 others who have taken part in these protests over the last six years, died after being shot or tear gassed. Even if argued by a defence lawyer for Israel, this could at best only be construed as reckless disregard for human life. But in fact, the many deaths and serious injuries suffered by non-violent West Bank protesters would lead any fair-minded jury to conclude that Israel knew exactly what it was doing when it killed these people. In the case of the Abu Rahmeh family, the facts suggest that Israel has deliberately targeted at least some of them because of their prominent role in these demonstrations.
On 7 January 2011, as on every Friday, another protest took place in Bilin. Once again Israeli soldiers fired various potentially lethal weapons from behind the barbed-wire fence. Dozens of people suffered tear gas irritation. One of the organizers was hit by a gas cannister. Two people were left unconscious by the tear gas. One of them was the wife of Ahmed Abu Rahmeh, brother of Jawaher, Bassam and Ashraf. (International Middle East Media Center, imemc.org)
For more details about Israeli disinformation in this case, see "The Lede", the New York Times Web blog where its reporters post additional information that, whether due to editorial interference or self-censorship, doesn't make it into the daily newspaper (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com.2011/01/06/Israeli-bloggers-question-Israels-use-of-tear-gas-against-protesters ).
Mittwoch, 30. Juni 2010
Israel and the U.S.: who is whose tool?
28 June 2010. A World to Win News Service. The American international policy professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who are critical of U.S. support for Israeli settlement expansion and its attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, argue that ″the unmatched power of the Israel lobby″ distorts U.S. foreign policy. Many people outraged by these crimes have been influenced by their still widely-circulated article ″The Israel Lobby″ that first appeared in The London Review of Books in 2006 (available at lrb.co.uk) and was later expanded into a book published in 21 countries.
Their work contains much useful information about the links between the U.S. and Israel. Yet their basic theory turns reality upside down. The truth is that Israel exists largely thanks to the U.S., because it plays an essential role in American domination in the Middle East and its current quest to ″stabilize″ an unjust and unacceptable situation for the people. In arguing that "American interests" would be better served by less uncritical support for Israel, Mearsheim and Walt do not really confront the nature of the U.S. – a monopoly capitalist country whose wealth and power are inextricably linked to a global empire of exploitation and oppression. Nor do they thoroughly deal with the nature of Israel as a colonial settler state whose existence itself is no more defensible than the apartheid regime in South Africa.
This greatly weakens their critique of the U.S.-Israel nexus and reduces it to wishful thinking. That's especially dangerous at a time when the U.S. is trying to have it both ways, to do everything possible to support Israel's continued existence and aggression and at the same time try to appear as a friend to the Palestinians.
Despite their academic prominence, these two scholars have been the object of a Zionist hate campaign and an intellectual boycott, especially in the U.S. It is shameful that so many writers and public figures who explode in the face of any criticism of Israel have tried to silence Mearsheimer and Walt by pinning the label of anti-Semitism on them. But while these two consider themselves critical friends of Israel, it is true, as their attackers realize and they do not, that once you start to analyse Israel from the point of justice for all, the whole Zionist enterprise can be called into question.
In fact, their argument is essentially similar to the all-too-common idea among the masses of people in the world and the U.S. itself, that U.S. crimes in the greater Middle East and beyond can be explained by ″Jewish pressure groups" rather than a system that basically can't work any other way.
The following reply to Mearsheim and Walt was written in April by Stephen Maher, who describes himself as a graduate student at the American University School of International Service who has lived in the West Bank. We are reprinting it from his blog rationalmanifesto. blogspot. com and electronicintifada. org While we do not share some important elements of his analysis, we welcome both his basic conclusion and his method of taking all the facts into account and testing ideas against reality.
Many of Israel's critics blame an "Israel lobby" for the near-total complicity of the U.S. in Israeli annexation, colonization and cleansing programs in the occupied West Bank. This complicity continues to the present, despite the "row" that erupted after the Israeli government humiliated U.S. Vice President Joe Biden by announcing the construction of 1,600 settlement units in occupied East Jerusalem while he was visiting the country. Indeed, despite the apparent outrage expressed by top White House officials, the administration has made clear that its criticism of Israel will remain purely symbolic. However, as we shall see, the lobby thesis does little to explain U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
Years after Noam Chomsky, Stephen Zunes, Walter Russell Mead and many others published their critiques of the Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer "Israel lobby" thesis, many of the sharpest critics of Israel continue to attribute U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East to the influence of the lobby. Given the prevalence of the Israel lobby argument, and the latest diplomatic confrontation between the U.S. and Israel, it is important to revisit the flaws in the thesis, and properly attribute U.S. behaviour to the large concentrations of domestic political and economic power that truly drive U.S. policy.
U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is similar to that which is carried out elsewhere in the world, in regions free of "the lobby's" proclaimed corrupting effects. The inflated level of support that the U.S. lends Israel is a rational response to the particular strategic importance of the Middle East, the chief energy-producing region of the world. By building Israel into what Noam Chomsky refers to as an "offshore U.S. military base", it is able to protect its dominance over much of the world's remaining energy resources, a major lever of global power. As we shall see, those blaming the lobby for U.S. policy once again misunderstand the U.S.'s strategic interests in the Middle East, and Israel's central role in advancing them.
Geopolitics and the U.S.-Israeli relationship
A central claim of the "Israel lobby" thesis is that the "lobby", however defined, overwhelmingly shapes U.S. policy towards the Middle East. Thus, if the argument were true, its proponents would have to demonstrate that there is something qualitatively unique about U.S. policy towards the Middle East compared with that in other regions of the world. Yet upon careful analysis, we find little difference between the purported distortions caused by the lobby and what is frequently referred to as the "national interest", governed by the same concentrations of domestic power that drive U.S. foreign policy elsewhere.
There are states all around the world that perform similar services to Washington as Israel, projecting U.S. power in their respective regions, whose crimes in advancing Washington's goals are overtly supported and shielded from international condemnation. Take for instance the 30 years of U.S. support for the horrors of the Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor. In addition to the use of rape and starvation as weapons, and a gruesome torture regime, Indonesian president Suharto slaughtered 150,000 persons out of a population of 650,000. These atrocities were fully supported by the U.S., including supplying the napalm and chemical weapons indiscriminately used by the Indonesian army, which was fully armed and trained by the U.S. As Bill Clinton said, Suharto was "our kind of guy."
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. ambassador to the UN at the time of the Indonesian invasion, later wrote that "the Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook" to end the butchering of the East Timorese, a goal he carried out with "no inconsiderable success." Yet this support was not due to the influence of an "Indonesia lobby." Rather, planners had identified Indonesia as one of the three most strategically important regions in the world in 1958, as a result of its oil wealth and important role as a link between the Indian and Pacific oceans.
In some regions, as in Latin America where U.S. clients like Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, and terrorist armies like the Nicaraguan Contras spent years murdering defenceless peasants demanding basic human rights, the threat is mostly one of "successful defiance;" that is, a country defying U.S. orders and getting away with it. Should the U.S. tolerate one such case, the logic goes, it will embolden resistance to its dictates elsewhere. The danger underlying such defiance – referred to as "the threat of a good example" by Oxfam – is that a country will implement a successful model for independent development, refusing U.S. dictates and seeking to direct much-needed resources to serve the needs of the domestic population instead of wealthy foreign investors.
Such thinking is deeply institutionalized and exhibited by U.S. policy worldwide, going back to the very beginnings of the modern imperial era after World War II. It was clear from early in the war that the U.S. would emerge as the dominant world power in its aftermath, and so the State Department and Council on Foreign Relations began planning to create a post-war international order in which the U.S. would "hold unquestioned power". One way it planned to do so was gaining control of global energy resources, primarily those of Saudi Arabia, which were referred to at the time as "the greatest material prize in history" by the U.S. State Department.
As Franklin Roosevelt's "oil czar" Harold Ickes advised, control of oil was the "key to postwar political arrangements" since a large supply of cheap energy is essential to fuel the world's industrial capitalist economies. This meant that with control of Middle Eastern oil, particularly the vast Saudi reserves, the U.S. could keep its hand on the spigot that would fuel the economies of Europe, Japan and much of the rest of the world. As U.S. planner George Kennan put it, this would give the United States "veto power" over the actions of others. Zbigniew Brzezinski has also more recently discussed the "critical leverage" the U.S. enjoys as a result of its stranglehold on energy supplies.
Thus in the Middle East it is not simply "successful defiance" that the U.S. fears, nor merely independent development. These worries are present as well, but there is an added dimension: should opposition threaten U.S. control of oil resources, a major source of U.S. global power is placed at risk. Under the Nixon Administration, with the U.S. military tied down in Vietnam and direct intervention in the Middle East to defend vital strategic interests unlikely, military aid to pre-revolution Iran (acting as an American regional enforcer) skyrocketed. Amnesty International' s conclusion in 1976 that "no country has a worse human rights record than Iran" was ignored, and U.S. support increased, not because of an "Iran lobby" in the U.S., but rather because such support was advancing U.S. interests.
Strategic concerns also led the U.S. to support other oppressive, reactionary regimes, including Saddam Hussein's worst atrocities. During the Anfal genocide against the Kurds, Iraqi forces used chemical weapons provided by the U.S. against Kurdish civilians, killed perhaps 100,000 persons, and destroyed roughly 80 percent of the villages in Iraqi Kurdistan, while the U.S. moved to block international condemnation of these atrocities. Again, supporting crimes that serve the "national interest" set by large corporations and ruling elites, and shielding them from international criticism is the rule, not the exception.
It is no coincidence that the U.S.-Israel relationship crystallized after Israel destroyed the independent nationalist regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser in a pre-emptive attack in 1967, permanently ending the role of Egypt as a centre of opposition to U.S. imperialism. Since before World War II, Saudi Arabia had happily served as an "Arab facade," veiling the hand of the true ruling power on the Arabian peninsula, to borrow British colonial terminology. With Nasser's Arab nationalist rhetoric "turning the whole region against the House of Saud", the threat he posed to U.S. power was serious. In response, the State Department concluded that the "logical corollary" to U.S. opposition to Arab nationalism was "support for Israel" as the only reliable pro-U.S. force in the region. Israel's destruction and humiliation of Nasser's regime was thus a major boon for the U.S., and proved to Washington the value of a strong alliance with a powerful Israel.
This unique regional importance is one reason for the tremendous level of aid Israel receives, including more advanced weaponry than that provided to other U.S. clients. Providing Israel with the ability to use overwhelming force against any adversary to the established order has been a pivotal aspect of U.S. regional strategy. Importantly, Israel is also a reliable ally – there is little chance that the Israeli government will be overthrown, and the weapons end up in the hands of anti-Western Islamic fundamentalists or independent nationalists as happened in Iran in 1979.
Today, with the increased independence of Europe, and the hungry economies of India and China growing at breakneck speed along with their demand for dwindling energy resources, control over what is left is more crucial than ever. In the September 2009 issue of the Asia-Africa Review, China's former Special Envoy to the Middle East Sun Bigan wrote that "the U.S. has always sought to control the faucet of global oil supplies", and suggested that since Washington would doubtless work to ensure that Iraqi oil remained under its control, China should look elsewhere in the region for an independent energy source. "Iran has bountiful energy resources," Bigan wrote, "and its oil gas reserves are the second biggest in the world, and all are basically under its own control" (emphasis added).
It is partially as a result of this independence that Israel's strategic importance to the U.S. has increased significantly in recent times, particularly since the Shah's cruel, U.S.-supported dictatorship in Iran was overthrown in 1979. With the Shah gone, Israel alone had to terrorize the region into complying with U.S. orders, and ensure that Saudi Arabia's vast oil resources remain under U.S. control. The increased importance of Israel to U.S. policy was illustrated clearly as its regional strategy shifted to "dual containment" during the Clinton years, with Israel countering both Iraq and Iran.
With Iran developing technology that could eventually allow it to produce what are referred to in the February 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review as "anti-access weapons" or weapons of mass destruction that prevent the U.S. from being able to freely use force in any region of the world, this is a crucial moment in Washington's struggle to seize control of Iran. This confrontation, stemming from the desire of the U.S. to control its oil and destroy a base of independent nationalism, makes U.S. support for Israel strategically crucial.
The "Israel lobby" and U.S. pressure
If we adopt "the lobby" hypothesis, we would predict that the U.S. would bend to Israel's will when the interests of the two states diverge, acting against its "national interest". Yet if U.S. policies in the Middle East were damaging its "national interest", as proponents of the lobby argument claim, that must mean that such policies have been a failure. This leads one to ask: a failure for whom? Not for U.S. elites, who have secured control of the major global energy resources while successfully crushing opposition movements, nor for the defence establishment, and most certainly not for the energy corporations. In fact, not only is U.S. policy towards the Middle East similar to that towards other regions of the world, but it has been a profitable, strategic success.
Indeed, the U.S.'s policy towards Israel and the Palestinians is not to achieve an end to the occupation, nor to bring about respect for Palestinian rights – in fact, it is the actor primarily responsible for preventing these outcomes. To the U.S., Israel's "Operation Defensive Shield" in 2002 had sufficiently punished the Palestinians and their compliant U.S.-backed leadership for their intransigence at Camp David. While the Palestinian Authority was already acting as Israel's "subcontractor" and "collaborator" in suppressing resistance to Israeli occupation, in the paraphrased words of former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami, former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's deliberate destruction of Palestinian institutions provided the opportunity to rebuild them, and ensure an even greater degree of U.S. control.
The settlement and annexation programs help guarantee Israeli control over the most valuable Palestinian land and water resources, ensuring Israel will remain a dominant society not easily pressured by its neighbours. To help achieve these goals, the U.S. shields Israeli expansion behind a "peace process" in hopes that given enough time the Palestinians will concede more and more of what was once theirs. The primary concern is to present the appearance that the U.S. and Israel are ardently crusading for peace, battling against those who oppose this noble objective. Though it is true that people across the region are appalled and outraged by Israeli crimes, such anger is a small consideration next to the strategic gain of maintaining a strong, dependent ally in the heart of the Middle East.
The reconstitution of an even more tightly-controlled Palestinian Authority, with General Keith Dayton directly supervising the Palestinian security forces, enabled the U.S. to meet these goals while more effectively suppressing resistance to the occupation. Likewise, redeploying Israeli soldiers outside of Gaza allowed Sharon a free hand to continue the annexation of the West Bank while being heralded internationally as a "great man of peace".
The treatment of Israel by the mainstream U.S. media is also standard for all U.S. allies. Coverage in the corporate press is predictably skewed in favour of official U.S. allies and against official enemies, a well-documented phenomenon. Thus, proponents of the lobby thesis are missing the forest for the trees. What they see as the special treatment of Israel by the mainstream press is actually just the normal functioning of the U.S. media and intellectual establishment, apologizing for and defending crimes of official allies while demonizing official enemies.
Of course, this is not to argue that there are not organizations in the U.S., like the American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League and AIPAC [the lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee] that seek to marginalize dissent from Israeli policy in every forum possible. Rather, I am pointing out that the power of these groups pales in comparison to other, far more powerful, interests and concerns. While the AJC or ADL may mobilize for the firing of a professor critical of Israel, for example, that argument is amplified by the elite-owned and controlled press because doing so serves their interests. Likewise, AIPAC can urge unwavering support for Israel on the part of the U.S. government, but without the assent of other far more powerful interests, like the energy corporations and defence establishment, AIPAC's efforts would amount to little. U.S. policy, like that of other states, is rationally planned to serve the interests of the ruling class.
Israel could not sustain its aggressive, expansionist policies without U.S. military aid and diplomatic support. If the Obama Administration wanted to, it could pressure Israel to comply with international law and resolutions, join the international consensus, and enact a two-state solution. While the "Israel lobby" thesis conveniently explains his failure to do so and absolves U.S. policy-makers of responsibility for their ongoing support of Israeli apartheid, violence and annexation, it simply does not stand up under closer scrutiny.
Their work contains much useful information about the links between the U.S. and Israel. Yet their basic theory turns reality upside down. The truth is that Israel exists largely thanks to the U.S., because it plays an essential role in American domination in the Middle East and its current quest to ″stabilize″ an unjust and unacceptable situation for the people. In arguing that "American interests" would be better served by less uncritical support for Israel, Mearsheim and Walt do not really confront the nature of the U.S. – a monopoly capitalist country whose wealth and power are inextricably linked to a global empire of exploitation and oppression. Nor do they thoroughly deal with the nature of Israel as a colonial settler state whose existence itself is no more defensible than the apartheid regime in South Africa.
This greatly weakens their critique of the U.S.-Israel nexus and reduces it to wishful thinking. That's especially dangerous at a time when the U.S. is trying to have it both ways, to do everything possible to support Israel's continued existence and aggression and at the same time try to appear as a friend to the Palestinians.
Despite their academic prominence, these two scholars have been the object of a Zionist hate campaign and an intellectual boycott, especially in the U.S. It is shameful that so many writers and public figures who explode in the face of any criticism of Israel have tried to silence Mearsheimer and Walt by pinning the label of anti-Semitism on them. But while these two consider themselves critical friends of Israel, it is true, as their attackers realize and they do not, that once you start to analyse Israel from the point of justice for all, the whole Zionist enterprise can be called into question.
In fact, their argument is essentially similar to the all-too-common idea among the masses of people in the world and the U.S. itself, that U.S. crimes in the greater Middle East and beyond can be explained by ″Jewish pressure groups" rather than a system that basically can't work any other way.
The following reply to Mearsheim and Walt was written in April by Stephen Maher, who describes himself as a graduate student at the American University School of International Service who has lived in the West Bank. We are reprinting it from his blog rationalmanifesto. blogspot. com and electronicintifada. org While we do not share some important elements of his analysis, we welcome both his basic conclusion and his method of taking all the facts into account and testing ideas against reality.
Many of Israel's critics blame an "Israel lobby" for the near-total complicity of the U.S. in Israeli annexation, colonization and cleansing programs in the occupied West Bank. This complicity continues to the present, despite the "row" that erupted after the Israeli government humiliated U.S. Vice President Joe Biden by announcing the construction of 1,600 settlement units in occupied East Jerusalem while he was visiting the country. Indeed, despite the apparent outrage expressed by top White House officials, the administration has made clear that its criticism of Israel will remain purely symbolic. However, as we shall see, the lobby thesis does little to explain U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
Years after Noam Chomsky, Stephen Zunes, Walter Russell Mead and many others published their critiques of the Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer "Israel lobby" thesis, many of the sharpest critics of Israel continue to attribute U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East to the influence of the lobby. Given the prevalence of the Israel lobby argument, and the latest diplomatic confrontation between the U.S. and Israel, it is important to revisit the flaws in the thesis, and properly attribute U.S. behaviour to the large concentrations of domestic political and economic power that truly drive U.S. policy.
U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is similar to that which is carried out elsewhere in the world, in regions free of "the lobby's" proclaimed corrupting effects. The inflated level of support that the U.S. lends Israel is a rational response to the particular strategic importance of the Middle East, the chief energy-producing region of the world. By building Israel into what Noam Chomsky refers to as an "offshore U.S. military base", it is able to protect its dominance over much of the world's remaining energy resources, a major lever of global power. As we shall see, those blaming the lobby for U.S. policy once again misunderstand the U.S.'s strategic interests in the Middle East, and Israel's central role in advancing them.
Geopolitics and the U.S.-Israeli relationship
A central claim of the "Israel lobby" thesis is that the "lobby", however defined, overwhelmingly shapes U.S. policy towards the Middle East. Thus, if the argument were true, its proponents would have to demonstrate that there is something qualitatively unique about U.S. policy towards the Middle East compared with that in other regions of the world. Yet upon careful analysis, we find little difference between the purported distortions caused by the lobby and what is frequently referred to as the "national interest", governed by the same concentrations of domestic power that drive U.S. foreign policy elsewhere.
There are states all around the world that perform similar services to Washington as Israel, projecting U.S. power in their respective regions, whose crimes in advancing Washington's goals are overtly supported and shielded from international condemnation. Take for instance the 30 years of U.S. support for the horrors of the Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor. In addition to the use of rape and starvation as weapons, and a gruesome torture regime, Indonesian president Suharto slaughtered 150,000 persons out of a population of 650,000. These atrocities were fully supported by the U.S., including supplying the napalm and chemical weapons indiscriminately used by the Indonesian army, which was fully armed and trained by the U.S. As Bill Clinton said, Suharto was "our kind of guy."
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. ambassador to the UN at the time of the Indonesian invasion, later wrote that "the Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook" to end the butchering of the East Timorese, a goal he carried out with "no inconsiderable success." Yet this support was not due to the influence of an "Indonesia lobby." Rather, planners had identified Indonesia as one of the three most strategically important regions in the world in 1958, as a result of its oil wealth and important role as a link between the Indian and Pacific oceans.
In some regions, as in Latin America where U.S. clients like Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, and terrorist armies like the Nicaraguan Contras spent years murdering defenceless peasants demanding basic human rights, the threat is mostly one of "successful defiance;" that is, a country defying U.S. orders and getting away with it. Should the U.S. tolerate one such case, the logic goes, it will embolden resistance to its dictates elsewhere. The danger underlying such defiance – referred to as "the threat of a good example" by Oxfam – is that a country will implement a successful model for independent development, refusing U.S. dictates and seeking to direct much-needed resources to serve the needs of the domestic population instead of wealthy foreign investors.
Such thinking is deeply institutionalized and exhibited by U.S. policy worldwide, going back to the very beginnings of the modern imperial era after World War II. It was clear from early in the war that the U.S. would emerge as the dominant world power in its aftermath, and so the State Department and Council on Foreign Relations began planning to create a post-war international order in which the U.S. would "hold unquestioned power". One way it planned to do so was gaining control of global energy resources, primarily those of Saudi Arabia, which were referred to at the time as "the greatest material prize in history" by the U.S. State Department.
As Franklin Roosevelt's "oil czar" Harold Ickes advised, control of oil was the "key to postwar political arrangements" since a large supply of cheap energy is essential to fuel the world's industrial capitalist economies. This meant that with control of Middle Eastern oil, particularly the vast Saudi reserves, the U.S. could keep its hand on the spigot that would fuel the economies of Europe, Japan and much of the rest of the world. As U.S. planner George Kennan put it, this would give the United States "veto power" over the actions of others. Zbigniew Brzezinski has also more recently discussed the "critical leverage" the U.S. enjoys as a result of its stranglehold on energy supplies.
Thus in the Middle East it is not simply "successful defiance" that the U.S. fears, nor merely independent development. These worries are present as well, but there is an added dimension: should opposition threaten U.S. control of oil resources, a major source of U.S. global power is placed at risk. Under the Nixon Administration, with the U.S. military tied down in Vietnam and direct intervention in the Middle East to defend vital strategic interests unlikely, military aid to pre-revolution Iran (acting as an American regional enforcer) skyrocketed. Amnesty International' s conclusion in 1976 that "no country has a worse human rights record than Iran" was ignored, and U.S. support increased, not because of an "Iran lobby" in the U.S., but rather because such support was advancing U.S. interests.
Strategic concerns also led the U.S. to support other oppressive, reactionary regimes, including Saddam Hussein's worst atrocities. During the Anfal genocide against the Kurds, Iraqi forces used chemical weapons provided by the U.S. against Kurdish civilians, killed perhaps 100,000 persons, and destroyed roughly 80 percent of the villages in Iraqi Kurdistan, while the U.S. moved to block international condemnation of these atrocities. Again, supporting crimes that serve the "national interest" set by large corporations and ruling elites, and shielding them from international criticism is the rule, not the exception.
It is no coincidence that the U.S.-Israel relationship crystallized after Israel destroyed the independent nationalist regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser in a pre-emptive attack in 1967, permanently ending the role of Egypt as a centre of opposition to U.S. imperialism. Since before World War II, Saudi Arabia had happily served as an "Arab facade," veiling the hand of the true ruling power on the Arabian peninsula, to borrow British colonial terminology. With Nasser's Arab nationalist rhetoric "turning the whole region against the House of Saud", the threat he posed to U.S. power was serious. In response, the State Department concluded that the "logical corollary" to U.S. opposition to Arab nationalism was "support for Israel" as the only reliable pro-U.S. force in the region. Israel's destruction and humiliation of Nasser's regime was thus a major boon for the U.S., and proved to Washington the value of a strong alliance with a powerful Israel.
This unique regional importance is one reason for the tremendous level of aid Israel receives, including more advanced weaponry than that provided to other U.S. clients. Providing Israel with the ability to use overwhelming force against any adversary to the established order has been a pivotal aspect of U.S. regional strategy. Importantly, Israel is also a reliable ally – there is little chance that the Israeli government will be overthrown, and the weapons end up in the hands of anti-Western Islamic fundamentalists or independent nationalists as happened in Iran in 1979.
Today, with the increased independence of Europe, and the hungry economies of India and China growing at breakneck speed along with their demand for dwindling energy resources, control over what is left is more crucial than ever. In the September 2009 issue of the Asia-Africa Review, China's former Special Envoy to the Middle East Sun Bigan wrote that "the U.S. has always sought to control the faucet of global oil supplies", and suggested that since Washington would doubtless work to ensure that Iraqi oil remained under its control, China should look elsewhere in the region for an independent energy source. "Iran has bountiful energy resources," Bigan wrote, "and its oil gas reserves are the second biggest in the world, and all are basically under its own control" (emphasis added).
It is partially as a result of this independence that Israel's strategic importance to the U.S. has increased significantly in recent times, particularly since the Shah's cruel, U.S.-supported dictatorship in Iran was overthrown in 1979. With the Shah gone, Israel alone had to terrorize the region into complying with U.S. orders, and ensure that Saudi Arabia's vast oil resources remain under U.S. control. The increased importance of Israel to U.S. policy was illustrated clearly as its regional strategy shifted to "dual containment" during the Clinton years, with Israel countering both Iraq and Iran.
With Iran developing technology that could eventually allow it to produce what are referred to in the February 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review as "anti-access weapons" or weapons of mass destruction that prevent the U.S. from being able to freely use force in any region of the world, this is a crucial moment in Washington's struggle to seize control of Iran. This confrontation, stemming from the desire of the U.S. to control its oil and destroy a base of independent nationalism, makes U.S. support for Israel strategically crucial.
The "Israel lobby" and U.S. pressure
If we adopt "the lobby" hypothesis, we would predict that the U.S. would bend to Israel's will when the interests of the two states diverge, acting against its "national interest". Yet if U.S. policies in the Middle East were damaging its "national interest", as proponents of the lobby argument claim, that must mean that such policies have been a failure. This leads one to ask: a failure for whom? Not for U.S. elites, who have secured control of the major global energy resources while successfully crushing opposition movements, nor for the defence establishment, and most certainly not for the energy corporations. In fact, not only is U.S. policy towards the Middle East similar to that towards other regions of the world, but it has been a profitable, strategic success.
Indeed, the U.S.'s policy towards Israel and the Palestinians is not to achieve an end to the occupation, nor to bring about respect for Palestinian rights – in fact, it is the actor primarily responsible for preventing these outcomes. To the U.S., Israel's "Operation Defensive Shield" in 2002 had sufficiently punished the Palestinians and their compliant U.S.-backed leadership for their intransigence at Camp David. While the Palestinian Authority was already acting as Israel's "subcontractor" and "collaborator" in suppressing resistance to Israeli occupation, in the paraphrased words of former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami, former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's deliberate destruction of Palestinian institutions provided the opportunity to rebuild them, and ensure an even greater degree of U.S. control.
The settlement and annexation programs help guarantee Israeli control over the most valuable Palestinian land and water resources, ensuring Israel will remain a dominant society not easily pressured by its neighbours. To help achieve these goals, the U.S. shields Israeli expansion behind a "peace process" in hopes that given enough time the Palestinians will concede more and more of what was once theirs. The primary concern is to present the appearance that the U.S. and Israel are ardently crusading for peace, battling against those who oppose this noble objective. Though it is true that people across the region are appalled and outraged by Israeli crimes, such anger is a small consideration next to the strategic gain of maintaining a strong, dependent ally in the heart of the Middle East.
The reconstitution of an even more tightly-controlled Palestinian Authority, with General Keith Dayton directly supervising the Palestinian security forces, enabled the U.S. to meet these goals while more effectively suppressing resistance to the occupation. Likewise, redeploying Israeli soldiers outside of Gaza allowed Sharon a free hand to continue the annexation of the West Bank while being heralded internationally as a "great man of peace".
The treatment of Israel by the mainstream U.S. media is also standard for all U.S. allies. Coverage in the corporate press is predictably skewed in favour of official U.S. allies and against official enemies, a well-documented phenomenon. Thus, proponents of the lobby thesis are missing the forest for the trees. What they see as the special treatment of Israel by the mainstream press is actually just the normal functioning of the U.S. media and intellectual establishment, apologizing for and defending crimes of official allies while demonizing official enemies.
Of course, this is not to argue that there are not organizations in the U.S., like the American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League and AIPAC [the lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee] that seek to marginalize dissent from Israeli policy in every forum possible. Rather, I am pointing out that the power of these groups pales in comparison to other, far more powerful, interests and concerns. While the AJC or ADL may mobilize for the firing of a professor critical of Israel, for example, that argument is amplified by the elite-owned and controlled press because doing so serves their interests. Likewise, AIPAC can urge unwavering support for Israel on the part of the U.S. government, but without the assent of other far more powerful interests, like the energy corporations and defence establishment, AIPAC's efforts would amount to little. U.S. policy, like that of other states, is rationally planned to serve the interests of the ruling class.
Israel could not sustain its aggressive, expansionist policies without U.S. military aid and diplomatic support. If the Obama Administration wanted to, it could pressure Israel to comply with international law and resolutions, join the international consensus, and enact a two-state solution. While the "Israel lobby" thesis conveniently explains his failure to do so and absolves U.S. policy-makers of responsibility for their ongoing support of Israeli apartheid, violence and annexation, it simply does not stand up under closer scrutiny.
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