Max Blumenthal interview: 'GOP conducts Islamophobia campaign'

It's with Press TV's Autograph. An excerpt:

There was a shift in the Republican Party in 1964 under Barry Goldwater when Southern Democrats who had opposed civil rights moved into the Republican Party when then President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil rights Act allowing African Americans to have voting rights etc.

There is really no leadership in the country right now that is capable of putting this hatred back in the box; instead what you have are a bunch of Republican presidential hopefuls who really have no chance of defeating Obama competing with one another for who can be the most extreme - because the far right controls the party.

Today, Newt Gingrich who is the former House majority leader; who has had three wives and who cheated on his second wife with a congressional staffer and then left his second wife while she was recovering from cancer, he's going to the church of Pastor John Hagee, the foremost leader of Christian Zionism in the US.
Hagee believes the end of the world could come any day and that Islam is the religion of Satan and that if Jews fail to convert to Christianity they will burn in an everlasting lake of fire. Yet he is also a great supporter of Israel and hailed by Netanyahu as a friend to the Jewish people. Now, Newt Gingrich is making a pilgrimage to his church.

So this just shows how extreme the party has become; how it's gone from the big tent of Eisenhower to a one-ringed circus of Palin and Gingrich.

Max Blumenthal is one of my favourite journalists. You can read more of his writing on his website.

Feeling the Hate in New York

"On April 25, over 1000 New York-area Jewish extremists gathered in midtown Manhattan to rally against the Barack Obama administration’s call for a freeze on construction in occupied East Jerusalem and to demand unlimited rights to colonize the West Bank. With Obama and top White House officials engaged in a charm offensive to repair their relationship with mainstream American Jewish organizations, speakers at the rally lashed out at the Jewish groups and Democratic politicians, warning that cozying up to Obama would endanger Israel and imperil their cherished settlement enterprise."- Max Blumenthal

Palestinian rights deserve Anglican action

P U L S E has a post up (by David Thomson) commenting on an opinion column from Thursday, May 21, by Ben White, a regular contributor to the Guardian's Cif/belief. (Ben White has also written for the Anglican website, Fulcrum.) I had to chuckle at the comments on Mr White's Guardian piece. Ben White takes on "even handedness" of Anglicans [that typically Anglican - and sometimes maddeningly frustrating - "via media" approach to any theological, political or cultural controversy] regarding resolutions on Israel-Palestine at the recent Anglican Consultative Council meeting. Mr Thomson sees the heavy-handed influence of a pro-Zionist right-wing organisation in the Anglican Communion which has campaigned vigorously against Anglican efforts to promote divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel.

Ben White writes that “a obsession with even-handedness is stopping Anglicans taking a firm stand on Israel’s disregard for Palestinian rights.”

However I’d argue that the obsession with even-handedness is not a cause but an effect — an effect of paranoia induced by the Israel lobby, strongly represented in the Anglican community by Anglican Friends of Israel.

This group spread the fear that criticising Israel will damage relations with the Jewish community, even if this were so, should it stop the church’s quest for justice? They also use ‘anti-Semitism’ (or Judeophobia) and therefore the Holocaust, to create an atmosphere of intimidation saying Anglican peace activists are “singling out” Israel (thus implying there is no good reason to criticise Israel and the reason must be anti-Jewish racism). No individual or organisation wants to be threatened with anti-Semitism and have themselves compared to some of the worst criminals in history.

It’s sad that these tired old tricks are still accepted and work as a distraction from the real issues of colonialism, occupation, international law, basic morality and justice.

At the 14th Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting, held in Jamaica earlier this month, a resolution on the Middle East was passed, criticising the Israeli occupation. An original version of the resolution was originally submitted by the Anglican Peace and Justice Network (APJN)[JayV: APJN website], but as the language was felt by some to be too “strong”, a new resolution was put forward and adopted.

The resolution staked out a position based on international law, a rejection of violence as a means of conflict resolution, and opposition to Israel’s occupation and colonisation of the Palestinian territories.

It also called for a “two state solution”, and “lamented” the fact that Israeli policies in the West Bank “have created severe hardship for many Palestinians” and are “experienced as a physical form of apartheid”. There was an affirmation that a “just peace must guarantee the security and territorial integrity of both Israel and the future state of Palestine so that all the people of the area can live in peace and prosperity.”

For some, however, this call for two states living side by side – a state of affairs that would necessarily require one party to stop its domination of the other – was a cause for “dismay”. Anglican Friends of Israel released a statement (faithfully reproduced by The Times’s religion correspondent) which regretted how “once again”, Anglicans had “singled out Israel for criticism” without any “context” or taking into account “the Palestinian contribution to the conflict”.

Where the resolution condemned illegal policies like settlement building, the ICJ-condemned separation wall, and house demolitions, Anglican Friends for Israel saw a call for Israel to “lay down all measures which protect her citizens from Arab terrorism”. Apparently, not even Palestinian “interests” are served by such a “ghastly pronouncement”, which, the statement warned, “threatens to completely sabotage Anglican-Jewish relations”.

The resolution, passed “overwhelmingly”, was publicly backed by a number of those present, including the Anglican Church of Southern Africa Archbishop Thabo Makogba, who told the council how he had “lived under apartheid” and knew its “pain”. He went on to describe seeing the “‘the brutality’ in the West Bank and Gaza that ’segregates God’s people’.”

The original wording submitted by APJN had been specifically criticised by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who took particular issue with “a section that ‘condemns the judaisation of the city (of Jerusalem) by the government of Israel”. The Archbishop was reported as saying that “judaisation is a word that I cannot, in conscience, accept”, since “it equates ‘the political machinations of the Israeli government’ with the people of faith in Jewish society”.

That there is a deliberate policy of judaisation in Jerusalem is not a secret in Israel; politicians and policy-makers routinely talk of strengthening the “Jewish character” of the city (and other areas too for that matter).

So in fact then, while Williams is right to critique the conflation of the Israeli state’s policies with “people of faith in Jewish society”, his target should be that very same Israeli state which in the name of Jews worldwide maintains a regime of racial exclusion.

The archbishop’s other concern, according to the same report, was to avoid saying anything in such as a way as to “jeopardise the Anglican Communion’s dialogue with the Rabbinate”. This was a worry also taken up by others, including the coordinator of the Anglican Communion Office’s Network for Interfaith Concerns, who helped produce the alternative resolution that was eventually passed.

The Anglican Church has trodden an uneasy path in recent years when it comes to words and actions on Israel/Palestine. Despite recommendations by the APJN to pursue divestment as means of opposing Israel’s occupation, this has never been followed through.

While many individual church members and ministers across the worldwide communion are active in working for a just peace in the Middle East, the senior leadership is typically shy of going much beyond hand-wringing statements of sorrow and “even-handed” reproach.

It is unfortunate that the division, such as in the case of this recent ACC resolution, is often expressed in terms of those seeking stronger expressions of protest over the Israeli occupation against those seeking to avoid tension in Jewish-Christian relations.

The two shouldn’t be mutually exclusive, of course. But even when these worries about interfaith dialogue are sincere (rather than a disingenuous smokescreen), how long can they hamstring serious action by the Anglican Communion in the face of Israel’s entrenched – and worsening – disregard for basic Palestinian political and human rights?

Cross-posted at Antemedius.

GAZA WAR CRIMES: USE OF HUMAN SHIELDS

“They would make us go first, so if any fighters shot at them the bullets would hit us, not them,” said 14-year-old Al’a al-Attar.

Clancy Chassay at the Guardian investigates claims from three brothers that the Israeli military used them as human shields during the invasion of Gaza. Part One of Three. Watch Part Two and Part Three.

REAL NEWS NETWORK: ISRAELI TROOPS ADMIT GAZA ABUSES

Phyllis Bennis takes a sober look at what happened in a TRNN interview with Paul Jay.



Additional background here.

Also, McClatchy on Israeli Jihad

SHOCKER: ISRAELI SOLDIERS ADMIT GAZA ABUSES

Guardian (19/03/09)

Striking testimony has emerged from Israeli soldiers involved in the Gaza war in which they describe shooting unarmed civilians, sometimes under orders from their officers.

One soldier described how an Israeli sniper shot dead a Palestinian mother and her two children, adding that fellow troops believed the lives of Palestinians were "very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers".

The testimony, published in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz today, gives a rare insight into how Israeli soldiers fought the war on the ground; reinforces Palestinian accounts of disproportionate Israeli force; and sharply contradicts the Israeli military's official version of events.

Haaretz

Another squad leader from the same brigade told of an incident where the company commander ordered that an elderly Palestinian woman be shot and killed; she was walking on a road about 100 meters from a house the company had commandeered.

The squad leader said he argued with his commander over the permissive rules of engagement that allowed the clearing out of houses by shooting without warning the residents beforehand. After the orders were changed, the squad leader's soldiers complained that "we should kill everyone there [in the center of Gaza]. Everyone there is a terrorist."

The squad leader said: "You do not get the impression from the officers that there is any logic to it, but they won't say anything. To write 'death to the Arabs' on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can. I think this is the main thing: To understand how much the IDF has fallen in the realm of ethics, really. It's what I'll remember the most."

It has been rare for Israeli soldiers to speak out about the killing of Palestinian civilians in the December war on the Gaza Strip. More soldiers' testimonies will be published in Haaretz over the coming days.

Analysis by Amos Harel in Haaretz:

Can Israel dismiss its own troops' stories from Gaza?

The soldiers are not lying, for the simple reason that they have no reason to. If you read the transcript that will appear in Haaretz Friday, you will not find any judgment or boasting. This is what the soldiers, from their point of view, saw in Gaza. There is a continuity of testimony from different sectors that reflects a disturbing and depressing picture.

The IDF will do everyone, and most of all itself, a big favor if it takes these soldiers and allegations seriously and investigates itself in depth. When statements came only from Palestinian witnesses or "the hostile press," it was possible to dismiss them as propaganda that served the enemy. But what can be done when the soldiers themselves tell the story?
...
If the IDF really never heard about these incidents, the reasonable assumption is that it did not want to know. The soldiers describe the reality in combat units, from the level of company commander down. In the debriefings, the participants usually include company commanders up. It seems that except for isolated incidents, the rule is "you don't ask, we won't tell."

(Photo: IDF Spokesman's Office)

NAOMI KLEIN SPEAKS ON ISRAELI APARTHEID WEEK

Naomi Klein speaks on Israeli Apartheid Week from NOW Magazine on Vimeo

(Thanks to General, Your Tank is a Powerful Vehicle.)

OBAMA PULLS U.S. OUT OF UN RACISM FORUM - CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS SHOULD ATTEND ANYWAY

Cynthia McKinney in Black Agenda Report:--

“This morning [Monday], I sent the following message to the White House:

‘Mr. President, it was with great disappointment that I read of your decision to pull out of Durban II. Even the Bush Administration, under pressure from the Congressional Black Caucus, provided some funding for the United Nations effort and sent staff to support the Congressional delegation that attended the Conference. I was there. I was head of the Congressional Black Caucus Task Force that negotiated Congressional and Administration engagement on this issue. There is still time for the U.S. to participate. Your decision is not irrevocable. I would encourage you to please reconsider this decision and not only attend the Conference, but also provide funding to ensure its success.”

I implore the Members of the Congressional Black Caucus to spearhead the participation of the United States in the United Nation's World Conference Against Racism: to boldly go where we have gone before. Dr. King reminded us that "the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.' ”

THE VEIL OF NORMALIZATION

Philip Rizk writes:- "At the police station this past week a few uniformed men returned my things to me. They pretended they had caught they had caught the thief who had stolen my things, he was locked away now, they laughed. The frenzy of my release has finally passed, things are meant to return to normal at this stage. But in Gaza- the reality of which had driven me to the street that Friday- nothing has changed.
...
"It is the mundane that reminds me of my abduction. Today on the bus i reset the settings of my ipod as they used to be after some employee of the Egyptian state security forces erased its content. I can’t express enough my gratitude to all those around me- far and near- who reached out, cooked a meal for my family, set up a site calling for my release, held a sign in the cold, brought me my class readings, uttered a prayer, welcomed me home. And these acts and voices somehow pulled me out of that cell and rescued me from beneath my shackles. But the voices for these others cry out into the void. Why are there not more, why can they not draw to freedom the bodies that deserve more than i do. Release them, release the bodies of those now in cells here calling out for their release, and release the ones so longing to breathe beyond the bounds of fear and death.

"I realized today that i too had forgotten Gaza. In these past days in the elation of freedom i forgot why i had marched, i forgot why i am- to live for the other. That other is still as is, kept from life and the gatekeeper retains her position at the gate and the world looks on.

"This cannot go on. No."

STUDENT APATHY IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS

Hicham Yazza in the Guardian last week - using the backdrop of the recent British university protests about Israel's re-invasion of Gaza - looked at the political awareness of students:- [N]ot only have they highlighted a rise in political awareness among a new generation raised in the shadow of the Iraq war debate, they have also exposed what has for long been a suspected but unspoken reality: rather than being the centres of learning, debate and intellectual engagement of yore, British universities are now little more than businesses purveying a product, employable students. The message is unambiguous: political engagement might be good for the mind but it is very, very bad for business.

He continues - and this could also apply to US 'educational' institutions:- Many universities have now grown to see their task as that of churning out generic, malleable clones for the consumption of ever more regimental recruiters. Students now spend their university years being bombarded with instructions on how to turn themselves into perfect job interview candidates. Countless career tutorials, taster sessions, seminars, workshops and presentations drum into students the notion that any semblance of political consciousness will damage employability – and that employability is everything. What is being lost on many is that such a shift is draining this young generation of bright, capable graduates of their essential critical instincts. The unquestioning deference to authority and the blind adherence to the party line are now seen not as impediments, but as the pre-requisites for anyone serious about getting a job with a top recruiter.

Thanks to Martin Wisse of Progressive Gold for the Yezza link; Martin also comments vis-à-vis the lack of protests in the Netherlands:- If you have to depend on a student loan of several (tens of thousands) of pounds to be able to study, you’ll be less likely to waste your time with political activity, especially if, as in the Netherlands, your loan or grant is made dependent on your study results. It’s perhaps no coincidence that there was little if any student protest over here against the invasion of Gaza, certainly not on the scale of the UK protests.

GAZA HACKERS BRING DOWN KADIMA WEBSITE

http://www.kadima.co.il/.

Update: It's a hoax, apparently. The real Kadima website is at kadima dot org dot il

OBAMA'S FIRST PRESSER

Well, good on Helen Thomas. I just saw the clip on Democracy Now! and noticed how Obama is condescending to Thomas on her first official question at a press conference - and she doesn't miss a beat and continues with her question about Israel's nuclear weapons. But, Obama, ever the slick politician, obfuscates and fails to answer her (or is he just clueless?).

Regarding the accolades given Obama's intelligent, mature, coherent answers (the opposite of 43's butchering of the English language), y'all might want to read Perrin today:

Comments across the libsphere echoed the same sentiments. Obama may be in the pocket of private interests, has already killed civilians in the Near East with plans for more bloodshed, is playing three-card Monte with torture and rendition, but holy jeebus, he sure do talk good! Liberals are so easily pacified. Small wonder why Obama's inner-circle doesn't give a fuck what they think. When their leash is yanked, most libs will meekly follow, whatever their disappointment in or confusion about their masters.

CBS ON ISRAEL-PALESTINE

Apartheid and Israel in the same sentence.


Watch CBS Videos Online

This report appeared on one of the most-watched Sunday evening programs and is groundbreaking for "respected" US television journalism. However, it is flawed. It portrays Livni as a moderate (she is more interested in removing Arabs from Israel then Israelis from the the West Bank). The report fails to mention the illegality of the settlements and that half a million settlers are in East Jerusalem.

OBAMA ON GAZA

Finally, at long last Dear Leader has spoken on Gaza

Now we must extend a hand of opportunity to those who seek peace. As part of a lasting cease-fire, Gaza's border crossings should be open to allow the flow of aid and commerce, with an appropriate monitoring regime, with the international and Palestinian Authority participating.

Why not a helping hand without these conditions? What the fuck is an appropriate monitoring regime? Everyone knows that the PA is a lackey of the Israelis. Why not include all Palestinians in Gaza at the table?

Further excellent comments can be found at Left I.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN RUSSIA TODAY INTERVIEW

(Via P U L S E)

COROLLARY

A comment at Lenin's Tomb

The signature phrase of the 1960s cult classic The Prisoner [its star, Patrick McGoohan, died yesterday in Los Angeles]- "I am not a number. I am a free man!"- could have its corollary in Gaza [as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq] with the people declaring:

"We are not non-entities. We are a free people!"

REMINDER: March in Burlington Against Attacks on Gaza this Saturday - forward widely

JOIN BREAD and PUPPET AT THE GAZA PROTEST ...

Meet Saturday, January 17th, 11:30 AM in front of City Hall to gear up for a demonstration and march beginning at noon. Help carry huge, striking Bread & Puppet banners and figures.

Arrive at noon for the march and demonstration.

Join Vermonters and people around the world to protest the occupation and bombings of Gaza, which have killed over 750 Palestinians and injured over 3100 (as of January 9) [now over 1,000 fatalities!]. Hospitals in Gaza have little to no medical supplies and they are overflowing with victims of this humanitarian crisis. Food and water are in extremely short supply due to the blockade Israel has imposed on the people of Gaza. The United States government is complicit in this brutality, supplying military aid to Israel and endorsing Israel's actions. The bombings and killings must end! End the violent blockade and occupation of Gaza immediately!

DEMANDS
- Israel must end the occupation and bombing of Gaza immediately,
- Stop the violence in the Middle East and end the embargo on Gaza
immediately
- The US government must end all military aid to Israel
- Israel must observe international law
- We demand that Senator Leahy, Senator Sanders, and Rep. Welch
denounce the occupation and bombing of Gaza

Sponsors: Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel,
International Socialist Organization, American Friends Service
Committee, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Iraq
Vets against the War, Pax Christi Burlington, Peace and Justice Center

For more information contact S'ra at sra@riseup.net or 324-3073

EYEWITNESS IN GAZA

GISHA Legal Center for Freedom of Movement

Testimony received from a parent of three children and resident of Gaza City

The situation is very hard today. I heard something from a friend that simply gives me no peace – about two families who are fighting over the identity of someone who is lying in the hospital. Since it is impossible to identify the wounded person because his face is very badly hurt, one family claims that he is their nephew and the other family says that he is their cousin. They are fighting about it because they realize that if this is not their relative, that means that their relative is dead.

I can see all of Beit Lahiya from the roof and it’s all going up in flames. There is a very big cloud over the entire northern area. Gaza is packed like a can of sardines, everything is small and crowded. People don’t understand this.

You could die anywhere in Gaza today – at home, in the street. Every place in Gaza is under attack. There is no safe place. This is what Hamas is telling people: why should you die at home? Come out and fight and at least you’ll die while defending Gaza and your home. Who can say no to such a thing?

There is no bread. I called all the bakeries in Gaza and I didn’t find even one where I could buy pitas for my children. In the end I stood in line for half an hour and got cookies. Even that was being rationed – only 1 kilo and no more. I can’t even get pitas for my children.

I’m telling you – I’m willing to come and help in Israel, in Sderot. What they are going through hurts us too but give us a chance. Just give us a chance. Don’t use our children in order to change the political reality. Do you understand that I – someone who has a respectable job and livelihood – burnt my hands while trying to heat water for my children on an open fire! My hands got burnt! Gaza is one big graveyard.

Unfuckingbelievable!

Here are other testimonies received by Israeli human rights groups.

A FATHER'S LAMENT

The father of Rachel Corrie has written a commentary on the current massacre in Gaza. On March 16, 2003, Ms Corrie was killed on the Gaza Strip by an Israeli military bulldozer while trying to prevent the destruction of a Palestinian family's home.

I know something of the loss felt by my Israeli friend Yitzhak, whose son Arik was captured and murdered by Hamas in 1994, and by my Palestinian friend Bassam whose daughter Abir was shot and killed by Israeli solders as she walked home from school in her West Bank village in 2007.

I cannot, though, know the loss felt by Anwar Khalil Ba'lousha, whose five daughters, asleep in their beds, were killed in Gaza by Israeli bombing on Dec. 28. I haven't the courage to imagine his pain.
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The U.S. must make clear that we will not support either side when it uses violence beyond its borders. We must demand that humanitarian aid as well as press and U.N. observers be permitted to enter Gaza without delay -- and that hostilities cease so that lifesaving commodities can be distributed.

LEFT BEHIND?

I just heard Chris Gunness, UNRWA spokesperson in Gaza, describe the situation in their compound on today’s BBC Radio 4 News at One. Three white phosphorus shells have landed there. 700 Gazans have taken refuge in the compound. He was particularly concerned about the effects of these incendiary shells on the five fuel tanks in the compound. “Words cannot discribe’ the situation, says Mr Gunnes. Richard Seymour (lenin) believes that Israel is doing everything to force the UN to abandon Gaza.

Much more importantly, it is a message to the UN to pull out. Bear in mind that UN staff have already had to suspend operations because of the risk posed by the IDF. Other aid agencies such as the Red Cross have also had to suspend crucial activities after attacks by the IDF. Eventually, the UN might well be forced to withdraw its staff entirely if it can't guarantee their safety. At that point, the UN and its few millions and scant food and supplies, will no longer be available to the civilian population. This terrorised and starving population will soon be almost completely alone.