Abunimah: There is a tremendous struggle to be waged, to force Israeli introspection, and change

By Ali Abunimah

Nearly two weeks ago we reported on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions conference at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, the highlight of which was a speech by Ali Abunimah. We posted video, and kept promising to get a transcript up. What follows is text of the body of Abunimah’s November 21 speech. We have left out the humorous opening, about Prilosec, and the Q-and-A (which is also gripping).To listen to the whole speech visit the website for Flashpoints, an award-winning daily investigative newsmagazine broadcast on the national Pacifica Radio network.

I want to talk about a little bit of history, not too much, and then I want to talk about where I think BDS fits in to where we’re going in the struggle for justice, and why I think it’s going to work.

If you look at the history of Palestine over the past 62 years, ever since the destruction of much of Palestine and the establishment of the state of Israel on its ashes, I think it can be divided roughly into three phases of roughly 20 years. The first phase was from 1948 to 1967, that was the establishment of Israel, the ethnic cleansing of 90 percent of the population from inside the boundaries of what became Israel, the systematic destrucitoin of 500 towns and villages, and the exile of the indigenous population of the country. And of course the remaining Palestinians inside Israel subjected to military rule and to continued ethnic cleansing and removal from their land.

The second phase, beginning in 1967 with Israel’s 3-fold expansion, its conquest of Egypts’ Sinai peninsula, of southwest Syria, of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, was really the heyday, the era of maximum Israeli confidence, and the moment in which Zionism as we know it today became rooted in the American Jewish community. Before 1967 American Jews had for the most part not been captured by this ideology of Zionism and the virulent and racist nationalism that accompanies it. For Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it was the beginning of long occupation and colonization that continues to this day. It was also, from Israel’s perspective, a period of what I call a luxury occupation. The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were relatively quiescent, they were a source of cheap labor, Israelis allowed themselves to travel freely throughout the occupied territories, and it was bliss, it was a situation where Israelis said well, this is fine, we can stay like this as we build settlements, there’s no pressure on us to do anything, we don’t have to formally annex the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which would require us to give civil rights and voting rights to the Palestinians living there, so we just keep things as they are.

This period of luxury occupation ended in 1987 with the beginning of the first intifada, which I suspect is around the time many of you in this room were born, which makes me feel quite old. But it’s important to know this history. And what the first intifada showed was the impossibility of Israel maintaining this cost-free occupation, where it exploited Palestinian labor and land, denied any civil and political rights, and continued to advertise itself as this wonderful liberal democracy and a light unto the nations.

So began the beginning of the third 20-year period, and this is the period of the Oslo Accords, beginning sort of a long period of working up to those accords that were signed in 1993, and it was the period really of managed occupation, and the idea here was to coopt. At one point the Israeli leaders said it. Shimon Peres, who is now the president of Israel, recalled talking to Yitzhak Rabin who was the prime minister at the time, and saying, Why do we need Yassir Arafat, who was then the PLO leader of course, making trouble for us outside the country, let’s bring him here, we can watch him and we can keep him under control. So the idea was to coopt the Palestinian leadership and subcontract the management of the occupation to them, all the while creating the illusion of forward movement, of a so-called peace process which would culminate in an independent Palestinian state.

But actually as we knew and know now, that’s not what was happening. What was happening was the acceleration of occupation, the tripling of the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and the tightening of the control, the creation of a regime of colonial control, effectively apartheid, that is unique in history. We make many comparisons to apartheid in South Africa, but as many South Africans themselves have pointed out, There was never in South Africa a separate road system for blacks and whites. There is no occasion in which the white South African apartheid government used its warplanes to bomb the townships, to bomb Soweto. It never happened. Incidentally you should know, and this is part of the research that should be part of the BDS strategy, that most of the weapons that the South African government used to enforce apartheid were supplied by Israel in violation of an international arms embargo on South Africa. Even the water cannon that they used to suppress demonstrations were made in a kibbutz in northern Israel. And the warplanes and the gunboats of the South African navy were all supplied by Israel. Nevertheless, South Africa never used these weapons against its own people inside the country.

The situation over the past 20 years of managed occupation has come to an end. Many people don’t realize it, many people hope that it can be revived, but we are reaching the end of the third phase of a coopted collaborationist Palestinian leadership which is able to keep the Palestinian people quiet on behalf of Israel. And the edifice is now slowly crumbling. I can’t tell you how long that crumbling will take, I can’t tell you how it will end, but it’s something that can’t be put together and restored. The Palestinian leaders who signed the Oslo accords, and agreed to become the enforcers of the occupation for Israel while promising their people that it would end in a state have lost all credibility, they can no longer play the game. I think that this is a moment, really it’s not just a moment of truth for the Palestinians, but also for Israel, because the collapse of the Oslo regime, the collapse of the managed occupation lays bare the reality: that you have through historic Palestine, Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip taken together, you have a reality of a de facto binational state. You have a country of 11 million people where just over half of the population are Israeli Jews and where just under half are Palestinians, but the trend is clear, that Palestinians are becoming a majority once again.

We can all describe in detail the suffering inflicted on Palestinians in Israel’s attempt to ethnically cleanse them, to reduce the population, to change the demographics of Jerusalem. Literally every day now houses are being demolished in occupied East Jerusalem and in Silwan. And every night the Nakba that began in 1948 continues to expand. Every night there are new families sleeping in tents by the rubble of their homes. The Nakba is continuing in 2009. Despite that, despite that, I would say the following: if the goal of the Zionist project was to take this country which had an indigenous people who were Arab, who were Palestinian who were Muslim, who were Christian, and turn it into a country of European Jews, then this strategy has failed, because there are more Palestinians living on the national soil of Palestine than ever before, and there is no part of Palestine today where there are not Palestinians living. Whether it is in the Naqab, in Gaza, in Galilee, at the center of the country, throughout the West Bank, there are very few areas where there is not a Palestinian population. So this is the tremendous failure of the Zionist project, the failure to ethnically cleanse this country. And despite the suffering it inflicted and that it continues to inflict, that is something to celebrate, that the indigenous people are still there. That they still exist on their land.

But of course it leaves Israel in a dilemma, because how can you have a Jewish state when the majority population will soon not be Jewish. The ideal solution from Israel’s perspective was to conceal this reality with the endless peace process, with the managed subcontracted occupation. But this no longer is working. So we’ve reached a moment of truth. And I think it’s important to recognize that the way these things end– nobody can read the future– but again we heard this morning about the very important comparison with South Africa. It’s not an identical situation, there are many differences that are worth exploring and discussing, but in our recent history it’s the closest parallel to the situation we have now, of a settler colonial community ruling over an indigenous people by force and facing tremendous resistance and demands by the indigenous people for their rights. And when you go back to the years before the apartheid regime ended– it ended officially in 1994–there was tremendous internal resistance in South Africa, huge uprisings that were very similar to what came a few years later in the first Palestinian intifada, massive strikes, massive protests, and the response of the apartheid state was to use enormous violence to suppress the protests in the townships.

The point I want to make here is that all of this resistance never succeeded in really changing the balance of physical coercive power. The whites always effectively retained a monopoly on military and physical force, and the anti-apartheid movement never really changed that. They didn’t defeat the apartheid regime militarily. The balance of power never changed. What happened and what I think was crucial is that the apartheid regime, which had enjoyed considerable legitimacy among Europeans and Americans up until at least the 1950s, began to lose its legitimacy. Up to that point in Britain and in other parts of Europe, there was tremendous sympathy for what was called "the predicament" of whites in Africa, in the context of decolonization.

The loss of legitimacy in the practices of the apartheid regime is what changed, and when a system loses its legitimacy, all the weapons in the world cannot protect it. And that’s what we saw in South Africa. Once it got to the point that the regime could only remain in power through violence and repression, whites in South Africa lost the will to maintain it. Because they knew that the price was increasing international isolation and being seen as pariahs. And once they reached that point, then they were willing to start talking about democracy and equal rights.

You have to remember that the African National Congress put forward the Freedom Charter in 1955. It never changed. The message from the resistance in South Africa was consistent: Our demand is for freedom, for one person/one vote, for equality, for decolonization, it never changed. But as long as whites felt immune to the effects of apartheid, as long as they could get away with it, they had no incentive to read the Freedom Charter, and they could demonize Africans as much as they wanted and say these people are barbarians, and if we were to let them get their hands on the levers of power they would slaughter us in our beds, whites would be thrown into the sea. It was costless for them to say that. Once internal resistance and international solidarity in the form of boycott, divestment, and sanctions raised the cost of the status quo for the apartheid regime and those who benefited from it, then they said, OK, let’s talk, let’s hear what you have to say, what your vision is for the future of South Africa. So BDS created the conditions for dialogue and ultimately for the end to the conflict that were impossible as long as that balance of power was unchallenged.

I would argue that we are beginning to see, I don’t think it’s yet at full speed, but we’re beginning to see a similar loss of legitimacy for Zionism and for the practices that Israel has engaged in. And many Israelis worry about this very openly. I am convinced that the loss of legitimacy of the Zionist idea, of the idea of a special state for a special people, is irreversible, that that cannot be resurrected in the 21st century, a time when we at least preach if not practice universal rights and equality. Israel’s self image as a liberal Jewish and democratic state is impossible to maintain against the reality of a militarized, ultranationalist, sectarian Jewish settler colony that has to carry out regular massacres of indigenous civilians in order to maintain its control. Zionism simply cannot bomb, kidnap, assassinate, expel, demolish, settle, and lie its way to legitimacy and acceptance, and 62 years of Palestinian steadfastness, sumud, resistance have proven that time and again.

As I’ve mentioned, it’s ever harder to disguise this loss of legitimacy when you have a Jewish minority ruling over a disenfranchised Palestinian majority. Recently you will have noticed the Israeli government’s new demand that Palestinians recognize Israel’s quote unquote right to exist as a Jewish state as a condition for peace. Many people are outraged by that. I’m frankly quite comforted by it. [laughter] Because I’ll tell you why. Because that demand is really an acknowlwedgment of failure. It’s an acknowledgement that without Palestinian consent the Zionist project and the Jewish ethnocracy in Palestine cannot be maintained, and I think it has zero long term prospects.

And I think what is so significant about the moment we’re in is that the Israel lobby, the many pro-Israel groups in this country and around the world recognize this moment, and if you look back to last spring, to May, a speech given by the executive director of AIPAC at its annual policy conference, AIPAC is of course the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, and this was just months after the massacres in Gaza, and Howard Kohr the executive director made really quite a remarkable and revealing speech in which he talks about the increasing discourse about the illegitimacy of what Israel is doing and how it’s constituted. It says, “The epicenter of this campaign” –he talks about what he calls the campaign of the delegitimization of Israel– I would say that Israel has delegitimized itself through its actions, but let’s stay with him for a minute.

The epicenter of this campaign may be in the Middle East, but the campaign doesn’t stop there. It echoes in the halls of the United Nations and the capitals of Europe. But the campaign doesn’t stop there. It is voiced without shame and without sanction in meetings of international organizations that claim peace and partnership as their mandate. But the campaign doesn’t stop It is coming home right here to the United States. We see it already on our college campuses, America’s elite institutions of higher learning, the places we’ve entrusted with the education of our children. But the campaign doesn’t stop there. No longer is this campaign confined to the ravings of the political far left or far right, but increasingly it is entering the American mainstream: an ordinary political discourse on our T.V. and radio talk shows, in the pages of our major newspapers and in countless blogs, in town hall meetings, on campuses and city squares, in Los Angeles, in Fort Lauderdale, in Chicago–

He calls this and this I think is very crucial to understand the fear of the Israel lobby—“this is a conscious campaign to shift policy, to transform the way Israel is treated by its friends to a state that deserves not our support, but our contempt”—I’m skipping—“These voices are laying the predicate for abandonment, they’re making the case for Israel’s unworthiness to be allowed what is for any nation the first and foremost fundamental right, the right to self defense."

Of course that’s in the context of the massacres in Gaza that he supports. So he goes on in this light. And it’s quite interesting. There’s one thing that I thought was very funny. Not funny but striking. He says, “This is a battle for the hearts and minds of the world. A battle in which the defamation of Israel”– what I would call arguing for equal rights and justice and accountability—“is like the artillery before the main assault, the key element in the softening up of the target.”

This is so striking, three months after Gaza, he’s talking about us using artillery, we who are talking about the nonviolent BDS movement are the ones using artillery, and Israel, which rained white phosphorus and howitzer shells on residential neighborhoods and schools and mosques and ministry buildings and police stations across Gaza is the victim. It’s a very interesting reversal of language.

Finally, what’s the solution from the perspective of AIPAC? He says, "So this evening let me say to everyone in this room, We have a job to do, we have a story to tell, a story that’s often overlooked. And that is a remarkable story of the true Israel.”

I think we actually have exactly the same job! [laughter]

“We must tell the story of Israel, who she is, what she does, and what she stands for in the world—“ Again we have the same mission. “And that truth will defeat the deformed vision of hate that seeks to separate Israel from her friends.” Yeah! [laughter]

What is that message, and this is the crucial point: At the end of the period of managed occupation, when the apartheid and colonial reality of the Israeli system is laid bare, what is the message? What is the story they have to tell?

Here’s what it amounts to: "Israel the only country in the middle east to host a gay pride parade. The Israel that draws energy from the sun, water from the air. The Israel that takes seriously the admonition to be a light unto the nations. The country that opened its doors to the Vietnamese boat people in the 1970s, Ethiopian jews in the 1980s and 90s. To refugees from more than 100 countries." Except Palestine! "People from different cultures and countries that have built new lives in Israel.

What’s interesting about this is you’ve got a couple of themes here. The gay pride parade, they call that gaywashing. When you use the idea that Israel has a gay pride parade. So that makes it OK to attack schools with white phosphorus. That’s called gay washing. That Israel draws energy from the sun and water from the air. That’s called green washing.

That Israel takes seriously the admonition to be a light unto the nations, that it opens its doors to refugees, etc. Well you may have seen the headline in Haaretz two weeks ago, that Israel is considering setting up what it calls work camps in the Negev desert for refugees mostly from Africa who are awaiting ajudication of their asylum claims, and the deal according to Haaretz was that the refugees would be housed in this camp, they would be bused to places during the day where they would work, and they would then be returned to camps in the evening, and in exchange they would receive food. I think there’s a term for that. It’s called slavery. Because even slaves for the most part received room and board, just as a matter of keeping them alive. So the Israel that is open to refugees is an Israel that in 2009 is considering setting up slave labor camps.

The point that I want to make from this is that I don’t think there is a message. You cannot gay wash and greenwash and white wash your way out of this. You cannot say well, Israel makes wonderful pharmaceuticals so don’t worry about what’s happening in Gaza. It’s not going to work. It’s too late for that. And I think that the failure, I think this message cannot be retooled. And I think we’re at a point where Israel is still incredibly powerful. But I think in a sense it is running on inertia, accumulated power, accumulated prestige. It’s like someone whose bank account is very full, but they’re spending it, and they have to spend it very quickly.

Now we in our movement have a very small bank account. Im not talking literally about money, I’m taking about political power and moral legitimacy and support and a just vision that includes everyone. We have a small bank account, but we have an income. We’re growing it. Israel has a big bank account but there’s no income. I don’t see Israel being able to recruit a new generation to carry this message. I think that the success of American Jews is that they’re fully integrated into this society, that young American Jews have imbibed the universal message of the civil rights movement, and they want nothing to do with this thing… Israel is like a lemon and these Israel lobby groups have to try to sell it as if it’s a Lexus, and nobody is buying this lemon anymore.

Now that may sound a little bit rosy and I don’t want to make you think this is is all very easy and inevitable. Because it isn’t. The other side of this, which is very very important, is that there is a tremendous, tremendous struggle to be waged, which is why the work that you’re doing in this movement is so important. And a just outcome is not inevitable. Israel has tremendous power, it has the capacity to do tremendous violence. There are many people who think Gaza 2009 was just a foretaste of what’s to come, and the Israelis will go for broke, and they will try to do once again what they have failed to do for so long, which is to try cow and terrorize the Palestinians and other Arab peoples into submission.

So there are enormous dangers, it’s not inevitable. But what makes another attack on Gaza or on other parts of Palestine less likely every day is what we do. The more ruckus we raise, the more difficult we make it for Israeli war criminals to speak on our campuses, the more we raise awareness about the impact of Israeli occupation on Palestinians throughout the country, on the racism and second-class status of Palestinian citizens in Israel, the more people are aware through BDS activism, the harder it is for Israel to act freely. We have to provide the accountability with this movement that our governments have failed to provide, that the United Nations has failed to provide.

You will face many enemies, one of them is called J Street. [Applause] They took notice of you. I’m sure many of you have seen the press release which came out on Thursday, which says, "The upcoming conference at Hampshire College promotes the misguided BDS movement against Israel." Here’s the good news. "This movement is spreading like wildfire–" [cheers] "–On campuses across the country, and we’re all going to get burned unless we speak out now."

So they come up with this pathetic idea of, Invest two bucks, two dollars for two states. Is there any one in this room who will give me two dollars for two states? [Cry: Never!] I’m going to auction off the two-state solution. Two dollars? A dollar fifty? I see a dollar up there. But they say–this is serious, they say, join our Invest, don’t divest campaign to raise money for two organizations. Lend for peace.org, a Palestinian micro finance organization set up by students like us. And the Center for Jewish Arab Economic Development, which promotes Jewish-Arab economic cooperation in Israel.

It’s important to know that these sorts of joint projects, most likely, I haven’t looked at these specific ones, are projects that were designed to give the impression of equality and reciprocity and that don’t challenge the reality of injustice– they violate the Palestinian call for Boycott, divestment and sanctions. It’s really important to understand that they will push these things on your campuses in order to divert your attention and make people push their energy in a direction where it will have no impact whatsoever, because these sorts of feel-good joint projects, which are designed to legitimize Israel by saying, Oh let’s just get along, have been tried for years and years and they’ve made no difference.

There is a great sense that after trying to ignore the BDS movement for many years, it is starting to really get the notice of Israel. There was an article in the Financial Times yesterday. The headline, "Israel shrugs off economic boycott activism." There’s a lot of bravado. They’re saying, You know it really hasn’t made much impact, and we can weather it. But the fact is, it is in the Financial Times, they’re starting to take notice. Today there is an article on ynet… the most widely read website in israel…The headline, my translation, "Boycotts against Israel, are they succeeding and hurting?" This is today… It is affecting them, they are noticing, and they’re starting to get worried about it. So if you ever think, if you’re ever told, oh, this will never work, just read the Israeli press.

It is starting to have the effect that we want, of forcing the Israelis to do what they don’t want to do, which is some introspection, some real rethinking of the situation and how to get out of it.

I want to close with some observations about what comes next. I think– I’ve argued, and I don’t think it’s a tough case to make in this room, that BDS is essential, BDS is a tool to level the playing field, to provide solidarity and strength to Palestinians who are resisting, and standing steadfast, wherever they are, whether in Palestine, in Israel, or in the refugee camps, here in the United States, everywhere where Palestinians are. It’s a way to say– you know, many people say the Palestinians are among the most lectured people on earth. They’re always told, if you’re the U.S. secretary of state, Palestians must do more, and then there’s a whole list. And even friends of the Palestinans, say, you know, if only the Palestinians could be more like Gandhi. I hear that all the time. They never say to the Israelis, if only the Israelis could be more like Gandhi. Can you imagine the Israeli settlers behaving like Gandhi. There wouldn’t be any settlements, that’s for sure.

I think those words are very cheap. To tell people who are fighting for their very existence, not to resist, not to use violence, from the safety of Canada or the US, is a bit rich. [applause] But that doesn’t mean that we should abandon a belief in nonviolence, or that we should advocate violence. I’m certainly not saying we should advocate violence. [applause] I’m simply saying if you’re against violence, then provide an alternative, and the alternative is BDS. As Fayyad [Sbaihat] said this morning [on a panel]… Do you have any better ideas?

This is a proven strategy. This is a tactic that will work. As we saw in this morning’s session, It’s a noble and honorable strategy that worked in the civil rights movement. It worked in the case of South Africa… it worked in Northern Ireland, with the MacBride principles… to divest in companies that discriminated against native Irish Catholics in the north of Ireland…There are many examples of BDS and BDS-like strategies working. So the alternative is up to us to provide.

There is now this hot debate about a one-state solution or two-state solution. And many people have honest questions about it. You know where I stand. But that doesn’t mean you have to agree with me. But the BDS call, the call for academic and cultural boycott of Israel from Palestinian civil society does not call for a one state solution or a two state solution. It names three kinds of Israeli injustice and oppression that have to be ended.

One, denial of Israel’s responsibility for the Nakba, and particularly the waves of ethnic cleansing and dispossession that created the Palestinian refugee problem, and therefore refusal to accept the inalienable rights of the refugees displaced, and stipulated and protected by international law. Secondly, military occupation and colonization of the West Bank including East Jerusalem and Gaza. And thirdly, the entrenched system of racial discrimination and segregation against the Palestinian citizens of Israel that resembles the defunct apartheid system in South Africa.

It’s important that whether you think about one state or two state, that all these forms of oppression have to be ended. If tomorrow we woke up and saw that Israel had withdrawn from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, admittedly not very likely, that leaves 2/3 of the problem intact. The oppression of the Palestinian citizens of Israel and the racist oppression of Palestinian refugees who are denied the right to return to their homeland for the sole reason that they’re from the wrong ethnic group, that’s simply unconscionable in the 21st century.

It’s important to keep our eye on all three aspects of the systematic injustice against Palestinians. And to recognize– we can discuss and debate and we can advocate what an outcome would look like. I think we need to have that discussiona, and with the corercion of the BDS movement, to begin to have a vision, that can start to draw Israelis, once they recognize that the present system is untenable. And BDS creates the conditions for us to begin to have that discussion.

I want to end by saying something that really I believe very, very deeply when I look around this room. When I think of my parents and the parents of many other people in this room, many Palestinians in this room and beyond this room– my parents were from the generation that lived through the Nakba, that lost their homes and lost their country, and they were among the lucky ones. But those in Gaza, 80 percent of people in Gaza are refugees. In Lebanon, in Syria, in Jordan. All over the world, I believe that that generation, the first generation of the Nakba, who is now getting on in years, but hamdililah many of them are still young and in good health and may they live long lives, but that generation deserves to see justice in its lifetime. [applause]

And when I look around this room, I am convinced with all my heart and all my mind, that this is the generation that is going to help them see that justice. Be patient and stay in it for the long haul, history is on our side, and we can win. Thank you.

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Hezbollah Slams US Attempts to Oppose Lebanese Consensus

Hezbollah condemned on Saturday the American interference in the Lebanese internal affairs and denounced the US attempts to oppose the national consensus in Lebanon.

In this context, member of Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc MP Hasan Fadlallah accused some parties of being against understanding among Lebanese although he stressed that there has been consensus on the policy statement among strong parliamentary blocs.

He said the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc would discuss the statement during a three-day session in parliament starting Tuesday with a spirit of understanding.

Fadlallah also criticized any cooperation between the US and Lebanon "because we don't believe that the American administration is keen on the interest, peace, stability and prosperity of the economy in Lebanon."

In response to the US stance of not dealing with Hezbollah ministers in the Lebanese unity cabinet, the lawmaker said that the Resistance party already has no contact with Washington which is "the basic supporter of Israeli aggression."

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US Lawmakers Urge Clinton to Work toward Disarming Hezbollah

Thirty-one members of the US House of Representatives have urged the Obama administration to work toward disarming Hezbollah and preventing Iran from using the Lebanese group in any confrontation with Israel.
In a letter sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the lawmakers claimed the US government should ensure greater accountability from the United Nations in enforcing Resolution 1701.

"In light of the clear violations of UN Security Council resolutions, we ask what actions the Administration is taking to ensure the UN addresses these violations," the letter said. "We must seek to support stronger multilateral efforts to disarm Hezbollah and clear southern Lebanon of Iranian weapons,” it added.

The letter notes that the Obama administration has requested $210 million for UNIFIL and $100 million in military assistance for the Lebanese army. "For that much money, American taxpayers deserve to see results," the lawmakers said.

The letter warned that Tehran may try to distract the international community from its nuclear program by inciting Hezbollah into carrying out militant activities in southern Lebanon and blowing up the regional situation.

The members of the House of Representatives said that in light of the increasing number of incidents in southern Lebanon and the capture of an Iranian arms ship allegedly destined for Hezbollah, they are highly concerned by the potential of what they called the Iranian-sponsored escalation along the Lebanese-Israeli border.

The letter, which was sponsored by Mark Kirk and Steve Israel, said the situation in southern Lebanon became worse after the 2006 war. It added that the newly formed Lebanese cabinet gave Hezbollah veto power over major decision-making.

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Israel refuses Irish FM permission to visit Gaza

Israeli authorities deny Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin permission to visit the impoverished coastal sliver of Gaza which has long been under an Israeli siege.

Speaking at the Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs on Friday, Martin said no substantive reason had been given for the refusal.

"I just wanted to go in myself and see Gaza," he said according to the Irish Times newspaper.

Similar requests from other European countries had also been turned down.

The Irish Foreign Minister meanwhile described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as 'completely unacceptable.'

"If progress is not realized quickly, then the international community as a whole may need to reconsider what further pressure it can bring in favor of achieving a negotiated, two-state settlement," Martin told the committee.

Israel has imposed a crippling siege on the Gaza Strip since.

The Israeli army also launched a massive military offensive, known as 'Operation Cast Lead' against the coastal sliver in December 2008 and January 2009. More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the three-week offensive, which inflicted $ 1.6 billion of damage to the Gazan economy.

“I am appalled by the indiscriminate attacks by Israeli forces which have resulted in so many civilian fatalities. The death and suffering, as well as the humanitarian deprivation, now being inflicted on the people of Gaza as a result of the continuation of the Israeli Operation Cast Lead cannot be justified in any way and must now be brought to an immediate end," Martin stated.

Martin also called on Tel Aviv to provide further clear evidence it was 'serious about engaging in peace negotiations' rather than being more preoccupied with 'simply managing what could well escalate into a situation of incipient conflict.'

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Lebanon: an End to Sectarian Politics? - Suleiman and Nasrallah's Clarion Call

By RANNIE AMIRI

“To encourage vast participation in political life, a national committee should be established and charged with abolishing political sectarianism.”

– Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, in a televised address on the eve of the nation’s 66th anniversary of independence, 21 November 2009.

“Political sectarianism is blocking the development of the Lebanese political regime and standing as an obstacle in the face of a democracy … We want a Lebanon that is united through its land, its people, its state and institutions.”

– Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, in a news conference announcing the party’s new manifesto, 30 November 2009.

Lebanon’s entire political structure and climate revolves around sectarianism. The country’s 128-member parliament or “Chamber of Deputies,” is based on a confessional distribution of seats, divided equally between Muslims and Christians irrespective of political affiliation (as is the prime minister’s cabinet). In parliament, the Christian side is further subdivided in a fixed allotment among seven dominations, and the Muslim half among four.

The country’s top three political posts – president, prime minster, and speaker of the parliament – must be assigned to a Maronite Christian, Sunni Muslim, and Shia Muslim respectively. Sectarian quotas have even found their way into the public sector, the military and the security services.

None of the above is based on actual demographic information, of course. Indeed, there has been no official census conducted in Lebanon since 1932. The equal allocation of parliamentary seats between Muslims and Christians mandated in the 1989 Taif Accord was nevertheless an improvement from the status quo ante, which gave Christians more seats despite a Muslim majority. The Taif Accord put an end to the country’s 15-year civil war, in part, by allowing for just representation in parliament between the two religious groups.

The new configuration of political sectarianism set up in Taif was still meant to be a temporary one, with the ultimate goal being its demise. As stated in Section G:

“Abolition of Political Sectarianism: Abolishing political sectarianism is a fundamental national objective. To achieve it, it is required that efforts be made in accordance with a phased plan. The Chamber of Deputies elected on the basis of equal sharing by Christians and Muslims shall adopt the proper measures to achieve this objective and to form a national council ... The council's task will be to examine and propose the means capable of abolishing sectarianism, to present them to the Chamber of Deputies and the cabinet, and to observe implementation of the phased plan.”

Refreshingly, both President Suleiman and Hassan Nasrallah have come to similar conclusions: it is time to move past the current (and outdated) system which has paralyzed Lebanese politics for so long, abolish sectarianism, and establish a government based on proportional representation. In essence, Lebanon would be transformed into a single electoral constituency.

Parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri pledged to establish the national committee called for by Suleiman and “ … embark on a legislative push that centers on implementing the long-awaited Taif Accord provisions of administrative decentralization and the abolishment of political sectarianism.”

The reaction to the bold proposition?

Uproar.

From charges it would “distort Lebanon’s pluralistic character” to Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir’s bizarre assertion that institutionalized sectarianism should not be eliminated by law before it can be “abolished from the souls,” it was met with both opposition and anger. Several MPs implicitly chided the supporters of Hassan Nasrallah for following a “sectarian leader” while making tangential references to Hezbollah’s arms.

The majority of voices balking at the proposal have come from the ruling March 14 coalition, comprised mainly of Sunni Muslim and secular Maronite Christian parties.

There is no doubt Taif put into place an arrangement that has managed to keep the peace in Lebanon for 20 years. But, are some of the circumstances that led to the outbreak of violence and civil strife in the 1970s and 1980s, namely skewed parliamentary representation poorly reflective of the population at large, present once again? What are those opposed to Suleiman’s progressive call really afraid of?

Simply, that the least privileged, and historically most politically marginalized of Lebanon’s people – the Shia Muslims – will come to power. Now believed to form the single largest plurality among Lebanon’s confessional groups, they have long played “third fiddle” to the country’s Sunnis and Christians in government in relation to their numbers.

Again, we must remember that the discrepancy found in parliamentary seats and power, whereby Christians were overrepresented in relation to Muslims and were the politically privileged class, was a significant factor that led to a long and painful civil war.

Shouldn’t such recent lessons be heeded if this imbalance is once again apparent?

Suleiman, a Maronite Christian himself and widely considered to be evenhanded, recognizes the present situation cannot continue; as a result of the confessional distribution of seats, the ruling March 14 coalition won a majority despite clearly losing the popular vote. It then took Prime Minister Saad Hariri five months to be able to form a cabinet.

A clarion call has thus been issued for Lebanon to advance beyond its sectarian nature and adopt a political structure which eschews sectarianism and instead implement one based on equitable, and proportional, representation.

It is time for Lebanon to embrace it.

Rannie Amiri is an independent Middle East commentator. He may be reached at: rbamiri AT yahoo DOT com.

Source

Climate Catastrophe and Israel’s Denial of Palestinians’ Access to Water: Two Aspects of Contemporary Barbarism

By Javier Sethness

Amnesty International has recently released two reports on Israeli water policy that present a rather thoroughgoing indictment of the Zionist colonization project broadly conceived. Entitled “Thirsting for Justice: Palestinian Access to Water Restricted” and “Troubled Waters: Palestinians Denied Fair Access to Water,” the reports join many other studies of both more and less recent memory that have provided similar perspectives critical of Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinian people. In the reports, Amnesty finds the Israeli state to be fundamentally violating the right to water of the 4 million Palestinians living under its ongoing military occupation, and hence also to be massively violating Palestinians’ right to an adequate standard of living. It seems important to consider that this aspect of Israel’s active deprivation of the Palestinian people in many ways mirrors and previews the acute deprivation of much of the world’s population that capitalist societies are enacting through their contributions to dangerous anthropogenic interference with the Earth’s climate

For those familiar with the present situation in Palestine, Amnesty’s reports may not prove to be terribly surprising; they are, however, no less offensive and shocking for all that. Amnesty finds that Israelis consume over 80 percent of the water available in the so-called Mountain Aquifer that lies beneath the West Bank, leaving the remaining 20 percent for the 2.3 million West Bank-residing Palestinians. Indeed, it is claimed that these 2.3 million consume a total amount of water equal to or less than that consumed by the 450,000 Israeli settlers living illegally in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Amnesty’s reports further find that Palestinians are totally barred from accessing the waters of the Jordan River, and that some 200,000 rural-dwelling Palestinians go without access to running water in the present day. Palestinian daily per capita consumption of water, we are told, stands at 70 liters, some 30 short of the minimum daily amount recommended by the World Health Organization. According to Amnesty, furthermore, between 90 and 95 percent of the water available to Gazan Palestinians is contaminated and hence “unfit for human consumption.”

The two reports explore this systematic life-denial in detail. Though the reports caution that recent episodes of drought in the region are to account in some way for these bleak statistics, Amnesty also make clear that discriminatory Israeli policies bear far more of the blame for the general situation. It examines some of the various military orders imposed by Israel following the capture of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 that relate to the problem of water in the occupied territories—one establishes complete control by the Israeli military over water resources in the region, and another requires that any construction by Palestinians of new water installations be authorized by an Israeli-issued permit. Amnesty tells us that only 13 such permits were issued in the nearly 30 years that the Israeli military handled water permits prior to transferring such responsibilities to the Oslo-created Palestinian Water Authority. The reports further explore the rendering-inaccessible to Palestinians of several water-rich areas of the West Bank designated by Israel as closed military zones in addition to the destruction on several occasions of existing Palestinian water infrastructure in both Gaza and the West Bank as well as the forced displacement of a number of Palestinian communities whose water resources have been confiscated by Israeli occupation forces. Amnesty also examines the implications of the Israeli separation barrier for Palestinian access to water: it finds that the wall’s route within the West Bank, together with the settlements it protects, affords Israel access to the areas deemed best for the extraction of water from the Mountain Aquifer. It hardly need be said that such privileged access comes by means of the denial of the same to Palestinians, many of whom have seen their former access to wells entirely cut off. Amnesty’s reports also focus on the decidedly detrimental effects of the Israeli blockade of Gaza for the water situation there, as restrictions on the movement of goods constrain Gazans’ ability to maintain existing water and sanitation facilities and rebuild those destroyed by Israel during its attack of December 2008 and January 2009.

Amnesty’s reports find Israel’s water policies to flagrantly violate several extant tenets of international law, most notably the Fourth Geneva Convention and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Beyond such condemnations, though, comes rhetoric deeply critical of the Zionist project in general: Amnesty complements the findings of its reports by claiming Israel’s policy as a whole to be “to limit the overall amount of water (and land) available to the Palestinian population, while preserving for itself privileged access to most of the water and land in the OPT.”

The water situation in Palestine, then, is monstrous, just as is much else related to the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine. Indeed, Israeli water policy is reminiscent of what Salih Booker and William Minter refer to in a different context as global apartheid,¹ and in this sense parallels many similar horrors of the contemporary world. One of the most pressing such parallels that bears mention here is that of climate change.

Climate change, or global warming, refers to the looming catastrophic atmospheric changes that have accompanied the historical rise of industrial capitalism. As is well-known, the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases for which industrial-capitalist societies have been responsible threatens to radically deprive the access of much of currently existing humanity and many of its potential descendants to water. It is in the destruction by Israel of Palestinian cisterns and water-treatment plants as in its rendering of entire Palestinian communities into environmental refugees through the wholesale cutting-off of their access to water that can be seen a few of the likely realities of the totality toward which the world is moving as a result of climate change.

The likely future of access to water in such a world is dark, indeed. George Monbiot of The Guardian writes that an increase in average global temperatures of 1.5° C—that is, a mere 0.7-0.8° C beyond the level relative to pre-industrial temperatures that has already been achieved due to historical emissions—exposes some 400 million humans to what he refers to rather dryly as water stress, while an average global temperature increase of 2.1° C is estimated to place between 2.3 and 3 billion people at risk of outright water shortages.² Monbiot’s compatriot Mark Lynas finds a 2° C rise in average global temperatures to nearly eradicate the mountain glaciers on which the millions who currently reside in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia depend upon for their water, and he claims a 3° C such rise to imply a drastic reduction in the Himalayan glaciers that today provide life for more than half of humanity.³

Without serious action aimed at mitigating the consequences of climate change in the near term, these average temperatures increases—to say nothing of even more apocalyptic ones—will likely come to pass. A poll conducted in April found nine out of ten climatologists to believe that humanity would fail to limit global warming to 2° C,⁴ while the UK Met Office recently concluded that a 4° C average-temperature increase—a temperature increase that Met scientists claim would threaten the water supply of half the world’s population—could well occur by the year 2060.⁵ Just two weeks ago, in fact, scientists with the Global Carbon Project found the prospect of a 6° C average-temperature increase by the end of the century—an eventuality that would problematize the existence of the vast majority of currently existing humanity—to be entirely within the realm of possibility.⁶

With regard to climate change then, present reality seems far worse than even the most pessimistic observers could have imagined some time ago. Both the present concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as well as their current rates of emission are far higher than they should be if much of humanity is to have a chance of flourishing in the foreseeable future. The world’s leaders, especially the most powerful among them, have decidedly failed to address this emergency with the sense of urgency it requires. The climate legislation proposed by the lawmaking body of the society most responsible for climate change—the United States—calls for reductions in carbon emissions on a scale entirely inadequate for preventing catastrophic climate change, and Barack Obama has recently expressed that no binding treaty should be expected from the decidedly critical Copenhagen climate summit that will take place next month. Parallels with other examples of imperial arrogance—the recent overwhelming rejection by U.S. legislators of the Goldstone report, for example, or the Obama administration’s caving on the question of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem—could be made.

Reflection on the active deprivation of Palestinians by Israel highlighted in Amnesty’s recent reports on water may help to illuminate the deprivation of humanity generally considered that is being prosecuted by capitalist societies’ contributions to climate catastrophe and their concurrent lack of action aimed at mitigating such. The racist monstrousness implicit in both these projects must surely be resisted as such; indeed, resistance to the suffering inflicted by the Zionist project should be complemented by resistance to the suffering brought about by climate change, for, as the German social critic Max Horkheimer writes, it is crucial that people come to oppose injustice not just in the particular, as in Palestine, Iraq, Darfur, Afghanistan, or Tibet, but instead in general, as a whole.⁷ It is imperative that opposition to the totality somehow be effectively realized rather soon, for the overturning of currently prevailing trends—of barbarism—may not only help the Palestinians in their struggle to reverse the ordeals that have been imposed upon them; debarbarization, in the words of Horkheimer’s friend and colleague Theodor W. Adorno, may indeed constitute “the immediate prerequisite for survival.”⁸

1. “Global Apartheid.” The Nation, 21 June 2001. [↩]
2. Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning (Cambridge, Massachusetts: South End Press, 2007), p. 15, 6. [↩]
3. Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2008), p. 102-107, 159-167. [↩]
4. David Adam. “World will not meet 2C warming target, climate change experts agree,” The Guardian 14 April 2009. [↩]
5. David Adam. “Met Office warns of catastrophic global warming in our lifetimes,” The Guardian 28 September 2009. [↩]
6. Steve Connor and Michael McCarthy. “World on course for catastrophic 6°C rise, reveal scientists,” The Independent, 18 November 2009. [↩]
7. Sociedad, razón y libertad (Madrid: Editorial Trotta, 2005), p. 126. [↩]
8. Critical Models (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2005), p. 190. [↩]

Javier Sethness is an educator and libertarian socialist. He currently blogs for the Gaza Freedom March. Read other articles by Javier.

Report finds new Israeli war doctrine targets civilians

Press release, The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) released today [2 December 2009] a new report which exposes the shifts in Israel's combat doctrine as evidenced in the prosecution of operation "Cast Lead" and from numerous public oral and written statements made by high ranking military officers and senior Israeli government officials.

The report, "No Second Thoughts: Changes in the IDF's Combat Doctrine In Light Of Operation 'Cast Lead'," demonstrates Israel's application of a new combat doctrine during the hostilities in Gaza, which is based on two principles:

"Zero Casualties": The complete prioritization of avoiding IDF [Israeli army] casualties while disregarding the increased risk to Palestinian civilians. The implementation of this policy is evident in the massive use of fire power, the use of white phosphorous weapons in densely populated areas, and in firing at Palestinians in the streets, with no discrimination between combatants and civilians, this even after the IDF would order the evacuation of residents from civilian homes.

"Dahiyah Doctrine": named after the residential Dahiyah district in Beirut, where Hizballah enjoyed support and also had its headquarters. The district was massively bombed by the IDF during the Second Lebanon War. The doctrine promotes targeting civilian infrastructure in order to cause widespread destruction and suffering among the civilian population so as to foment popular opposition to Israel's opponents (namely Hamas and Hizballah).

As a result of the implementation of these principles, the fighting in the Gaza Strip caused intentional and large-scale damage to civilian infrastructure as well as the killing of hundreds of non-combatant civilians (despite the absence of an official policy to intentionally kill civilians). Israel's actions directly contradict official statements claiming that the IDF acted in accordance with international humanitarian law and took every possible measure to avoid harming non-militant civilians.

This combat doctrine morally stains the citizens of Israel. It may lead to increased international isolation of Israel and to a situation where Israeli soldiers, officers and leaders will face arrest outside of Israel and be charged with war crimes. The writers of the report summarize: "So fundamental a shift in the IDF's combat doctrine, which has such a far-reaching impact, shouldn't be considered only in the closed forums of the General Headquarters and the Security Cabinet, but demands substantial public discussion."

Download the full report

Source

Gaza Freedom March less than one month away

Press Release, Gaza Freedom March

The Gaza Freedom March that will take place in Gaza on 31 December is an historic initiative to break the siege that has imprisoned the 1.5 million people who live there. Conceived in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and nonviolent resistance to injustice worldwide, the march will gather people from all over the world to march -- hand in hand -- with the people of Gaza to demand that the Israelis open the borders.

Marking the one-year anniversary of the December 2008 Israeli invasion that left more than 1,400 dead, this is a grassroots global response to the inaction on the part of world leaders and institutions. More than 1,000 international delegates from 42 countries have already signed up and more are signing on every day.

Participants include Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker, leading Syrian comedian Duraid Lahham, French Senator Alima Boumediene-Thiery, autthor and Filipino Parliament member Walden Bello, former European Parliamentarians Luisa Morgantini from Italy and Eva Quistorp from Germany, President of the US Center for Constitutional Rights Attorney Michael Ratner, Japanese former Ambassador to Lebanon Naoto Amaki, French hip-hop artists Ministere des Affaires Populaires, and 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein.

We also have families of three generations, doctors, lawyers, diplomats, 70 students, an interfaith group that includes rabbis, priests and imams, a women's delegation, a Jewish contingent, a veterans group and Palestinians born overseas who have never seen their families in Gaza.

The international delegates will enter Gaza via Egypt during the last week of December. In the morning 31 December, they will join Palestinians in a nonviolent march from northern Gaza to the Erez/Israeli border. On the Israeli side of the Erez border will be a gathering of Palestinians and Jews who are also calling on the Israeli government to open the border.

Inside Gaza, excitement is growing. Representatives of all aspects of civil society, including students, professors, refugee groups, unions, women's organizations, nongovernmental organizations, have been busy organizing and estimate that at least 50,000 Palestinians will participate. People from the different sectors will march in their uniforms -- fishermen, doctors, students, farmers, etc. Local Palestinian rappers, hip-hop bands and dabke dancers will perform on mobile stages.

http://www.gazafreedommarch.org

Israel seeks to prohibit call to prayer in Al Aqsa Mosque because it disturbs settlers

Middle East Monitor

The Israeli Knesset is discussing a bill to ban the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem from raising the dawn call to prayer in order not to disturb the settlers in the holy city. Israeli media reported on Thursday that the draft law now under scrutiny by parliament will affect other densely populated cities.

According to Israeli media, the bill has been put forward to the Knesset by the Aryeh Bibby, a member of Kadima party, who said he had received written and oral requests which reflected the anger of millions of Jews with prayer calls in the early morning hours, both in Jerusalem and other occupied cities. Bibby, was reported as saying that if Muslims wanted to hear the call to prayer, they should find a way does not bother others.

This issue has become a global problem in every country where Muslims live alongside with people of other religious groups, Bibby said. "The banning of building minarets in Switzerland is evidence that people have begun to address this problem," Bibby claims.

While the Knesset has been discussing the ban on calls to prayer in Jerusalem, Jewish groups have demanded the closure of Al-Aqsa mosque until captured soldier Gilad Shalit is released.

The Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage revealed information regarding the document published by Jewish extremist groups titled "Closing the Temple Mount to the Arabs until the release of Gilad Shalit …No mosque without Gilad."

The groups invite the Jewish community to sign the document that contains an appeal for the police to close Al Aqsa Mosque in the face of the Muslims, until the release of Shalit.

The document reads, "We the undersigned call upon the Israeli police to close the Temple Mount - Al-Aqsa Mosque - in the face of the Muslims, until the release of Gilad Shalit, without preconditions, the Arabs will be scared to lose Al-Aqsa, and it will gather global pressure on Hamas by Muslims all over the world for the release Gilad!! We have a strong pressure card, and the Arabs will not give up Al-Aqsa."

Shalit was captured by the Palestinian Resistance since in June 2006 during an operation carried out by the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades along with the Palestinian Resistance Committees and the Army of Islam. The operation code named "Vanishing Illusion" took place near the Karem Abu Salim crossing.

In return for Shalit, Hamas is demanding the release of all prisoners with long sentences as well as women and children prisoners and Palestinians prisoners in the territories occupied in 1948.

SOURCE: Al Quds Al Arabi

Will Congress Criminalize Anti-Semitism and Israeli Criticism?

By Stephen Lendman - Chicago

During Israel's war on Gaza, only 5 of 535 congressional members dissented on pro-Israeli resolutions.

On January 8, 2009, the Senate unanimously passed S 10: "A resolution recognizing the right of Israel to defend itself against attacks from Gaza and reaffirming the United States' strong support for Israel in its battle with Hamas, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian (no peace) peace process."

On January 9, the House, by a 390 - 5 vote, passed HR 34 "Recognizing Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza, reaffirming the United States' strong support for Israel, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian (no peace) peace process." More on this below.

Then on October 28, Obama signed the expanded 2009 Hate Crimes Prevention Act, some call a stealth war on free expression and civil liberties. More on this as well.

Also consider events in Canada, initiated by a body called the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism (CPCCA), a voluntary association of 22 MPs investigating anti-semitism because, it says:

Its "extent and severity is widely regarded as at its worst level since the end of the Second World War," despite contrary evidence and much to show how Israel twists opposition to Zionism and its international law violations to be an attack on Jews.

On October 29, in fact, Reuters reported that:

"Anti-Semitic attitudes in the United States are at a historic low, with 12 percent of Americans prejudiced toward Jews, an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) survey found" based on polling done from September 26 - October 4 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8%.

ADL said the level of anti-Semitism matched 1998's as the lowest in the poll's 45-year history. Yet in his 2003 book, "Never Again? The Threat Of The New Anti-Semitism," national director, Abraham Foxman, said he's:

"convinced we currently face as great a threat to the safety of the Jewish people as the one we faced in the 1930s - if not a greater one," contradicted by Cato Institute research fellow Leon Hadar (writing in the January 2004 Chronicles) that public opinion polls "indicate anti-Semitism (both its racial and religious versions) has been in steep decline in most of Western Europe...."

Yet various Canadian Jewish organizations, including Hillel, B'nai Brith, and the Canadian Jewish Congress cite rising anti-Semitic incidents. On March 31, 2009, for example, B'Nai Brith Canada claimed Canadian anti-Semitic incidents rose 8.9% in 2008 over 2007, with "more than (a) four-fold increase in incidents over the past decade."

The result gets bodies like CPCCA to exploit it, with disturbing implications of where this may lead, including calling opposition to Zionism and Israeli crimes anti-Semitism, and criminalizing them at a time the global BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement is gaining traction in the wake of Operation Cast Lead and 42 years of military occupation.

CPCCA's web site (cpcca.ca) says:

"In February 2009, parliamentarians from around the world gathered in London for the inaugural conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Committee for Combatting Antisemitism." Over 125 legislators attended from nearly 40 countries, after which "The London Declaration for Combating Antisemitism call(ed) on all governments to face the problem...."

CPCCA is a Canadian body, formed in March 2009 by 22 parliamentarians from all parties in the House of Commons. An inquiry was begun on June 2 calling for written submissions followed by public hearings (excluding anti-Israeli groups) running from November 2 - December 8. When concluded, the Steering Committee will produce a report for the government, anticipating a response "no later than the fall of 2010."

Its web site asks: "What is the new anti-semitism," saying:

"Anti-semitism is an age-old phenomenon, yet it is always re-invented and manifested in different ways. For example, while accusations of blood libel are still being made against the Jewish people, instead they are being directed against the State of Israel, such that anti-Zionism is being used as a cover for anti-semitism."

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME)

Founded in 2002, CJPME (cjpme.org) promotes "justice, peace, prosperity and security for all peoples of the Middle East," and believes "all positions should respect international law....violence is not a solution, (and) all parties in a conflict must be held to the same standard."

On August 31, 2009, it issued a "Written Submission to (CPCCA) Concerning Anti-Semitism in Canada," saying:

-- it opposes anti-Semitism;

-- Israeli criticism must not be linked to it; and

-- because of how it's vilified, CJPME fears it will result in:

-- "a terrifying attack on civil liberties (and free expression) in Canada, and

-- a total silencing of debate on Israel out of fear of legal action."

Yet both outcomes would violate "fundamental protections enumerated in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms," so efforts must be made to prevent them.

Israel is a secular state, not a proxy for Judaism or Jews. Many Jews globally, including Israelis, are extremely critical of government policies with regard to Occupied Palestine and its own Arab citizens. According to Ryerson University's Social Justice and Democracy Professor Judy Rebick:

-- equating Israeli criticism with anti-Semitism "is based on a claim that the State of Israel is the single outcome of the history of the Jewish people, the final end of generations of diasporic existence. It attempts to make the Zionist project of a Jewish nation the only legitimate project for all Jews," when, in fact, many Jews publicly oppose Zionism and Israeli policies. Doing so isn't anti-Judaic, anti-Israeli, or anti-Semitic because they, like Martin Luther King, believe that:

"True peace is not the absence of violence, but the presence of justice," an element entirely absent in how Israelis treat Palestinians and their own Arab citizens.

Asking why Israel is heavily criticized, CJPME cites the following:

-- its continued defiling of "the international consensus for respect for human and humanitarian rights - as reflected in international law....;"

-- its maintenance of "one of the longest military occupations in modern history" over Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan, and Shebba Farms area of Lebanon;

-- its repeated violations of international law and UN resolutions; and

-- its imposition of "elements resembling those of South African Apartheid."

As a result, it's unsurprising that anti-Semitism accusations are made to stifle Israeli criticism as a way to diffuse and perhaps criminalize them. The possibility worries CJPME enough to say they can't be used "to infringe on fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms comprising Part I of the March 29, 1982 Constitution Act. CJPME formally petitioned to participate in CPCCA's inquiry that so far excludes Israeli critics.

"America's Last Taboo"

It was distinguished Palestinian American activist/scholar Edward Said's title for his New Left Review November-December 2000 article citing the "near-total triumph for Zionism in the United States." Then and now, Israel is cast as victim in a dangerous neighborhood acting only in self-defense against "rock-throwing barbarians (comprising) what is essentially an invasive force. (It's the) Palestinians who are encroaching on Israeli territory, not the other way around."

The message is so ingrained that the media repeat it ad nauseam, and Said more than once said that the entire US Senate can be marshaled in a matter of hours to support Israel on virtually anything - even a wanton attack as malicious as Operation Cast Lead and numerous previous ones for many decades.

Exhibits A and B: S 10 and HR 34 with near-identical language saying:

-- "Hamas was founded with the stated goal of destroying the State of Israel."

Fact Check

Hamas was founded in 1987 during the first Intifada to resist repression and occupation through negotiation and international consensus, not war or terrorism as falsely portrayed. Yet as international law allows, it strongly defends itself when attacked.

-- "Hamas has been designated by the Secretary of State as a Foreign Terrorist Organization."

Fact Check

True because any organization or group opposing imperial aggression and dominance is so designated.

-- "Hamas has refused to comply with the requirements of the Quartet (the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations) that Hamas recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce violence, and agree to accept previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians."

Fact Check

Hamas repeatedly called for peace and an end of violence and expressed willingness to negotiate on the basis of "hudnah" or temporary truce. Its founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, said Hamas would end its liberating struggle "if the Zionists ended (their) occupation of Palestinian territories and stopped killing Palestinian women, children and innocent civilians." More recently, Hamas offered peace and Israeli recognition in return for a Palestinian state inside pre-1967 borders, its Occupied Territories.

-- "in June 2006, Hamas crossed into Israel, attacked Israeli forces and kidnapped Corporal Gilad Shalit, whom they continue to hold today."

Fact Check

On June 25, Palestinians, including Hamas, responded to repeated Israeli attacks by striking an Israeli military post near Kerem Shalom crossing, southeast of Rafah, killing two IDF soldiers, injuring several others, and capturing (not kidnapping) a third, corporal Shalit. Israel's long-planned Operation Summer Rain followed resulting in mass killings and destruction ahead of its horrendous July war on Lebanon, causing over 1,000 deaths and destruction comparable to Operation Cast Lead.

-- "Hamas has launched thousands of rockets and mortars since Israel dismantled settlements and withdrew from Gaza in 2005."

Fact Check

Many dozens, not thousands, of crude homemade rockets and mortars were used only in self-defense in response to repeated Israeli attacks with the most technologically advanced weapons, mostly from Washington, including F-16s, helicopter gunships, and powerful munitions, some clearly illegal.

House and Senate resolutions also cite, but don't substantiate, Iranian help; Hamas locating "elements of its terrorist infrastructure in civilian population centers, thus using innocent civilians as human shields," a practice Israel has used for decades; the threat "hundreds of thousands of Israelis" face from rocket attacks, giving them no alternative but to respond.

Dismissive about Gaza's two and a half year siege, the resolutions stress how "Israel has facilitated humanitarian aid to Gaza with over 500 trucks and numerous ambulances entering the Gaza Strip since December 26, 2008."

It also says "the ultimate goal of the United States is a sustainable resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will allow for a viable and independent Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the State of Israel...."

Fact Check

After Hamas' democratic January 2006 election, Israel, with Western support, collectively punished Gazans maliciously. It denied all outside aid, imposed an embargo and sanctions, and stepped up repression, repeated attacks, killings, targeted assassinations, and property destruction, followed by a medieval siege since June 2007 causing grave humanitarian harm by restricting essential to life foods, medicines, and medical equipment as well as electricity, fuel, construction materials, and virtually everything needed to function normally.

Israel facilitates misery, not humanitarian aid, peace or Palestinian self-determination it's spent decades to deny through violence, intimidation, naked aggression, confrontation over diplomacy and peaceful coexistence, and what scholar Joel Kovel calls "a machine for the manufacture of human rights abuses," facilitated by Washington's financial, military, and political support.

Ending "America's last taboo" is the way forward toward a viable, sustainable Middle East peace, possible only when 42 years of occupation end and Palestinians are again free - so far, what Israel and Washington won't allow or even consider.

The 2009 Hate Crimes Prevention Act

The Department of Justice FBI web site (fbi.gov) defines them as follows:

"A hate crime, also known as a bias crime, is a criminal offense committed against a person, property, or society that is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin."

On April 29, the House passed HR 1913: Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 "To provide Federal assistance to States, local jurisdictions, and Indian tribes to prosecute hate crimes, and for other purposes."

On April 28, S 909: Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act was introduced "to provide Federal assistance to States, local jurisdictions, and Indian tribes to prosecute hate crimes, and for other purposes."

On July 15, 2009, the measure was adopted as an amendment to S 1390, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010. On July 23, the full measure passed.

On October 8, the House passed HR 2647: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 containing hate crimes prevention provisions.

On October 22, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed, then on October 28, it became law after president Obama signed it. A same day New York Times Jeff Zeleny article titled, "Obama Signs Hate Crimes Bill" said it:

"expands the definition of violent federal hate crimes to those committed because of a victim's (actual or perceived) sexual orientation (or identity). Under existing federal law, hate crimes are defined as those motivated by the victim's race, color, religion or national origin," even though, short of reading an offender's mind, there's no way to know if a crime was committed for other reasons besides "hate."

Further, the bill doesn't repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, banning gays from the military if they admit their sexual orientation, or the Defense of Marriage Act, defining legal marriage to be between a man and a woman.

In addition, it doesn't address universal civil and human rights; patients' rights to effective health care; students' rights to a good education to the highest level; and everybody's right to the essentials of life, including safe food, water, and clean air; adequate shelter; full protection under the law; and democracy for everyone, not just the elite few.

Nonetheless, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group praised the bill as the "nation's first major piece of civil rights legislation" for LGBT. Others called it advancing civil rights, but critics expressed concerns.

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a conservative legal alliance partnered with over 300 ministries and organizations, fears that pastors calling homosexuality a sin may be linked to a hate crime if a parishioner harms someone for their sexual orientation. ADF says it's seen:

"evidence of where 'hate crimes' legislation leads when it has been tried around the world: It paves the way for the criminalization of speech that is not deemed 'politically correct.' (These laws) fly in the face of the underlying purpose of the First Amendment, which was designed specifically to protect unpopular speech."

Others fear an attack on dissent against anyone expressing politically unpopular views at a time of disdain for human rights and eroding civil liberties putting everyone at risk.

The new law, however, prosecutes "crimes of violence," defined by section 16, title 18, US code as:

(a) "an offense that has an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another, or

(b) any other offense that is a felony and that, by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense."

Whether new measures will follow bears watching given a severe economic crisis and the fragility of American democracy at a time it's transitioning toward a full-blown police state with noted trends watchers like Gerald Celente predicting the "greatest depression" unleashing violence, street crime, and mass civil unrest because "when people lose everything, and they have nothing else to lose, they lose it."

If so, government repression will follow with harsh police state measures because when powerful people fear losing what's taken them decades to achieve, they'll do anything to defend it, including criminalizing protected speech, dissent, and whatever threatens their privilege or important allies, none more valued than Israel.

- Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact him at: lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.