Iraq Under Occupation
February 25, 2008
If you’re sitting with your boot on somebody’s neck, you’re going to hate him, because that’s the only way that you can justify what you’re doing, so subjugation automatically yields racism, and you can’t overcome that. Furthermore, anti-Arab racism is rampant in the United States and much of the West, there’s no question about that. The only kind of racism that can be openly expressed with outrage is anti-Arab racism. You don’t put caricatures of blacks in the newspapers any more; you do put caricatures of Arabs. Chomsky excerpt from Chronicles of Dissent, 1992
Letters from Beirut: War of 33
February 25, 2008
A new documentary by the excellent Big Noise Films company: makers of, among other things, The Forth World War.
‘The War of 33′ – An intimate, personal and powerful telling of the story of the 2006 war in Lebanon. A series of letters written by Hanady Salman – a mother living through the war in Beirut – carve a narrative arc through the intense and haunting images of conflict. She tells the stories of her family and the people she lives the war with the refugees, the wounded, and the everyday Lebanese, struggling to maintain their sanity and their humanity during a time of war. The War of 33 is more than a document of a particular historical experience. What emerges is a universal story – a complex picture of love, pain, resistance and survival in the face of uncertainty and violence.
Ralph Nader on Obama and Israel-Palestine
February 25, 2008
Kosovo and the Question of Palestine
February 25, 2008
Ali Abunimah of the excellent Electronic Intifada on the Kosova precedent.
Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence has produced a range of reactions among Israeli and Palestinian observers that reveal their anxieties about their respective situations. An editorial in the Israeli daily Haaretz called on the Israeli government to immediately recognize Kosovo, arguing that “the struggle of the persecuted Kosovar people for independence is reminiscent of the struggles by other nations for the right of self-determination.” Of course Haaretz was not talking about the Palestinians, but about the “State of Israel, which was established in the wake of the Jewish people’s struggle for self-determination” (“Recognize Kosovo,” Haaretz, 18 February 2008).
Report finds Palestinians are ‘Normal’
February 25, 2008
Who would have thought? A team of researchers from Canada have found that Palestinian suicide bombers are not psychologically unstable. Their study showed that the bombers are often motivated by personal venegence over religious zeal and that the Israel Palestine conflict is therefore not a religious conflict at its core – its primarily a territorial dispute. Their findings act as further argument against Western States copying Israel’s “counter terror” methods as they discovered that Israeli security motivated State repression often is a driver for terrorism rather than the cure.
TORONTO – In an extensive study of Palestinian suicide bombings, three University of Toronto researchers have concluded that the bombers were not psychologically unstable and were often motivated by personal vengeance, not religious zeal.
The study was carried out by political sociologist Robert Brym, with the assistance of two Ph.d students, Palestinian Bader Araj and Israeli Yael Maoz-Shai.
Writing in the academic journal Social Forces, Brym noted, “The organizers of suicide attacks don’t want to jeopardize their missions by recruiting unreliable people. It may be that some psychologically unstable people want to become suicide bombers, but insurgent organizations strongly prefer their cannons fixed.”
If Kosovo, Why Not Palestine?
February 24, 2008
The Mosaic Intelligence Report examines several statements from Palestinian officials and asks whether the Palestinians, with their own unique problems, are planning to follow Kosovo’s example by making a unilateral declaration of independence. (via TruthDig)
Obama: Good for the Jews?
February 24, 2008
‘Hillary Clinton’s surrogates are questioning Obama’s commitment to U.S.-Israel relations’, Michael Hirsh and Dan EphronNewsweek report in . This of course with present Obama with another opportunity to sing Ha’Tikva. Most of the times when people speak about the Israel Lobby, they ignore individuals like Ann Lewis, who has flawless liberal, feminist, antiwar credentials. It is as much the ‘antiwar’ liberal types as AIPAC itself that enforce the Zionist orthodoxy. And of course when all else fails, you call in the Grand Wizard, Abe Foxman himself, who this time has outed Hugo Chavez as an ‘antisemite’. Following is a good case study in Ziolib strong arming of the US political establishment.
The comment seemed like a casual aside. Ann Lewis, a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton, was touting the New York senator’s strong support for Israel during a conference call in January with leaders of major American Jewish organizations. During the call, Lewis energetically contrasted Clinton’s pro-Israel credentials with those of Barack Obama. To make her point, she said that Obama’s “chief foreign-policy adviser” is Zbigniew Brzezinski, says one participant who would talk about the call only if he were not identified.
Brzezinski—the former national-security adviser to Jimmy Carter—is not Obama’s “chief foreign-policy adviser.” That is the job of a triumvirate who once worked for Bill Clinton: Anthony Lake, Susan Rice and Greg Craig. But Brzezinski, who tells NEWSWEEK he has advised Obama “only on occasion,” has a reputation that is close to toxic in the American Jewish community. “When Brzezinski’s name appears on an advisory list, that’s a red flag right away,” says an influential American Jewish leader who did not want to sour relations with the Obama campaign. Many American Jews mistrust Brzezinski because he endorsed a 2006 article, later a book, called “The Israel Lobby,” which blames many U.S. foreign-policy problems on Washington’s ties to Israel.
From Israeli Occupied Europe
February 24, 2008
Europe is ‘Heading for a New Security Deal with Israel‘, David Cronin of the excellent IPS reports. (Thanks Ann)
BRUSSELS, Feb 22 (IPS) – The European Union is considering new steps to deepen its cooperation on scientific research with Israel, despite admitting that previous funds earmarked for that purpose have gone to firms operating illegally in the Palestinian territories.
Between now and 2013, the Israeli government is to contribute 440 million euros (652 million dollars) per year so that it can participate in the EU’s so-called framework programme for research.
An unpublished document prepared by EU diplomats reveals that because much of the joint research will relate to security issues, Israel has requested a formal assurance that any information it gives to Brussels will be treated confidentially.
Read the rest of this entry »
Norman Finkelstein and the Lobby
February 23, 2008
Following is a response to something that has troubled me for some time. In the past few months Norman Finkelstein has been quoted in many places downplaying the influence of the Israel Lobby over US foreign policy. I saw his LSE lecture, and found his arguments on the subject remarkably unsophisticated, and at times downright disingenuous. Considering how many people are influenced by Finkelstein’s voice, I find this deeply damaging to the Palestinian cause in particular and the Middle East in general, as these arguments will be reproduced by the legions of Finkelstein’s admirers (I count myself as one). Mearsheimer and Walt along with Jimmy Carter have rendered an invaluable service, and results have already manifested themselves in the form of the NIE and the gradual opening up of the debate in the US. When it was merely characters like Joseph Massad, Stephen Zunes or As’ad AbuKhalil, I didn’t care much, as they are largely marginal figures and their views are of little consequence. But with Finkelstein and Chomsky the story is quite different. There are thousands who revere them, and of those a large percentage tend to accept uncritically everything they say. At the moment I am working on journal article where I will be addressing all the common objections to M&W coming from the Left. However, for now I am pleased to see that Philip Weiss — the finest blogger out there — has addressed Norman Finkelstein’s curious position on M&W in his usual thoughtful manner.
Finkelstein, a Victim of the Israel Lobby, Denies That It Has Power
Last fall, Norman Finkelstein lost his job at DePaul because of the Israel lobby. As he put it in his only statement on the matter:
[M]y department voted overwhelmingly to tenure me as did the college-level tenure committee, which voted unanimously in my favor. The only inference that I can draw is that I was denied tenure due to external pressures climaxing in a national hysteria that tainted the tenure process…. [over] the past six years….the DePaul administration kept me on its faculty despite overwhelming external pressures.”
Too true. Now Finkelstein is lecturing on how the Israel lobby is blown way out of proportion by Walt and Mearsheimer. He calls his lecture “A Critique of the Walt-Mearsheimer Thesis,” according to the California State University student newspaper, which summarized his argument after a lecture in Northridge, Ca., last week.
“Now to demonstrate that the U.S. allies with Israel distorts the American national interest, which is what Mearsheimer and Walt claim,” Finkelstein said. “You have to show that U.S. policy in the Arab world would be different were it not for Israel…but if you look at the historical record, there’s just no evidence for that.”
“When it comes to broad regional fundamental interests, Iraq, Iran, South Arabia oil, it is U.S. national interests that take priority,” he said. “When it comes to a local question like Israel and occupied territories, there I think it is a true that it’s the lobby that is destroying U.S. policy because the obvious question you would ask yourself is, I think, ‘What does the U.S. stand to gain from the settlements that Israel is building?’ The answer quite obviously is nothing.”
Finkelstein also said that he does not put much stock in “ethnic” allegiances and went on to say that Walt and Mearsheimer were wrong in putting the blame for the Iraq War on Jewish neocons:
“The main architects of the war are always said to be Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney,” Finkelstein said. “Well everyone in this room knows Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney are not Jewish and they don’t fit the profile of these Jewish neoconservatives. So how do Mearsheimer and Walt reconcile? (Rumsfeld and Cheney) are obviously not Jewish neoconservatives, and yet you say it was the Jewish neoconservatives who caused the war?”
These arguments are entirely unpersuasive. Let’s take them on.
The Myth of the Surge
February 23, 2008
‘Hoping to turn enemies into allies, U.S. forces are arming Iraqis who fought with the insurgents,’ reports Nir Rosen from the front lines of the new Iraq. ‘But it’s already starting to backfire.’
Click here to see more photos taken by Danfung Dennis for this feature It’s a cold, gray day in December, and I’m walking down Sixtieth Street in the Dora district of Baghdad, one of the most violent and fearsome of the city’s no-go zones. Devastated by five years of clashes between American forces, Shiite militias, Sunni resistance groups and Al Qaeda, much of Dora is now a ghost town. This is what “victory” looks like in a once upscale neighborhood of Iraq: Lakes of mud and sewage fill the streets. Mountains of trash stagnate in the pungent liquid. Most of the windows in the sand-colored homes are broken, and the wind blows through them, whistling eerily. House after house is deserted, bullet holes pockmarking their walls, their doors open and unguarded, many emptied of furniture. What few furnishings remain are covered by a thick layer of the fine dust that invades every space in Iraq. Looming over the homes are twelve-foot-high security walls built by the Americans to separate warring factions and confine people to their own neighborhood. Emptied and destroyed by civil war, walled off by President Bush’s much-heralded “surge,” Dora feels more like a desolate, post-apocalyptic maze of concrete tunnels than a living, inhabited neighborhood. Apart from our footsteps, there is complete silence. Read the rest of this entry »
