Israeli Strip Searches
August 3, 2008
Letting AP in on the Secret – the indefatigable Alison Weir who last year had produced an important report on the Israeli strip searching of children follows up with more on the IOF’s sordid practices.
On June 26th a young Palestinian photojournalist named Mohammed Omer was returning home from a triumphant European tour.
In London he had been awarded the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for journalism – the youngest recipient ever and one of the few non-Britons ever to receive the prestigious prize.
In Greece he had been given the 2008 journalism award for courage by the Union of Greek Journalists and had been invited to speak before the Greek parliament.
In Britain, the Netherlands, Greece, and Sweden he had met with Parliament Members and been interviewed on major radio and TV stations.
In the US several years before, he had been named the first recipient of the New America Media’s Best Youth Voice award.
New actor on the same old stage
August 2, 2008
‘If Obama is elected he will be enmeshed in the Middle East tragedy and forced to take sides,’ writes Robert Fisk.
I was in the studios of al-Jazeera – the Qatar satellite channel so democratic in the eyes of Colin Powell that Bush later wanted to bomb it – while Barack Obama was performing his theatricals in the Middle East. “Theatre” is what I called it on air while the anchor desperately tried to suck some Arab hope out of the whole ridiculous fandango. No such luck, I told him. It isn’t going to make the slightest difference to the Arabs whether Obama or McCain wins.
Westerners believe that Obama appeals to the Arabs because of his middle name or because he’s black. Untrue. They like him – or liked him – because he grew up poor. Like them, he understood – or rather, they thought he understood – what oppression was about. But they quickly found out where they stood in the food chain. Forty-five minutes in Ramallah vs 24 hours in Israel was the Obama equation. Yes, I know the old saw. Every US presidential candidate has to make the pilgrimage to the Wailing Wall, to Yad Vashem, to some Israeli town or village that has taken casualties (albeit minuscule in comparison to those visited upon the Palestinians), to talk about Israel’s security, etc. That doesn’t mean, we are always told, that Israel is going to have it easy once the US president is elected. Wrong. Israel is going to have it easy. Because no sooner is he elected than he will be enmeshed in the Middle East tragedy and be forced to take sides – Israel’s, of course – and then it will be time for the next election, so the president’s hands will be tied again and he’ll be talking about Israel’s security (rather than Palestinian security) and we’ll be back on the same old itinerary.
Truth and Consequences Under the Israeli Occupation
August 1, 2008
The life and work of Mohammed Omer, the brilliant young Palestinian journalist and winner of the Martha Gellhorn award for 2008, sheds light on the violence in Israel’s “dual” society. (thanks Paulo)
This summer, at age 24, I was honored to learn that I had become the youngest journalist to receive the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, named for the famed American war reporter and awarded to journalists who counter propaganda with the truth. Although Israel has sealed Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinians in what many now call the world’s largest open-air prison, Dutch MP Hans Van Baalen lobbied the Israeli government to let me leave Gaza to receive my award in person. Upon my return from London, I was surrounded by Israeli security officers. I was stripped naked at gunpoint, interrogated, kicked and beaten for more than four hours. At one point I fainted and then awakened to fingernails gouging at the flesh beneath my eyes. An officer crushed my neck beneath his boot and pressed my chest into the floor. Others took turns kicking and pinching me, laughing all the while. They dragged me by my feet, sweeping my head through my own vomit. I lost consciousness. I was told later that they transferred me to a hospital only when they thought I might die.
Today, I have difficulty breathing. I have abrasions and scratches on my chest and neck. My hands don’t function well; typing is difficult. My doctor informed me that due to nerve damage from one kick, I may be unable to father children and will need to have an operation.
Neocon Flap Highlights Jewish Divide
July 31, 2008
The neocon-Joe Klein flap continues. Philip Weiss has a follow up:
Joe Klein is on fire, as they say. Here he is letting it rip again on the neocons and apologizing for supporting the Iraq war. Here are Josh Marshall and Jed Lewison standing up for him. And here is former Bush aide Peter Wehner being lawyerly and sanctimonious about him at the National Review, saying Klein shouldn’t blog, he’s too wild. Oh my– Klein should keep blogging this subject, he’s starting the conversation we’ve all been waiting for. Time Magazine should sense the moment and put the issue on the cover–Zionist claims on American Jews. And Klein should level with us, Did his own “strong” support for Israel affect his bad judgment on Iraq?’.
Today the story is also covered by Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe in the excellent IPS. Also check out Jim Lobe’s post laying out the context for this feud.
WASHINGTON, Jul 30 (IPS) – A mushrooming media controversy pitting neoconservatives against a prominent Jewish-American political commentator could mark a new stage in the growing battle over who speaks for the U.S. Jewish community on foreign policy issues, particularly regarding the Middle East.
TIME columnist Joe Klein’s accusations that Jewish neoconservatives, who played a particularly visible role in the drive to war in Iraq and have since pushed for military confrontation in Iran, sacrificed “U.S. lives and money…to make the world safe for Israel” have spurred angry charges of anti-Semitism and personal attacks from critics at such neoconservative strongholds as the Weekly Standard, National Review, and Commentary.
But the fierceness of the controversy surrounding Klein, generally considered a political centrist, highlights the growing antagonism between neo-conservative hardliners and prominent U.S. Jews whose more moderate views are aligned more closely with those of the foreign policy establishment.
Israel Shoots Dead Nine-year-old Boy
July 31, 2008
The Mearsheimer and Walt Effect
July 30, 2008
In just two years John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have had more of an impact on the debate over US Middle East policy than the so-called Left has in the past twenty (Mostly because with few exceptions, the left studiously avoids specifics in favour of dogma-sanctioned generalities; slogans and rhetoric in place of analysis). The space that they have created has not only empowered others to speak out, but has also put enough heat on the lobby that some of its erstwhile fellow-travelers feel compelled to decry its excesses, if only to make its influence sustainable over a longer term. So it was that we had Joe Klein — an avowed Zionist, and author of the Clinton election roman a clef, Primary Colors – come out indicting the Jewish neoconservatives with ‘divided loyalties’ for leading US into the war in Iraq. Denunciations were issued from the usual quarters led predictably by the ubiquitous Abe Foxman of the ADL. Klein refused to back down. And now we have one of the war’s boosters, Jeffrey Goldberg, interviewing Klein where despite his generally hawkish Zionist views, he speaks out against the possibility of a new neoconservative misadventure.
Philip Weiss, by far the finest blogger, has already done a fine job of parsing the interview and offering his insights.
Klein and Goldberg Establish Code for Critiquing Neocons’ Religious Agenda: 1, Be Jewish…
Jeffrey Goldberg has a great interview with Joe Klein on his blog, remarkable for a few things. First you see Klein unbound. He’s really smart. He stands by his criticism of Jewish neocons as having dual loyalties and then sounds the realist when he says that Iran is seeking nukes as a deterrent against western threats
I think that my reading on the nuclear issue is, given the level of threats that they’ve been getting from the United States, and from Israel, it’s a logical thing for Iran to want nuclear weapons as a deterrent. I don’t think they’d ever actually use it. First of all, they don’t actually have it, but if they did have it, they’d contaminate at the very least the third most holy site in Islam, and they’d kill a hell of a lot of Muslims.
Brilliant. Klein also opens up the essential conversation that I have been calling for for years, for non-neocon Jews to dime out the neocons’ religious agenda in the Middle East.
Acts of War
July 29, 2008
‘The war between the US and Iran is already on,’ writes Scott Ritter.
The war between the United States and Iran is on. American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities which result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned and Americans were being subjected to Iranian-funded covert actions which took the lives of Americans, on American soil, and destroyed American property and livelihood. Many Americans remain unaware of what is transpiring abroad in their name. Many of those who are cognizant of these activities are supportive of them, an outgrowth of misguided sentiment which holds Iran accountable for a list of grievances used by the U.S. government to justify the ongoing global war on terror. Iran, we are told, is not just a nation pursuing nuclear weapons, but is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world today.
Much of the information behind this is being promulgated by Israel, which has a vested interest in seeing Iran neutralized as a potential threat. But Israel is joined by another source, even more puzzling in terms of its broad-based acceptance in the world of American journalism: the Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group sworn to overthrow the theocracy in Tehran. The CIA today provides material support to the actions of the MEK inside Iran. The recent spate of explosions in Iran, including a particularly devastating “accident” involving a military convoy transporting ammunition in downtown Tehran, appears to be linked to an MEK operation; its agents working inside munitions manufacturing plants deliberately are committing acts of sabotage which lead to such explosions. If CIA money and planning support are behind these actions, the agency’s backing constitutes nothing less than an act of war on the part of the United States against Iran.
Obama and Palestine
July 28, 2008
Mustafa Barghouti: Obama needs to see real life in Palestine
More here.
Justice Israeli Style
July 27, 2008
Remember the IOF officer who put 20 bullets through the head of a 13 year old Palestinian school-girl and declared he would have done no different even if she were 3? Under adverse publicity Israel imprisoned him only to be released a few months later with a compensation of $17,000 for the distress caused him. A few days back another shot a handcuffed and blind-folded Palestinian point-blank and Israel appears so confident of Western media’s discipline in ignoring its crimes that it did not even wait weeks to release him.
‘Soldier filmed shooting bound Palestinian released from detention’, reports Haaretz. (via Norman Finkelstein)
The soldier was arrested Sunday, but the defense asked for his release saying he did not pose a danger to anyone.
During the course of the investigation, the commander, seen in the video holding the Palestinian detainee, was also questioned. Military sources said that the commander was surprised by the shooting and that the incident had likely resulted from a misunderstanding between the soldier and the officer.
The incident occurred July 7 during protests in the village of Na’alin against the construction of Israel’s barrier in the West Bank.
The protester, Abu-Rahama, 27, had been tied up and blindfolded and was standing only a few centimeters away. Abu-Rahama told B’Tselem that he was beaten by the soldiers and then herded by soldiers and officers into a military jeep.
