here's what you can do

2nd May: Note, I'm keeping this at the top of my blog for a while. New entries are below.
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I received this from J Street last night, a group that defines itself as the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement.

J Street represents Americans, primarily but not exclusively Jewish, who support Israel and its desire for security as the Jewish homeland, as well as the right of the Palestinians to a sovereign state of their own - two states living side-by-side in peace and security. We believe ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the best interests of Israel, the United States, the Palestinians, and the region as a whole.

They are by no means as powerful as AIPAC (who is?), but they have some influence. They are not as liberal as Mondoweiss, Silverstein, or Jewish Voice for Peace. However, the following is definitely worth reading and acting upon, particularly for those who would like to see a little less war in the Middle East rather than more.

The battle lines are emerging clearly around President Barack Obama's Middle East agenda - and we need your help.

The President intends to achieve a negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his first term and to address the challenges Iran poses through diplomacy.

His opponents, meanwhile, are trying to rally Congress to thwart his agenda. With one hand they're opposing the President's proposed approach to working with a possible Palestinian unity government; with the other, they are proposing aggressive new sanctions on Iran just as diplomatic outreach begins.

If you're one of President Obama's supporters on the Middle East, Congress needs to hear from you right now.

Click here to your representatives in Congress that you support President Obama's policy in the Middle East - both on the Arab-Israeli conflict and on Iran.

Some in Congress may consider opposing the President under the false impression that that's what Jewish Americans and other friends of Israel want.

They're wrong.

In fact, over 70% of Jewish Americans support President Obama's handling of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Middle East. [1]

Here's what's happening with the President's agenda in Congress right now:

On Iran, the President is promoting tough, direct diplomacy to address concerns over their nuclear program, support for Hamas and Hezbollah, and threats against Israel. The President has made clear that the diplomatic road ahead will be tough - but the chances of success won't be helped by Congress imposing tight timelines or a new round of sanctions at this moment.

Yet, just this week, the Orwellian-named "Iran Diplomacy Enhancement Act" was introduced in the House - a bill that in reality does nothing to "enhance diplomacy" but instead imposes further sanctions on Iran, directly undercutting the President's diplomatic message. [2]

When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the President is moving clearly to promote a two-state solution - including support for Palestinian institution-building and for urgent humanitarian needs - all part of the proposal first made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to provide $900 million in aid to the Palestinians.

Not only will this assistance help alleviate human suffering in Gaza, rebuild its infrastructure, and revive its stalled economy, but it is also structured in a way that could enable the U.S. to work with a Palestinian unity government that meets relevant criteria, an important building block for advancing Israeli-Arab peace.

The opposition is going to be intense. Just last week, for instance, Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) attacked the President's request as allowing support for Palestinian "Nazis." [3]

Yet, according to recent polls, 69% of Israelis and American Jews would support dealing with a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas. [4]

We oppose and condemn Hamas' use of terror and violence to achieve political ends.

Along with the majority of American Jews and Israelis, we also recognize that resolving this conflict may require bringing those who have used violence into a political process, one aim of which is to end their armed resistance.

This strategy has been met with some success in Lebanon, where America works with a government that now includes Hezbollah, in Iraq where we work with the Sunni Awakening, and of course in Northern Ireland.

President Obama intends to reverse years of diplomatic neglect in the Middle East, aiming for nothing less than historic progress to finally resolve historic conflicts.

But President Obama needs our political support to put his agenda into action. That's why - on both issues - we're asking you to step to the plate now to support President Obama's vision for U.S. policy in the Middle East.

http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/2747/t/3251/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=2723

Our success will depend on our ability to generate thousands of messages to Congress in a matter of hours - so, after you've taken action, make sure to forward this message to your friends and family that might be interested.

Thanks so much for all you do.

- Isaac

Isaac Luria
Campaigns Director
J Street
April 30, 2009

[1] "J Street's Polling on American Jews' Views on US Role in Middle East." Accessed April 30, 2009.
[2] "Kirk, Sherman want more sanctions," by Eric Fingerhut. JTA News Service. April 22, 2009.
[3] "Obama move alarms Israel supporters," by Paul Richter. Los Angeles Times. April 27, 2009.
[4] "Poll: American Jews Strongly Support Obama, Israeli-Palestinian Peace Settlement," by Dan Gilgoff. God and Country. March 23, 2009.

To counter J-Street's letter here is this article in the JTA urging people to:

constructively express their deep concern about the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran[.]

Write and call the White House, the State Department and congressional offices, not just once but again and again; publish letters to the editor and op-ed pieces; encourage the convening of forums on Iran in synagogues and communal organizations; ask stock brokers whether they have terror-free investment options and support appropriate divestment initiatives; discuss with and send e-mails to your friends, neighbors and business associates; sign the petition on the Web site of United Against a Nuclear Iran and join its Facebook group; and contact your local community relations committee to learn what other steps can be taken.

Read the whole thing. Do you really want to be dragged into another war? There is also this from American, Stephen Walt on this approach to foreign policy (my emphasis).

I was reminded of Iklé’s insights when I read about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ideas for resuming the peace process with the Palestinians. Netanyahu clearly wants to avoid an open rift with the Obama administration, which has forcefully reiterated its commitment to negotiating a two-state solution. To do that, he has to pay lip service to the peace process. But because Netanyahu has long opposed the creation of a viable Palestinian state and instead wants to extend Israel's control of the West Bank, he has to lay out a set of demands that will endlessly delay the process and make it hard for Obama to put meaningful pressure on him.

According to Ha'aretz, Netanyahu will insist that the Palestinians go beyond their prior recognition of Israel's right to exist (as expressed in the 1993 Oslo Accord) and explicitly recognize Israel as a "Jewish state." Furthermore, he wants the United States to agree that a future Palestinian state be barred from possessing its own army and forbidden from making alliances with other countries, while Israel is permitted to monitor its borders, its airspace, and its use of the electromagnetic spectrum, presumably in perpetuity. In the meantime, the expansion of Israeli settlements will surely continue, and in ways that will soon preclude any possibility of a territorially contiguous state on the West Bank. Lastly, Netanyahu wants to link progress toward a two-state solution with an end to Iran's nuclear program. As I've noted before, this condition would allow Tehran -- purposely or inadvertently -- to derail a two-state solution by stonewalling on the nuclear issue. Ironically, this outcome might suit Iran and Netanyahu alike: Israel could keep expanding settlements and the Islamic Republic could continue to play the Palestine card against its Arab rivals.

My question is this: What is Netanyahu thinking? Doesn't he realize that time has nearly run out for the two-state solution, and that failure to achieve it is by far the most serious threat facing Israel? The prime minister and his allies keep harping about an "existential" threat from Iran, but this bogeyman is mostly nonsense. Iran has zero -- repeat, zero -- nuclear weapons today, and even if it were to acquire a few at some point in the future, it could not use them against nuclear-armed Israel without committing national suicide. Let me say that again: national suicide.

And could someone please explain to Netanyahu that a group of devout Muslim clerics aren't likely to fire warheads at a land that contains the third holiest site in Islam? Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said some remarkably foolish things about the Holocaust and repeatedly questioned Israel's legitimacy (as in his oft-mistranslated statement about Israel "vanishing from the page of time"), but he's never threatened to murder millions of Israelis (and Palestinians) with nuclear weapons. Just last weekend, he even told ABC's George Stephanopolous that if the Palestinians reached an agreement with Israel, then Iran would support it. Moreover, as Roger Cohen has noted, there is no evidence that Ahmadinejad has any particular animus toward Iran's own Jewish community. Despite his many offensive statements, in short, Ahmadinejad is not Adolf Hitler and we are not living in the 1930s.

The real threat to Israel's future is the occupation, and the conflict with the Palestinians that it perpetuates. To see that, all you have to do is look at current demographic trends and poll results and then ponder the consequences for Israel. There are presently about 5.6 million Jews in "Greater Israel," (i.e., the 1967 borders plus the West Bank) and about 5.2 million Arabs (of whom nearly 1.5 million are citizens of Israel). Palestinian birth rates are substantially higher, however, which means they will be a majority of the population in "Greater Israel" in the not-too-distant future. To put it bluntly, it is Palestinian wombs and not Iranian bombs that pose the real threat read more.

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An update on this picture from a previous post:

Remember this? I posted it on the 15th of April. A group in New Mexico, including some Jewish members, paid to put up posters urging Americans to stop supporting human rights abuses in the occupied territories with their tax dollars.


Maybe three weeks was enough time for the message to etched into people's minds, or for parties who don't mind their tax dollars going towards this, protesting and having them pulled down:


Each little step forward is a thousand steps back. From Muzzlewatch who got the information from Mondoweiss (my computer doesn't like Mondoweiss when I use IE, so excuse me for not linking there directly) (my emphasis):

Mondoweiss reports:

A few week ago we posted about ten billboards going up around Albuquerque, NM calling for congress to cut off aid to Israel. They were put up by The Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel, a multi-ethnic, multi-religious coalition working to “end to the ten year commitment of $30 billion in U.S. taxpayer-funded military aid pledged to Israel in 2007 by the Bush administration.” Today, the coalition sent out a press release saying that although Lamar Outdoor Advertising had signed a contract to run the billboards for eight weeks, they care coming down after three. From the press release:

On April 8th, the Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel erected the billboards throughout the Albuquerque area in order to inform the public about the misuse of their tax dollars, denominated in human lives. The group was motivated by concern for the Palestinian people who had recently been subjected to a massive invasion of the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military. Over 1,400 Palestinians – mostly civilian, including three hundred children – were killed and over 5,000 were injured. In 2007 the Bush administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion of U.S. taxpayer dollars to Israel over a ten year period beginning in 2008. The majority of these dollars will be used to purchase American-made weapons.

The design of the billboard had been approved by Lamar and the billboards’ wording and final image were suggested by Lamar’s graphics designer.

According to information from Lamar, it appears groups claiming to be pro-Israel have conducted a campaign to pressure Lamar to remove the billboards. The Coalition believes this is a deliberate attempt to silence its right to free speech because the humanitarian message of the billboards supports equal rights for the Palestinian people, thereby necessitating criticism of Israel.

lynch-pin or lynch-mob?

Remember, it is Jewish Voice for Peace who has posted the information this post is drawing on, and the quotes further on come from their MuzzleWatch site. The events that went on at Durban II, and the general co-ordinated campaign to both stifle voices concerned with human rights issues, and the promotion of sensationalistic scaremongering stereotypes of Muslims and countries which are predominantly Muslim is frightening. If a reporter in Iraq was imprisoned by the western-backed judiciary system for throwing shoes at then President George Bush II, then shouldn't those who donned clown wigs and attempted to throw red noses (yes, it sounds ludicrous, and that is the point) at President Ahmadinejad also face some form of punishment? Different countries, I know, but again, if one is punished for speaking out against an inflicter of crimes against humanity, then shouldn't the principle be blanket, or at least the recognition of the actions of the leaders, and the consequences of those actions? Personally, I think neither of the protesters should be punished, except for a possible fine and removal, and revocation of accreditation (in the case of the group at Geneva), keeping within the United Nation's Durban policy rules (particularly as Palestinian groups were totally denied a voice) as initially (in the case of revocation) occurred. But, what was the real motivation of the clowns?

If I were American, and particularly if I were any minority group in America that was not Jewish, I would be angry, frustrated and scared that my voice was being taken away from me by actions such as from the group above and from the kinds of actions detailed in the quotes at the end of this paragraph. Likewise, in Australia, Tom Calma, who is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and acting Race Discrimination Commissioner, was criticised for going to the Durban anti-racism conference because it was claimed he would upset the local Jewish community, which is not necessarily true, as I have outlined in previous posts. Note, the paper that article is pulled from is a Murdoch rag, and it makes no mention at all of Calma's ethnicity,and why it might be very much within his role and interests to attend a conference that was all about dealing with racism.

From Muzzlewatch (my emphasis):

The head of an official NGO alliance at the UN told me groups have an agreement not to protest inside of the United Nations, and that if they do, it is standard practice to revoke the group’s accreditation. When the UN tried to do just that to the European Union of Jewish Students, which disrupted the conference at various moments, the chair boasted that one threat to send out a press statement made all the difference:

Another student group, the European Union of Jewish Students, had learned April 21 that its accreditation was pulled after some members had yelled insults at Ahmadinejad from the gallery.

But the EUJS, which also has formal, permanent accreditation to the United Nations, protested that the entire group shouldn’t be punished for the actions of a few. EUJS Chairman Jonas Karpantschof said he told U.N. officials he would issue a news release if the accreditation weren’t reinstated, and it soon was.

“It would have looked really bad,” he said, “for the U.N. to take away badges from Jewish students on Yom Hashoah at an anti-racism conference.”

Jordan himself feeds the dynamic in the same article, called “Malcolm X’s daughter: ‘Zionist agitators’ bothered at Durban II. The article comes complete with an angry looking photo of Malaak Shabazz, who complained about ““Zionist agitators” at one event who were ” juvenile, nasty and aggressive.” In fact, friends from Canada’s Independent Jewish Voices were in the room when the students were acting in threatening ways and stuck a camera right in Shabazz’s face. One can only assume that as Malcolm X’s daughter, an “angry black Muslim woman”, she was right out of central casting for a depiction of the scary, anti-Semitic, mean Durban Review delegates.

I went to an Israel rally where the audience was exhorted to yell, “I am a Zionist” half a dozen times. But Shabazz, who was literally right when she called these young students “Zionist agitators”, is now part of the massive anti-Jewish hate-fest because she used the phrase.

From the JTA article which MuzzleWatch references is this quote from Shabazz. The first sentence is important.

"People confuse Zionism with Judaism, and that's completely unfortunate," she said.

“The Zionists here are making people hate Jews,” Shabazz said. “I was unfamiliar with the tactics of Zionists. But I got a crash course on it here.”

For some of those tactics, there are further posts here, here, here and here from MuzzleWatch.

When I review history, I think the era of McCarthyism was one of the scariest in the U.S. It's not too hard to imagine McCarthyism, or anything similar, devolving into a new Cultural Revolution. One of my Chinese students told me that his grandfather had to go to jail every day, and then return home, during the Cultural Revolution, and from my readings on the frequent humiliations and abuses of the time, he got off lightly. Australia had similar policies to McCarthyism when our then prime minister, Robert Menzies, tried to outlaw communism .

Democracy really is about freedom of speech. It seems to be promoted as one of its lynch-pins. Within the academic circles, at least, within the U.S., it seems few can voice a criticism of Israel without being branded anti-Semitic (commentary here), and it seems that the same climate exists at some institutions in Australia. Something I was very surprised about, especially considering what a small, though vibrant, Jewish population we have. In fact, our Muslim population is far larger. Desmond Tutu was not allowed to speak at a university in St. Cloud, Minnesota, due to pressure from lobby groups (and the woman who organised for him to speak was fired). And as stated before, he is now being branded as racist for his views on the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Very worrying times.

Note: 1st May: Some interesting commentary on the endorsement of torture from some quarters.

Note: May 1st, from Counter Punch . The Cases of Margo Ramlal Nankoe, William Robinson, Nagesh Rao and Loretta Capeheart. The McCarthyism That Horowitz Built Dana L. Cloud, 30 April 2009.

hand in hand

Uri Avnery's latest column after a few jumps. Here is Ahmadinejad's speech, and here, here, here and here is some commentary on it, and also some commentary on some of his prior comments, (some commentary here on some of Hamas' previous statements, too). Considering Iran has just jailed some bloggers and sentenced them to lashes, and has also jailed an Iranian-American reporter on dubious charges, and these are some of the milder punishments it can and has meted out, he obviously is not the best person to be accusing others.

But, if at Davos, Peres can say None of the crossings between Gaza and Israel, vital crossings, were ever closed, if he can say There was never a day of starvation in Gaza, if he can puzzle over why rockets might be fired, and can deny that Palestinians live in an open air prison, and much more, just 10 days after the all-out carnage that the Israeli war on Gaza wrought, all to rapturous applause, and all to the members of nation states (apart from the Turkish Prime Minister) remaining firmly in their seats, then why was Ahmadinejad's speech so offensive? Particularly as he had, perhaps as a result of an appeal by the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon...[cut "The most poisonous phrases"]...of his speech - [read the article] at the last minute.

I don't think we should sit there if Idi Amin were telling us about the wonderful things his government had done for his people and the world either, all the while lecturing us on our wrongdoing, but if we sit there straight-faced listening to, and even applauding Peres' lies, then what the hell is the difference? Deny one group's suffering, such as the international community did at Davos, we may as well deny them all.

I think one has to keep in mind, too, at least according to Baer (I really need to read more), that Iran has rebuilt areas that Israel has destroyed, such as in Lebanon. To many people in the region, Israel has not done much to improve their quality of life, in fact, quite the opposite. I can't say that Iran promises to either, in the long run, nor that their actions are purely philanthropic, but they don't seem to be holding pre-emptive wars or wars of deterrence on the surrounding countries, ripping up infrastructure and building great walls, though I have no doubt that they have plenty of influence in those countries in many ways.

In addition if Israeli forces do the following:

AIC [alternative information center - and Israeli-Palestinian organistation] staff member Mohammad Abu Humus was taken from his home at 3am today by masked members of the Israeli security forces, who stormed and searched his home with drawn weapons. Abu Humus was subsequently brought before a judge, who acquiesced to the police request and extended his detention for 11 days. All of the material and evidence concerning Abu Humus is classified. Abu Humus is accused of involvement in unruly protests against Israeli military actions in Gaza, which he categorically denies, and the classified nature of the evidence for such a minor accusation calls into question the true motives of the Israeli authorities in the detention and interrogation of Abu Humus.

Abu Humus, 43 years old and a resident of the East Jerusalem village of Issawiya, is a long-time political and social activist in East Jerusalem. He is married to Wafa and has four small children, two daughters: Irfat (11) and Shahd (10) and two sons: Anas (8) and Majd (3). He has worked with the AIC since 2006

Attending the court hearing today were Abu Humus’ wife Wafa, members of the Alternative Information Center and additional residents of Issawiya, who came in support and solidarity with Abu Humus.

Wafa noted that “our children were terrified by the masked men with drawn weapons. I asked them how they expect us to live with them in love and respect, when they act like this? They don’t leave us any room for love,” added Wafa sadly.

The detention of Abu Humus is part of Israel’s wider campaign to repress the legitimate right of Palestinian residents and citizens of Israel to protest Israeli actions in Gaza and exercise their right to freedom of expression. Since the beginning of Israel’s military attacks on Gaza, more than 300 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have been detained, arrested and taken for interrogation by the Israeli security services. For the past several days, Israeli forces have entered Issawiya every night, detaining prominent political activists.

how is it any different from any other police state?

Not to say that Hamas forces and Fatah forces do not do the same or worse to their own people or each other's organisations - but one needs to look at cause and effect, and the west does not regard them as representatives of a democracy, yet, it claims that Israel is one.

Additionally, Avnery states that [n]ow [Ahmadinejad] wants to penetrate the Sunni Arab world in order to turn Iran into the dominant regional power. Baer (ex CIA and fluent in Arabic) does not deny these intentions, but seems to think that people should actually be looking at who wields more power, and claims that people should be looking more towards the words and actions of the Ayatollah Ali Hoseyni Khāmene’i than Ahmadinejad. Incidentally, Baer sees Israel and Iran working together quite well in the region, and sees them as natural allies, particularly as Iran seems to be as pragmatic as it is brutal. Israel still seems to be feeling its way on that score (at least on the pragmatism scale). Anyway, I do not really know that much about Iran, so I am just reporting Baer's sentiments as a prelude to Averny's column. It is as always pretty good. Have a read:

Can Two Walk Together?

25/04/09

I AM not saying that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an agent of the Mossad.

Absolutely not. I don’t want to be sued for libel.

I am only saying that were he an agent of the Mossad, he would not behave any differently.

And also: If he did not exist, the Mossad would have had to invent him.

Either way, the assistance he is giving to the government of Israel is invaluable.

LET’S LOOK at last week’s scandal.

Years ago, a conference against racism was convened by the UN in Durban, South Africa. It was natural that such a forum would denounce, among others, the Israeli government for its policy towards the Palestinians – the occupation, the settlements, the wall.

But the conference was not content with this. It turned into a platform for wild incitement against the State of Israel – and only against it. No other state in the world was denounced for violating human rights – and among the denouncers were some of the most obnoxious tyrants in the world.

When preparations were made for a second “Durban Conference”, this time in Geneva, the Israeli government did everything in its power to convince at least the countries of North America and Europe to boycott it. That was not so easy. Well before the start of the conference, the US succeeded in eliminating the reference to Israel in the draft of its final document (leaving only a reference to the resolutions of the first conference), and in the end it decided to boycott the conference anyway. But the European countries agreed to attend.

The Israeli government was anticipating the conference with great apprehension. The atrocities of the Gaza War have turned public opinion in many countries against Israel. The conference could become an outlet for these emotions. The brightest minds in Jerusalem were trying to find ways to prevent this.

And then along came Ahmadinejad. Since he was the only head of state to attend, the organizers could not prevent him from speaking first. He delivered a provocative speech – not being satisfied with criticizing Israel, his words dripped with unbridled hatred. That was a welcome pretext for the European representatives to get up and walk out in an impressive pro-Israeli demonstration. The conference became ridiculous.

If the “Elders of Zion” had planned the conference, it could not have ended better as far as the Israeli government is concerned.

ALL THIS happened on Holocaust Day, when Jews in Israel and all over the world commemorate the millions of victims of the genocide.

The memory of the Holocaust unites all the Jews in the world. Every Jew knows that if the Nazis had reached him, he, too, would have gone to the death camps. We, who were then living in Palestine, knew that if the German general Erwin Rommel had broken through the British lines at El Alamein, our fate would have been that of the Warsaw Ghetto.

All Jews feel that it is their moral duty to keep the memory of the victims alive. To this profound feeling there is added a political consideration: the memory of the Holocaust causes most Jews everywhere to support the State of Israel, which defines itself as the “State of the Shoa Survivors”.

But time passes and memories fade. There is a recurrent need for a present, actual enemy, a “Second Hitler”, who arouses all the latent fears lurking in the Jewish soul. Once it was Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, the “Egyptian Tyrant”. Then Yasser Arafat played this role. Nowadays there is Hamas, but that is hardly sufficient. No way to convince anyone that Hamas could possibly annihilate Israel.

Ahmadinejad is the ideal candidate. He is a consistent Holocaust denier. He declares that the “Zionist entity” must disappear from the map. He is working on the production of a nuclear bomb. This is serious – a few nuclear bombs on Israeli population centers can indeed wipe out Israel.

So we have a “Second Hitler”, who is planning a ”Second Holocaust”. Against him, all the Jews of the world can unite. What would we do without him?

THE PUTATIVE Iranian nuclear bomb fulfills another very important role. It is serving now as an instrument for the obliteration of the Palestinian problem.

Next month Netanyahu will present himself at the White House. That might turn out to be a fateful meeting. President Barack Obama may demand a clear commitment to start a peace process that will lead towards the creation of the Palestinian state. Netanyahu will make a desperate effort to avoid this, since peace would mean the evacuation of the settlements. If he agreed to this, his coalition would fall apart.

What to do? Thank God for the Iranian bomb! It constitutes an existential threat against Israel. It is self-evident that the Israeli Prime Minister should not be bothered with bagatelles like peace with the Palestinians when the Iranian nuclear sword is dangling above his head!

Netanyahu’s predecessors also used this ploy. Whenever somebody raises the matter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and demands that our government start real negotiations, freeze the settlements, dismantle the outposts, release prisoners, end the blockade on the population of the Gaza Strip, remove the roadblocks – the Iranian bomb appears ex machina. No time to think about anything else. The bomb heads our agenda. The bomb is our agenda.

There is a lot of irony in this. Iran has never been the least bit interested in the plight of the Palestinians. Ahmadinejad, too, doesn’t give a damn. Like all other Middle East governments he uses the Palestinian cause to further his own interests. Now he wants to penetrate the Sunni Arab world in order to turn Iran into the dominant regional power. For this purpose, he raises the banner of the Palestinian resistance. But for the time being, he has only succeeded in pushing the Sunni Arab regimes into the arms of Israel.

AHMADINEJAD’S MOST enthusiastic fans sit in the Ministry of Defense in Tel-Aviv. What would they do without him?

Every year, the struggle over the defense budget breaks out anew. This year, with the economic crisis, the debate will be even more acrimonious. Little Israel maintains one of the largest and most expensive military establishments in the world. Relative to the GNP (gross national product), we easily trump the United States, not to mention Europe.

Must one ask why? Israel is surrounded by enemies who are plotting to destroy us! True, Egypt is now the most loyal collaborator of Israel, Iraq has quit the game for the time being, Syria has long since ceased to be a threat. Jordan is humble, the Palestinian Authority dances to our tune. It is hard to justify a giant defense budget for fighting little Hizbullah and tiny Hamas.

But there is Iran, thank God. And there is the fearsome Iranian bomb. Here you have an honest to God existential danger. Our Air Force declares that it is ready to take off any day – no, any minute - and eradicate all the many Iranian nuclear installations.

For that they need money, lots of money. They need the most advanced airplanes in the world, each of which costs many, many millions. They need suitable equipment for reaching the targets and fulfilling the task. That is more important than education, health or welfare. After all, the Iranian bomb will kill all of us – including the children, the sick and the underprivileged. (The tycoons may perhaps succeed in getting out in time.)

The budget will be approved, but the flyers will not fly. It is not clear whether such an attack is at all feasible. Neither is it clear if it would significantly postpone the production of the bomb. But it is clear that such an attack is not possible politically: it cannot be executed without the express confirmation of the US, and there is no chance that this will be forthcoming. The attack would almost automatically cause the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which all the Gulf oil is shipped. That would be catastrophic, especially during a world-wide economic crisis, when a huge rise in the price of oil can cripple the already weakened economies. No, our valiant pilots will have to content themselves with bombing residential neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip.

IT COULD be argued: if Ahmadinejad behaves like a Mossad agent, Avigdor Lieberman behaves like an agent of Iranian intelligence.

I don’t say so, God forbid. I really don’t want to be sued for libel.

But Lieberman’s behavior is indeed – how to put it – slightly bizarre.

True, for a moment he looked like a winner. After he sent Hosny Mubarak to hell, the Israeli media reported that the most important Egyptian minister had met with him, shaken his hand and invited him to Egypt. Perhaps he wanted to show him around the Aswan dam, which Lieberman once wanted to bomb. But the next day a furious Mubarak reacted by denying the story and declaring that Lieberman will not be allowed to set foot on Egyptian soil.

In the meantime, an important newspaper in Russia published an interview with Lieberman, in which he asserted that “the US will accept all our decisions.” Meaning: we rule America, Obama will do as we tell him.

Such talk will not increase Israel’s popularity in the White House, to say the least. Especially just now, after it was disclosed that the Israeli Lobby, AIPAC, has asked a congresswoman to intervene in favor of two American Jews indicted for spying for Israel. In return, AIPAC promised to get the Congresswoman appointed as chairwoman of a very important committee. How? Simple: AIPAC will tell the majority leader of the House that if she does not comply. a Jewish billionaire will stop contributing to her election fund. Not a very savory disclosure.

In brief, the Iranian Ahmadinejad and the Israeli Lieberman are Siamese twins. The one needs the other. Lieberman rides on the Iranian bomb, Ahmadinejad rides on Israeli threats.

“Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” asked the prophet Amos (3:3). The answer is: Yes, indeed. These two can very well walk hand in hand without agreeing on anything.

what credibility?

In full, from the Guardian:

What credibility is there in Geneva's all-white boycott?

The Iranian president's repugnant rhetoric doesn't give Israel's sponsors the right to cry foul when it's called racist
Seumas Milne, 23 April 2009.


What do the US, Canada, ­Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Italy and Israel have in common? They are all either European or European-settler states. And they all decided to boycott this week's UN ­conference against racism in Geneva – even before Monday's incendiary speech by the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad which triggered a further white-flight walkout by representatives of another 23 European states.

In international forums, it's almost unprecedented to have such an ­undiluted racial divide of whites-versus-the-rest. And for that to happen in a global meeting called to combat racial hatred doesn't exactly augur well for future international understanding at a time when the worst economic crisis since the war is ramping up racism and xenophobia across the world.

Didn't Canada or Australia have anything to say about the grim condition of their indigenous people, you might wonder, or Italy and the Czech Republic about violent attacks on Roma people? Didn't any of the boycotters have a contribution to make about the rampant Islamophobia, resurgence of anti-semitism and scapegoating of migrants in their countries over the last decade?

The dispute was mainly about Israel and western fears that the conference would be used, like its torrid predecessor in Durban at the height of the Palestinian intifada in 2001, to denounce the Jewish state and attack the west over colonialism and the slave trade. In fact, although it was the only conflict mentioned in the final Durban declaration, the reference was so mild (recognising the Palestinian right to self-determination alongside Israel's right to security) that the then Israeli prime minister, ­Shimon Peres, called it "an accomplishment of the first order for Israel".

In this week's Geneva statement, Israel isn't mentioned at all. But the US bizarrely still used its reaffirmation of the anodyne Durban declaration to justify a boycott, to the anger of African American politicians such as Jesse Jackson and Barbara Lee, who chairs the US Congressional Black Caucus. In fact, like the other boycotting governments, the US administration had been intensely lobbied by rightwing pro-Israel groups, who had insisted long in advance that the conference would be a "hatefest".

Ahmadinejad's grandstanding played straight into that agenda. The most poisonous phrases in the printed version of his speech circulated by embassy officials referred to the Nazi genocide as "ambiguous and dubious" and claimed Zionist "penetration" of western society was so deep that "nothing can be done against their will". That a head of state of a country of nearly 70 million people is still toying with Holocaust denial and European antisemitic tropes straight out of the Tsarist antisemitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is not only morally repugnant and factually absurd. It's also damaging to the Palestinian cause by association, weakens the international support Iran needs to avert the threat of attack over its nuclear programme, and bolsters Israel's claims that it faces an existential threat.

But, perhaps as a result of an appeal by the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, Ahmadinejad dropped those provocations at the last minute. What in fact triggered the walkout of European Union ambassadors was his reference to Israel as a "totally racist regime", established by the western powers who had made an "entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering" and "in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe".

The rhetoric was certainly crude and inflammatory. Britain's foreign secretary David Miliband called it "hate-filled". But the truth is that throughout the Arab, Muslim and wider developing worlds, the idea that Israel is a racist state is largely uncontroversial. The day after Ahmadinejad's appearance, the Palestinian Authority foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, echoed the charge in the conference hall, describing Israeli occupation as "the ugliest face of racism". It's really not good enough for Britain's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Peter Gooderham – who led the Ahmadinejad walkout – to say of the charge of Israel's racism, "we all know it when we see it and it's not that".

This is a state, after all, created by European colonists, built on the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population, whose founding legal principles guarantee the right of citizenship to any Jewish migrant from anywhere in the world, while denying that same right to Palestinians born there along with their descendants. Of course, Israel is much else besides, and the Jewish cultural and historical link with Palestine is a ­profound one.

But even those Palestinians who are Israeli citizens face what the then Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert last year called "deliberate and ­insufferable" discrimination by a state which defines itself by ethnicity. For Palestinians in the occupied territories, ruled by Israel for most of the state's existence, where ­ethnic segregation and extreme ­inequality is ruthlessly enforced, the situation is far worse – even without the relentless military assaults and killings. And Israel now has a far-right ­government whose foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has said 90% of Israel's Arab citizens have "no place" in the country, should be forcibly "transferred", and only be allowed citizenship in exchange for an oath of loyalty to Israel as a Zionist Jewish state.

But if Lieberman had turned up to speak at the Geneva anti-racism conference, who believes that western delegates and ambassadors would have staged a walkout? Of course, there's a perfectly ­reasonable argument to be had about the nature of Israel's racism and whether it should be compared to apartheid, for example. But for western governments to hold up their hands in horror when Israel is described as a racist state has no global credibility whatever.

Israel's supporters often complain that, whatever its faults, it is singled out for attack while the crimes of other states and conflicts are ignored. To the extent that that's true in forums such as the UN, it's partly because Israel is seen as the unfinished business of European colonialism, along with the Middle East conflict's other special mix of multiple toxins. The Geneva boycotters, fresh from standing behind Israel's carnage in Gaza, are in denial about their own racism – and their continuing role in the tragedy of the Middle East.[My emphasis]

heroes who valiantly try to protect us, all of us

Definitely worth reading, from MuzzleWatch (which is a project of the Jewish Voice for Peace) at the Durban Conference
Gay Muslim filmaker Parvez Sharma is my hero.

And these pithy paragraphs from the latest entry on the distrust the writer has for the reporting of the first Durban conference. She says:

I don’t doubt there was anti-Semitic literature and language at Durban I. But was it 90% of the conference, or .09%? I have no way to know. I do know, however, that yesterday’s Sharansky, Voight, Dershowitz session, supposedly on anti-Semitism, was a tour de force of insulting and demeaning anti-Muslim/Arab stereotyping and callousness, infused with Islamophobia, and that not one media account will ever call it what it is. [Author's emphasis].

There’s simply no question that there are plenty of Arab and Muslim diplomats in particular who are more than happy to use their air time to go after Israel and ignore their own miserable human rights records. This is not news. And I’m sure that if you took enough time, you could find someone who supports Hamas, someone else who hates Jews, and someone else who hates women.

But where is the power? [my emphasis]. That, in some ways, is the only question that matters. And in the end, Israel continues to act with diplomatic impunity, thanks in large part to the US which protects it. That’s why a strong UN is a threat.[my emphasis]

The United Nations is not a corporate entity. It is a place where every country has some voice, though some-like the United States and other Security Council members- have much much stronger voices than others. At a conference like this, the representatives of those countries, no matter how vile, stupid or cruel, get to speak. As Ijm Dike told me, “After Achmedinejad spoke, any leader of state could have gotten up and taken him to task, and then re-asserted the focus on the conference. I don’t understand why nobody did that.”

Too late now.

By the way, American Dershowitz above has labelled anti-apartheid campaigner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, as a racist and a bigot for his prior comments that Palestinians live in conditions similar to, if not worse than, South African apartheid, and for his urgings that they be treated equally and fairly, and for his urgings to change the conditions they live under. I wonder what Dershowitz's comments are classified as, if Achmedinejad and Tutu have the racism mantle between them, and Israel and (its proxy supporters) is the only country with a voice?