supporting torture - the U.S. and Australia; supporting kids - Olive kids and ASPIRE volunteers

From Australians for Palestine. Australian government supporting the right to torture, and not supporting Israeli humanitarians.

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) released on Friday 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: (1) Zero Casualties while disregarding the increased risk to
Palestinian civilians and (2) the Dahiyah Doctrine which promotes targeting
civilian infrastructure to cause widespread destruction and suffering among
the civilian population.

It is quite an eye-opener, especially since it comes from Israelis
themselves. This then must make us question why the US and its acolytes –
Australia being one – would vote against the Goldstone Report on war crimes
in Gaza being brought to the UN Security Council for review and action. The
report is available here (my emphasis).

More about the Goldstone Report:
New York Times Advert in Support of the Goldstone Report, and Goldstone wins Human Rights Award from Sweden NGOs. Australia was one of the 18 out of 132 nations who voted agings the adoption of the recommendations of the report which states that the occurrence of war crimes should be investigated, from both Hamas and Israel, in relation to the Gaza massacre. Fortunately we don't have the power of veto.

AFP also reports

And finally a happy ending to the ordeal of 16 Palestinian families who are arriving in Perth and Melbourne today to begin new lives with hopefully better prospects than had seemed possible when they fled Iraq in 2003 and were stranded in make-shift camps in the desert for more than 5 years.

Please read the press release below and see what ASPIRE – Australian
Supporters for the Palestinian-Iraqi Refugees Emergency – managed to do over
two years and hundreds of hours of voluntary work.

If that cannot be read, go to the AFP website. I was unable to find a direct link, but it might be in their archives somewhere.

Also, fund-raising-wise, AFP reports this about the Olive Kids, Palestinians living in Australia:

On a lighter note, you can read about how the third “Olive Kids” dinner last Sunday raised $18,000+ for Palestinian children in Gaza and secured sponsorship for 50 orphans. It was a wonderfully successful night and in particular showed the enthusiasm and skills of an emerging younger generation of Palestinians very willing to continue the struggle for their people, despite their more privileged circumstances.

Sorry for such lazy writing (as in, I haven't done any) - but I think that exposure to the stories and the amazing work that AFP does is very important.
_______________________________________

Military aid, just in case you didn't get it the first time around in the many similar posts on this blog, is somewhat suspect.Seventy-five percent of US military aid to Israel is, by law, given to US arms manufacturers. From the Jewish Voice for Peace blog, Muzzlewatch. Seems a whole lot more money, except in the arms section, of course, could be generated if that 75% was actually channelled into U.S. domestic initiatives. But arms manufacturers employ a lot of people, don't they? In so many ways. And initially, they are domestic enterprises.

I think, if the food riots, shortages, flooding, global warming and so on which will inevitably affect the developed countries as well as further devastate the developing countries are to come about, I mean, even more so, as has been predicted, then the supply of arms is perhaps the only surefire (boom-boom, and boom-boom again) way to guarantee an income with which to maintain a high standard of living. That is, of course, until the inevitable happens. I guess guns can only buy so much food. And the production of food and such is impossible without people and workable land.

except

Glenn Greenwald, June 22nd. Same as it ever was, I guess, I just believe far less and less and less that there are any governments out there really keen on representing and presenting that which is fair and sound. At least there are very few governments out there which are in power, and which keep other governments in power, which are interested in this. Very few governments which want their people to know even a skerrick of the truth. I think our freedom and democracy, as seen by the huge focus and spin Michael Jackson's death will be getting for some time yet, is all about bread and circuses. The majority of reporters and news services are absolutely complicit in this. If it keeps us entertained, why not, I guess. It's just when our entertainment comes at the expense of other people's lives and livelihoods.

Glenn Greenwald is always worth reading.

These blatantly contradictory statements [from media pundits] aren't considered contradictions because of the core premises of our political culture: We don't really consider torture and mass pointless slaughter -- when we do it -- to be all that bad. Those who advocated, defended and ordered it are still highly respectable -- "honorable." Those who were so humiliatingly wrong that it cannot be adequately expressed in words still prance around, and are still treated as, wise experts, while those were right are naive and unserious. The U.S stands for freedom, democracy and human rights -- even when we don't. People who advocate unprovoked wars of aggression, torture and mass violence are irredeemable monsters --except when they're American or our allies.

oh what fun we'll have...

click to enlarge
You can read the full text here . I came across that at Antony Loewenstein's blog. Also, I blogged on the following before, but it has now gone to the United Nations Committee against Torture in Geneva.

A report issued this week by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel indicates that the Shin Bet security services conduct a policy of forcing patients to provide information as a condition of being allowed to leave the Gaza Strip for medical care.

According to the human rights organisation the number of Palestinian patients who are summoned for interrogation as a precondition to receiving an exit permit from Gaza for treatment has risen. Between January 2008 and March 2009 at least 438 patients were interrogated by the Shin Bet.

The report, which was presented this week to the United Nations Committee against Torture, in Geneva, also shows that the Shin Bet has begun interrogating minors in need of medical care, to photograph patients against their will, and to detain patients for undisclosed periods of time. According to testimonies, patients who do not cooperate are returned to Gaza without receiving a permit to exit…

I think the original, or a similar (these types of abuses keep happening year after year) report is on my blog roll, featured here

Australia's official policy is to support all the above, too.

is your ass covered?

I pulled this the other day, but Jon Stewart says it better than I ever could, and with more humour, so here it is again, with Mr. Stewart added. Thanks to Antony Loewenstein posting the clip, which was where I first saw it. The rest of the writing and quoting is mine, kinda (in that the quotes aren't mine, but I'm sure you get what I mean).

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
A Brief History of Torture
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Glenn Greenwald, again. I really admire his writing, dedication and thoroughness. This is on President Obama's announcement last week

that he opposes prosecutions of CIA officials who tortured detainees in reliance on OLC [Offiice of Legal Counsel] memos purporting to legalize that conduct (a decision which is not Obama's to make),

'realisation' of which seems to be why he has changed his tune on the situation. Greenwald says

the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, announced that Obama's policy of immunizing CIA torturers violates international law and, specifically, the clear obligations of the U.S. under the Convention Against Torture (signed by Ronald Reagan in 1988)

This morning, I conducted a 20-minute interview with Nowak . . . regarding the specific legal obligations of the U.S. to provide accountability for crimes of torture; how Obama's invocation of the "state secrets privilege" to block torture victims from having a day in court independently violates the Convention; and the detrimental impact that will result for the U.N.'s ability to hold torturers around the world accountable (which is Nowak's prime mandate) if the U.S. announces to the world that its own political leaders who systematically ordered torture will be shielded from all accountability.

The above and final two paragraphs quoted in this post below, from the article, is true. The United Nations is definitely being undermined as seen by Jewish peace group, MuzzleWatch's reporting on the Durban II conference, and once we are without the Geneva Convention, without the United Nations, what do we have? I am not convinced that it is 'Islamic extremists' (though they do exist, along with a whole bevy of other extremists) who are steering us into another dark age. I don't know if the crimes carried out by the west will ever come home to roost in the constant and terrifying way in which we often seem to inflict them (not to say we are responsible for all the crime and terror around the world), but if torture is condoned (and not holding those who have committed torture, and even more so ordered its implementation, responsible is a form of condoning) then the very idea of being compassionate and democratic nations, with equal rights for all, is false. No big surprise there, really, though.

Greenwald cites International law professor, Kevin John Heller who provides an example of a

set of prosecutions by the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, as part of The Ministries Case, in which German officials were prosecuted for doing nothing other than stating, when asked, that they had no objection to the deportation of 5,000 Jews from France. Those officials, who were convicted at Nuremberg, did not order the deportation or carry it out; rather, they merely failed, when asked, to object to the policy on the ground that it violated international law.

In harsh war times, when people are under draconian governments and military systems, and when they fear for their lives if they do not follow an order, I do not hold that they should automatically be held responsible for crimes that they have committed, particularly when the case is comply or yourself be subject to harsh punishment, or loss of life, by your own government or institution, but, though the destruction of the twin towers was and is a frightening act of terror, as were the other acts committed on that day, was the U.S. living under a similar, daily, constant cloud of actual violence all throughout Bush's two terms? Likewise, if a CIA official refused his or her orders to torture, would they themselves be subject to great punishment? I know a paper trail was being left (though I'm not sure if it was by the CIA, rather, maybe is was the FBI), as some were very uncomfortable with the acts they were being asked to carry out, and who knows in which ways the government and the CIA really interact?

According to an interview conducted in the 2005 PBS Torture Question documentary with anti-torture author Mark Danner on this actual paper trail, Colin Powell thought it was a

". . .mistake to withhold Geneva Conventions protection; [as it would] put American soldiers at risk." And it [would] also -- and he said this very prophetically -- lead to the degradation of good order and discipline within the American military. He wrote this; he said it. And you see the attitude coming back in the other memos from Alberto Gonzales, from the Department of Justice, essentially saying, "Look, this isn't what we're worried about right now; what we're worried about is getting rapid interrogations." They don't precisely say that, but fighting a new kind of war, a "new paradigm," as Gonzales said. ...

Later, the interviewer states So they become sort of cover-your-ass memos, and Danner concurs:

I think so. Well, there's something more than what might be called cover-your-ass memos. They're also developing a kind of legal justification that permeates throughout the government. You see, for example, in the torture memo, August 2002, huge chunks of that memo were incorporated in the working group on interrogation the following spring that Secretary of Defense [Donald] Rumsfeld organized within the Department of Defense ... so that you have the legal theory being developed and then being incorporated into the military's planning documents.

It's in some ways the miracle of the word processor. You see these things, and there they are, the same paragraphs. So they raced around the government, and you can find them in very many places, not just in the Department of Justice.

Whether these are the same memos or not, they definitely deal with the same moral concept, and with the legalisation of human rights abuses. The type of legal justification referred to above is what is being called on as a defense by the OLC lawyers as referred to by Greenwald below.

Obviously, with the most powerful military in the world, the U.S. has the power to declare itself exempt from international law and to refuse to adhere to its own treaty obligations. We have the power (as distinct from the right) to ignore what the U.N. says about what we do and to refuse to abide by the standards we impose on others. Indeed, that the U.S. can legalize the very same methods that we have long condemned as "torture" when used by other countries was exactly the core argument made by OLC lawyers to justify what they were doing.

But those who spent the last eight years criticizing the Bush administration for ignoring international conventions and legal obligations -- yet who now want to refrain from investigating Bush crimes -- should at least try to reconcile those past criticisms with their current unilateralist, exceptionalism-based arguments against holding our own criminals accountable (it's different when we do it). And if this is the mentality we're going to adopt -- that we're not bound by our own treaty obligations and need not pay any heed to U.N. positions -- then we probably shouldn't expect that we'll be taken very seriously when we point to international obligations and U.N. pronouncements as a means for claiming that other countries are acting wrongfully.

One has to say about the United States, though, and hopefully Australia, and many other western countries, too, that this information does become available, and that people may have their careers ruined writing about it, or may have their careers enhanced, but, by and large, they do not face the same degree of suppression that human rights activists in many countries in the world do. This, I think, is to be admired. And allowing other countries and people to choose their own governments, and to live their own lives, and to encourage freedom of speech and lifestyle choice and religious choice, is really the view I would prefer the rest of the world have of my country, rather than as it being a supporter of torture, and an actor and upholder in the denial of rights to others. And I know Australia is not the U.S., yet David Hicks was a long time in coming home, and Mamdouh Habib has said that ASIO were implicit in his arrest, detention and torture. Additionally, Rudd's relationship with the U.S. is little changed from Howard's. The greater world is far more aware of the west as influencing global events, than the general populous of the west is aware of how its governments affect the lives of others.

All of the links in the Greenwald quotes are in the original document.

Here is a link to the Office of Legal Counsel memos.

australia - not one of the 182 states

Last post for the night and for Durban 2. Smith, Rudd, Obama, Clinton (I guess), I hope you are reading this somewhere, but in all actuality, I'm sure that you know all this, anyway, but it is much more fun to have games with smoke and mirrors. I guess that we are proud not to be one of the 182 states who came to a consensus on racism or anti-racism, and adopted it. Must be true what they say about white people, not really ever wanting to share anything with anyone (sorry Obama). It's a shame, because I am white, and I do not feel that way. From the final press statement of Navi Pillay, the High Commissioner for Human Rights:

If people actually read the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, they would have realized that it includes a paragraph which says that “the Holocaust should never be forgotten”. It includes two paragraphs that denounce “anti-Semitism and Islamophobia”, and one paragraph which mentions the suffering of the Palestinians, their right of self-determination and the security of all States, including Israel, and two paragraphs calling for peace. That’s all there is on the Middle East. And I could not get these corrections published in some important newspapers, particularly in the US, who used the word hate fest without checking these paragraphs.

The final document of this conference – the Conference product, if you like – also says the Holocaust must never be forgotten and deplores anti-Semitism along with Islamophobia and all forms of racism, xenophobia, racial discrimination and related intolerance. But already the propaganda machine is starting to wind up to term this conference a failure, a “hate fest and all the rest of it.” This is extraordinary. Yet no one has really written up the true story of this Conference – a strange rough and tumble affair full of smoke and mirrors, I must admit, yet very definitely a success story, with plenty of good will as well as plenty of bad will of the type I have described just now.

...

But because of this campaign that was so determined to kill the conference, some countries decided to boycott it, although a few days earlier, they had actually agreed on what is now the final text. I consider this bizarre. You agree the text on Friday evening, and walk out on Sunday. I think, it was unfortunate that a few states disengaged from the process. Although almost all of them had agreed this text, they are not part of the consensus that adopted it. I do hope they will come back into the process now. They can still add their names to the list of 182 states that have adopted the outcome document. And by the way, Iran is part of that consensus. When the final call came, Iran did not oppose the text.

Hillary! Gaza and Hamas are not the same thing!

Hillary obviously hasn't been reading these reports on the banking up of aid not allowed through the borders, fairly recent reports. Nor this report from the Israeli Physicians for Human Rights on the number of Gazans who have died or suffer due to not being allowed to leave the strip to seek medical treatment, and not being able to receive it in the strip due to the blockade. Of course the number seeking medical assistance has increased since the war on Gaza late last year, early this year. The following are D.C. dispatches between Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, from April 22nd.

CLINTON: Congressman, the crossings are no longer completely closed there are many items that are being transported through the crossings there are, as you know, some items that the Israeli government does not permit to cross. We have urged the Israeli government on several occasions to open the crossings as much as they are able commensurate with their legitimate security needs, which you recognized. The best way for us to help the people of Gaza is for Hamas to cease its rocket firing on Israel, to abide by the quartet principles, and the same principles that were adopted by the Arab peace initiative, which I have reiterated several times here today.

ELLISON: Yes you have Madame Secretary and I appreciate you reiterating that but you know 750,000 of the people who live in Gaza are under 18 years old. Gaza and Hamas are not the same thing. There are a lot of people who have nothing to do with Hamas in Gaza and wish Hamas would go away. But, they are living under this, under the same, under these closed crossings and just to point out to you Madam Secretary you know there’s a very tight definition of what constitutes humanitarian aid. I mean, I’ve been there and I’ve seen it’s essentially sugar, flour, cooking oil. Even things like macaroni, lentils and tomato paste and fruit juice were barred. So I’d ask for you to respond to that. ( Read more).

and kudos to Ellison. Also, Hamas kept its ceasefire for almost the full allocated six months before Israel broke it last year, and Hamas also sought to renew it. The ceasefire was contingent on Israel easing the entry and exit of goods into and out of Gaza. Israel never kept their side of the bargain, which is nothing new, and the continued siege prompted human rights groups to warn about an impending humanitarian crisis, which really, is actual, not impending. So, Hils. . . even if Hamas do all you say . . .Israel does not abide by those same principles, as Carter and many Israeli writers have noted, Hamas have offered to negotiate many times, but as Carter has said, the "problem" [is] not his [any] decision to meet with the Islamist group, but rather the refusal of Israel and the U.S. to do the same.

Hillary is happy to let a people live and die under these conditions for the sake of her political career. Because if Hamas were not in power, someone else would be, and you can bet your bottom dollar that she would be trotting out the same rhetoric as above no matter the conduct of the Palestinian people. Whether they violently or peacefully resist, they are shot and live under miserable conditions all the same, and a large reason for that is the support western powers have for imposing and sustaining such conditions, as evidenced above.

"To be honest, most of this aid will never make it to Gaza," a local government official [concerned with the Rafah border] told IPS on condition of anonymity. "A lot of the food here will have to be thrown away."

Human rights organisations have recently said that not only Israel but Egypt, the EU and the U.S. could be in violation of international law for failing to adhere to the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access, and consequently violating the basic human rights of Gaza's 1.5 million people - particularly in the post-war period.

Update: 25th April: Just read this article from the Nation.

durban 2 - again

From the Jewish Voice for Peace group, MuzzleWatch, in Durban, talking with Palestinian lawyer, Usama Halabi:

"The Palestinian delegation made a big sacrifice for this conference. They omitted every single reference to our case, because other countries were opposed to that. There’s no language accusing anybody of anything. So me, I don’t understood what’s going on."

And pro-occupation Israelis and Americans absolutely did not boycott Durban except in an official sense, and their voice is being heard very loudly, which is what Halabi is referring to. Who made a mockery of this conference, and whose intention was it to make it a mockery? Of course, the outcome of this is that not only is the Palestinian voice not heard, but neither are any of the voices of the other 193(?) countries in the world.

The reporter also has a later post which is interesting. The last paragraph, reflecting her views, says:

Me, I am scared for Israel. For so many reasons. Sometimes I’m terrified- which is why I think the only way to be pro-Israel (and yes, we work with so many phenomenal Israeli justice activists who love their country and work against every last shred of discrimination, repression or inequality both in and outside of its boundaries)…the only way to be pro-Israel is to be anti-occupation. Israel simply must end this occupation now. That of course is the terrible heartbreak about what I’m seeing here today: The American Jewish Congress, Eye on the UN and other groups are not just fueling anti-Semitism by overplaying their hand, they are helping push Israel down a path from which it may never return.

Right now, that concerns me much more than the singling out of Israel in the UN. If Anne Bayefsky, UN Watch et al want to stop the phenomenon, they might try using their resources to pressure Israel to end their occupation.

let the mud be slung

Maybe only the morally bankrupt are successful politicians or vice versa. Perhaps it is only when you leave politics, such as Jimmy Carter or Malcolm Fraser have, that you can actually do something about human rights. While you are in power, forget it. It seems that the only human rights that are of concern to any of our successful politicians are those of their own class and country, perhaps, and a swathe of the middle to upper classes muddled in a fugue of deliberate ignorance. Those classes maybe do or don't want to be ignorant, but they are definitely kept that way.

I was withholding my opinion on our minister for foreign affairs, Stephen Smith. When he was relatively silent over the massacre in Gaza, letting his representatives talk for him, I thought that maybe he was not crossing that political suicide line of actually pointing out that America's dearest friend (and the country that Kevin Rudd has in his DNA) was, again, grossly violating human rights. However, the U.S. has decided not to go to Durban 2, though they were toying with the idea of going to Durban, and even though their many human rights groups, who felt that discussions of slavery and racism should be on the table, particularly given the U.S.'s background with said slavery, thought that they should go, they decided not to. Even though the organisers of the Durban Conference (the United Nations), under extreme pressure, decided there would be no side issues, or even open discussion, pertaining to the occupation of Palestine, and any racism charges that might stem from the situation of treating people like second class citizens, and even though they wiped discussion of slavery from the agenda, and it seemed there was no way in hell Israel was even going to be mentioned, the U.S. and Australia and some other countries have finally decided not to go. Israel and Canada had made their boycott positions known long before.

According to Middle East Reality Check

"The Australian understands the Dutch will not be going to the conference and Germany is also considering a boycott after intense lobbying by Mr Smith of his European counterparts..." (Israel slur fear forces boycott, Mark Dodd).

Nice going Mr. Smith. He is a sharp dresser, but that's about the extent of respect I now have for him. His Labor colleague, Julia Irwin, perhaps the only honest politician in Australia, had this to say about Smith's position (my emphasis):

Mr Smith's argument was strongly rejected by Ms Irwin.

"It's a shame Australia will be one of a handful of nations boycotting the Durban conference," Ms Irwin said.

"Any nation which has policies which discriminate on the grounds of race or religion should not be above criticism and should not be supported by the Australian Government."

And how right she is. She will never get to be prime minister with her outspokenness, but I hope she retains her seat forever.

Australian politics of late leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth. We have been the U.S.'s lackey since the end of WWII, and before that, England's, but it seemed to me there were times when we recognised fairness, human rights, and even the actual make up of the people in our population when we made decisions that affected others globally, and which affected how the global population saw us. Seems our politicians, even if they seem to lean left, are just another typical bunch of elites whose only concern is winning another term and another and another. Justice be damned. They couldn't give a shit.

The report from the Australian which MERC quotes says:

While Britain says it will be attending, the participation of countries such as Iran and Cuba, which have reputations as serial human rights violators, is likely to ensure the summit turns into an anti-Israel and anti-US slanging match.

Really, how is Iran different from Israel in this case, and how is the U.S. any different, given Guantanamo and Abu Graihb, and how is Australia any different, given its past compulsory detention for asylum seekers and off-shore processing, which has not entirely gone away? Keep in mind, Obama is keeping a lot of power, and is letting former human rights violators off the hook. Let the mud be slung, and let's get it out in the open. If we can slander all the other countries in the world, then let them do the same in return. And why do we not want to have a voice there? Why do we want to be known as the country that would not attend a conference discussing racism? What is wrong with us and the western world?

Posts on Durban (including this one) are here.

Other blogs and posts which discuss Durban in some detail are here and here.

*Note: However - please Stephen Smith, do something for this woman and her children.

where do my tax dollars go? and Canadian humour

This money is entirely military aid and Israel uses it to uphold its apartheid system.
As far as I am aware, they are not my actual tax dollars, but as our government is one of the U.S.'s closest allies, my tax dollars do inadvertently end up supporting U.S. endeavours, whether I agree with them or not. The video and further commentary can also be found here.




George Galloway, a U.K. member of parliament who spear-headed the Viva Palestina aid convoy to Gaza, was denied access to Canada after some vigorous lobbying by special interest groups. The video above parodies the situation. The wrong George got let in.
On another issue (but related):Here, Galloway responds to the outrageous actions undertaken by the British Charity Commission against Viva Palestina.

down in New Mexico

Wow, I never thought anything like the above would ever come about:

The billboard is one of ten being put up in New Mexico by an Albuquerque-based grassroots org (the Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel). Here is their press release. The group looks to be multicultural, and led by two Jews, Lori Rudolph and Rich Forer. Read more.

a country that respects human rights

I think I will preface all of my posts on the Durban 2 conference on racism with these three quotes. If anyone reads regularly, you would have seen two of them before. The first is from the Australian Jewish Democratic Society, who urged attendance, and pointed out that:

. . . only six of the 341 paragraphs on Durban 1 singled out Israel, while there was also a resolution stating that the Holocaust “must never be forgotten”

The second is from Ha'aretz, who is not quite so hysterical with cries of anti-semitism as many western papers seem to be, and who state quite matter of factly:

The United States and Israel walked out of the first UN conference on racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, to protest against an attempted resolution comparing Zionism to racism.

You might want to ask some Palestinians about that, seeing as they are under occupation due to Zionist beliefs. Maybe it is true.

The third quote is from UN Association of Australia president John Langmore: He concedes that at the 2001 conference attempts to misuse the talks to criticise Israel had taken place (but I wonder, if we return to the opening statistics put forward by the Australian Jewish Democratic Society), he also said that:

The 2001 World Conference Against Racism declared "the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination" while also recognising "the right to security for all states in the region, including Israel." [My emphasis].

Well, that's what the international community all agree on, isn't it? So what is the problem?

Further information on the Durban Conference website (IV. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) states :

In her October 6, 2008 speech, High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay acknowledged the antisemitism of the 2001 NGO Forum, while minimizing its implications:

Seven years ago at the 2001 World Conference against Racism, the virulent anti-Semitic behaviour of a few non-governmental organizations on the sidelines of the Durban Conference overshadowed the critically important work of the Conference. Measures were taken to address this betrayal of the core principles of the Durban Conference, and the NGO document was not forwarded to the Conference. [My emphasis].

and

In his December 12, 2008 article, "Distortions plague anti-racism conference," Rupert Colville, Spokesperson of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights writes “The purpose of this Durban Review Conference (sometimes misleadingly referred to as ‘Durban II’) is to examine the implementation of the outcome document of the World Conference against Racism which took place in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. Unfortunately both newspapers replay a number of factual distortions which have become increasingly widespread on the internet over the past year, including numerous references to the review conference as an anti-Semitic ‘hate-fest’.” [My emphasis. The papers he is referring to are The Australian and The Wall Street Journal which ran articles on the Durban conference].

Australian Federal Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tom Calma, will lead an Australian delegation of three officials to the talks. He represents Australia's top human rights body. He said

... he had not observed either anti-Semitic or anti-Islamic sentiment in the preparations for the conference and urged both the Government and Opposition to send representatives.

Julie Bishop, the opposition foreign affairs spokesperson does not want Australia to attend, and our own government still seems to be sending human rights officials as opposed to government representatives, but it is better than nothing, which might have been the case. Julie Bishop fears it will become a platform for anti-Semitism, but I think Israel fears that it might become a platform for criticism against [it] for its occupation of Palestinian territories. Well, that's not anti-semitism, that's called having a conscience. At the same time, Israel said in January, in the midst of the onslaught of Gaza, that:

the Foreign Ministry considers the "Durban 2" World Conference against Racism, scheduled for April in Geneva, as the point when they can determine the extent to which Israel's standing as a democratic country that respects human rights has been damaged. Israel has rallied many countries against the conference on the grounds that it will become a platform for anti-Semitism, and has also announced, along with the United States and Canada, that it will boycott the conference. [My emphasis].

Considering Israel is not attending the conference, has convinced many other countries not to attend, or to be leery of the conference; considering its forces killed 1400 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, many of them children, might mean that its standing as a democratic country that respects human rights has been damaged quite severely. But I forget myself. Black is white, and Israel does not have to fear any criticism because no-one will be there to criticise them, (or to criticise other governments who do not respect human rights, either), if the Julie Bishops and Kevin Rudds of the world have their way.

Calma said:

the Geneva conference would examine issues critical to the role of national human rights institutions, such as policing and diversity and the rights of indigenous peoples.

"These are matters that governments need to engage on a global level in order to ensure that their policies are in line with international standards. It is also an opportunity to share good practices in these areas."

Hear, hear! Considering Australia has recently committed to honouring an election promise of signing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Langmore, in the same article, says:

"It is about the issue of racial discrimination, and that is a problem in our country and in a great many others, and we have some experience in trying to handle it, but we also have some lessons to learn from other countries," he said.

While Professor Langmore conceded attempts to misuse the talks to criticise Israel had taken place, he said it was an overreaction and a self-defeating gesture for Australia not to attend. "If you are concerned to ensure equitable principles are developed and applied, then you need to participate — Australia needs to participate," he said. [My emphasis].

Many Americans also feel that their country should be concerned about ensuring [that] equitable principles are developed and applied, and are also concerned about racial [and sexual] discrimination, as seen from the 92 signatories of human rights and civil groups, and individuals in the U.S. who are urging the Obama administration to attend (the U.S. has so far decided to boycott). Those signatures can be found at the end of this post. The open letter was published in Ha'aretz, which shows that the Israeli media is paying close attention to this issue, even if other media is not.

The points that the signatories raise are eloquently argued, but too long for this post. I have posted the article in full before, and it is linked to at the end of this entry, or go to the source, here. The sub-titles within their letter summarise why the signatories think the Obama administration should attend Durban, and those titles are listed following this paragraph. If one really believes that a democratic world with equality for all is the way to go, then what dispute is there with the ideas that are being expressed?:

Refusing to Discuss Racism on a Global Platform is Inconsistent with a Policy of Engagement with the International Community

The United States Should be Fighting for the Strongest Protections against Racism

Specific Objections Raised do not Warrant a Boycott

The United States Must Not Attempt to Ignore our History of Slavery

The United States Must Engage the Global Fight for Racial Justice in Good Faith

The Current Position of Non-Participation is worse than that of the Bush Administration

A United States Refusal to Discuss Racism Encourages Other Countries to do the same

So at least Australia will have a face at the Durban Review Conference, which means that we must be slightly better than the Bush administration, or is that the Obama administration? The conference seems to be labelled as a racism forum in the press, but is really anti-racist, or is about tackling racism. As Mr Calma said of the Australian government, and the opposition:

"I'd encourage them to participate, I don't think it's going to compromise anything."

___________________________________________________________________

Other posts referencing Durban 2 in lizardrinking are as follows:
Durban 2 - Americans who want Obama to Attend
Still no decision
It's all in the genes
Stories and Controversies
I guess Catholics just don't like them

___________________________________________________________________

Organizational Signatures on the open letter to Obama.

1. Advocates for Environmental Human Rights
2. Alianza Latinoamericana por los Derechos de los Inmigrantes, ALDI
3. Black Alliance for Just Immigration
4. Black Workers for Justice - Europe (BWJ-e)
5. BLACK Advisors
6. Center for Constitutional Rights
7. Cidadao Global
8. Coalition of African, Arab, Asian, European, and Latino Immigrants of Illinois
9. Coalition to Save Harlem
10. Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
11. Croydon African Caribbean Family
12. Equal Justice Society
13. Equality Now
14. Four Freedoms Forum
15. Global Afrikan Congressuk
16. Hawai'i Institute for Human Rights
17. Highlander Research and Education Center
18. International Action Center
19. Justice Now
20. Labor/Community Strategy Center
21. Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
22. Maria Iñamagua Campaign for Justice
23. Matahari: Eye of the Day
24. The Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute
25. Minnesota Tenants Union
26. Movement for Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA)
27. National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Chicago Branch
28. National Conference of Black Lawyers
29. National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty
30. National Lawyers Guild
31. National Lawyers Guild - Minnesota Chapter
32. National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights
33. National Rail Maritime and Transport Union 0543 Local Finsbury Park Branch
34. Norbertines of the Priory of St. Moses the Black
35. NY Solidarity Coalition with Katrina & Rita Survivors and the Survivors Assembly
36. United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE)
37. Urban Justice Center
38. Willets Point Defense Committee
39. Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
40. Women of Color United
(please see individual signatures on next page)

Individual Signatures (with organizational affiliation for identification purposes only)

1. Ajamu Baraka, Executive Director, US Human Rights Network
2. Alexandra Oprea, Senior Editor, UCLA Law Review, Vol. 57
3. Aleyamma Mathew, Transnational Institute for Grassroots Research and Action
4. Alice J. Palmer, Chicago, Co-Chair of the People Programme
5. Amelia Parker, Program Coordinator, Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, American University Washington College of Law
6. Amy Agigian, Center for Women's Health and Human Rights, Suffolk University
7. André Degbeon, Founder, AFRO TV BERLIN
8. Andrés Castro, Founder/Managing Ed., The Teacher's Voice
9. Ann Fagan Ginger, The Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute
10. Anthony Gifford, Barrister (UK) and Attorney-at-law (Jamaica)
11. Asantewaa Gail Harris, Community Vision Council
12. Bill Fletcher, Jr., Executive Editor, BlackCommentator.com
13. Brenda Stokely, New York Solidarity Coalition with Katrina & Rita survivors
14. Charles Amjad-Ali, Ph.D., Th.D., The Martin Luther King, Jr., Professor of Justice and Christian Community, Director Islamic Studies Program, Luther Seminary
15. Council Member Charles Barron, New York City Council
16. Chris Crass, Catalyst Project
17. Clarence C. Gravlee, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida
18. Colin Rajah, International Migrant Rights & Global Justice Program Director, National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights (NNIRR)
19. Professor Connie de la Vega, University of San Francisco, School of Law
20. Dr. Corann Okorodudu, Professor of Psychology & Coordinator, Africana Studies
21. Daniel Hazen, Board Member, US Human Rights Network
22. David Gespass, President-Elect of the National Lawyers Guild
23. David Kreindler, Vermont Workers' Center
24. David Wildman, Executive Secretary, Human Rights & Racial Justice Mission, Contexts & Relationships, General Board of Global Ministries United Methodist Church
25. Dawn Stanger, Vermont Workers' Center
26. Denise Williams, Ph.D., Negotiation, Conflict Resolution & Peacebuilding, California State University Dominguez Hills
27. Ms. Diane King, Director, Seeking Joint Solution
28. Dianne Burnham, Ohio Valley PEACE, Outreach
29. Donald H. Smith, Ph.D., Past President, the National Alliance of Black School Educators; Former chair, the Board for the Education of People of African Ancestry, the John Henrik Clarke House, New York City
30. Dowoti Désir, Founder of the DDPA Watch Group
31. Ms. Dra Barryl A. Biekman, President of the African European Women's Movement "Sophiedela"; Chair of the National Platform Dutch Slavery; Past President of the Pan African Strategic and Policy Group (Panafstrag Europe EU/NL; Board member of Tiye International
32. Edith M. Jackson, Howard University
33. Edward L. Palmer, Chicago, Co-Chair of the People Programme
34. Ellen Raider, Independent Commission on Public Education
35. Emira Woods, Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies
36. Eric Mann, Author, Dispatches from Durban: The World Conference Against Racism and Post-September 11 Movement Strategies.
37. Erika Simard, Vermont Workers' Center
38. Eva Paterson, President, Equal Justice Society
39. Francisco Ramos, Executive Director, Coalition of African, Arab, Asian, European, and Latino Immigrants of Illinois. (CAAAELII)
40. Gary Orfield, Professor of Education, Law, Political Science and Urban Planning. Co-Director, Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA
41. Gerardo Renique, Associate Professor, Department of History, City College of the City University of New York
42. Dr. Gloria A. Caballero-Roca, Hispanic Studies, Earlham College
43. Gwendolyn Anderson, Member, NEA, WEAC and Milwaukee Teachers Association
44. Henrietta Faulconer, Northside Neighbors for Justice
45. Ignatious Muhammad, Member, Nation of Islam
46. Dr. Irma Loemban Tobing-Klein, President MDG Global Watch
47. Iwan Leeuwin, Chairperson, AAD Network in the Netherlands
48. James Haslam, Vermont Workers' Center
49. James Rowan, Northeastern University School of Law
50. Dr. Jason M. Ferreira, Department of Race and Resistance Studies College of Ethnic Studies, San Francisco State University
51. Jeanne Mirer, Secretary General of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers
52. Rev. Jeremy Tobin, Board Member, US Human Rights Network and Executive Board, Movement for Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA)
53. Jerrika Rivera, President, Asociacion Latina DBA Latina Association
54. Jewel L. Crawford, MD, National Medical Association; Participant, UN World Conference Against Racism, 2001
55. Joanna Cuevas Ingram, Student Member, National Lawyers Guild - San Francisco
56. Joceline A. Clemencia, Director Cultural Institute Independence, Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles
57. John A. Powell, Executive Director, the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
58. Jonathan Kissam, Vermont Workers' Center
59. Jose R. Matus, Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras
60. Joshua Cooper, Director, Hawaii Institute for Human Rights
61. Kalin Williams, Malcom X Grassroots Movement
62. Katie Seitz, Teaching for Change
63. K-C Nat Turner, Assistant Professor, School of Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
64. Keith Jennings, President, African American Human Rights Foundation
65. Kristine Suozzi, Ph.D., New Mexico Health Equity Working Group Coordinator
66. Dr. Lady Dhyana Ziegler, Professor of Journalism, Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, Florida
67. Laura Roskos, Ph.D., Co-President of U.S. Section, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
68. Lisa A. Crooms, Howard University School of Law
69. Loretta J. Ross, National Coordinator, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective
70. Lucy Murphy, Convenor, Gray Panthers of Metropolitan Washington
71. Lynn Roberts, PhD, Assistant Professor & Coordinator, Community Health Education Track, Urban Public Health Program, Hunter College
72. M. Thandabantu Iverson, Ph.D., Indiana University Labor Studies Program, School of Social Work
73. Madeline Labriola, Hudson Valley PaxChristi
74. Marc Pilisuk, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, The University of California. Professor, Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center
75. Marilyn Fischer, Franciscans International
76. Martin Y. Iguchi, Ph.D., UCLA School of Public Health
77. Dr. Martin C. Okeke, (PhD) Former President of the Organisation NIDOE-France, Vice President PanAFSTRAG-France
78. Matt McGrath, Vermont Workers' Center
79. Mavis G. Biekman, Board Member, African European Women's Movement Sophiedela, The Hague, The Netherlands
80. Monami Maulik, DRUM-Desis Rising Up & Moving
81. Monique Ndigo Washington, The Healing Drum Collective
82. Nancy J. Bothne, Instructor, DePaul University
83. Nancy Munger, Co-President of U.S. Section, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
84. Nina T. Harawa, MPH, PhD, Department of Research, Charles Drew University
85. Nkem Dike, Northwestern University, IL
86. Nzingha Assata, Founding Member, The Alliance of Afrikan Women in England
87. Peg Franzen, Vermont Workers Center
88. Mr. Philip M. J. Baptiste, III, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc
89. Queen Quet, Founder, Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition
90. Radhika Balakrishnan, Professor of Economics and International Studies , Marymount Manhattan College
91. Raj Patel, Affiliation. UC Berkeley Center for African Studies
92. Ramona Ortega, Executive Director, Cidadao Glo

justice for none

Information on this photograph can be found at the ISM flickr photostream

Further to the post below:

Israeli military police have closed an investigation into soldiers' accounts of abuses committed in Gaza, saying they were based on hearsay Gaza soldier accounts 'hearsay', bbc, 30 March, 2009.

Right, all those human rights organisations lying yet again. Here are some of the original stories that were posted in Ha'aretz, and hereand here and here are posts on the smears that the stories then received. All the more reason that petitions such as this one from Amnesty International, urging Prime Minister Rudd to push for an investigation of 'alleged' war crimes committed in Gaza should be signed. The United Nations is very much pushing for investigations, too. Its wishes will probably be vetoed by the United States.

Note: Ha'aretz reports on the story here: Gaza probe / Either troops are liars, or the IDF is pure as snow, Amos Harel. You might also want to read a connected story by the same writer from the 19th of March when the testimonies first came out.

*2nd April, 2009: From Amnesty International on the above.

how a moral army should be investigated

Maybe there is not a single moral army in the world. More than likely, after all, the two concepts seem to kind of cancel each other out, but there are international laws that govern the rules of engagement, and recently a U.S. soldier was imprisoned for 35 years for the murder of prisoners in Iraq. This seems to be the kind of investigation that should be held into soldiers' actions, not the whitewash that promises an investigation, but never delivers, and which protects its members from investigation, or which only investigates them if there is more than enough of a public outcry, and even then, which often gives lenient or no sentences for crimes committed* (see end of this post). Spain is investigating crimes against humanity that it is alleged Israel committed in Palestine in 2002. The reason why Spain decided to pursue the investigation is due to the fact that Israel was not investigating it. B'tselem, the Israeli human rights watch, and other human rights groups issued this press release on the 19th of March, this year:

Circumstances point to the inadequacy of internal military investigations. The Military Advocate General only ordered the opening of an investigation by the Military Criminal Investigation Division following the publication of the Haaretz story, three weeks after the relevant materials reached the Chief of the General Staff. This tardiness follows a pattern of failures to investigate suspicions of serious crimes and illegitimate officer orders. Such partial investigation represents only a fraction of the necessary attention into this matter and raises suspicions that the norms of whitewashing serious crimes have spread across all ranks of the army. Read more.

Indeed, this infamous video from 2008 of a soldier shooting a handcuffed, blindfolded Palestinian detainee in the foot - was the only reason that the soldier supposedly got investigated. Strangely enough, it made it to international the news. I remember reading about it at the time. From B'Tselem:

According to press reports, the Military Police have opened an investigation and arrested the soldier who fired the shot. Apparently, until the video was aired, the army did not conduct a Military Police investigation, and settled for an operational debriefing. According to the reports, the debriefing reached the desk of the Judea and Samaria (West Bank) Division Commander, who failed to inform the Military Police or the Judge Advocate General’s Office, or to take any measures against the soldier or the battalion commander. Residents of Ni’lin stated that, the day after the incident, they saw the soldier still serving in his unit.

I haven't read of any follow up. Maybe the fact that the Israeli Ministry of Justice lawyers have said:

“The State of Israel is at war with the Palestinian people, people against people, collective against collective”,

justifies every and all actions, though as stated at the beginning, democracies and signatories to the Geneva conventions and so on, surely have rules of engagement, particularly pertaining to civilians. Again, from B'Tselem:

... it is not correct to define the situation in the Occupied Territories as armed conflict. Some of the actions taking place in the Occupied Territories are indeed combat actions, but a significant number of IDF actions - at checkpoints, in dispersing demonstrations in which the Palestinian side does not open fire, in arresting Palestinians - are normal police actions of the kind that were carried out by soldiers in the first intifada. Furthermore, even if the situation is one of armed conflict, the army is still required to investigate attacks on civilians. Armed conflict, too, has rules, and intentional attacks on the civilian population are forbidden. To ensure that soldiers comply with these rules, such incidents must be investigated.

If you look at Alison Weir's video below, Off the charts, even before this Gaza offensive, the number of Palestinian children who died, or have been injured (losing eyes, shots to the head) is unbelievable and tragic, even in so called peace times.

The soldiers' testimonies from recent Ha'aretz articles which have been supported by human rights reports, Palestinian reports and AP reports, have been "debunked" in both the States, the blogosphere, and in elements of Israel as "hearsay", accusations of blood libel being thrown out - more likely heresy in that someone is speaking the truth. So why not investigate it, rather than throwing PR into full spin, and smearing everyone who speaks out? What is there to hide?

As an endnote, the sentences handed out to settlers who murder Palestinians are laughable, also.

...[E]mergency laws ... allow Israeli civilians residing outside sovereign state territory to be tried in Israeli courts under the purview of Israeli criminal law. In contrast, Palestinian citizens are tried in military tribunals that use a different set of laws and punishments.

As such, a settler may be released on bail and given probation for a crime that would land a Palestinian in custody until the end of legal proceedings, followed by a long prison sentence. Prior proposals to transfer some cases of crimes by settlers to military court jurisdiction were rejected under defense establishment pressure.

*And this from a 2007 US Department of State report, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, (which also details abuses committed by the western-backed Palestinian authority, and Palestinians), part of which details the [lack of] action taken against police and soldiers in the occupied territories when they commit crimes, or within Israel itself, so the same kind of leniency will be shown to the soldiers who fought in Gaza, I expect:

On January 19, a border policeman killed Nadim Milham, an Israeli Arab, while reportedly searching for weapons in his home. A family member reported that police beat Milham and shot him when he attempted to escape; the Mossawa Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens of Israel (Mossawa) claimed to have evidence that Milham was shot twice from behind. On November 21, the State Prosecutor's Office indicted the policeman for manslaughter; however, there was no further action by year's end.
...
On August 11, an Israeli Border Police soldier fired a rubber bullet at the head of Lymor Goldstein, an Israeli demonstrator protesting construction of the separation barrier in the West Bank village of Bil'in, injuring him and requiring surgery to remove the bullet. No action was taken against the police.
...
There were no developments in the September 2005 case in which IDF soldiers forced residents of a home in Tulkarm to undress in the street or the November 2005 report that IDF soldiers assaulted Palestinian students in Hebron.

There are many more stories and much more information in the report.

the undemocratic stance of the democrats

...yet another indication of the Democratic majority's lack of concern for human rights. [More than] A few paragraphs taken from a Huffington Post report on the 2009 Omnibus Budget Bill in the United States. The complete article does not solely deal with Israel and Palestine, but a fair bit of it does and that is what I have chosen to feature. The emphasis below are mine (apart from headings).

Sabotaging a Palestinian Unity Government

As European governments and others, recognizing that some kind of government of national unity between Fatah and the more moderate elements of Hamas is necessary for the peace process to move forward, Pelosi and her colleagues are attempting to sabotage such efforts. This year's appropriations bill prohibits any support for "any power-sharing government" in Palestine "of which Hamas is a member," unless Hamas unilaterally agrees to "recognize Israel, renounce violence, disarm, and accept prior agreements, including the Roadmap."

By contrast, there are no such provisions restricting the billions of dollars of aid to the emerging coalition government in Israel, which includes far right parties that have likewise refused to recognize Palestine, renounce violence, support the disarming of allied settler militias, or accept prior agreements, including the roadmap.

In short, to Pelosi and other Democratic congressional leaders, Palestinians simply do not have equal rights to Israelis in terms of statehood, security, or international obligations. The Democrats are willing to sabotage any Palestinian government that dares include — even as a minority in a broad coalition —any hard-line anti-Israeli party, yet they have no problems whatsoever in pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into supporting an Israeli government dominated by hard-line anti-Palestinian parties.

There's a word for such double-standards: racism.

Other Anti-Palestinian Provisions

Migration and refugee assistance are other areas where the anti-Palestinian bias of Pelosi and other Democratic leaders becomes apparent. There are dozens of countries in which the United Nations, assisted in part through U.S. aid, is involved in relief operations, including those dealing with Rwandans, Kurds, Congolese, Afghans, Iraqis, Somalis, and other refugee populations from which terrorist groups operate or have operated in the recent past. However, Pelosi and the Democratic leadership have determined that it's among Palestinian refugees alone that the State Department is required to work with the UN and host governments "to develop a strategy for identifying individuals known to have engaged in terrorist activities."

Pelosi's bill stipulates that not less than $30 million in funds for migration and refugee assistance should be made available for refugee resettlement in Israel. None of the other 192 recognized states in the world are specifically earmarked to receive this kind of funding, which is normally made available on assessment of humanitarian need. In recent years, successive Israeli governments have encouraged immigrants to live in subsidized Jewish-only settlements, illegally constructed on confiscated land in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights, in violation of a series of UN Security Council resolutions and a landmark advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice. The inclusion of this funding is widely interpreted as an effort by Pelosi and other Democratic lawmakers to encourage further Israeli colonization in occupied Palestinian and Syrian territory so as to decrease the likelihood of a peace settlement.

Only $75 million in aid is allocated to the West Bank and none of it is allocated to the Palestinian Authority itself. In contrast, annual U.S. economic assistance to Israel (which doesn't include the billions in military aid) goes directly to the Israeli government and has usually totaled more than 15 times that amount, even though the per-capita income of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is less than one-twentieth that of Israeli Jews.

Pelosi's bill contains lengthy and detailed conditions and restrictions on programs in the West Bank, with extensive vetting, reporting, and auditing requirements required for no other place in the world. This year's bill adds requirements that all funds are subjected to the regular notification procedures, also an unprecedented requirement. There are also a number of other stipulations not found for any other nations, such as the provision banning any assistance to the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation .

Despite all the additional administrative costs such restrictions require, the bill caps administrative expenses at $2 million; no such limitations exist involving aid to any other nation.

The Democrats' goal appears to be to make it all the more difficult for Palestinians — already suffering under U.S.-backed Israeli sieges — to meet even their most basic needs for health care, education, housing, and economic development.

One target of Pelosi and other Democratic leaders is the Palestinians' desire to regain the Arab-populated sections of East Jerusalem, which have been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. In addition to its religious significance for both Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Muslims, Jerusalem has long been the most important cultural, commercial, political, and educational center for Palestinians and has the largest Palestinian population of any city in the world. Given the city's significance to both populations, any sustainable peace agreement would need to recognize Jerusalem as the capital city for both Israel and Palestine.

In an apparent effort to delegitimize any Palestinian claims to their occupied capital, however, Pelosi's bill prohibits any "meetings between officers and employees of the United States and officials of the Palestinian Authority, or any successor Palestinian governing entity" in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem "for the purpose of conducting official United States Government business with such authority." Even if the Israelis do agree to end their occupation of Arab East Jerusalem, Pelosi and the Democrats have inserted language that no funds could be used to create any new U.S. government offices in Jerusalem that would interact with the Palestinian Authority or any successor Palestinian government entity

But wait, there is some good news:

Most significant is a provision banning nearly all cluster-bomb exports to Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, an initiative which had been defeated during the last session of Congress thanks to near-unanimous Republican opposition, as well as negative votes from such leading Democratic senators as Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. Obama — who, in contrast, voted in favor of the resolution — apparently helped to insure the inclusion of this provision in the bill, which has been applauded by human rights groups. [My note: Israel used cluster bombs in the war on Gaza; Australia signed a convention banning their use in late 2008]

Meanwhile, a number of additional anti-Palestinian amendments introduced from the floor by Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) were voted down after vigorous lobbying by Americans for Peace Now and other liberal groups.[Yaaay! - me]

Conclusion (there is a lot more in the article)- I feel the last clause of the last sentence is the most pertinent:

It will be President Obama, and not the Democratic-controlled Congress, who will ultimately determine the direction of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere in the coming years. Unfortunately, even assuming the best of intentions by a president who came to office in large part due to popular dissatisfaction with the direction of U.S. policy in the region, he won't be able to fundamentally change the direction of that policy if Congress continues to pursue policies supporting militarization, occupation, and repression. Read more: The Budget's Foreign Policy Handcuffs.

of Bedouins and broomsticks

This photo is not directly linked to the Bedouin story below, but the sentiment remains. Where is UNESCO? Where is the international community?
If it is not rampant colonialism, I don't know what it is. Though my ancestors were also rampant colonists, obviously, I hope I would have protested back then, though who knows. I can't justify it in modern times when those who know, and those who could help put a stop to it, do nothing.

On a similar tack, the Huffington Post yesterday reiterated Obama's position that said the detainees [of Guantanamo] have rights under the Geneva conventions. A former Bush administration official stated it was misguided for the administration to insist that the detainees were not subject to the Geneva Conventions or U.S. or international law.

One assumes that Obama agrees with this stance, given recognition of the rights of the detainees under the Geneva conventions was one of his first official acts. It would be nice if his government, and his administration, did less to enable a country (Israel) that flagrantly ignores the rights of the people on the land that it occupies, and did more towards working towards peace in the area by insisting, with deeds as well as words, that the declaration of human rights and other universal humanitarian resolves are not just the refuge of the occupiers and other western powers as a whole, or (hypothetically speaking) the refuge of those who might find themselves detained by a western power. That point of view is well outlined in this pdf, US/Middle-East Project: A Last Chance for a Two-State Israel Palestine Agreement, which, among other things, focuses on how much peace and goodwill adhering to United Nations resolutions would bring not just to Israel and Palestine, but to the region as a whole, thereby strengthening and supporting not only the security of the U.S., but the countries whose governments support the States. And it focuses on how time is running out. Action seems very unlikely, though, if one reads this early March article, Obama solidifies ties to Israel's military.

Links to those articles were originally found here at this British blog and at this Australian blog and at this American blog.

*Note: April 1, useful information A layman's guide to home demolitions in East Jerusalem

hypocrisy comes with an annual three billion U.S. dollar price tag

The U.S. supported the war on Gaza by Israel. It provided Israel with most of its weapons. In fact, Chomsky reports that

on December 31, while terrorized Gazans were desperately seeking shelter from the ruthless assault, Washington hired a German merchant ship to transport from Greece to Israel a huge shipment, 3000 tons, of unidentified "ammunition." The new shipment "follows the hiring of a commercial ship to carry a much larger consignment of ordnance in December from the United States to Israel ahead of air strikes in the Gaza Strip," Reuters reported.

The shipment may not have made it to Israel in time to be used on Gazans, particularly as the Greeks did not want to participate in supplying Israel with weapons, but it will be used, don't worry, sooner or later.

The U.S. failed to condemn the slaughter of 1300 people, including many children, many women, many sick, many old, many civilians. It failed to condemn the fact that civilians had nowhere to flee and they were not able to flee anywhere, due to Gaza being walled in and its borders being closed due to Israeli insistence. It stymied United Nations attempts to pass resolutions to bring about ceasefires, and to initiate possible action. Through this silence, obstruction, the green light that Bush provided, and Obama's silence, it condoned the destruction of Gazan infrastructure and all the above and more. Yet, Hillary Clinton has told:

Abbas that Congress will not approve funding of a Palestinian government that does not recognize Israel's right to exist and renounce violence. She added that if those requirements are not met the U.S.-funded program under the supervision of General Keith Dayton training PA security forces would be the first to be axed.

Considering the fact that the U.S. funded program that trains the PA security forces was probably responsible for the attempted overthrow of Hamas in 2006 (where Hamas, even though democratically elected, are purported to have "violently wrested control" of Gaza from Fatah), and that Fatah are considered corrupt and are not necessarily popular with the people, the suspension of U.S. training of PA security forces might be a good thing. However, Clinton says that that scheme would be the first to be axed.

Under Bush, Chomsky states:

more than $21 billion in U.S. military aid [was] provided . . . to Israel, almost all grants. "Israel's intervention in the Gaza Strip has been fueled largely by U.S. supplied weapons paid for with U.S. tax dollars," said a briefing by the New America Foundation, which monitors the arms trade.

Those arms are not just used on Gazans, but on all Palestinians. I wonder if Clinton will restrict the annual three billion dollars in aid that Israel receives unless Israel recognises the Gazan government (Hamas), and unless Israel relinquishes violence. And it is a very violent state. It seems unlikely that the U.S. could even consider this. It does not seem that it has one iota of interest in peace in this region, and it seems it will have to be the rest of the world, such as the Europeans, who at least have some discourse on the topic, and indeed, many Israelis, who have fled the country, or who are working with peace groups within, who might have a chance of bringing any chance of peace or justice. There are many people in the Arab countries who are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians, too, but their governments do not necessarily share the same views.

Reagan tried to stave off actions against South Africa's apartheid government, but he was eventually overridden. Hopefully that will ultimately be the case in this situation too. The rest of the world will, little bit by little bit, act, and maybe, if the U.S. can get away from the powerful influence of the lobby, it might be able to act, too, or then again, it might lose one of its best customers for arms.

Remember what Israeli peace activist, Jeffery Halper, said yesterday? It still holds true today:

I mean you know, James Baker called the Palestinian conflict the epicentre of instability in the entire Middle East and if you want to stabilise the Middle East, it you want to deal with Islamic fundamentalism, if you want to deal with Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Arab regimes that are teetering today, you’ve got to deal with the Palestine issue because this is around Jerusalem, which is tremendously important for Muslims, and the idea that Israel is Judaising Israel, which Israel says it is doing, is really something that’s creating a theological conflict that’s going to be very dangerous.

But in addition to that, I think the idea that this is an American-western occupation in which an Arab people is being suppressed and oppressed by a western country and Israel’s not even seen as the main actor. I think most Muslims see this as an American occupation, not an Israeli occupation. I think the west has to understand that the west is not going to get on to business as usual and stabilise the Middle East and the whole global system as long as this conflict continues.

the epicentre of instability

Jeff Halper, an Israeli-American peace activist, who is currently in Australia, on a national tour, below indicates why the world will probably not find peace until there is some form of justice between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

I mean you know, James Baker called the Palestinian conflict the epicentre of instability in the entire Middle East and if you want to stabilise the Middle East, it you want to deal with Islamic fundamentalism, if you want to deal with Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Arab regimes that are teetering today, you’ve got to deal with the Palestine issue because this is around Jerusalem, which is tremendously important for Muslims, and the idea that Israel is Judaising Israel, which Israel says it is doing, is really something that’s creating a theological conflict that’s going to be very dangerous.

But in addition to that, I think the idea that this is an American-western occupation in which an Arab people is being suppressed and oppressed by a western country and Israel’s not even seen as the main actor. I think most Muslims see this as an American occupation, not an Israeli occupation. I think the west has to understand that the west is not going to get on to business as usual and stabilise the Middle East and the whole global system as long as this conflict continues.

electing to recognise human rights for all

According to the CIA Factbook, African Americans make up 12.85% of the U.S. people. Israeli-Arabs (mostly of Palestinian descent), make up 23.6% of the population in Israel. These are the Palestinians who live in Israel "proper" (it hasn't defined its borders), not Gaza nor the West Bank. The government that is currently being formed in Israel is extremely right-winged. Avigdor Lieberman, who will play a major role, has run a platform of "No loyalty, no citizenship," directed towards the Arab population of Israel. He is an immigrant from Russia, having arrived in Israel 20 years prior. His policy is that people who were born on the land, have lived on the land for years and years and years, who, for the most part, are not Jewish, must make a pledge of allegiance to the Jewish state. If they do not, they will be shipped out:

Yisrael Beitenu's [Lieberman's party] manifesto was that 1.5 million Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel (indigenous survivors or descendants of the Palestinian majority ethnically cleansed in 1948) be subjected to a loyalty oath. If they don't swear allegiance to the "Jewish state" they would lose their citizenship and be forced from the land of their birth, joining millions of already stateless Palestinians in exile or in Israeli-controlled ghettos. In a move instigated by Lieberman but supported by Livni's allegedly "centrist" Kadima, the Knesset recently voted to ban Arab parties from participating in elections. Although the high court overturned it in time for the vote, it is an ominous sign of what may follow.

Lieberman, who previously served as deputy prime minister, has a long history of racist and violent incitement. Prior to Israel's recent attack, for example, he demanded Israel subject Palestinians to the brutal and indiscriminate violence Russia used in Chechyna. He also called for Arab Knesset members who met with officials from Hamas to be executed.

That's almost 24% of the population. Could this idea even come into light of day in modern-day United States, or Australia? I will concentrate on the United States, because it has a sizable African American minority who have had to fight for their rights. The Palestinians are indigenous, but their numbers are far higher than the indigenous population that exists now in the United States and Australia. In countries like India, and Indonesia (Dutch East Indies), which were also colonised, the populations were too huge to seriously contemplate such ideas (in expulsion, anyway. I'm sure there were loyalty pledges dreamt up). In Australia, too, Aborigines were not citizens in their own country until the 1960s, had curfews imposed upon them, were only allowed to work in certain jobs, were not allowed to own houses, and so on. But many steps have been made to rectify wrongs, and they are still being made (with varying degrees of success), and as has been pointed out many times before, wrongs committed in one country do not condone wrongs in another. These colonial times are meant to have been left behind.

So, if you will, imagine a politician, not born in the United States, gaining power in the United States, and ordering a large minority of existing citizens born in the country to pledge allegiance to a Zionist concept, or else. No matter if you were born in the country, or not. No matter how many generations your family had been in the country (in the case of the Palestinians, for pretty damned long) or not.

Why do we allow such ideas to perpetuate when we won't stand for it in our own countries? In Australia, most immigrants take a pledge of commitment when they become citizens, and even then, they have the choice of a pledge that refers to God or not, but native-born do not need to go through this procedure. Why do we stand for such ideas, and encourage them when we have supported struggles against such ideas in the past, and no longer legally impose them on our own indigenous* or minority populations? Why do people support these ideas with their tax dollars, especially in light of the recession? (Of course, the solution from strong elements in the States seems to be to no longer provide aid to the occupied territories, rather than to stop supporting the rather robust Israeli economy, and sending it arms). Why do they support it with their silence? (I know the main stream media plays a huge role there). The other politicians who will hold power in Israel are just variations on the theme when it comes to the rights of the Palestinians in Israel and in the occupied territories.

*Australia's treatment of its indigenous population is still contentious, and rightly so. The Howard government introduced many restrictions and took away many rights as detailed in this Dec 2008, article. The [current] federal government declared that it will introduce reforms to allow the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act (which introduced these restrictions and interventions) to be lifted, in a year. Groups argue it is not soon enough. In current times, though, our government has not taken to strafing the population with F16s, and in theory, people are free to travel the whole country. There are no official checkpoints, watchtowers or separation walls keeping populations separate.

It seems that very few of our politicians, at present, will ever see their way through to recognising human rights on this issue, and will, instead support the suppression of same. The following (at the end of this paragraph) was written by Ali Abunimah for the Electronic Infitada, and I think his last comment on boycotts, divestment and sanctions is probably true. Apartheid did eventually cease in South Africa, and initially, it was not through international governmental action, but through the actions of concerned citizens, institutions and companies from various countries. I wish our politicians were braver, but it seems the lure of money and power will mean that the only human rights they ever hold sacred are their own.

What does not help is brazen western hypocrisy. Already the US State Department spokesman affirmed that the Obama administration would work with whatever coalition emerged from Israel's "thriving democracy" and promised that the US would not interfere in Israel's "internal politics." Despite US President Barack Obama's sweet talk about a new relationship with the Arab world, few will fail to notice the double standard. In 2006, Hamas won a democratic election in the occupied territories, observed numerous unilateral or agreed truces that were violated by Israel, offered Israel a generation-long truce to set the stage for peace, and yet it is still boycotted by the US and European Union.

Worse, the US sponsored a failed coup against Hamas and continues to arm and train the anti-Hamas militias of Mahmoud Abbas, whose term as Palestinian Authority president expired on 9 January. As soon as he took office, Obama reaffirmed this boycott of Palestinian democracy.

The clearest message from Israel's election is that no Zionist party can solve Israel's basic conundrum and no negotiations will lead to a two-state solution. Israel could only be created as a "Jewish state" by the forced removal of the non-Jewish majority Palestinian population. As Palestinians once again become the majority in a country that has defied all attempts at partition, the only way to maintain Jewish control is through ever more brazen violence and repression of resistance (see Gaza). Whatever government emerges is certain to preside over more settlement-building, racial discrimination and escalating violence.

There are alternatives that have helped end what once seemed like equally intractable and bloody conflicts: a South African-style one-person one-vote democracy, or Northern Ireland-style power-sharing. Only under a democratic system according rights to all the people of the country will elections have the power to transform people's futures.

But Israel today is lurching into open fascism. It is utterly disingenuous to continue to pretend -- as so many do -- that its failed and criminal leaders hold the key to getting out of the morass. Instead of waiting for them to form a coalition, we must escalate the international civil society campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to force Israelis to choose a saner path (Israel Lurches into Facism, February 13, 2009).

If you want advice by a writer commissioned by the US army, on part of this issue, (or on HAMAS's international terrorist standing - in that Israel, the US, and the western world uses the word 'terrorism' to justify all Israeli actions), I urge you to read all of this report (HAMAS and Israel: Conflicting strategies of group-based politics). She expands upon many of the things touched upon in the above quote, such as the US sponsored coup. I did post it before, and hopefully will summarise parts of it later, needless to say, HAMAS are not quite the ogres the mainstream media leads us to believe, though I am not painting them as angels, and actions are grounded in history and context. So saying, times also change. She calls for, as do I, recognising an elected government and electing to recognise human rights, for all.