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Paul Merrell

Because the 'Time for Climate Action Is Now,' Oslo Makes Landmark Move to Ban Cars | Co... - 0 views

  • As part of a plan to rein in carbon emissions, Oslo's new city council announced this week that the city's center would be car-free by 2019. Ars Technica reports that the move, which aims to help the city halve greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels, "will make Oslo the first European capital where cars are permanently banned, plus it's a strong indicator that similar bans may be enacted in other major cities across the continent." To make the shift, the Norwegian capital will boost its investment into public transportation and add roughly 37 miles (60 kilometers) of bike lanes, Reuters reports 
  • The new coalition running the city, made up of the Labor Party, the Socialist Left, and the Greens, additionally said that it would divest its pension fund from fossil fuels.  "Divestment," Nguyen Berg added, "sends a strong message to the world prior to the Climate Change Conference in Paris that we need a strong agreement that will ensure that we avoid dangerous global warming."
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    Can you imagine a major U.S. city with no cars allowed in the city center? 
Paul Merrell

Hamas Rejects Fateh's Demand for Gaza Rule | nsnbc international - 0 views

  • Hamas officials on Wednesday rejected demands by Fateh leadership to hand over rule of the Gaza Strip and called for an “uprising” against Palestinian Authority security forces.
  • Fateh leader Azzam al-Ahmad had said on Sunday that Hamas “foiled” efforts towards a unity government, and that the group must hand over rule of the Gaza Strip as a condition for forming the new government. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that the Fateh leader’s comments created tension and were “untrue,” blaming the failure to form a unity government on Fateh’s “factionalism.” He added that Fateh’s calls to reform the unity government were a media maneuver, reiterating his movement’s willingness to form the government based on national consensus. The unity government formed in June 2014 repeatedly failed to overcome divisive issues between Hamas and Fateh, and the PLO appointed a committee last month to lead negotiations for reforming the government. The consultations have yielded little consensus thus far and received criticism by non-Fateh factions, who convened earlier this month to condemn recent PA arrests as hindering the negotiation process.
  • More than 20 years on, however, Hamas and other factions continue to accuse the PA of acting on Israel’s behalf through security cooperation. On July 7, Hamas accused the PA of having detained more than 200 of its members in the West Bank, in a sweep that MP Khalil al-Haya charged was aimed solely at “assisting the occupier” against anti-Israeli militants. Hamas leader Abd al-Rahman Shadid said at the time that many of those detained were left with signs of torture, and that the arrest campaign was part of an organized project aiming to “eradicate the movement.”
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  • This sentiment continued Wednesday when deputies of the Hamas movement renewed calls for a “revolt” against the PA over its sweeping arrests of alleged anti-Israeli militants. The deputies, in an act of defiance, held a meeting in the parliament building in Gaza City that has not convened officially since 2007 when Hamas expelled PA security forces after a week of deadly clashes. They called for “an uprising and a revolt against the political arrests” carried out by the PA in the West Bank and for Palestinian factions to adopt “a firm stand against the Authority’s crimes against the resistance and its members.” The deputies condemned the PA’s security cooperation with Israel under the 1993 Oslo accords as amounting to “high treason” that served “Zionist security” interests. Coordination in security operations as laid out in the Oslo Accords planned for a gradual power transfer in the occupied West Bank from Israeli forces to the PA over the course of five years.
  • Related article: Hamas Military Wing Offers Thousands Combat Training
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    In the only Palestine Occupied Territory-wide election Hamas beat Fateh hands down. But Hamas was classed as a terrorist organization by Israel and the U.S. So Fateh formed the Palestine Authority government, and ruled the West Bank, while Hamas ejected Fateh from Gaza and ruled there since. The PA as a party to the Oslo Accords became the puppet of Israel and the U.S., providing security services to Israel in the West Bank. There have been sporadic efforts to establish a Unity Government but no joy yet. A unity government formed in early 2014 was abruptly ended by Israel's invasion of Gaza. 
Paul Merrell

Violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories - the Guardian briefing | News | The... - 0 views

  • Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories have been convulsed by a wave of escalating violence in recent days. The lethal tensions ratcheted up sharply last Thursday when a married couple, Jewish settlers from Neria in the northern West Bank, were shot and killed in a car in front of their four children near Beit Furik, allegedly by members of a five-man Hamas cell who were subsequently arrested. Two more Israelis were stabbed and killed in Jerusalem’s Old City on Saturday by a Palestinian youth, who was shot dead at the scene. On Sunday, an 18-year-old Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli forces in clashes near the West Bank town of Tulkarem. The mounting friction has seen attacks by settlers on Palestinians, clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces and attempted attacks continue. On Wednesday. there were incidents in Jerusalem, where a Palestinian woman stabbed an Israeli man who then shot and seriously wounded her in the Old City, the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Gat, where a Palestinian was killed after reportedly trying to seize a gun from a soldier and stabbing him, and when a female Israeli settler’s car was stoned near Beit Sahour, which adjoins Bethlehem, in an incident in which it appears other settlers fired on Palestinians, seriously injuring a youth.
  • On the Palestinian side, anger escalated earlier this week after a 13-year-old boy in Bethlehem’s Aida refugee camp was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper in an incident the Israeli military has claimed was “unintentional” as soldiers were aiming at another individual.
  • Jerusalem has remained tense now for almost a year. Most analysts blame the recent heightened tension on several factors. Key among them has been the issue of the religious site in Jerusalem known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, and Jews as the Temple Mount. A long-running campaign by some fundamentalist Jews and their supporters for expanding their rights to worship in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on the Temple Mount, supported by rightwing members of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s own cabinet, has raised the suspicion – despite repeated Israeli denials – that Israel intends to change the precarious status quo for the site, which has been governed under the auspices of the Jordanian monarchy since 1967.
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  • Recent Israeli police actions at the site scandalised the Muslim world and raised tensions. Israel has also banned two volunteer Islamic watch groups – male and female – accusing them of harassing Jews during the hours they are allowed to visit. That has combined with the lack of a peace process and growing resentment and frustration in Palestinian society aimed at both Israel and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Palestinian Authority. Israel has complained in recent weeks of an increase in stone throwing and molotov cocktail attacks on West Bank roads and in areas adjoining mainly Palestinian areas of Jerusalem, where an elderly motorist died after crashing his car during an alleged stoning attack. In response, Netanyahu and his cabinet have loosened live-fire regulations over the use of .22 calibre bullets on Palestinian demonstrators. Although described by Israel as “less lethal”, it is this type of ammunition that killed 13-year-old Abdul Rahman Shadi on Monday.
  • Part of the problem is the leadership on both sides. Netanyahu leads a rightwing/far-right coalition with the smallest of majorities. Several cabinet ministers support the settler movement and have publicly criticised him for not cracking down harder on Palestinian protest. Netanyahu’s weakness is reflected on the Palestinian side, where the ageing Abbas is seen as isolated, frustrated and increasingly out of step with other members of the Palestinian leadership, who would like a tougher line against Israel over continued settlement building and the absence of any peace process.
  • In his recent speech to the UN general assembly, Abbas went further than he had ever done before in threatening to end what he claims is Palestine’s unilateral adherence to the Oslo accords, which he said Israel refuses to honour. “We cannot continue to be bound by these signed agreements with Israel and Israel must assume fully its responsibilities of an occupying power,” he said. Abbas, however, stopped short of ending security cooperation between Israel and Palestinian security forces – mainly aimed at Hamas on the West Bank – and asked the UN for international protection. His speech at the United Nations has been seen as a move to placate growing discontents in Palestinian society. Both Abbas and Netanyahu are now both engaged in a delicate balancing act, trying to avoid further escalation that would be detrimental to both while trying not to lose the support of key constituencies. On Abbas’s side, that has meant ordering Palestinian factions and security forces to desist from joining the conflict, while on Netanyahu’s side it has seen numerous warnings of harsh measures – many of which have been repeatedly announced.
  • Nentanyahu does not want to risk a position where Abbas ends security cooperation and in the local jargon “hands back the keys” – in other words revokes the Oslo accords and insists on Israel once again taking full responsibility for administering the occupied territories. For his part, Abbas is said to see a limited popular uprising as useful because of the message it delivers to both Israel and the international community of the mounting risks of a moribund peace process and how serious things could become if security cooperation were to end.
  • At the end of the last round of the peace process last year, US diplomats warned about this potential outcome and Washington has largely withdrawn from a guiding role, exhausted by the lack of progress and frustrated with Netanyahu. Despite the Palestinian desire for a new multilateral international approach, it has failed to materialise as have any US guarantees to Abbas that they intend to advance the peace process. While Syria, migration and Russia are preoccupying western governments, Israel and Palestine have been largely left to their own devices.
  • Flare-ups of violence have a habit of coming and going but hopes that this one is coming to an end appear premature for now. However, the likelihood of the current violence fading away still remains the strongest bet. The biggest risk is a miscalculation by either side, which is out of the hands of either leader, that would alter the dynamics. Individuals on both sides have led some of the worst attacks: Jewish extremists in the summer burning three members of a Palestinian family to death, and “lone wolf attacks” launched by Palestinians angry about al-Aqsa and other issues. With neither side having a clear exit strategy, there is a risk is that Netanyahu and Abbas are being led by events rather than leading.
Paul Merrell

Poll Shows Diminishing Support for Two-State Solution - Inter Press Service - 0 views

  • Twenty years of the Oslo peace process between Israelis and Palestinians have made a solution more difficult to attain, rather than easier. That was the conclusion of a poll of Israelis and Palestinians released on Friday. The poll, conducted by Zogby Research Services, showed that barely one-third of Israelis (34 percent) and Palestinians (36 percent) still believe that a two-state solution is feasible. And, while the two-state solution remains the most popular option among both peoples, that support is much stronger among Israelis (74 percent) than among Palestinians (47 percent).
  • Lead pollster and President of both Zogby Research Services and the Arab American Institute, Jim Zogby, sees these results as very troubling and as boding ill for the potential for U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts to salvage the two-state solution.
  • Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have stated that they would put any agreement to a referendum among their respective peoples. When asked if they held out hope, only 11 percent of Palestinians and 39 percent of Israelis said they did. But, when asked if they would support an agreement if their respective leaders endorsed it, 55 percent of Israelis and 49 percent of Palestinians said they would do so, while only 19 percent of Israelis and 28 percent of Palestinians said they would not.
Paul Merrell

Palestinians Seen Gaining Momentum in Quest for Statehood - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • When the Palestinians sought statehood at the United Nations in 2011, it was widely dismissed as a symbolic gambit to skirt negotiations with Israel and Washington’s influence over the long-running conflict. But the Palestinians have begun to translate a series of such symbolic steps, culminating in last week’s move to join the International Criminal Court, into a strategy that has begun to create pressure on Israel.While many prominent Israelis have called for unilateral action to set the country’s borders, it is Palestinians who have gained political momentum with moves made outside of negotiations. The Palestinians are, in effect, establishing a legal state. International recognition, by 135 countries and counting, is what Palestinians are betting could eventually force changes on the ground — without their leaders having to make the concessions or assurances they have long avoided.
  • President Abbas, having joined the International Criminal Court after months of rebuffing internal pressure to do so, now faces calls from a frustrated public to go further, by halting security coordination with Israel or dissolving the Palestinian Authority. While both steps would be problematic for the Palestinians as well as the Israelis, Palestinian leaders see it as a way to further squeeze Israel. Without the authority, Israel would have to provide services and maintain order across the West Bank without Palestinian security forces, which would likely be both costly and chaotic, and could intensify international frustration with Israel’s occupation.“I’m a little surprised with the negative American reaction because Palestinians either pursue peaceful legal approaches or pursue violent illegal approaches,” said Ghassan Khatib, vice president of Birzeit University in the West Bank. “But if all the doors are closed, and if the Israelis and the Americans will stop funding, then the P.A. will collapse, and that will play to the hands of the extreme elements in Palestinian society, including Hamas.”
  • President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority seems undeterred and increasingly indifferent to American diplomacy. He vowed Sunday to resubmit a Security Council resolution that failed last week “again and again” and to “join 100, 200, 300” international organizations, despite the risk that Israeli and American sanctions could lead to his government’s collapse.
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  • “Those states that have recognized the State of Palestine, that’s not an insignificant number, they’ve reached a kind of critical mark,” said Mark Ellis, director of the London-based International Bar Association. “We’ve added an additional complexity to this very long 66-year-old journey. I think it’s intriguing.”
  • In some ways, the dual Palestinian tracks seem contradictory — how could they continue to make the case for statehood if they collapse the provisional authority the Oslo Accords created two decades ago for state-building? But it is the Palestine Liberation Organization, not the Palestinian Authority, that represents Palestinians on the world stage. Mr. Ellis, the international-law expert, said that Palestine met the criteria for statehood — permanent population, defined territory, government, and recognition by other states — and that those would not be nullified if the authority disappeared and chaos ensued on the ground. Mustafa Barghouti, one of many Palestinian leaders pressing Mr. Abbas to collapse the authority, envisions “a government in exile” for a “state under occupation.”
  • “This would mean liberating the Palestinian movement from all these restrictions and obligations by Israel — it’s like declaring civil disobedience,” Mr. Barghouti said. “In a way, it’s the end of the Oslo era. For me, it was the end many years ago. For Abbas, it was the end only this week.”
Paul Merrell

Israel continues withholding Palestinian Tax Revenue | nsnbc international - 0 views

  • The Cabinet of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to continue withholding tax revenue which Israel has been collecting on behalf of the Palestinian Authority in accordance with the 1993 Oslo Accords, report Israeli media.
  • The Israeli government began withholding Palestinian tax revenues in December, in response to Palestine’s accession to over 20 international treaties, including the Rome Statute. UN Secretary-General Ban Kyi-moon announced that Palestine would become a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) under the Rome Statutes on April 1, 2015. The Netanyahu administration denounced Palestine’s accession to the Rome Statute and Palestinian ICC membership as “a unilateral move in violation of the Oslo Accords”, while the Palestinian Authority is denouncing Israel for systematic violations of the Accords since 1993.
  • The PLO and Palestinian Authority decided to sign over 20 international treaties in response to the rejection of a Jordanian-sponsored, Palestinian UN Security Council Resolution that called for a full withdrawal of Israel from the occupied Palestinian territories in 2017. The Palestinian Authority urgently depends on the tax revenue to pay the wages of over 170,000 public employees. Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah urged the public employees to be patient and promised that the Palestinian Authority is working to resolve the issue and enable at least the partial payment of the salaries. In early January the Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, denounced the Israeli reprisal as theft and an act of piracy.
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    The withholding of the tax payments is indeed a violation of international law, a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which requires inter alia an occupying power to preserve the existing civilian government to the maximum extent consistent with military requirements. Of course the continuing occupation itself is a war crime under the same Convention. Israel siezed the Palestinian territories in its illegal war of aggression in 1967. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel was requried to withdraw its military forces immediately upon the cessation of hostilities. It has been only the U.S. heavy foreign and military aid and exercise of its veto power and  at the U.N. Security Council that has permitted this atrocity to continue. 
Paul Merrell

Trump is just what Netanyahu needs to annex the West Bank | +972 Magazine - 0 views

  • A slip of the tongue from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month is worthy of attention. In an unprepared response to a Likud Knesset member, Netanyahu said: “What I’m willing to give to the Palestinians is not exactly a state with full authority, but rather a state-minus, which is why the Palestinians don’t agree [to it].”
  • This almost never happens to Netanyahu. He is calculated, in contrast to Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman who once threatened to execute Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and destroy his movement. In his public appearances, Netanyahu’s statements are carefully worded. His mind operates mechanically, and it is for this reason that a slip of the tongue warrants attention. He has given away more than he intended to. Netanyahu’s words need to be tied back his stance during the negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as part of the 2013-4 peace talks initiated by then-Secretary of State John Kerry. Netanyahu’s position was that even following an agreement, Israel would retain security control over the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea over the coming decades. The best case scenario for the Palestinians would have been a severely handicapped state. What would a less ideal scenario have looked like? In order to answer that question, we must also look at Netanyahu’s support for the Formalization Law and for settlement expansion, two processes he has pushed forward with since Donald Trump entered the White House. The significance of these processes, territorially-speaking, is the end of the “temporary” occupation and the effective annexation of around 60 percent of the West Bank.
  • Where Netanyahu differs from Jewish Home head Naftali Bennett is in the type and reach of annexation, not in the principle of annexation itself. Bennett wants to advance from legal to practical annexation as soon as possible. Netanyahu is more cautious. He first of all wants de facto annexation, and to do it in stages so that the world and the Palestinians can adjust to the new reality.
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  • This would be followed by a self-evident de jure annexation, which would seem almost natural. Palestinians would be left with what they currently have: enclaves that are barely connected to one another. Israel would govern them externally and enter them at will. As far as Netanyahu is concerned, if the Palestinians want to call this kind of autonomy a state, that’s their affair. This would also mark the definite end of the Oslo Accords; the Palestinian Authority would not be upgraded to a sovereign state on the entirety of the 1967 territories. Netanyahu is exploiting Abbas’ adaptability and passivity. Abbas pays no attention to the voices calling on him to shutter the Palestinian Authority and hand over the keys to Israel, who would then have to bear full responsibility for its policies. He persists in security cooperation with Israel on the grounds that they share the same enemies: Hamas and the Islamic State. Abbas and the PA also have an interest in keeping the benefits that they receive as part of a ruling class sponsored by Israel. The continued existence of a hobbled PA is also in Europe’s interests. European countries donate heavily in order to keep the PA in its current incarnation, on the premise that it is a stable factor in fighting radical Islam and prevents the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from engulfing the continent’s cities.
  • Yet Netanyahu is using Trump even more than he is using Abbas, hence the importance of their upcoming meeting in D.C. Trump’s position on Israel-Palestine remains unclear, and his limited attention prevents him from getting into the details. He is a man of simplistic principles that can be summarized in a formula — the opposite of Barack Obama and Kerry. Trump rejected UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which reaffirmed the international understanding of the borders of June 4, 1967 as the future border between Israel and a sovereign Palestinian state. Trump also condemned Obama’s decision not to use the U.S.’s veto. Trump also denounced Kerry’s final speech on the Middle East, in which he portrayed the Netanyahu government’s annexationist policy as racist. Israel believes that continuing to rule over the Palestinians when there are equal numbers in both demographic groups will allow it to remain a Jewish and democratic state. Kerry called this an illusion, saying that the result would be “separate but unequal.” He deliberately used the term for the racist regime of separation that formerly prevailed in the U.S. According to Kerry, such a regime is in opposition to America’s democratic principles, and as such, the U.S. could not support it. Trump’s executive orders and senior appointments, however, have shown that he has a different understanding of American democracy and the rights of minorities.
  • Netanyahu and Trump hold similar basic positions. Netanyahu can try to nail down Trump’s agreement to a “state-minus” policy, and present it as a security necessity that will prevent the West Bank from falling into the hands of radical Islamists. As part of such an approach, Netanyahu could also secure the president’s blessing for settlement expansion in the West Bank, especially in the Jerusalem area. In play are two sets of Israeli building plans aimed at completely sealing off the area that separates Palestinian Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank: Givat HaMatos, which sits between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and the larger expanse between Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, also known as the E1 area. The surprising hush that has fallen over the campaign for a law that would annex Ma’ale Adumim indicates that it will be on the agenda when Netanyahu and Trump sit down together. An agreement with Trump would allow Netanyahu to tackle the expected opposition from Western European countries to the plan for a state-minus. These countries’ guiding values will be far more similar to those of the Obama administration than the Trump administration. Meanwhile, Netanyahu was encouraged by the U.K.’s decision to activate Article 50 in order to leave the European Union, and its overtures to Trump as a replacement; he hurried to meet Prime Minister Theresa May, who had herself just returned from D.C. The Israeli government has also drawn encouragement from the various messages coming out of Europe that continued settlement-building endangers the two-state solution. That is, indeed, the aim. Up until Kerry’s speech, that had also been the automatic response of the Obama administration. From the moment Kerry declared that the settlements were creating a racist regime, Netanyahu perceived the danger of a new international agenda. Instead of the question of a Palestinian state, attention is now on the question of whether Israel is an apartheid state
Paul Merrell

Arab League, Abbas reject recognizing Israel as 'Jewish state' - Israel News, Ynetnews - 0 views

  • The Arab League on Sunday endorsed Palestinian President s demand for recognition as a Jewish state, as US-backed peace talks approach a deadline next month.
  • The United States want Abbas to make the concession as part of efforts to reach a "framework agreement" and extend the talks aimed at settling the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  "The council of the Arab League confirms its support for the Palestinian leadership in its effort to end the Israeli occupation over Palestinian lands, and emphasizes its rejection of recognizing  Arab governments, distracted by the upheaval convulsing the region since the 2011 Arab uprisings, have previously taken few stands on the floundering peace talks, leaving Abbas isolated.
  • Abbas complained on Saturday that Palestinians were being asked for something that had not been demanded of Arab countries that have previously signed peace treaties with Israel.  "We recognized Israel in mutual recognition in the (1993) Oslo agreement - why do they now ask us to recognize the Jewishness of the state?" he asked.  "Why didn't they present this demand to Egypt when they signed a peace agreement with them?" Abbas added.  The United States is hoping to get the two sides to agree on some general points, including the "Jewish state" issue and a rough understanding on borders, as part of what it calls a framework deal that could lead to the prolongation of the talks, which have achieved little since they began seven months ago.  Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 war. Palestinians seek the land for their future state, and want Israeli soldiers and over half a million settlers gone.
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    Abbas finally gets an endorsement from neighboring Arab states backing him on his refusal to recognize Israel as a "Jewish State," part of Netanyahu's negotiation demands. Such recognition would be tantamount to recognition of Israel's denial of the right of Palestinians driven from their homes in 1948 to return to them, a right ensured to them by the Geneva Convention on the rights of civilians in time of war.  
Paul Merrell

US 'worst place to be a mother' among developed nations - report - RT USA - 0 views

  • America is the worst developed country in the world to be a mother, ranking 61st globally in maternal health, a groundbreaking analysis of global health inequalities has found. The US performed worse than last year, when it was in 31st place overall. This year it is 33rd. Although it did well on economic and educational status, according to this year's Mother's Index the country lags behind on children's well-being, where it is 42nd, and on maternal health, ranking 61st. A woman in the United States is more than 10 times as likely as a woman in Austria, Belarus or Poland to die from a pregnancy-related cause, according to a comprehensive report, State of the World's Mothers 2015, published by Save the Children.
  • Women in the US face a 1 in 1,800 risk of childbirth-related death. It's the worst performance of any developed country in the world, the report, released ahead of Mother's Day, celebrated on the second Sunday in May, has warned. “Other countries are passing us by,” CEO of Save the Children, Carolyn Miles, told reporters at the United Nations. Save the Children also scrutinized infant mortality rates in 25 capital cities of wealthy countries and found that Washington DC had the highest, at 6.6 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2013. This rate is a historic low for the District of Columbia, but is still three times the rates in Tokyo and Stockholm. In 2012, the district had an infant mortality rate of 7.9 deaths per 1,000 live births (while Stockholm or Oslo had infant mortality rates at or below 2.0, according to the report.)
  • Many major American cities, meanwhile, have even higher infant mortality rates. In 2011, Cleveland and Detroit reported infant mortality rates of 14.1 and 12.4 per 1,000 live births, respectively.
Paul Merrell

U.S. Pressures Nobel Committee to Declare Ukraine's President a Peace Prize Nominee, Le... - 0 views

  • A leaked letter dated May 19th and sent by the Chairman of Ukraine’s parliament, Vladimir Groysman, to the chargé d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Oslo Norway, thanks her for “the efforts you have made to have Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize,” but continues: “Still we consider your assurances of support by the two members of the Nobel Committee as insufficient,” because there are five members of the Committee, and the support of 3 of them is necessary. 
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    Why not? If Obama qualifies for the Nobel Peace Prize, so could Attila the Hun. 
Paul Merrell

Clinton can't separate herself from foreign-policy buffoons Saban and Adelson - Mondoweiss - 0 views

  • Are Adelson and Saban people that presidents should be looking to for Middle East policy advice? Apparently Hillary Clinton thinks so. It’s not a matter of necessity. As Bruck details in her profile of Saban, Obama kept Saban at a distance. He did not rely on Adelson money or on Saban money for his elections. Hillary Clinton is choosing to dance to a different tune. All of this brings into question Hillary Clinton’s judgement when it comes to the Middle East. As we know, she voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In the 2008 campaign she refused to acknowledge the vote as a mistake; now she does.  However, this letter to Saban leaves one to wonder whether her judgment has improved.
  • Beinart thinks Clinton’s implicit support of the occupation and the fight against BDS is counterproductive and bad for Israel. Signing up with Saban and Adelson, says Beinart, “is disastrous” because Adelson and Saban are shutting out the very voices and constituencies with whom BDS enjoys credibility.  The Adelson/Saban approach, worries Beinart, will be counter-productive and will ultimately make the BDS movement more potent.  If Hillary Clinton were serious about fighting BDS, says Beinart, Saban would be the last person she’d ask. She’d be looking for ways to impose a two state solution from the outside.
  • The only way to prevent this Israeli unilateralism is through solutions “imposed from the outside.” …. How can direct negotiations possibly succeed when Benjamin Netanyahu has explicitly and repeatedly said that he doesn’t support a Palestinian state anytime soon, and doesn’t support one near the 1967 lines ever? The only way to make direct negotiations meaningful is to force Netanyahu, or some Israeli successor, back into the paradigm outlined by Bill Clinton and the Arab Peace Initiative [in the Oslo process] …. Unless that framework is “imposed from the outside,” people morally opposed to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank will see no hope for ending it without BDS. And they will gradually embrace the movement, even though it goes beyond the two-state solution to question the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state within any borders. The Obama administration, by signaling that it may support such a UN framework this fall, is pursuing the best alternative to BDS that exists today. If Hillary helps torpedo that UN initiative, Haim Saban should look forward to more letters from her about BDS in the future. Because the Democratic presidential frontrunner will have done her part to help it grow.
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  • Over the course of his Presidency Obama has successfully gotten Iran to halt its pursuit of a nuclear weapon and he has made efforts to normalize relations and bring Iran back into the international community. This effort has been shrilly opposed by Israel. Hillary Clinton has at times opposed the Obama administration’s approach on Iran. How would she balance her unceasing commitment to Israeli neoconservatives with America’s policy interests in the region as president? There are more questions than answers. In Syria as with Iraq, it’s clear Hillary’s instincts have been considerably more hawkish than Obama’s. Hawkish instincts proved a disaster in the wake of September 9, 2001. The fact that Clinton is unable to distance herself from Saban and Adelson, buffoons who don’t know what they’re talking about on BDS, leaves room for worry about how Hillary Clinton’s hawkish instincts would serve the country if she were president for the next four or eight years.
Paul Merrell

US asked Norway to arrest Edward Snowden - The Local - 0 views

  • Norway’s NRK broadcaster has obtained a copy of the formal requests US authorities sent to Norway’s Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Justice asking it to arrest NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden should he enter Norwegian territory.
  • The FBI’s regional office sent another letter the same day to the justice authorities of Norway, Sweden and Finland, describing Snowden as a criminal on the run and asking them to notify them should Snowden book a flight to one of their countries.
  • In a note from the US embassy in Oslo, the US asked the Norwegian authorities to do everything in their power to seize anything which might contain the stolen files.    “The Embassy requests the seizure of all articles acquired as a result of the offenses (..) This includes, but is not limited to, all computer devices, electronic storage devices and other sorts of electronic media.”   Snowden’s lawyer Ben Wizner told NRK that the most worrying aspect of he documents was the US’s pressure on Norway and presumably other countries to arrest Snowden and extradite him, before he had had a chance to apply for asylum.    “What is troubling to me is the suggestion that if Mr Snowden showed up in one of these countries, he should be promptly extradited – before he would have a chance to raise his humanitarian rights under international law,” he said.   “The only correct response from political leaders in Norway or any other free society should be to tell the US that this is a question of law and not a question of politics. And that under international law, someone who is charged with a political offence, has a right to raise a claim for asylum before the question of extradition even comes up.” 
Paul Merrell

Lethal Israeli - Palestinian Conflict Escalates | nsnbc international - 0 views

  • Conflict between Israel and Palestine escalates as youth throughout Palestine vent their frustrations over decades of illegal occupation and an escalation of Israeli oppression and violence. The renewed round of violence takes its toll on both Israelis and Palestinians.  
  • Violent clashes between Israeli occupation forces, settlers and Palestinians have escalated throughout Palestine since the beginning of the intensified Israeli crackdown against Palestinians at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, last month. On Sunday Israeli troops carried out a raid against the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC). The center disseminates a lot of regional and local news coverage that otherwise only is available in Arab to English-speaking listeners and readers. The raid was carried out Sunday morning at 4.00 o’clock. Over the weekend a rocket was fired into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. The rocket landed without causing damage. Sunday at dawn Israel responded by launching air strikes against targets in the Gaza Strip. Israeli military and government sources say that the strikes aimed at targeting militants.
  • One of these air strikes struck a family home in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. The air raid killed a five months pregnant Palestinian mother along with her two-year-old child while several other family members were injured. The husband of the deceased 30-year-old Nour Rasmi Hassan told that a “knock on the roof rocket” woke the family from their sleep but that they were confused, shocked and that there was no time to respond and flee their home before the house was struck. Frustrated Palestinian youth are confronting Palestinian police and military in occupied East Jerusalem and other occupied Palestinian territories. Clashes in the interim Palestinian capital Ramallah turned deadly on Sunday evening when a 13-year-old boy succumbed to the his injuries. The 13-year-old Ahmad had been struck in the head by a rubber-coated steel bullet fired by Israeli occupation forces earlier that day. The fatal shooting occurred close to the Beit El settlement northeast of al-Biereh.
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  • Last week Israeli undercover agents infiltrated Palestinian protesters near Beit El, grabbing some, beating, kicking and injuring them severely. Meanwhile, some frustrated Palestinian youth have carried out knife attacks against Israeli settlers and citizens, venting their frustrations. Knife attacks began after the willful fatal shooting of an unarmed Palestinian youth by Israeli officers. A video captured the fatal shooting and the cheering words “kill him, kill him” before the fatal shots were fired. Several analysts noted that the latest round of violence has the potential to escalate into a full-scale Palestinian uprising. The Israeli crackdown against Palestinians has further soured Egyptian – Israeli relations. Last week the spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Ahmed Abu Zeid said that Israel as the occupying power must provide Palestinian people the required protection and stop repeating its attacks that lead to more political congestion among the Palestinians and weaken the opportunities of reviving the installed peace talks between Palestinians and Israel,.
  • Notably, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas noted at his address at the 70th Session of the UN General Assembly that the PLO may no longer feel obliged to adhere to the Oslo Accords. Mahmoud Abbas stressed that Palestine could not continue to adhere to the accords as Israel continues to violate them. Several of the progressive PLO member factions, including the PFLP and DFLP have called for a renewed uprising. Both factions have repeatedly demanded that the Al-Fatah led Palestinian Authority immediately ends its so-called security cooperation with Israeli police, military, intelligence services and government. The Israeli Cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for its part, has promised a strict response to any “insurrection”. Over 150 Palestinians have been seriously injured over the course of the last week.
Paul Merrell

Al Jazeera once again removes Joseph Massad article on Palestine | The Electronic Intifada - 0 views

  • Al Jazeera English has once again removed an article by Columbia University professor Joseph Massad hours after publishing it. The article, “The Dahlan Factor,” appeared for several hours on the Qatar-based broadcaster’s website this morning at this link, but was later removed without explanation (the full article is republished below). The article had been extremely popular, appearing in the fifth spot on the website’s “What’s Hot” section.
  • Massad’s article: The Dahlan factor The Israeli and US betting on the Dahlan horse will only increase the resolve of the Palestinians and their supporters
  • The recent resurrection of Mohammad Dahlanby several Arab governments, Israel and the US is a most important development for the future of the Palestinian cause, Palestinian Authority (PA)-Israel negotiations, and Hamas-ruled Gaza. Dahlan is viewed, by many Palestinians, as the most corrupt official in the history of the Palestinian national movement (and there are many contenders for that title). Dahlan, it would be recalled, was the PA man in charge of Gaza after the Oslo Accords were signed, where he commanded 20,000 Palestinian security personnel who were answerable to the CIA and to Israeli intelligence. His forces would torture Hamas members in PA dungeons throughout the 1990s. His corruption, at the time, was such that he allegedly diverted over 40 percent of taxes levied against the Palestinians to his personal account in what became known as the Karni Crossing Scandal in 1997. Dahlan, who has been accused repeatedly by both Hamas and Fatah of being an agent of US, Israeli, Egyptian, and Jordanian intelligence, would attempt to stage a US-organised coup against the democratically elected Hamas government in 2007 in Gaza, an attempt that backfired on him and ended with his eviction from the Strip (I had forewarned about the coup several months before it occurred).
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  • A simultaneous coup led by Abbas and his Israeli- and US-backed security forces in the West Bank was successful in dislodging the elected Hamas from power. Dahlan retreated to that mainstay of US and Israeli power, namely the PA-controlled West Bank, where he began to hatch new plots with his multiple patrons to undermine not only Hamas but also Abbas, whose position he begrudged and coveted. Indeed the Americans and the European Union (the latter on US orders) began to pressure Abbas to appoint Dahlan as his deputy, making it clear that they would like to see Dahlan succeed Abbas. Abbas resisted the pressure and refused. In the meantime, Dahlan, has been accused by Hamas and the PA of allegedly plotting several assassination attempts that targeted several Palestinian officials, including Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyyah and Fatah ministers in the PA. Accusations that he persistently denied. His involvement in the 2010 Mossad assassination of a Hamas official in Dubai included having two of his Palestinian death squad hit men (later arrested by Dubai authorities) assist in the operation, a charge he also denied. His personal wealth was conservatively estimated in 2005 by an Israeli think tank at $120m.
  • Once Dahlan’s schemes became too obvious to ignore, Abbas stripped him of power and chased him out of the Ramallah Green Zone in 2010. He moved to Mubarak’s Egypt and later, following the ouster of Mubarak, to Dubai (and on occasion Europe) where he remained until his more recent resurrection by the heirs of Mubarak who now sit on Egypt’s throne.
  • Dahlan’s power lies in his ability to serve the agenda of multiple patrons. For the Israelis, he is a ruthless, corrupt power-grubbing man who would do their bidding obediently were he to come to power in Gaza or the West Bank. Both the Americans and the Israelis see him as especially willing to sign on an American-sponsored Netanyahu deal without equivocation. For the Egyptians and the Gulf monarchies (and he is said to be a business partner with a Gulf ruler), he would look after their interests and obey their orders by eliminating any resistance to a US-imposed Palestinian final surrender to Israel and by eliminating Hamas once and for all. For the Egyptian coup leaders, whose coup replicated Dahlan’s 2007 Gaza coup, except successfully, he could rid them of Hamas, which they see as an extension of the power of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), and render their relations with Israel even closer than they already are. Dahlan’s most important role, however, is the one that the Americans need him for, namely, to replace Abbas should the latter fail to sign on to the final surrender that Barack Obama and John Kerry have been cooking at the behest of Netanyahu in the past few months.
  • Just as George Bush Jr and Bill Clinton terminated the services of Arafat after the latter proved unable to sign off on the final Palestinian surrender demanded of him at Camp David in the summer of 2000 (an inability that would arguably cost him his life at the hands of Abbas or Dahlan - depending on which of the two you talk to - acting at the behest of the Israelis, and very likely the Americans), Obama will terminate the services of Abbas should he fail to sign the US-sponsored surrender. Indeed, even if Abbas does sign such a deal, as he is approaching his 80th birthday, Dahlan will be needed and ready to take over after his death. It is in this context that Egyptian army top brass recently visited Israel for a whole week while the Egyptian private TV station Dream (owned by a Mubarak businessman ally, Ahmad Bahgat) aired an interview with Dahlan in which he attacked Abbas, in yet another effort to delegitimise the latter. Dahlan was offered the support of the rightwing Egyptian businessman Naguib Sawiris (infamous for his cutting off cellular phone lines in Cairo during the Egyptian uprising in January 2011 on the orders of Mubarak’s security apparatus), who sang Dahlan’s praises (as well as those of Mohammad Rashid, aka Khaled Salam, a former Arafat aide and another allegedly corrupt embezzling fugitive) as one of the most honest businessmen he ever worked with and then proceeded to denounce Abbas as a “liar”.
  • As an Egyptian court has recently joined Israel and the US in banning Hamas from the country and considering it a terrorist organisation and as the Israelis have threatened openly this week that an invasion of Gaza will be necessary, the plan for a Dahlan take-over is hatching slowly but surely. This is viewed as such a threat that Abbas dispatched his supporters and cronies to the streets of Ramallah to prove to the Americans and the Israelis that he still commands much support in the West Bank. The competition between Abbas and Dahlan is essentially one where each of them wants to prove that he can be more servile to Israeli, US, Egyptian, and Gulf interests while maintaining legitimacy and full control of the Palestinian population. The details of the plot are not clear. They could involve an invasion of Gaza from the Egyptian and the Israeli sides (and Egyptian officials have already threatened to carry out such an invasion a few weeks ago), a coup of sorts in the West Bank, and even assassinations of Haniyyah and/or Abbas. All bets are off at the moment, as Abbas, like Arafat before him, is offering complete obedience to US and Israeli diktat and will go much farther than Arafat did, but he understands too well that he would lose all legitimacy and control were he to sign the final humiliating surrender that the US and Israel are insisting on. Dahlan of course will have no such worries.
  • As for Hamas, which, unlike the MB, is a resistance movement and not a political party, it cannot be rounded up or crushed so easily, and the entry of Dahlan into Gaza, let alone the West Bank, will usher in a civil war that could likely end in his defeat yet again, short of a full Israeli invasion of Gaza to return him to power (Dahlan has also been accused by the PA of collaborating with the Israelis in their 2008 invasion of Gaza and has recently been accused in aiding the ongoing counter-revolution in Egypt). The same scenario would be repeated in the West Bank. The future of the Palestinian people is in danger and the enemies of the Palestinians surround them inside and outside Palestine. The Obama-Israeli-Egyptian-Gulf plans for liquidating their cause and their rights continue afoot. However, just like past corrupt Palestinian leaders were unsuccessful in liquidating the rights of the Palestinians and their cause, the Israeli and US betting on the Dahlan horse will only increase the resolve of the Palestinian people and their supporters that Palestinian resistance will only cease after the final liquidation of Israeli state racism and colonialism in all its manifestations throughout historic Palestine.
Paul Merrell

Hundreds of anti-Israeli demonstrators bring London traffic to a standstill as they sca... - 0 views

  • Hundreds of anti-Israeli demonstrators brought traffic to a standstill in London today after turning out in their droves to call for an end to military strikes on Gaza. Protesters crowded the streets outside the Israeli Embassy in Kensington High Street, west London, and some took it even further by standing on one of the city’s iconic double-decker buses. Waving placards which read ‘Gaza: End the Siege’ and ‘Freedom for Palestine’, demonstrators chanted and blocked the road as they protested against ‘Israeli aggression’ in the Middle East.
  • At least 17 people climbed on top of a London bus during the protest, with one holding a banner which read: ‘Judaism rejects the Zionist state and condemns its criminal siege and occupation’.Others lined the main road in Kensington High Street, preventing any vehicles from using the road for a short period.
  • However, despite the traffic jams and large crowds, police said the protest was largely peaceful as a whole.The demonstration came after the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which staged protests around the world today, called on people to ‘oppose Israeli aggression’. In a statement earlier this week, the group said: ‘This isn’t about rockets from Gaza. It’s about Israel fighting to maintain its control over Palestinian lives, and Palestinian land.
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  • ‘It’s about Israel feeling able to commit war crimes with complete impunity.’Elsewhere today, some 3,000 protesters gathered in front of the Norwegian parliament in Oslo to call for an end to the violence, and 100 people demonstrated near the French Foreign Ministry in Paris. Others also gathered in Tunisia to voice their concern.
  •  
    U.S. demonstrations were blacked out by MSM. But American Israel Firsters are complaining about them. I gather there was a minor dust-up between them and pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Boston.  Latest casualty figures I've seen are over 170 dead and 700 wounded in Palestine, 2/3 of the wounded being women and children. No casualties in Israel so far. The U.S.-supplied "Iron Dome" missile defense system is swatting aside missiles headed for populated areas and military targets. The hopeful news is that this time there are demonstrators, in growing numbers, supporting Palestinians globally. 
Paul Merrell

A look at the growth of Israeli settlements over the years - US News - 0 views

  • The European Union's move to label goods produced in Israeli settlements is the latest expression of international disapproval of one of the country's most controversial policies. The Palestinians view Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as a major obstacle to reaching any two-state solution, saying they carve up lands expected to form a future Palestinian state. Virtually the entire international community, including the United States, views the settlements as illegal or illegitimate. Israel has long dismissed the criticism, saying most settlement growth is in areas it expects to keep in any future peace agreement and that the issue should be resolved in peace talks along with other core issues like security and borders. Many Israelis want to keep the West Bank and east Jerusalem -- territories captured from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war -- citing security concerns as well as the deep religious significance of the territories for devout Jews.
  • The settlements are now home to more than 570,000 Israelis, according to the Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now. They range from small wildcat outposts on West Bank hilltops to fully developed towns with shopping malls, schools and suburban homes. Many Israelis choose to live in settlements for economic and quality-of-life reasons. Some 2.2 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, with another 300,000 in east Jerusalem.
  • — In 1972 there were just over 10,000 Israeli settlers, with 1,500 living in the West Bank and the rest in east Jerusalem. — Twenty years later, ahead of the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians, there were 231,200 Israelis living in the territories, with 105,400 in the West Bank and 125,800 in east Jerusalem. — At the end of 2000, when the second Palestinian uprising began, over 365,000 Israelis lived in the territories with more than 198,000 in the West Bank and some 167,000 in east Jerusalem. — In 2008, the year before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office, over 474,000 Israelis were living in the two territories, with about 281,000 in the West Bank and some 193,000 in east Jerusalem. — Some 570,700 settlers now live in the territories, according to the latest Peace Now figures from the end of 2014, with 370,700 in the West Bank and 200,000 in east Jerusalem.
Paul Merrell

US and Israel try to rewrite history of UN resolution declaring Zionism racism - 0 views

  • “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination,” reads UN General Assembly Resolution 3379. The measure was adopted 40 years ago, on Nov. 10, 1975, and the majority of the international community backed it. 72 countries voted for the resolution, with just 35 opposed (and 32 abstentions). Although little-known in the US today (it is remarkable how effectively the US and its allies have rewritten history in their favor), UN GA Res. 3379, titled “Elimination of all forms of racial discrimination,” made an indelible imprint on history. The geographic distribution of the vote was telling. The countries that voted against the resolution were primarily colonial powers and/or their allies. The countries that voted for it were overwhelmingly formerly colonized and anti-imperialist nations.
  • The resolution also cited two other little-known measures passed by international organizations in the same year: the Assembly of the Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity’s resolution 77, which ruled “that the racist regime in occupied Palestine and the racist regimes in Zimbabwe and South Africa have a common imperialist origin, forming a whole and having the same racist structure”; and the Political Declaration and Strategy to Strengthen International Peace and Security and to Intensify Solidarity and Mutual Assistance among Non-Aligned Countries, which called Zionism a “racist and imperialist ideology.” When the resolution was passed, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Chaim Herzog — who later became Israel’s sixth president, and the father of Isaac Herzog, the head of Israel’s opposition — famously tore up the text at the podium. Herzog claimed the measure was “based on hatred, falsehood, and arrogance,” insisting it was “devoid of any moral or legal value.” Still today, supporters of Israel argue UN GA Res. 3379 was an anomalous product of anti-Semitism. In reality, however, the resolution was the result of international condemnation of the illegal military occupation to which Palestinians had been subjected since 1967 and the apartheid-like conditions the indigenous Arab population had lived under as second-class citizens of an ethnocratic state since 1948.
  • In 1991, resolution 3379 was repealed for two primary reasons: One, the Soviet bloc, which helped pass the resolution, had collapsed; and two, Israel and the US demanded that it be revoked or they refused to participate in the Madrid Peace Conference. At the UN on Nov. 11, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power and Secretary of State John Kerry eulogized the late Herzog and forcefully condemned the resolution on its 40th anniversary. In his 2,500-word statement, Kerry mentioned Palestinians just once, and only then as an extension of Israelis. In her remarks, Power did not mention Palestinians at all.
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  • In his speech, Kerry smeared resolution 3379 as “anti-Semitic” and “absurd.” Kerry called it “a bitter irony that this resolution against Zionism was originally a resolution against racism and colonialism” and lamented that “reasonableness was detoured by a willful ignorance of history and truth.” Sec. Kerry insisted “we will do all in our power to prevent the hijacking of this great forum for malicious intent” — a fascinating claim, considering how incredibly often the US itself hijacks the UN against the will of the international community, in the interests of both itself and Israel. Kerry warned about “the global reality of anti-Semitism today” (he made no mention whatsoever of the global reality of rampant, rapidly accelerating, and viciously violent anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Black racism), and implied that the “terrorist bigots of Daesh [ISIS], Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, and so many others” are part of this larger anti-Semitic trend. One could argue Sec. Kerry downplayed the severity of the present political situation by characterizing these fascistic groups’ violent extremism as rooted in anti-Semitic bigotry, rather than in radicalization under conditions of intense oppression, bitter poverty, and brutal tyranny.
  • UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined Kerry, Power, and Netanyahu in the echo chamber, albeit with a bit more subtlety. “The reputation of the United Nations was badly damaged by the adoption of resolution 3379, in and beyond Israel and the wider Jewish community,” he said. Unlike the others, Ban condemned not just anti-Semitism, but also “wide-ranging anti-Muslim bigotry and attacks [and] discrimination against migrants and refugees.” Although the Israeli government accuses the UN of bias, the evidence demonstrates the opposite. Secret cables released by whistleblowing journalism organization WikiLeaks revealed that the US and Israel worked hand-in-hand with the UN and Sec.-Gen. Ban in order to undermine investigation into and punitive action on Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.
  • In her speech at the UN, Power, like Kerry, conflated the heinous Nazi attacks on Jewish civilians in the Kristallnacht with UN GA Res. 3379. Both speakers cited the abominable horrors of the Holocaust several times as reasons to support Zionism, glossing over the fact that Zionism was created in the late 19th century and that the Balfour Declaration dates back to 1917, decades before World War II. Amb. Power — a serial warmonger and veteran blame-dodger — did what she did best: rewrote history in the favor of US imperialism. She called the resolution “1975 smearing of Jews’ aspirations to have a homeland” and insisted multiple times that resolutions like 3379 “threaten the legitimacy of the UN.” Like Kerry, Power conveniently forgot to mention that, when it comes to the halls of the UN, there is no other rogue state as blunt as the US, which regularly spits in the face of the international community, defying UN resolutions, violating the UN Charter, and breaking international law when it sees fit. Power’s speech exposed the fault lines in the contentious (to put it mildly) relationship between the US and the UN — that is to say, between the US and the international community. Such tensions are not the fault of the UN; the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of Washington, with its doctrinal “American exceptionalism” and the flagrant disregard for international law that so frequently accompanies such imperial hubris.
  • In their speeches, both Kerry and Power also thanked Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon, who was described by an Israeli Labor Party lawmaker as “a right-wing extremist with the diplomatic sensitivity of a pit bull” and who proposed legislation that would, in his own words, have the Israeli government “annex the West Bank and repeal the Oslo Accords.” Amb. Danon insists that God gave the land of historic Palestine to the Jewish people as an “everlasting possession” (while forsaking the US). He also told the Times of Israel that the “international community can say whatever they want, and we can do whatever we want.” Netanyahu addressed the session with a video message. He claimed that Israel, which has for years led the world in violating UN Security Council resolutions, “continues to face systemic discrimination here at the UN.” In a January 2013 statement submitted to the UN Human Rights Council, the Russell Tribunal calculated Israel had defied a bare minimum of 87 Security Council resolutions. The Russel Tribunal also crucially noted “that Israel’s ongoing colonial settlement expansion, its racial separatist policies, as well as its violent militarism would not be possible without the US’s unequivocal support.” The tribunal pointed out that Israel “is the largest recipient of US foreign aid since 1976 and the largest cumulative recipient since World War II” and that, between 1972 and 2012, the US was the lone veto of UN resolutions critical of Israel 43 times.
  • The US secretary of state extolled “Zionism as the expression of a national liberation movement.” The national liberation movements of Vietnam, Korea, China, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Colombia, Congo, South Africa, Burkina Faso, and so many more nations, however, did not get such approval from Washington; au contraire, they were mercilessly crushed under the iron fist of American empire. Traditionally, only right-wing and settler-colonial “national liberation movements” have garnered the US’s official approval. “Why do we Americans care so much about the rights of others being respected?” Kerry asked unprovoked. “Because, in an interconnected world, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He should tell that to the victims of US-backed dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Brunei, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, and, once again, so many more nations. “Times may change, but one thing we do know: America’s support for Israel’s dreaming and Israel’s security, that will never change,” Kerry proclaimed.
  • The real victim of the 40th anniversary event was the truth — and, of course, as it was four decades ago, the Palestinians. Yet, while UN GA Res. 3379 was repealed, the truth cannot be revoked. Zionism was and remains an unequivocally racist movement — just like any other hyper-nationalist and ethnocratic movement. None other than the founding father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, recognized this elementary fact. In a 1902 letter to Cecil Rhodes — a diamond magnate and white supremacist British colonialist with oceans of African blood on his hands — Herzl, writing of “the idea of Zionism, which is a colonial idea,” requested help colonizing historic Palestine. “It doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor, not Englishmen but Jews… How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial,” Herzl wrote. “I want you to… put the stamp of your authority on the Zionist plan.”
Paul Merrell

PLO: France to submit Security Council resolution on international protection force at ... - 0 views

  • France will present a Security Council resolution this week on behalf of the Palestinian leadership calling for international observers deployed in Jerusalem, according to senior Palestinian official and member of the PLO executive committee Hanan Ashrawi. The proposal will seek a civilian monitoring force at the Noble Sanctuary, the holy complex that houses the Muslim sites the Dome of the Rock and the al-Asqa Mosque, and the Jewish sacred site the Western Wall and the location of two ancient synagogues, called the Temple Mount. It is expected to be similar to an Oslo Accords agreement between Israeli and Palestinian leaders to station in Hebron 150 international civilian observers with no mandate for intervention. Speaking at a briefing in Ramallah today Ashrawi said the draft resolution would be limited to “dealing with the current situation and therefore including observers and condemning the settlements and settlement activities,” noting, “it is not a political initiative that is comprehensive.” The proposal is scheduled for a vote at the Security Council “before Thursday,” Ashrawi said.
  • Both the Israel and the U.S. have come out against the resolution, condemning any effort to bring new parties into the now tenuous accord between Israel and Jordan, where Jordan is licensed to safeguard the holy sites plaza. Two weeks ago Jordan announced it would consider recalling its ambassador from Israel, in light of Israeli forces firing dispersants into the mosque during clashes with Palestinian protesters.
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