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Paul Merrell

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

mondoweiss.net/...resolution-declared-zionism

war & peace Zionism SCR-3379 U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • “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.”
Gary Edwards

Will you choose liberty, or just a new boss? - Tea Party Command Center - 0 views

teapartyorg.ning.com/...show

Matt-Kibbe Patriot Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 31 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Let’s get our terms right first. “The establishment” is the network of special interests—politicians, crony capitalists, lobbyists and career bureaucrats—who feed at the public trough at the expense of the common good. Members of the establishment don’t like rocking the boat, because they have worked so hard to ensure that they are always the ones riding high and dry. “The establishment” is neither Democratic nor Republican, nor is it “liberal” or “conservative.” It’s not even “the rich” versus “the poor.” It is simply the cancer that can consume great nations when government gets too big, too involved, and too powerful.
  • Too much concentrated power in Washington always accrues to the benefit of the establishment, because they will always get to the table first.
  • Compromise is the currency, because that’s how everyone gets paid. Everyone wants something from someone. Everyone is looking for a play, wanting to cut a better deal.
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  • The real alternative to the tyranny of the D.C. establishment has always been more liberty, not a better, more benevolent despot. America’s genius comes from each of us, working together in voluntary cooperation to solve problems, from the bottom, up. We need a leader who gets it. Someone who respects our Constitution’s essential role in limiting power. Someone who wants to rein in intrusive government, and all of the inside dealers who feed off of it. A president can never give you liberty, but we should all insist on one who respects it.
  • Gary Edwards on 31 Jan 16
     
    "Socialist Bernie Sanders is beating Hillary Clinton over the head with his figurative Birkenstocks, and The Donald is plowing through the Republican presidential field like a giant, perfectly coiffed, Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. The establishment is freaking out, and it's about damn time. Their collective panic suggests that entrenched interests finally understand that their world is threatened; that the rules have changed, that insider power is waning, that we are onto their game. We now know what the establishment has been up to behind the cloistered marble walls of our government, and we are royally pissed. This is an opportunity of a lifetime, if we get it right. But you have to choose. Will you choose liberty, or just a new boss? Let's get our terms right first. "The establishment" is the network of special interests-politicians, crony capitalists, lobbyists and career bureaucrats-who feed at the public trough at the expense of the common good. Members of the establishment don't like rocking the boat, because they have worked so hard to ensure that they are always the ones riding high and dry. "The establishment" is neither Democratic nor Republican, nor is it "liberal" or "conservative." It's not even "the rich" versus "the poor." It is simply the cancer that can consume great nations when government gets too big, too involved, and too powerful. "Are you willing to hold your nose this time, cut the best deal you think you can, simply because you want to beat the establishment?" "The establishment" is the fortress of political inertia that makes it so difficult to reform Washington, or to stop "them" from spending money we don't have. They are just insiders with a seat at the table redirecting taxpayer resources to their benefit, and always resisting reformers and "outsiders" who might upset their apple cart."
Paul Merrell

Poll Paints Problematic Picture of Israel's Future « LobeLog - 0 views

lobelog.com/atic-picture-of-israels-future

war & peace Israel Palestine 2-state-solution polls

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • The results of the very detailed Pew poll of Israeli citizens tends to confirm that the country is going in a very negative direction, particularly with respect to Arab-Jewish relations. The entire report, “Israel’s Religiously Divided Society,” bears close reading. Based on interviews with nearly 6,000 Israeli adults—Jews, Christians, Muslims, Arabs, and Druze—the poll was conducted between mid-October 2014, and last May, well before the Arab-Jewish violence that began last fall. The headline is the finding that a 48% plurality of Israeli Jews agreed with the statement, “Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel.” One in five (21%) said they agreed “strongly.” Only 46 percent disagreed with the proposition. More religious and less-educated Jews tended to agree in higher percentages than secular Jews. Most troubling for the future, respondents under the age of 50 tended to agree somewhat more (49-44%) than those 50 and older. (However, there has been some criticism of the vagueness of the question.) A no less disturbing finding was that 79% of Israeli Jews agreed with the proposition that Jews “deserve preferential treatment” in Israel. Although religious Jews supported that notion overwhelmingly, nearly seven out of ten self-described secular Jews also backed that notion. As Shibley Telhami (one of the many consultants who helped design the survey) pointed out after citing this result, “so much for the notion of democracy with full equal rights for all its citizens.” Indeed, if this is what Netanyahu means when he demands that Israel be recognized as “the nation state of the Jewish people,” it would be very difficult to square it with conventional notions of democratic governance or equality before the law.
  • More than three-quarters of Israeli Jews seem to be blind to this contradiction for they see democracy as compatible with the idea of a “Jewish state.” Unsurprisingly, however, nearly two-thirds of Israel’s Arab and Druse citizens disagree.
  • The poll also found a rather dramatic plunge in optimism among Arab citizens that peaceful coexistence between Israel and an independent Palestinian state is possible. In 2013, Pew found that 74% of Israeli Arabs agreed that such a possibility was real. The most recent finding (which is almost one year old now) found that only 50% of Arab citizens share that belief. That is much closer to the 43% of Jewish Israelis who believe that coexistence is possible.
Paul Merrell

The Latest European Court of Human Rights Ruling on Accountability for Torture | Just S... - 0 views

www.justsecurity.org/...-ruling-accountability-torture

war & peace CIA rendition torture ECHR Nasr

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • In another important decision on European participation in the US war on terrorism, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued a judgment late last month against Italy for its role in the extraordinary rendition of Egyptian cleric Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr, better known as Abu Omar. (An English-language summary of ruling is here; the full decision, presently available only in French, is here.) The ruling not only represents a further contribution to the Strasbourg Court’s growing accountability jurisprudence, but also highlights the United States’ own failure to provide any redress to victims of the torture program that it primarily created and operated. The ECtHR’s decision in Nasr v. Italy concerns one of the most notorious instances of extraordinary rendition (i.e., the extrajudicial transfer of an individual to another country for purposes of abusive interrogation). In 2003, Nasr, who had been granted political asylum in Italy, was abducted in broad daylight from a street in Milan and taken to Aviano air base, which is operated by the US Air Force. Nasr was subsequently taken, by way of the US’s Ramstein air base in Germany, to Cairo where he was interrogated by Egyptian intelligence services. Egyptian authorities held Nasr in secret for more than a year and subjected him to repeated torture before releasing him in April 2004. Approximately 20 days after his release — and after submitting a statement to Milan’s public prosecutor describing his abuse — Nasr was rearrested and detained without charges. He was released in 2007, but prohibited from leaving Egypt.
  • The ECtHR ruling centers on Italy’s role in Nasr’s abduction in Milan, his rendition to Egypt where he faced a real risk of abuse, and its subsequent failure to conduct an effective domestic investigation or to provide any redress. The ECtHR found Italy liable for multiple violations of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), including article 3 (the prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment), article 5 (the right to liberty and security), and article 13 (the right to an adequate remedy). It ordered Italy to pay €70,000 to Nasr and €15,000 to his wife, Nabila Ghali, for the suffering and anguish caused by her husband’s enforced disappearance. The Milan public prosecutor had previously investigated and prosecuted 25 CIA officers, including the agency’s Milan station chief, Robert Seldon Lady, and seven Italian military intelligence officers, for aiding and abetting in Nasr’s abduction and rendition. The United States strenuously opposed the prosecution, warning that it would harm US-Italian relations, and the Italian government successfully challenged much of the evidence on the grounds it could jeopardize national security. The trial court convicted 22 CIA agents in absentia and gave them prison sentences of between six to nine years; a Milan appeals court upheld the convictions and overturned the acquittals of the other three US defendants. Italy’s highest court, however, overturned the conviction of five of the Italian military intelligence agents based on state secrecy grounds. The Italian government has refused to seek the extradition of the convicted US nationals. (For more details, Human Rights Watch has an excellent summary of the proceedings in Italy here.)
  • The ECtHR’s ruling in Nasr strengthens accountability by reinforcing state responsibility for participation in abuses committed during the war on terrorism. It builds on the Strasbourg Court’s prior decisions in El-Masri v. Macedonia and Al-Nashiri v. Poland/Husayn (Abu Zubaydah) v. Poland, which held Macedonia and Poland, respectively, liable for their role in CIA torture and rendition, including (in the case of Poland) for hosting a CIA black site. Nasr, together with El-Masri and al-Nashiri/Husayn, should help discourage a state’s future participation in cross-border counterterrorism operations conducted in flagrant violation of human rights guarantees. While the deterrent value of legal judgments may be uncertain, the recent line of Strasbourg Court decisions raises the costs of aiding and abetting illegal operations, even in the national security context.
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  • Nasr also advances the jurisprudence surrounding a state’s duty to conduct an effective domestic investigation into torture. The Strasbourg Court noted that Italian courts had conducted a detailed investigation and that the evidence disregarded by Italy’s highest court on grounds of state secrecy had been sufficient to convict the five Italian military intelligence defendants. It further observed that because the evidence inculpating those defendants had been widely available in the press and on the Internet, the court’s invocation of state secrecy doctrine was not only unpersuasive, but designed to grant impunity to the defendants. Further, the Strasbourg Court noted that the Italian government had never sought the extradition of the convicted CIA agents. As result, the court ruled that despite the efforts of Italian investigators and judges, which had identified the responsible individuals and secured their convictions, the domestic proceedings failed to satisfy the procedural requirements of article 3 of the European Convention (prohibiting torture and other ill-treatment), due to the actions of the executive. This ruling is important because it imposes liability not only where a state takes no steps towards a genuine domestic investigation and prosecution (as in El-Masri and Al-Nashiri/Husayn), but also where efforts by a state’s judges and prosecutors are thwarted in the name of state secrecy.
  • The ECtHR’s rulings on the CIA torture program also highlight the continued absence of accountability in the United States. The US has failed both to conduct an effective criminal investigation of those most responsible for CIA torture and to provide any remedies to victims. In fact, the Obama administration has vigorously opposed the latter at every turn, invoking the same sweeping state secrecy doctrines the ECtHR rejected in El-Masri and Nasr. These rulings will likely catalyze future litigation before the Strasbourg Court and in European domestic courts as well. (Recent actions filed against Germany for its participation in US targeted killings through use of the Ramstein Air Base provide one example of such litigation.) While the ECtHR’s rulings may not spur further efforts in the United States, they reinforce the perception of the United States as an outlier on the important question of accountability for human rights violations.
Paul Merrell

Bulk Collection Under Section 215 Has Ended… What's Next? | Just Security - 0 views

www.justsecurity.org/...lk-collection-ended-whats-next

surveillance state NSA-reform 215 bulk-collection EO-12333

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • The first (and thus far only) roll-back of post-9/11 surveillance authorities was implemented over the weekend: The National Security Agency shuttered its program for collecting and holding the metadata of Americans’ phone calls under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. While bulk collection under Section 215 has ended, the government can obtain access to this information under the procedures specified in the USA Freedom Act. Indeed, some experts have argued that the Agency likely has access to more metadata because its earlier dragnet didn’t cover cell phones or Internet calling. In addition, the metadata of calls made by an individual in the United States to someone overseas and vice versa can still be collected in bulk — this takes place abroad under Executive Order 12333. No doubt the NSA wishes that this was the end of the surveillance reform story and the Paris attacks initially gave them an opening. John Brennan, the Director of the CIA, implied that the attacks were somehow related to “hand wringing” about spying and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced a bill to delay the shut down of the 215 program. Opponents of encryption were quick to say: “I told you so.”
  • But the facts that have emerged thus far tell a different story. It appears that much of the planning took place IRL (that’s “in real life” for those of you who don’t have teenagers). The attackers, several of whom were on law enforcement’s radar, communicated openly over the Internet. If France ever has a 9/11 Commission-type inquiry, it could well conclude that the Paris attacks were a failure of the intelligence agencies rather than a failure of intelligence authorities. Despite the passage of the USA Freedom Act, US surveillance authorities have remained largely intact. Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act — which is the basis of programs like PRISM and the NSA’s Upstream collection of information from Internet cables — sunsets in the summer of 2017. While it’s difficult to predict the political environment that far out, meaningful reform of Section 702 faces significant obstacles. Unlike the Section 215 program, which was clearly aimed at Americans, Section 702 is supposedly targeted at foreigners and only picks up information about Americans “incidentally.” The NSA has refused to provide an estimate of how many Americans’ information it collects under Section 702, despite repeated requests from lawmakers and most recently a large cohort of advocates. The Section 215 program was held illegal by two federal courts (here and here), but civil attempts to challenge Section 702 have run into standing barriers. Finally, while two review panels concluded that the Section 215 program provided little counterterrorism benefit (here and here), they found that the Section 702 program had been useful.
  • There is, nonetheless, some pressure to narrow the reach of Section 702. The recent decision by the European Court of Justice in the safe harbor case suggests that data flows between Europe and the US may be restricted unless the PRISM program is modified to protect the information of Europeans (see here, here, and here for discussion of the decision and reform options). Pressure from Internet companies whose business is suffering — estimates run to the tune of $35 to 180 billion — as a result of disclosures about NSA spying may also nudge lawmakers towards reform. One of the courts currently considering criminal cases which rely on evidence derived from Section 702 surveillance may hold the program unconstitutional either on the basis of the Fourth Amendment or Article III for the reasons set out in this Brennan Center report. A federal district court in Colorado recently rejected such a challenge, although as explained in Steve’s post, the decision did not seriously explore the issues. Further litigation in the European courts too could have an impact on the debate.
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  • The US intelligence community’s broadest surveillance authorities are enshrined in Executive Order 12333, which primarily covers the interception of electronic communications overseas. The Order authorizes the collection, retention, and dissemination of “foreign intelligence” information, which includes information “relating to the capabilities, intentions or activities of foreign powers, organizations or persons.” In other words, so long as they are operating outside the US, intelligence agencies are authorized to collect information about any foreign person — and, of course, any Americans with whom they communicate. The NSA has conceded that EO 12333 is the basis of most of its surveillance. While public information about these programs is limited, a few highlights give a sense of the breadth of EO 12333 operations: The NSA gathers information about every cell phone call made to, from, and within the Bahamas, Mexico, Kenya, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, and possibly other countries. A joint US-UK program tapped into the cables connecting internal Yahoo and Google networks to gather e-mail address books and contact lists from their customers. Another US-UK collaboration collected images from video chats among Yahoo users and possibly other webcam services. The NSA collects both the content and metadata of hundreds of millions of text messages from around the world. By tapping into the cables that connect global networks, the NSA has created a database of the location of hundreds of millions of mobile phones outside the US.
  • Given its scope, EO 12333 is clearly critical to those seeking serious surveillance reform. The path to reform is, however, less clear. There is no sunset provision that requires action by Congress and creates an opportunity for exposing privacy risks. Even in the unlikely event that Congress was inclined to intervene, it would have to address questions about the extent of its constitutional authority to regulate overseas surveillance. To the best of my knowledge, there is no litigation challenging EO 12333 and the government doesn’t give notice to criminal defendants when it uses evidence derived from surveillance under the order, so the likelihood of a court ruling is slim. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is currently reviewing two programs under EO 12333, but it is anticipated that much of its report will be classified (although it has promised a less detailed unclassified version as well). While the short-term outlook for additional surveillance reform is challenging, from a longer-term perspective, the distinctions that our law makes between Americans and non-Americans and between domestic and foreign collection cannot stand indefinitely. If the Fourth Amendment is to meaningfully protect Americans’ privacy, the courts and Congress must come to grips with this reality.
Paul Merrell

Chicago students get death threat over Palestine protest | The Electronic Intifada - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...-threat-over-palestine-protest

war & peace Israel BDS anti-BDS student-faculty-retaliation

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Students in Chicago received a death threat after taking part in a Palestine solidarity protest. Another student activist in Santa Barbara, California, was physically assaulted during an argument with an Israel supporter. These are just two of dozens of on-campus incidents reported across the United States over the last four weeks, according to Palestine Legal.
  • Five days later, one of the students received a threatening email message directed at Students for Justice in Palestine. The message stated: “If there is one more demonstration in the quad from your petty organization, consider it to be your real bodies falling next time. What you did was downright anti-Semitism. Don’t underestimate the Jewish presence on campus. #jewhater.”
  • Meanwhile, a member of SJP at the University of California at Santa Barbara was physically assaulted during a peaceful protest as part of the international day of action. Daniel Mogtaderi said he was filming the demonstration on his phone as a matter of protocol, so that SJP can document any harassment or violence it might encounter. A young man who appeared to be another student began arguing with Mogtaderi about the 13-year-old Palestinian boy who was accused of a stabbing attack and critically injured and taunted by Israeli settlers as he lay bleeding on the ground two weeks ago. The assailant became aggressive when he realized Mogtaderi was recording the encounter. “At that point he forcibly took hold of the phone, held on to the phone for some time, and shoved Mogtaderi two times before returning the phone and leaving the scene,” SJP stated. Mogtaderi’s video recording of the argument between himself and the assailant can be viewed here.
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  • University spokesperson Bill Burton told The Electronic Intifada that the matter is under investigation and had no further comment. Saadeh said that although the death threat is frightening and is being taken seriously, SJP members will not stop organizing. “They’re not going to shut us up with this,” she said. She said that students have created ways to protect each other on campus, such as making sure members of SJP do not have to walk alone to class, or sit alone at the library.
  • Mogtaderi told The Electronic Intifada that when he filed a report, campus police blamed him for “escalating the situation” and claimed that he could have avoided being assaulted if he hadn’t argued with the assailant. He added that campus police insist they cannot find the assailant and have not contacted Mogtaderi for additional information. UC Santa Barbara told The Electronic Intifada that the matter is being investigated. “There are so many stories around the country [of attempts] to try and silence people as much as possible,” Mogtaderi said. “My voice won’t be silenced, nor will the voices of other SJPers.”
  • Palestine Legal stated last week that it has responded to more than 35 campus incidents over the last month. “The pattern persists: with a rise in activism comes a rise in suppression,” the group said. Flush with new injections of cash, Israel-aligned organizations are stepping up their efforts to smear and intimidate students involved in Palestine activism. Palestine Legal says it has responded to more than 300 incidents of “censorship, punishment, or other burdening of advocacy” reported by Palestine solidarity activists on more than 65 US campuses in the last 18 months. The legal group calls on university administrations to protect the speech rights and physical safety of students who speak out in favor of Palestinian rights.
Gary Edwards

Russia Breaking Wall St Oil Price Monopoly | New Eastern Outlook - 0 views

journal-neo.org/...ing-wall-st-oil-price-monopoly

Banksters petro-dollars

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • In the period up until the end of the 1980’s world oil prices were determined largely by real daily supply and demand. It was the province of oil buyers and oil sellers. Then Goldman Sachs decided to buy the small Wall Street commodity brokerage, J. Aron in the 1980’s. They had their eye set on transforming how oil is traded in world markets. It was the advent of “paper oil,” oil traded in futures, contracts independent of delivery of physical crude, easier for the large banks to manipulate based on rumors and derivative market skullduggery, as a handful of Wall Street banks dominated oil futures trades and knew just who held what positions, a convenient insider role that is rarely mentioned inn polite company. It was the beginning of transforming oil trading into a casino where Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP MorganChase and a few other giant Wall Street banks ran the crap tables.First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2016/01/09/russia-breaking-wall-st-oil-price-monopoly/
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Jan 16
     
    "Russia has just taken significant steps that will break the present Wall Street oil price monopoly, at least for a huge part of the world oil market. The move is part of a longer-term strategy of decoupling Russia's economy and especially its very significant export of oil, from the US dollar, today the Achilles Heel of the Russian economy. Later in November the Russian Energy Ministry has announced that it will begin test-trading of a new Russian oil benchmark. While this might sound like small beer to many, it's huge. If successful, and there is no reason why it won't be, the Russian crude oil benchmark futures contract traded on Russian exchanges, will price oil in rubles and no longer in US dollars. It is part of a de-dollarization move that Russia, China and a growing number of other countries have quietly begun. The setting of an oil benchmark price is at the heart of the method used by major Wall Street banks to control world oil prices. Oil is the world's largest commodity in dollar terms. Today, the price of Russian crude oil is referenced to what is called the Brent price. The problem is that the Brent field, along with other major North Sea oil fields is in major decline, meaning that Wall Street can use a vanishing benchmark to leverage control over vastly larger oil volumes. The other problem is that the Brent contract is controlled essentially by Wall Street and the derivatives manipulations of banks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP MorganChase and Citibank. First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2016/01/09/russia-breaking-wall-st-oil-price-monopoly/"
Paul Merrell

WikiLeaks CONFIRMS Hillary Sold Weapons to ISIS... Then Drops Another BOMBSHELL! Breaki... - 0 views

www.thepoliticalinsider.com/nother-bombshell-breaking-news

Auction 2016 war & peace Hillary Syrian war Libya weapons al-Qaeda Wikileaks

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is a controversial character. But there’s no denying the emails he has picked up from inside the Democrat Party are real, and he’s willing to expose Hillary Clinton. Now, he’s announcing that Hillary Clinton and her State Department were actively arming Islamic jihadists, which includes the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria. Clinton has repeatedly denied these claims, including during multiple statements while under oath in front of the United States Senate.
  • JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Julian, I want to mention something else. In March, you launched a searchable archive for over 30,000 emails and email attachments sent to and from Hillary Clinton’s private email server while she was secretary of state. The 50,547 pages of documents span the time from June 2010 to August 2014; 7,500 of the documents were sent by Hillary Clinton herself. The emails were made available in the form of thousands of PDFs by the U.S. State Department as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request. Why did you do this, and what’s the importance, from your perspective, of being able to create a searchable base? JULIAN ASSANGE:
  • So, those Hillary Clinton emails, they connect together with the cables that we have published of Hillary Clinton, creating a rich picture of how Hillary Clinton performs in office, but, more broadly, how the U.S. Department of State operates. So, for example, the disastrous, absolutely disastrous intervention in Libya, the destruction of the Gaddafi government, which led to the occupation of ISIS of large segments of that country, weapons flows going over to Syria, being pushed by Hillary Clinton, into jihadists within Syria, including ISIS, that’s there in those emails. There’s more than 1,700 emails in Hillary Clinton’s collection, that we have released, just about Libya alone.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • It appears that Hillary Clinton committed perjury, just like her husband was caught doing as President.
Paul Merrell

Watch A Sitting Congresswoman Shred The MSM Narrative In Under A Minute | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...red-msm-narrative-under-minute

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy North-Korea nukes Tulsi

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard appeared on multiple Sunday news shows a day after her state's false ICBM emergency alert sent the islands into a tense 40 minutes of panic before it was revealed to be a message sent in error, where she slammed the mainstream media's reporting on the North Korean nuclear threat, saying, "We've got to understand that North Korea is holding onto these nuclear weapons because they think it is their only protection from the United States coming in and doing to them what the United States has done to so many countries throughout history."  She further called for Trump to hold direct talks with Kim Jong Un in order to prevent the real thing from ever happening. 
  • The Hawaii lawmaker, who has garnered a lot of attention over her non-interventionist stance on Syria while angering establishment pundits for doing things like visiting Damascus last yearon a fact-finding mission, left ABC's George Stephanopoulos visibly flustered during an interview on Sunday's "This Week". She said: We know that North Korea has these nuclear weapons because they see how the United States in Libya for example guaranteed Gadaffi - 'we're not going to go after you, you should get rid of your nuclear weapons.' He did, then we went and led an attack that toppled Gaddafi, launching Libya into chaos that we are still seeing the results of today. North Korea sees what we did in Iraq with Saddam Hussein, with those false reports of weapons of mass destruction. And now seeing in Iran how President Trump is decertifying a nuclear deal that prevented Iran from developing their nuclear weapons, threatening the very existence and the agreement that was made.  At this point an incredulous Stephanopoulos stopped the Congresswoman and asked, "Was it a mistake for the United States to take out Gaddafi and Hussein?" Gabbard responded firmly with, "It was, absolutely."  Apparently this was enough to end the interview as a presumably shocked Stephanopoulos had no response at that point.
Paul Merrell

Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and UAE sever ties with Qatar - nsnbc international | nsnb... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...nd-uae-sever-ties-with-qatar-2

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Qatar Saudis UAE Egypt Bahrein

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 17 - No Cached
  • Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates decided to sever diplomatic ties with Qatar over Doha’s sponsorship of terrorism and implement a number of sanctions including the closing of land, sea and air routes, and the expulsion of Qatari citizens. The development is consistent with the new U.S. administration’s declared goal to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood.
  • Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE accuse Qatar of undermining the stability of the region by supporting terrorism, including a number of terrorist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and affiliated group, the Taliban, and others. Authorities in these four countries have also given Qataris living in and visiting their countries two weeks to leave.
  • Saudi Arabia, for its part, has removed Qatar from the Saudi-led coalition that is fighting Iranian-backed Houthi fighters in neighboring Yemen. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also closed all of its borders “and urged all brotherly countries and companies to do the same.” That said, Saudi Arabia will still allow citizens from Qatar to enter the kingdom to perform the Hajj pilgrimage.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, as well as Egypt have consistently criticized Qatar for its support of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, and a cohort of Muslim Brotherhood and Taliban affiliated organizations. It is also worth noting that an adviser to then U.S. President-elect Donald, in November, promised to “outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood”. Some analysts in Gulf States are asking whether fellow GCC members and the USA could be aiming at “regime change” in Doha while others see the severing of ties motivated by less drastic goals and as aimed at forcing Qatar to change its relatively tolerant position towards Iran, and to end its support of the Taliban and Muslim Brotherhood and their offshoots including Hamas in Palestine.
  • In November 2016 Walid Phares, a top-foreign policy adviser to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, said the Trump administration will sign a bill that designates the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Walid Phares spoke with the Egyptian Youm7 saying that: “Trump considers the Muslim Brotherhood a dangerous group that fuels the Jihadist ideology, thus he seeks for a military strike against the group and will not politically contain the group as Obama and H. Clinton did”. In February 2016 the US House Judiciary Committee approved legislation calling on the State Department to designate the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as a foreign terrorist organization. However, the U.S. State Department has not taken any further steps since February 2016. The bill cites multiple countries who have declared the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) a terrorist organization. These countries include Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
  • It is noteworthy that the Obama administration and especially the State Department under then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton colluded with Muslim Brotherhood – linked organizations during the notorious Arab Spring in Libya, Egypt and Syria in 2011. In fact, one of Clinton’s closest advisers, Huma Abedin and her family are known for close ties to Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda linked organizations. But U.S. collusion with Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda linked “rebels” is not limited to Democrats. In April 2013 Conservative Senator John McCain was caught on photo in a safe-house in Syria after crossing the border illegally. (see photo left) Among the “celebrities” present at the meeting was Islamic State leader al-Baghdadi (al-Badri). In November 2014 the United Arab Emirates (UAE) outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood following intense rounds of negotiations between GCC member states, particularly Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The UAE designated the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, along with the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda associated Jabhat al-Nusrah, the so-called Islamic State a.k.a. ISIS/ISIL and Yemen’s Houthi. Saudi Arabia’s position regarding the Muslim Brotherhood is dual. On one hand, some top-members of the Saudi oligarchy including government support Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations abroad while the country opposes its “official” presence within the State. Saudi Arabia considers large parts of the international Muslim Brotherhood as instrument for is ally and rival Qatar, one of the primary international sponsors of Botherhood-linked organizations. Saudi Arabia is, however, “unofficially but blatantly” using Al-Qaeda an the Islamic State as an instrument abroad while it opposes its “official” presence in the country.
  • Opponents of Trump attempt to denounce the U.S. President-elect as anti-Muslim, and Trump made some “politically incorrect” statements, about Muslim and other communities. That is, provocative campaign statements that could easily be abused and used against him. Meanwhile, a closer look reveals that Trump is not anti-Muslim at all. Much rather, he opposes the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, and he at least appears to be opposed to using Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda-linked organizations as an instrument of US foreign and military policy.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 17
     
    Major shakeup in U.S. foreign policy re Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda.
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