November 05, 2009
Non-violent protesters begin vigil outside evicted Palestinian family’s home
After a Palestinian family was forcibly removed from their home by armed Israeli settlers in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, international and Israeli peace activists have descended on the neighborhood to hold a vigil in support of the evicted family.
The vigil began late Wednesday when the peace activists brought a tent, food and supplies to the al-Kurd family, and set up the vigil across the street from their now-occupied home.
The family was forced out of their home Tuesday morning by 40 armed settlers accompanied by private armed security and Israeli police forces, who entered a section of the home, threw out the family’s belongings and locked themselves in.
The take-over came after an appeal submitted by the family’s lawyer was rejected by the District Court. In their appeal, the Palestinian family was challenging an earlier court decision that deemed a section of the house illegal and ordered that the keys be given to settlers. The settlers proceeded to enter the house, while the court did not grant them the right to enter the property.
The al-Kurd home was built in 1956. An addition to the house was built 10 years ago, but the family was not allowed to inhabit the section because the municipality refused to grant them a building permit.
The al-Kurds have become the fourth Sheikh Jarrah family whose house (or part of it) has been occupied by settlers in the last year. So far, 60 people have been left homeless. In total, 28 families living in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, located directly north of the Old City, face imminent eviction from their homes.
The area of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, where most of the recent home demolitions and evictions have taken place, is the place laid out by Israeli municipal authorities for expansion of Jewish developments, in a plan published in 2005.
In addition, Israeli peace groups have documented significant excavations underground in the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods by Israeli archaeologist and ideologically-driven religious elements.
Merkel speech under 'Zionist' influence
Press TV - November 5, 2009 10:29:02 GMT
The Islamic Republic has condemned German Chancellor Angela Merkel's latest remarks on Iran, saying her speech was against the national interests of Germany.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ramin Mehmanparast said on Thursday that Merkel's remarks were influenced by 'Zionist circles'.
Mehmanparast's remarks come after Merkel repeated Western allegations over Iran's nuclear issue in a Tuesday address to US Congress.
"Zero tolerance needs to be shown when there is a risk of weapons of mass destruction falling, for example, into the hands of Iran," Merkel said.
The German chancellor also stressed that security for Israel was non-negotiable for her.
"Whoever threatens Israel also threatens us," she said.
The West accuses Iran of pursuing nuclear weaponry. Iran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has reiterated that its program is aimed at civilian applications of the technology. Iran has also been vociferous in its call for global nuclear disarmament.
Criminal convictions of 22 CIA agents in Italy
The criminal conviction of 22 CIA agents (and 2 Italian intelligence officers) by an Italian court yesterday -- for the 2003 kidnapping of an Islamic cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, off the street in Italy and his "rendition" to Egypt to be tortured -- highlights several vital points:
First, illustrating how these matters are typically distorted by the U.S. establishment media, note that CNN -- in the very first paragraph of its story -- claims that the CIA agents were convicted "for their role in the seizing of a suspected terrorist in Italy in 2003." What did Nasr allegedly do that warrants that "terrorist" label? Did he participate in the 9/11 attacks, or plan attacks on "the American homeland" or U.S. civilians? No. According to CNN, this is what makes him a "suspected terrorist":
He was suspected of recruiting men to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So the West invades, bombs and occupies Muslim countries, and when Muslims attempt to find people to fight against the West's invading armies, those individuals are deemed "terrorists." Or consider this quite informative 2005 Washington Post article, which details how the CIA's kidnapping derailed the Italians' criminal (i.e., legal) investigation of Nasr; that article explains:
Nasr was wanted by the Egyptian authorities for his involvement in Jemaah Islamiah, a network of Islamic extremists that had sought the overthrow of the government. The network was dispersed during a government crackdown in the early 1990s, and many leaders escaped abroad to avoid arrest.
The Egyptian government, long propped up by the U.S., is one of the most tyrannical and brutal in the world. But Egyptians who work to overthrow that government are deemed "terrorists" by the U.S., and we're apparently willing to kidnap them from around the world -- including from countries where they've received asylum -- and ship them back to our Egyptian friends to be imprisoned and tortured.
For many Americans -- probably most -- the word "terrorist" conjures up images of the people responsible for the 9/11 attack. For that reason, labeling someone a "suspected terrorist" can justify doing anything and everything to those individuals (after all, other than civil liberties extremists, who could object to the "seizing of a suspected terrorist" -- or their indefinite detention or torture?). It's therefore unsurprising that the U.S. Government would use the term "terrorist" so promiscuously and selectively (see John Cole's excellent contrast between what we deem to be "terrorism" when it happens to the U.S. versus what we deny is "terrorism" when done by the U.S.). It's a powerful term that can justify almost any government action.
But the U.S. media's willingness to mindlessly apply the term "terrorist" in exactly the subjective, self-serving way the U.S. Government dictates -- starkly contrasted with their refusal to use the far more objective term "torture" on the ground that the term is in dispute (i.e., disputed by the U.S. Government torturers) -- illustrates the establishment media's principal function: to serve American political power and justify whatever our government does. That's a major reason -- perhaps the primary one -- why the U.S. Government has been able to get away with everything it's done over the last decade. Those unseen victims of torture, rendition, indefinite detention and other government crimes are all just "terrorists," so who cares? In reporting on these convictions, CNN immediately and helpfully proclaims Nasr to be a "suspected terrorist" in a way that guts any meaningful definition of that term and -- in many minds -- justifies whatever was done to him, no matter how illegal.
It's worth asking this question: which sounds more like actual "terrorism": (a) kidnapping people literally off the street and shipping them thousands of miles away to be tortured with no legal process, or (b) what Nasr is "suspected" of having done?
Second, this incident underscores -- yet again -- that our political and media elite simply do not believe in the rule of law or accountability for high government officials. To the contrary, they explicitly believe that such officials should be entitled to break the law and be exempt from consequences. As but one example, here's a discussion on CNN last night about this matter between Wolf Blitzer and Jeffrey Toobin:
TOOBIN: This is a real criminal conviction in a country where we tend to honor reciprocal legal arrangements. So they are in a -- they are in no jeopardy as long as they are inside the United States, but, if they were to leave, they are potentially at risk for being jailed and brought to Italy.
BLITZER: Because even if they went to a third country, like England, let's say, or France, Interpol could have a warrant out for their arrest. They have been convicted by an Italian court.
TOOBIN: That's why this is such -- so troubling. It would one thing if they only had to stay out of Italy, but, because of Interpol, because of the reciprocal nature of these agreements, they are potentially at risk almost anywhere they go.
So according to Toobin, this is all "so troubling." Why? Because the people who were found by a duly constituted court to have committed a serious crime are faced with the risk that there might actually be consequences. After all, these are Americans who were part of the U.S. Government, and consequences for lawbreaking are simply not meant for them. Echoing Joe Klein's infamous Orwellian claim that torture shouldn't be prosecuted because the CIA is "asked to behave extra-legally for the greater good of the nation," Toobin added that "one of the things you do when you are a CIA agent, at least in part, is break the law of other countries" -- Toobin says that as though they have the right to do that without accountability, and without mentioning that causing people to be tortured is also a violation of U.S. law (after Nasr's kidnapping, the chief of the CIA's Milan office traveled to Egypt for three weeks to participate in his "interrogation").
Third, the glaring contrast between (a) the United States and (b) countries that (at least partially) adhere to the rule of law and precepts of accountability continues to grow. As we saw earlier this week, a U.S. appellate court ruled that American government officials are immune from consequences even when they abduct an innocent man and knowingly cause him to be tortured -- even after the Canadian government publicly disclosed its detailed investigation of that matter, publicly apologized to the victim, and paid him $9 million. Spain continues to pursue the possibility of criminal prosecution of our high government officials for war crimes even as our own government insists that our war criminals (at least all those but the lowest-level ones) should be immunized and we should look forward, not backwards. Our attempt to compile a "hit list" of Afghan citizens we intend to murder because we suspect them of drug trafficking prompted angry objections from Afghan officials that our plan violated due process and the rule of law.
And now an Italian court demonstrates actual judicial independence and adherence to equality under the law by holding American and Italian government kidnappers liable for their complicity in torture -- something our own government institutions have repeatedly failed and/or refused to do (Harper's Scott Horton has much more on the glaring contrast between U.S. and Italian political values that is reflected here).
Finally, this isn't about the past -- at least not exclusively. The U.S. Government continues to refuse even to comment on what it did here. The State Department yesterday expressed "disappointment" with the Italian court ruling -- just as it did when a British High Court recently ordered the disclosure of evidence of American torture. The DOJ continues to insist that no American courts can examine past rendition and torture cases on the grounds of secrecy. The Obama administration has explicitly decided to continue the "rendition" policy which led to Nasr's illegal kidnapping, albeit with the addition of anti-torture "safeguards" similar in language if not effect when compared to those in place under Bush (it remains to be seen to which countries these "rendered" suspects will be sent under the "new" policy). And most notably of all, we continue to be a country which -- in the name of secrecy and national security -- insists that the rule of law and accountability simply do not apply to our highest government officials when they break the law. Fortunately, other countries -- slowly and incrementally -- are rejecting that pernicious view.
UPDATE: One of the convicted CIA agents admits to ABC News that they "broke the law" when kidnapping Nasr and claims, credibly, that everything they did was approved back in Washington.
This is as good a time as any to post this new and important 9-minute video from the ACLU (with whom I consult), in which you hear from numerous individuals who were abducted and held for years at Guantanamo with no charges or trial of any kind -- only to be released with no explanation, apology or accountability. This is really worth watching; like the absence of civilian deaths caused by our wars, it's the key missing piece from typical media coverage that really illustrates what we've been doing:
“Israel” keeps up Palestinian evictions: Video
The United Nations, the United States and the European Union have all called on Israel to stop the illegal eviction of Palestinians and the demolition of their homes.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, urged Israel to end its “provocative actions” in East Jerusalem, while calling for it to freeze all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
Despite that, the sight of Palestinians in East Jerusalem being forced out of their homes has become an all too familiar scene.
Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland reports from occupied East Jerusalem.
Heavyweight-Hawks Hold Court On The Hill
By Eli Clifton - November 4, 2009
While House Resolution (HR) 867 condemning the Goldstone report passed 344-36 yesterday evening, members of the Israeli and American Jewish far-right held court on Capitol Hill at “The Jerusalem Conference”.
The event brought together some of the most hawkish American and Israeli voices to both issue their own condemnation of the Goldstone report and warn once more of the threat posed by a nuclear Iran.
Perhaps more important than what the speakers said—which rarely strayed from the anti-Goldstone, pro-Iran-sanctions line—was who the right-wing, pro-Israel organizers succeeded in attracting to their six hour conference. The speakers list alone was a statement of the group’s continued political muscle in Washington.
Co-sponsors of the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act (IRPSA), House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), and the Committee’s Ranking Republican, Rep. Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), as well as the co-sponsors of the Senate counterpart, Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) and Sen. Sam Brownback, filled out the first half of the program which focused on “Jerusalem-Protecting Its Remarkable Past and Future” and “Realities of the Middle East Process.”
Brownback got a standing ovation for announcing his intention to (re)introduce his Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act of 2009 Wednesday, only this time, he promised, the waiver provision that both Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush used to prevent the Act from actually being implemented — it would move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — will be removed.
The US legislators in the first half of the program–who bolstered their already impressive numbers with a “surprise” appearance by Sen. Daniel Innouye (D-HI) who spoke of his efforts to increase American aid to Israel–were balanced out by Israeli Cabinet Minister Yossi Peled, Israeli MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud), and Lt. Colonel Jonathan D. Halevi. Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren, who skipped the much larger J Street Conference last week, was scheduled to speak but scheduling constraints forced him to send a representative from the embassy in his place.
At the heart of the conference was the dual theme of condemning the Goldstone report and touting the various pending bills that would impose “crippling” sanctions against Iran if it did not abandon its nuclear program.
“In (both) Fallujah and in Gaza approximately 1000 terrorists were killed and in Fallujah approximately 6,000 civilians were killed,” extolled Ken Abramowitz, Managing General Partner of NGN Capital in New York and one of the Conference’s moderators. “And in Gaza three or four hundred (were killed), so I think it’s fair to say that in the operation in Gaza, Israel demonstrated the lowest level of civilian deaths per military deaths in the history of warfare in the history of the world. And it was criticized even though it exceeded the standard that no other army in the history of armies ever reached. So it’s just pure anti-Semitism,” he declared before entertaining questions for Lt. Col. (IDF res.) Jonathan D. Halevi, who had had himself extolled the exceptional morality of Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war in contradiction to the war crimes detailed in the Goldstone report.
Needless to say the audience which gathered for the conference did not choose to question the numbers thrown around by Abramowitz, nor did they, for that matter, question why neither the session on the war nor that on the (non-existent) peace process featured even one Palestinian speaker or discussant.
(Note: As reported in the Jerusalem Post, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem estimated the civilian death toll in Gaza at 774.)
While Goldstone “debunking” was a sure-fire crowd-pleaser, the certainty of its condemnation by the House in Tuesday’s vote detracted somewhat from the dramatic tension. On the other hand, the specter of a nuclear Iran held the crowd in thrall, as speaker after speaker insisted that action was more urgent than ever.
“Don’t wait (to impose sanctions)… Use existing authority right now within the executive branch,” demanded Casey. “Be it the Treasury Department, or other ways to provide the kind of pressure that I think has to be applied to the regime!”
The third panel of the day, sponsored by the missile-defense-promoting Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), focused predictably on missile defense and was headlined by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AR), Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV).
“We have no greater ally in the region than Israel, and it is in the interest of our own national security to stand with Israel,” Inhofe said. “This partnership is not a one-sided relationship. Israel has provided the United States military with invaluable technology such as the Hunter UAV, Bradley Reactive Armor Tiles, and the Lightning Pod. Our nation must maintain a close relationship with our friends in Israel, despite the fact that the current administration has demonstrated a willingness to work with those that stand opposed to Israel.”
“Today’s news that Hamas has used Iranian technology to improve their missile capabilities proves that we need a strong missile defense system that protects our allies, and more importantly, provides greater protection for the United States,” he continued. “The same enemies that threaten the existence of Israel also want to destroy America. Over the years, the United States has greatly benefited from cooperation with Israel on missile defense technologies, and we should continue this partnership. Instead, President Obama has cut funding for our missile defense systems, and ended the Third Site in Poland. Such action by the Obama administration puts the United States and our allies like Israel at greater risk.”
The Israeli perspective was represented by Israeli Cabinet Minister Yossi Peled, and Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser.
The final session of the day, ‘’Regional Threats to Global Security,’’ was headlined by Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Israeli Lt. Col. Jonathan D. Halevi of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
While speakers stayed on the relatively safe topics of Goldstone, Iran sanctions, and missile defense, the most noticeable element was the scheduled appearances of thirteen US senators or representatives (plus Daniel Innouye) during the six-hour conference. Between the decidedly one-sided vote on HR 867 condemning the Goldstone report and the display of political power reflected by the Jerusalem Conference’s speaker list, Tuesday was a day when the right-wing, pro-Israel lobby was shown at full-force on Capitol Hill.
Why Does AIPAC Spy on Americans?
According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Steven J. Rosen will be allowed to move ahead with his civil defamation lawsuit against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Rosen and fellow AIPAC employee Keith Weissman were indicted under the 1917 Espionage Act in 2005 along with Department of Defense Employee Col. Lawrence Franklin for passing classified national defense informaiton. Franklin pled guilty, but Rosen and Weissman’s case never went to trial — US attorneys gave up (PDF) after the presiding judge made a successful prosecution unlikely.
Rosen’s 2009 civil lawsuit contends that AIPAC defamed him when its spokesperson claimed that he "did not comport with standards that AIPAC expects of its employees." Rosen’s many filings in court reveal that his fundamental case is that AIPAC commonly circulates and distributes classified US government information when it suits the organization’s purpose in lobbying for Israel. AIPAC defamed him, he alleges, by claiming he was somehow unique.
An FBI file declassified and released on July 31, 2009 (PDF) backs up Rosen’s assertions. In 1984 AIPAC obtained a classified report compiled from the business secrets of US industries and associations opposed to signing a bilateral trade agreement with Israel. The FBI found that AIPAC had "attempted to influence members of Congress with the use of a purloined copy of the ITC report and had usurped their authority."
The Washington Field Office of the FBI went on to assert that "AIPAC is a powerful-pro Israel lobbying group staffed by U.S. citizens. WFO files contain an unsubstantiated allegation that a member of the Israeli Intelligence Service was a staff member of AIPAC."
Rosen is well on his way to claiming $20 million in damages for AIPAC’s "defamation" propelled by the court’s new ruling. But for Americans much larger concerns linger. Why isn’t AIPAC registering as an agent of a foreign principal if it is collaborating so closely with foreign intelligence services? Why are these matters being litigated in civil court as a family squabble between members of the Israel lobby? If espionage is a recurring, institutionalized feature of AIPAC, doesn’t that mitigate against its claims to be an American non-profit, working for American interests? From the NRA to the AARP, no legitimate American nonprofit lobby has ever been found to be trafficking in so much intelligence information, or so frequently channeling it to a foreign government parties and friends in the establishment media.
Newly emerging declassified facts are reminders to concerned Americans that AIPAC is not at all what it claims to be. Rosen’s lawsuit will not likely make good on his and former lobbyist Douglas Bloomfield’s implicit threats to reveal AIPAC as a stealth, unregistered foreign agent of the Israeli government.
Fortunately for Americans, that uncomfortable fact is now emerging in myriad ways, even in the midst of AIPAC’s new attempts to engineer policies that could accelerate the downfall of the US economy.
November 04, 2009
New York Mets called on to cancel settlement fundraiser
Press release, Adalah-NY, 4 November 2009
Eleven organizations from the US, Palestine and Israel have called on baseball's New York Mets to cancel a 21 November dinner at the Caesars Club at Citi Field for the Brooklyn-based Hebron Fund. The dinner is a fundraiser for Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank City of Hebron. In a letter sent to the Mets on 3 November, the groups said, "The New York Mets will be facilitating activities that directly violate international law and the Obama administration's call for a freeze in settlement construction, and that actively promote racial discrimination, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homes in Hebron." Seven hundred Israeli settlers, living amidst 150,000 Palestinians in Hebron, are expanding their hold on the historic old city by driving out the Palestinian residents.
The groups added that "It would be a tragic irony for an event funding Israeli settlers' violent actions and discriminatory policies against Palestinians to be held at Caesars Club which, according to the Mets, "sits directly on top of the Jackie Robinson Rotunda," which was named "in honor of Jackie Robinson, the ... great American who broke baseball's color barrier." The Mets and Major League Baseball promote Robinson's legacy, including Robinson's value of "Justice: Treating all people fairly, no matter who they are." Mets owner Fred Wilpon has explained in the past that, as a 16-year-old, meeting Jackie Robinson was an experience that never left him. "As a kid, a nothing, he treated me with all of that dignity that he treated everyone else in his life."
On the Hebron Fund webpage, clicking on the symbol which says "Give to Hebron" leads to a donations page on the website for the Jewish Community of Hebron which says, among other things, "keep Hebron Jewish for the Jewish people." In a report on Hebron, the Israeli human rights organizations B'Tselem and ACRI labeled the demands of Hebron's settlers as "racist." Hebron settlement leader Moshe Levinger, praised in a Hebron Fund dinner video, has been quoted saying,"The Arabs know to behave like good boys around us." Hebron Fund Executive Director Yossi Baumol also made very derogatory comments about Arabs in a 2007 interview.
The signers of the letter include Adalah-NY, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Brooklyn For Peace, Coalition of Women for Peace (Israel), CODEPINK Women for Peace, Gush Shalom (Israel), Jews Against the Occupation-NYC, Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (Palestine), US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and WESPAC Foundation. The letter was cced and sent to Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Middle East Envoy George Mitchell, who has a history of involvement with Major League Baseball, and Rachel Robinson, Jackie Robinson's wife.
The letter explains that reviewing last year's and this year's Hebron Fund dinner shows that some dinner honorees support violence and terrorizing Palestinians. In 1990, Noam Arnon, who is to be honored at the dinner, called three Israelis who were convicted of killing three Arabs and maiming two Palestinian mayors in car bombings "heroes." In a video on the Hebron Fund website, 2008 dinner honoree Myrna Zisman pays tribute to Hebron settler Yifat Alkoby. Alkoby became famous worldwide in 2006 when she was videotaped in Hebron terrorizing and calling a Palestinian woman and girl "whores" who were caged inside their own home as protection from settler attacks. In another video featuring 2008 dinner honorees, three children who appear to be the honorees' children are briefly shown holding guns and smiling.
All Israeli settlements violate international law, according to a broad international consensus. The Hebron Fund's dinner invitation says, "Join us in support of Hebron and in protest of today's building freeze in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]." In a September 2008 radio interview, the Hebron Fund's Yossi Baumol explained, "There are real facts on the ground that are created by people helping the Hebron Fund and coming to our dinners."
The Washington Post columnist David Ignatius recently highlighted the Hebron Fund and noted that "critics of Israeli settlements question why American taxpayers are supporting indirectly, through the exempt contributions, a process that the government condemns. A search of IRS records identified 28 US charitable groups that made a total of $33.4 million in tax-exempt contributions to settlements and related organizations between 2004 and 2007." The Hebron Fund has been the subject of complaints to the IRS regarding its tax-exempt status. The complaints request investigations of allegations that it raises funds for the development of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli organization Gush Shalom recently urged the National Lawyers Guild, an American organization, to encourage American tax authorities to strip US non-profits that support Israeli settlements of their tax-exempt status.
Source
Italian Judge Convicts 23 CIA Officers for Kidnapping
Italian Officials Complicit in 2003 'Rendition' of Cleric
Completing one of Europe’s most high profile terror related trials, an Italian judge today convicted 23 Americans, 22 of them confirmed by the prosecutor as CIA agents, to sentences of between five and eight years in prison related to the 2003 kidnapping of a cleric from the streets of Milan.
The longest sentence went to Robert Lady, America’s former Milan CIA chief. All the Americans were tried in absentia and are now considered fugitives from justice by the Italian government. The CIA declined comment.
The incident, dubbed the “imam rapito affair” by the Italian press, involves the abduction of Milan’s imam, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, an Egyptian cleric who was in Italy on an asylum passport. The CIA agents kidnapped Nasr off the streets of Milan and shipped him to Egypt.
Once in Egypt, Nasr spent the next several years in and out of prison, where he was tortured repeatedly. An Egyptian judge finally ordered his release in 2007. His only charge during the whole time was membership in a banned organization, though even this was eventually dropped.
Lady has insisted he was acting on the orders of his superiors with respect to the “rendition.” Two Italian officials were also convicted today as accomplices to kidnapping, though the Italian government’s declaration of “state secrecy” prevented more serious charges and pointed to official complicity in the incident.
Report on the J-Street conference
Was the recently held J Street conference the herald of an incipient peace treaty in Israel-Palestine? The supporters of the new lobby group hope so.
For decades, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has had a cloaked but powerful grip on American discussion of Israel. If politicians were to criticize its policies, or to discuss trimming aid or re-evaluating American support for Israel, they would likely incur a cost that few were willing to pay: the use of AIPAC's influence to destroy any hope for re-election.
AIPAC was recently shoved unceremoniously out of the closet by scholars Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer, with their broadside against the role of the "Israel Lobby" in distorting the functioning of US foreign policy.
Enter J Street, its name is a riff on K Street, the real Washington, DC address of many powerful lobbying firms. With a staff of 30 and a budget of millions, it has set itself up as the liberal alternative to AIPAC.
Last month, J Street held its inaugural conference in Washington, attracting more than 1,500 individuals who gathered to listen to such liberal Zionist luminaries as Katrina vanden Heuvel, Bernard Avishai, J.J. Goldberg and Akiva Eldar, and a keynote address by Obama Administration National Security Advisor General James Jones. Several members of Congress attended and spoke, and more than 100 were listed as honorary hosts.
The attendees were an eclectic bunch -- Brit Tzedek-ers, college students, aging hippies, rabbis, ambivalent Zionists, human rights activists, organizers -- among them many supporters of Judge Richard Goldstone's landmark fact-finding report on war crimes in Gaza.
Any organization to the left of AIPAC that could in turn marginalize the latter is a good thing and a good start. Bravo. But being merely more progressive than AIPAC is not enough, because to be more progressive than AIPAC is to be drier than the sea.
Looking more closely at the nature of J Street on its own terms, in its own words, reveals many problems. According to its mission statement, the organization is a group for people "who support Israel and its desire for security as the Jewish homeland, as well as the right of the Palestinians to a sovereign state of their own." It supports sanctions on Iran, although it prefers a diplomatic process, and it supports the maintenance of Israeli settlements in the West Bank in the context of mutual land-swaps. On aid, J Street claims that "American assistance to Israel, including maintaining Israel's qualitative military edge," will be maintained.
J Street's executive director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, in a widely-circulated interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, argued against using the threat of reducing US military aid as a means to pressure Israel.
J Street's view of Israel, at its core, is fundamentally sympathetic. It is a "pro-Israel, pro-peace" lobby, not a "pro-peace, pro-justice" lobby. It is, then, not at all shocking that J Street supported a modified version of House Resolution 867, which condemns the Goldstone report, referring to it as a "one-sided and biased action in the United Nations when it comes to Israel." From J Street's perspective Israel's attack on Gaza last winter was understandable, even "justified," as Ben-Ami put it.
At the conference, J Street's general tenor was for critical support for Israel, with minor harmonics here and there -- for example, serious and frequently-voiced concerns that soon, a two-state solution would be no longer viable because of Israeli settlement policy. In turn, there was much introspection about Israel's future as a democracy if it continued ruling over Palestinians. At the outer limits, journalist Michelle Goldberg observed that it is currently possible to be a liberal Zionist. From this perspective, Israel has not yet crossed the threshold that would make that position problematic, if not untenable, but it's close. Many statements were prefaced by pronouncements of the speakers' "great love" for Israel, "support for Israel" and the need for a "strong Israel," all purportedly compatible with the desire for a safe and secure Palestine.
Israeli irredentism and the nature of Israeli society were taboo topics amongst the vast majority of the officially-sanctioned panelists and speakers. The overwhelming support for the Gaza attacks amongst the Israeli populace, even among doves like David Grossman, went unmentioned. It is not for nothing that Israeli dissident Michel Warchawski refers to Israeli society as heading towards an "open tomb," or that sniper units wore t-shirts depicting two-for-the-price-of-one -- a pregnant Palestinian woman and her unborn baby for one bullet. Israel may have many of the formal procedural mechanisms that connote "democracy," but it has an array of mechanisms that prevent it from being a democracy for those who aren't Jewish. This, too, went unmentioned, but is at the core of what makes Israel a Jewish state, and an ethnically stratified democracy.
This brings us to the crux of the issue. J Street's policy positions reflect the assumption that the correct amount of strategically-targeted pressure, consisting of the right mix of harsh words and blandishments, can compel Israel to change its policies. The trump card of aid-cessation has been ruled out. American diplomats and statesmen are fond of the language of carrots and sticks, but there is to be no carrot for Israel and no stick, just the vague threat of the inevitable end of the two-state solution if a negotiated settlement is not arrived at by the end of Obama's term in office, and the accompanying end of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.
This vision is based upon a fantastical vision of Israel: a flawed democracy, not a scarily aggressive state harboring dangerously genocidal sentiments, with a messianic military believing in its divine right to sovereignty over another people's land. J Street does not recognize these facts. It's attempting to walk a path that's unwalkable, and when one wishes to trod a path that can't be trod upon, it helps to be able to dream. The dream is that Israel is a beleaguered democracy, struggling to defend itself. Emphasis on defense: the Zionist warrior ethos, manifested as security through the gun, may be somewhat beguiling to segments of an American Jewish population swearing that we never again will be helplessly slaughtered. There's no doubt about that.
But another segment of American Jewry was at that conference, too. Maybe we were a large plurality of the attendees, perhaps not -- certainly the participants at the conference were far to the left of the speakers. That segment knows far too much to any more countenance Israeli policy, and increasingly sees little reason to call itself "pro-Israel," when Israel has become a stand-in for unspeakable crimes. Perhaps most importantly, that segment trends young. The J Street University Student Board has stated "To us being pro-Israel is intertwined with being pro-Palestine," and is letting individual university chapters decide whether or not to include the "pro-Israel" slogan on its individual messaging. Otherwise, they worry, no one would join.
Whether that segment can exercise discernible influence on J Street in the next six months or one or two years, enough to make the lobby something better than it is now, enough to change its unacceptable policy positions, is not clear, and I'm betting against it. But it's possible. Furthermore, that segment will not be shushed by accusations of anti-Semitism, not anymore, never again. That segment may not be able to save Israel as a Jewish democratic state, and for many, that's fine too, and makes it that much easier to unite with other dissident sectors that don't see Israel as a Jewish issue but the conflict as a human issue, and see a Jewish democratic state not as a dream, but as an impossibility, the product of feverish fantasy.
Modern Zionism is an addiction for American Jewry, and withdrawal goes in stages. J Street was step one. Let's take it for what it is, and keep working.
Max Ajl blogs on Israel-Palestine at www.maxajl.com, and is an organizer with the Gaza Freedom March.
Stephanopoulos and Ledeen: together in the most accountability-free profession
BREAKING NEWS --Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, is dead.
Associated Press, January 7, 2007 -- 3 days later:
Khamenei addressed hundreds of citizens of Qom, a holy city 80 miles south of Tehran, who gathered outside his residence in the city center.
Khamenei Said to be in Coma
Khamenei has had previous medical emergencies in the past, and recovered, but the source is excellent . . . Here is what he/she says: "Yesterday afternoon at 2.15PM local time, Khamenei collapsed and was taken to his special clinic. Nobody -- except his son and the doctors -- has since been allowed to get near him. His official, but secret, status is: 'in the hands of the gods'. . . .
Outlook is uncertain but speculation is -- considering that he is in coma since more than 24 hours -- that he may not come out of his coma and/or that he may die very soon. . ."
UPDATE (Wednesday Oct 14th): According to a bulletin from the Greens (Moussavi/Karroubi et al), there are widespread rumors in the Tehran Bazaar that Khamenei has died. The Greens say they cannot confirm it, but that there is an "abnormal atmosphere" in the streets, which almost certainly means there are more security people than usual.
The bazaar will apparently be closed tomorrow, and perhaps Friday as well, pending developments.
George Stephanopoulos, ABC News, October 14, 2009:
Khamenei in Coma?
Rumors rampant. Have been wrong before. If right, will ruling regime close ranks or break apart? Rafsanjani's moment? Necessitate a stall in nuclear talks?
Here's more from Michael Ledeen.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, October 30, 2009:
Several Iranian websites, including the official site of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have published details of an unusual encounter between Khamenei and a student who publicly criticized the Iranian establishment.
The encounter took place in an October 28 meeting between Khamenei and students in Tehran, during which the supreme leader said that questioning the disputed June 12 vote was the "biggest crime."
According to the reports, a student from Sharif University, named by some websites as Mahmud Vahidnia, criticized the Iranian leader, state broadcast media, the post-election crackdown, and the closure of the reformist press -- for a whole 20 minutes.
This was beyond predictable. Michael Ledeen is one of the most dishonest and ludicrous jokes on the political scene. Will that stop George Stephanopoulos from using Ledeen as an expert source on Iran? No, of course not, because once one obtains Seriousness credentials in Washington, they are irrevocable no matter one's conduct (other than petty sex scandals), and journalism is the most accountability-free profession that exists (which is how the person who did this, this and this can still be considered one of the nation's leading "experts" on the Middle East). If I spend the next 20 years announcing every six months that super-secret sources have confirmed the death of Kim Jong-il, will I be celebrated as a prescient and well-connected expert on North Korea once it finally happens?
One other thing: re-read what Stephanopoulos wrote and remember: establishment journalists are vital and irreplaceable because -- unlike bloggers -- they're deeply responsible and reliable, subject to rigorous fact-checking, and don't traffic in irresponsible gossip and rumors that they find on the Internet.