NPR’s ‘Morning Edition’ Joins Vigilantes

by Susie Kneedler on October 13, 2009

We’ve all wondered when NPR would investigate the bigotry underlying the Occupation and ever-growing colonization of Palestine. Yesterday, Morning Edition finally announced a piece on how groups of Israeli men roam streets, intimidating Palestinian and Jewish people who date each other. I looked forward to an expose’ of the thugs’ intolerance. Sadly, NPR spit out the opposite: a paean to the racism of those Israelis. Renee Montagne opens with the "news" that, "There is a new enemy for some Israelis: romance between Jewish women and Arab men, and vigilantes have banded together to fight it. The vigilante groups are walking the streets and towns across Israel. The largest and most notorious is in the Jewish settlements that have sprung up in and around traditionally Arab East Jerusalem."

What does Montagne mean, "Jewish settlements" "have sprung up" amid "traditionally Arab" East Jerusalem? Montagne misleads listeners from the outset, declining to mention either the illegal Israeli Occupation of Palestinian lands or its continual theft and violence toward the people of Palestine. Just yesterday, the Israeli government demolished yet more Palestinian-owned buildings in East Jerusalem, without a peep from NPR.

Montagne reveals that "Sheera Frenkel joined one of the groups on patrol." Montagne makes Frenkel’s participation sound like camaraderie–the same phrase one would use if Frenkel actually became a vigilante herself. Montagne’s only critical word is her label "vigilante" for people who are in fact vigilantes.

Sheera Frenkel tells us that these vigilantes object to "Arab men dating Jewish girls." Frenkel’s terms treat her subject unequally in two ways: she opposes an ethnicity, "Arab," to a religion, "Jewish"– a racist formulation, for, unbelievably, Frenkel never once mentions the boys’ true identity: "Palestinian." Meanwhile, Frenkel’s whole approach is sexist, heightening the supposed "danger" posed by "Arab men" to "Jewish girls." If Frenkel were fair, she would describe the couples as "men and women," or, because they are "underaged," as "boys and girls."

Frenkel says that "’David’–who doesn’t want his name used" has a "mission" to "patrol," searching to "find Arab-Jewish couples and break up their dates." Frenkel shows no revulsion toward David’s interference. David avows: "My heart hurts every time I see a Jewish girl with an Arab. It’s extremely upsetting. I ask myself, ‘How did we get to this situation? How did we descend to this level?’ It is a serious step backwards in our eyes." Frenkel neglects to condemn or even question David about his hunger for segregation. She lets pass David’s bigoted claim that he and his ilk exist on a plane inherently "above" Palestinians and would be degraded by "falling" in love with them–literally plunging both down and behind.

Frenkel grants the vigilantes legitimacy: "In groups named ‘Fire for Judaism’ and ‘Love of Youth,’ 30 to 40 men…patrol the streets each night," without questioning their monikers or motives. "Officially, they’re on the lookout for any mixed couples," but a driver called "TS" "says the problem lies solely with Arab men dating Jewish girls." In other words, another layer of prejudice applies: the gangs aren’t just looking for any "mixed couples." Frenkel refrains from asking the vigilantes why Palestinian men in love with Jewish women is a bigger threat to their prejudices than Palestinian women with Jewish men.

TS says that the "Arab" men entice the girls with gifts: "These men approach the girl in a nice way. They buy her things. They build trust with the woman so that, given some time, the girls just blindly follow them. And–with time–one friend follows another, and soon enough, you have a commune made up of these types of girls." Horrors: a "commune," no less. How is such a conglomeration different from a kibbutz? Frenkel does not interrogate the self-appointed posse about its assumption that the Jewish women are saps–bribed into myopia. Instead, Frenkel tells us–without a glimmer of disapproval–that such Jewish persecution of Palestinian men dating Jewish women has actually become the official policy of one local government: "In…an industrial city in Israel’s center," the "municipality has formed a special division" for dealing with the "what it sees as the problem of underage Arab-Jewish couples."

Frenkel comments, "the couplings are an unforeseen bi-product of the growing number of Jewish settlements that have been built across largely Arab East Jerusalem." "Couplings"?–sounds as if Frenkel’s chatting about the matting habits of animals, rather than serious human beings capable of great devotion. "[U]nforeseen bi-product"?–naive inadvertence to the consequences of stealing others’ property and moving in next door, not a calculated exponential expansion. "[G]rowing number"?–an innocent increase devoid of larceny. "Jewish settlements"?–Jewish pioneers taming uninhabited land, instead of colonies pinched by invaders. "[T]hat have been built"?–simple construction on mysteriously bulldozed ruins, rather than obliterating others’ homes . "[A]cross largely Arab East Jerusalem"?–accidental spread throughout territory once inhabited by Arabs, never purloining the legal inheritance of Palestinians or dominating those who so tenuously remain. Frenkel conceals the Israeli breaches of International Law in its ethnic cleansing, revealing instead a sense of Palestinians as sub-human. Frenkel, like Montagne, condemns listeners to ignorance of the bloody Occupation and its ends by hiding every relevant fact.

Frenkel informs us that "Alona Levy, a 16-year-old Jewish teenager, says that she gets approached by Arab men every day," twisting the tale into the threat posed by lascivious aliens to virtuous damsels. Alona portrays her problem as predatory Arabs: "a group of Arab boys drove by and were yelling at us, ‘Hey, hot girls!,’ and we didn’t pay them any attention. We aren’t interested in them. This happens to us almost three times a day at least." Frenkel doesn’t question but rather validates Alona Levy’s bias about Palestinian boys, announcing, "But she [Alona] and her friends understand why some girls decide to defy local norms and date Arab men." Alona claims that "There are a lot of girls that go out with Arab men, because Arab boys are wild, they’re bad boys." Alona drives home her point, "I think they [the Palestinian boys] like us, because Arab girls are all conservative and wear the covering on their hair, and we dress normally." Frenkel doesn’t investigate Alona’s caricatures by actually interviewing either Palestinian boys or girls.

Frenkel reverts to David, for whom "mixed couples" are "a growing epidemic." Frenkel refrains from condemning David’s portrayal of romance among Palestinians and Jews. Frenkel doesn’t query David’s fear, let alone her own mischaracterization of such couples as "mixed." What has happened to our American press if an NPR "reporter" frankly implies that Palestinian-Israeli couples are mesalliances or miscegenation? What sort of paranoia sees intimacy among Palestinians and Israelis as a plague the way David does? What kind of "journalist" concurs with his categories of abuse? Frenkel instead announces that David and his fellow vigilantes target girls who are "known problem cases." Frenkel recounts David’s story of accosting one Jewish girl who refused to get out of a car with Palestinians, taking his word that the car sped off–after first hitting David’s leg–after which David chased the car for 30 minutes, quitting only after filing a police report.

David announces that: "Our goal is to talk to the girls and convince them that their place is with the Jewish nation, not with our enemies." Nowhere does Frenkel utter even a yip about so barbarous a belief: that Jews belong only "with the Jewish nation" and that Palestinians are inviolable "enemies." David brags that he and his group have "saved" four girls, declaiming that, "Even if we have rescued only one girl," "we have done a good deed, and we thank God for it." Frenkel remains mum about such fundamentalist zealotry. Frenkel instead affirms in her closing lines that "’David,"–the man who hides behind a pseudonym–wants publicly to humiliate his target: "He hopes that drawing attention to the incident will embarrass the girl and force her to leave her boyfriend. He says it’s one more girl he might save."

What a terrible end to a biased report. Frenkel shuts down her biased "story" of maniacal busy-bodies–mobs, even–with the fiction that David actually cares to "save" a girl. He merely wants to harass a person better than he is–or at least more open-minded. "David" craves nothing but hate, pursuing an eternal war based only on his own lethal animosity.

Sheera Frenkel never criticizes the racism of the vigilantes or compares it to traditional U.S. values of equality and kinship for all. We can’t excuse Frenkel’s omissions by the traditional alibi of "objectivity," for there’s nothing "fair" about her approach. Frenkel interviews no Palestinians who love Jewish people or Jews who love Palestinian people. Worse, Frenkel valorizes the vigilantes’ mania. Sheera Frenkel refuses to depict the affection among these young couples as the gift that it really is. The couples’ connection across a lethal Occupation is a hopeful, good sign that peace–amity–harmony are not only possible, but are truly happening right now.

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Egypt media group agrees on Israel boycott

Haaretz 28/09/2009

The London-based Arabic-language daily A Sharq al Awsat reported Monday that the board of directors of the powerful Egyptian media group Al-Ahram had decided to boycott Israel and Israelis of all positions.

The Al-Ahram group is considered the most powerful media body in Egypt. Al-Ahram publishes newspapers considered to be the official mouthpiece of the Egyptian government.

The boycott, approved by a majority of nine board members over six following a heated debate, includes a ban on meeting with and interviewing Israelis, and a ban on participation in events (seminars, conferences, lectures) in which Israelis are taking part.

According to the report, the board of directors also banned Israelis from entering the building housing the Al-Ahram offices. The ban includes Israeli diplomats stationed in Egypt.

During the same meeting, it was decided to take action on the matter of Dr. Hala Moustafa, the editor of Al-Ahram’s Democracy magazine, after she stirred anger and disapproval earlier this month when she met with Israeli ambassador Shalom Cohen.

A statement regarding the board’s decision has been personally delivered to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

A senior editor at the Al-Ahram daily said that the Al-Ahram group has always been a supporter of dialogue, and an opponent of discrimination, including discrimination against Israel, but the fact that Israel has “gone against peace and elected an extremist government which opposes peace and supports killing and destruction” had changed the group’s outlook.

He added that the group will work toward preventing “normalization” and contact with the Israelis until the achievement of a lasting and just peace, “which means Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories.”

Dr. Moustafa said Monday that she had yet to receive any notice regarding the board’s decision. However, it is believed that an investigation against her will begin Tuesday. Moustafa said that she will defend her stance and argue that Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty and as such, a meeting with Israel’s ambassador is not a violation of Egyptian law.

Liz Cheney and Tom Friedman Agree: Give the US Military the Nobel

Jim Lobe, October 13, 2009

One of the most notable developments surrounding the debate about the Nobel Committee’s decision to award Obama its peace prize has been the apparently spontaneous agreement by both Tom Friedman and Liz Cheney that the president should make the occasion a celebration of the U.S. military. It speaks volumes about the ideological anchorlessness of Friedman, who, according to a recent National Journal survey of Democratic and Republican insiders, is the media personality with the single greatest influence among party elites.

Here’s Cheney on “Fox News Sunday” after denouncing the Committee’s decision as a “farce.”

“But I do think he [Obama] could send a real signal here. I think what he ought to do frankly is send a mother of a fallen American soldier to accept the prize on behalf of the U.S. military and frankly to send the message to remind the Nobel committee that each one of them sleeps soundly at night because the U.S. military is the greatest peacekeeping force in the world today.”

And here’s Friedman after expressing dismay “that the most important prize in the world has been devalued in this way” in his column published Saturday, entitled “The Peace (Keepers) Prize.” Most of the column consists of “the speech I hope he will give” when he accepts the prize in Oslo Dec 10:

“Let me begin by thanking the Nobel committee for awarding me this prize, the highest award to which any statesman can aspire. As I said on the day it was announced, ‘I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.’ Therefore, upon reflection, I cannot accept this award on my behalf at all.

“But I will accept it on behalf of the most important peacekeepers in the world for the last century — the men and women of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.”

There follows a series of inspirational paragraphs about the U.S. military’s heroism and sacrifice from World War II through its rescue operations “from the mountains of Pakistan to the coasts of Indonesia” (with no mention of Vietnam whatsoever) before he concludes in a long coda:

“Members of the Nobel committee, I accept this award on behalf of all these American men and women soldiers, past and present, because I know — and I want you to know — that there is no peace without peacekeepers.

“Until the words of Isaiah are made true and lasting — and nations never again lift up swords against nations and never learn war anymore — we will need peacekeepers. Lord knows, ours are not perfect, and I have already moved to remedy inexcusable excesses we’ve perpetrated in the war on terrorism.

“But have no doubt, those are the exception. If you want to see the true essence of America, visit any U.S. military outpost in Iraq or Afghanistan. You will meet young men and women of every race and religion who work together as one, far from their families, motivated chiefly by their mission to keep the peace and expand the borders of freedom.

“So for all these reasons — and so you understand that I will never hesitate to call on American soldiers where necessary to take the field against the enemies of peace, tolerance and liberty — I accept this peace prize on behalf of the men and women of the U.S. military: the world’s most important peacekeepers.”

Note that there’s nothing in Friedman’s talk about “soft” or “smart power,” of which he is supposed to be a strong exponent. Nor even about the country’s voters who voted Obama into office. It’s all about the military, its goodness, and even its altruism.

To my mind, the agreement between Cheney and Friedman makes for a great illustration of the the similarity in worldview between the hard right — I think Liz is actually more of a neo-con in her strong feelings about Israel than her dad ever was) and liberal interventionists like Friedman. And that worldview, of course, not only implicitly extols American exceptionalism, but also — to put it bluntly — American militarism, a phenomenon to which Andrew Bacevich devoted an entire book after the Iraq invasion.

Here’s some of what Bacevich, a retired army colonel who teaches at Boston University, wrote as excerpted on Tomdispatch.com in 2005:

“[M]ainstream politicians today take as a given that American military supremacy is an unqualified good, evidence of a larger American superiority. They see this armed might as the key to creating an international order that accommodates American values. One result of that consensus over the past quarter century has been to militarize U.S. policy and to encourage tendencies suggesting that American society itself is increasingly enamored with its self-image as the military power nonpareil.

“…Since the end of the Cold War, opinion polls surveying public attitudes toward national institutions have regularly ranked the armed services first. While confidence in the executive branch, the Congress, the media, and even organized religion is diminishing, confidence in the military continues to climb. Otherwise acutely wary of having their pockets picked, Americans count on men and women in uniform to do the right thing in the right way for the right reasons. Americans fearful that the rest of society may be teetering on the brink of moral collapse console themselves with the thought that the armed services remain a repository of traditional values and old fashioned virtue.

Confidence in the military has found further expression in a tendency to elevate the soldier to the status of national icon, the apotheosis of all that is great and good about contemporary America. The men and women of the armed services, gushed Newsweek in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, “looked like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. They were young, confident, and hardworking, and they went about their business with poise and élan.” A writer for Rolling Stone reported after a more recent and extended immersion in military life that “the Army was not the awful thing that my [anti-military] father had imagined”; it was instead “the sort of America he always pictured when he explained… his best hopes for the country.”

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Visit Lobelog.com for the latest news analysis and commentary from Inter Press News Service’s Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe.

Gaza Gets Ambitious With Mud

by Eva Bartlett

SHEIKH ZAYED, Gaza, Oct 13 (IPS) - On a searing summer morning, workers are adding layers to the mud-brick police station being constructed in Sheikh Zayed, northern Gaza.

"We started building on Jun. 20," says Mohammed el-Sheikh 'Eid, a consultant engineer with Gaza's Ministry of Interior. "Since this is the first time we've built something on this scale with mud bricks, we can't estimate exactly how much longer it will take to complete. Maybe another two months or so."

He is confident, however, that they will finish before the winter rains begin.

Since the war on Gaza ended, a number of houses have been built using mud to create simple, square, two or three-room homes. The new Sheikh Zayed police station is one of the larger and more ambitious projects.

An intricate series of thick-walled, deep-arched chambers form what is on the whole a much more artistic rendition of the former square, cement police station bombed during the attacks. When finished, the station will be 550 square metres, including seven 3.5m by 3.5m office rooms and eight long, arched-roofed chambers 3m wide and 8m long.

In contrast to Gaza's basic new mud-brick homes, with their cracked-earth finish inside and rough, straw-flecked outer layer, the police station design replicates that of the elegant, traditional Palestinian stone or brick buildings: neatly-packed rows of brick frame windows and doorways in graceful arcs; with surprisingly smooth domes that top off vaulted rooms and corridors. The one-level station, with its multiple rooftop domes, resembles the architecture of Palestinian homes from Nablus to Jerusalem.

The site, just off the coastal road serving Beit Lahia, is open and spacious, with a contrasting backdrop of cement block apartment buildings, built long before the Israeli siege on Gaza, when cement was accessible.

Engineer and site supervisor Sameh Al-Khalout explains the small-scale and hand-crafted construction process.

"The mud bricks take between one and two weeks to cast and dry," he says, gesturing at the rows of bricks drying in the sun. "Each brick costs roughly one shekel (a quarter of a dollar) to make."

Al-Khalout says the clay is brought from a nearby area of Beit Lahia, and the straw comes from local farmers. "We will put plaster on the roof, to seal it and protect it from rain."

Wood is temporarily used to buffer ceiling arches and windows until the clay mortar hardens. The wood is then removed and used elsewhere in the same manner.

Apart from these wood bracings, conventional and excessively expensive building materials are not used.

Cement smuggled in via the tunnels between Egypt and Gaza is as much as ten times the pre-siege price. A tonne of cement costs 3,400 shekels (850 dollars), compared to the 350 shekels it cost prior to June 2007.

Husam Toubil from the United Nations Development Programme says Gaza requires 50,000 tons of cement to rebuild destroyed homes, and 41,000 tons for public buildings.

Al-Khalout says problems extend beyond lack of availability of materials. "For most of our workers, this is their first experience building with mud bricks.

"Since we have to bring in clay, straw and gravel, and mix the mud cement, make the bricks and then build the actual station, we require more workers than we would using cement."

In an enclosed Strip where unemployment is near 50 percent and poverty has reached 90 percent, according to a recent UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCATD) report, the workers will brave the heat for the chance to earn 40 shekels a day.

Since the siege on Gaza tightened in June 2007, almost no construction materials have entered Gaza, according to the OCHA report. This is in comparison to the pre-attacks, pre-siege import levels of 7,400 trucks per month, from January to May 2007.

According to the United Nations Relief Web news, 3,900 truckloads entered Gaza from January to May 2007. Over the same period this year, six trucks were allowed in. These carried material for water projects, greatly in need and long awaiting completion.

The Israeli authorities say the ban on building materials is to prevent Hamas from using so-called "dual use" items for military activities.

Yet, non-Hamas run agencies, schools, and healthcare centres are facing the same blanket restrictions on import of cement, gravel, wood, tiles, piping, paint, glass and steel bars, notes the OCHA report.

The mud brick technique, extended beyond the simple clay ovens prevalent in Gaza to the building of houses, potentially meets some of Gaza's great construction needs.

East of Gaza city, in the Al-Shojayia district, engineers have tackled the challenge of a multi-level clay-brick building: a three-storey school for 600 disabled children is under construction, using a combination of mud brick and rubble from the remains of homes and buildings destroyed during the Israeli attacks.

According to a Guardian news report, engineer Maher Al-Batroukh and university engineers experimented with clay to create strong bricks. When finished, the school will be roughly twice the size of the Sheikh Zayed police station, with similar domed ceilings and plaster coating.

Noting the success of clay building endeavours, the Hamas Ministry of Public Works is likewise pursuing the mud-brick alternative, with plans to build multi-storey houses and re-build destroyed public buildings.

While some are finding means to get around the Israeli ban on nearly everything needed to re-build in Gaza, the on-going siege on the Strip continues to hit daily life to an extent that the latest UN report notes that closed borders and delays in allowing in goods are 'devastating livelihoods' and causing gradual 'de-development'.

The OCHA report further cites the damage to education, including overcrowding due to destroyed or damaged schools, and denied or delayed education materials.

In an August 2009 statement, Maxwell Gaylard, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, noted that the "deterioration and breakdown of water and sanitation facilities in Gaza is compounding an already severe and protracted denial of human dignity in the Gaza Strip."

Gaylard, along with the Association for International Development Agencies (AIDA), notes that the Israeli denial of entry of equipment and supplies needed for the construction, maintenance and operation of water and sanitation facilities since June 2007 has led to "the gradual deterioration of these essential services."

Further citing destruction from the Israeli attacks, the statement says Gaza's sanitation and water services are on the "brink of collapse", noting that the sparse supplies allowed in have been "nowhere near enough to restore a fully functioning water and sanitation system."

About 60 percent of the population does not have continuous access to water, the statement notes. Roughly 10,000 people in Gaza have no access to the water network at all. This, combined with the 50-80 million litres of untreated and partially treated wastewater that is being discharged daily since January 2008, compounds the water and sanitation crisis.

Although some resourceful individuals have built homes despite the ban on cement, these various reports highlight that the manifold problems created by the ongoing siege and Israeli attacks on Gaza are too extensive to be solved by improvisation and mud alone.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reports that 60 police stations were destroyed or damaged during the winter 2008-2009 Israeli attacks on Gaza.

The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) August 2009 report says more than 6,400 homes were destroyed or severely damaged, and over 52,000 suffered minor damage from bombing during Israel's winter war on Gaza.

The OCHA report notes that the continued Israeli-led siege on Gaza has prevented reconstruction or repair of 13,900 homes, including approximately 2,700 homes damaged or destroyed in earlier Israeli military operations, and of 3,000 housing units intended to replace inadequate homes in crowded refugee camps.

Over 20,000 Palestinians remain displaced in Gaza, with approximately 100 families still living in emergency tents provided by aid agencies.

PCHR also reports that 215 factories and 700 private businesses, 17 universities or colleges, 15 hospitals and 43 health care centres, and 58 mosques were destroyed or damaged during the attacks. The United Nations says that 298 schools were destroyed or damaged.

They all await reconstruction, as does Gaza's shattered economy.

FIFA urged to give the red card to Israel

Press release, various undersigned, 13 October 2009

The following press release was issued on 7 October 2009:

FIFA's declared mission to use football to bring about "a better world" requires that clear signals be given to the apartheid state, Israel. The undersigned organizations call on FIFA to tell Israel it is off-side and to show it a red card for the World Cup.

Three Palestinian football players from the national team were killed during the Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. Because of the Israeli blockade and travel restrictions, the Palestinian national team there cannot practice with their teammates in the West Bank in their native land. They can only rarely take part in international competitions.

Palestinian athletes suffer constant discrimination and violent assaults. This is part of Israel's decades-long refusal to guarantee the Palestinians their rights, freedom, dignity and their physical and spiritual integrity. This policy should be called apartheid. It is not only a violation of international law, but also of FIFA's regulations against discrimination, and of the Olympic Charter.

South Africa's exclusion from the world sports community until 1991 helped to bring about the end of racial separation in that country. Now, almost 20 years later, the World Cup will be hosted by South Africa in 2010. Decency, dignity and sporting fair play towards the hosts and the participating teams demand that Israel be subjected to the same sanctions. Numerous organizations and personalities in Israel and world-wide hope that increased pressure on Israel will induce it to respect the rights of the Palestinians. This is a prerequisite for peace.

We challenge FIFA to live up to the letter and the spirit of its statutes and to seize this opportunity to prove to the world that it stands for a more just world by sending Israel an unmistakeable threat of exclusion. This would be an important victory for human rights -- not only for the Palestinian people, but also for the international football community.

No to apartheid!

Undersigned organizations: Basler Frauenvereinigung fuer Frieden und Fortschritt (BFFF), Bewegung fuer den Sozialismus (BFS/MPS), Collectif Judeo Arabe et Citoyen pour la Paix de Strasbourg, Collectif Urgence Palestine Vaud, Collectif Urgence Palestine Neuchatel, Frauen fuer den Frieden Region Basel, Frauen fuer den Frieden Region Biel, Gerechtigkeit und Frieden in Palaestina (GFP) Bern, Gesellschaft Schweiz-Palaestina (GSP/ASP), International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) France, Juedische Stimme fuer gerechten Frieden in Nahost (EJJP Deutschland), Kampagne Olivenoel, Neue PdA Basel, Mahnwache Bern, Palaestina-Solidaritaet Basel, Palaestina-Solidaritaet Zuerich, Sozialistische Alternative (SoAL) Basel, Union Juive Francaise pour la Paix (UJFP)
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Lara Logan Casts Her Spell for War

by Kelley B. Vlahos, October 13, 2009

"What appears to be a wavering in American resolve is the smell of victory for al-Qaeda and the Taliban."

Normally, one would expect only a veteran in the art of war demagoguery – Charles Krauthammer, Victor Davis Hanson, Cliff May perhaps – to exhale such square-ball jazz.

So score at least one for the military, because these words, spoken on the wildly popular Colbert Report on Oct. 6, came from none other than CBS chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan.

In fact, her three-minute interview with Stephen Colbert passed a succession of similar kidney stones, such as "in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda is so strong, it is the spiritual home of al-Qaeda," and "the time [Obama] is taking [to decide on a strategy] is so frightening, especially to the soldiers on the ground. Because in a way, we are lost right now."

After so much bald-faced propaganda in so little time, one fully expected Logan – like at the end of a half-hour Scooby Doo mystery – to rip off the mask and reveal none other than Kimberly Kagan herself inside.

Lara Logan

These days, the U.S. military leadership, led by the indomitable Gen. David Petraeus and his equally indubitable ace Gen. Stanley McChrystal, needs all the civilian emissaries it can find – and they don’t get much better than Lara Logan. She almost makes up for all those pesky media stories last week about al-Qaeda being diminished and the administration thinking the Taliban is not so much of a threat to U.S. national security.

But in Logan, the military and their pro-war strategic communicants have an advocate so perfect one would think she was put together by the fictional hucksters on Mad Men. She’s a knockout. With that sexy, authoritative accent (think David Kilcullen meets Charlize Theron), one is strangely compelled to listen to what she has to say. She’s a ball-buster, but she’s just so charming about it. She can grandstand one minute about putting an "armor-piercing RPG in the face of the bureau chief" to get her story on the air, then purr the next in that low, intimate way about being the poor victim of a petty U.S. news cycle.

Called everything from an "ass-kicker" to a "bombshell in Baghdad," Logan has been an embedded correspondent in both Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. She’s infiltrated insurgencies, but she claims she never wants to leave her mascara and moisturizer behind. That sloppy mess about husband-stealing aside, she’s got cred, especially with a mainstream audience that puts such a high premium on good looks and barrier-breaking heroics.

That credibility (at least among the antiwar Left) was at its peak when she was dive-bombed back in January 2007 by none other than the 101st Fighting Keyboarder Brigade for what they charged was "passing along terrorist propaganda." (Logan had launched an e-mail appeal to force her bosses at CBS to air controversial footage of fighting along Haifa Street in Baghdad – footage critics later said was captured by al-Qaeda and not attributed as such by the network.) Right-wing doyenne Michelle Malkin called Logan a "correspondent-turned-activist," while progressive bloggers leaped instantly to Logan’s defense.

However, after three weeks on a more recent assignment to Afghanistan, CBS and its favorite foreign correspondent seem to be on the same sheet of music, and they are now carrying Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s tune. Beyond the shock and awe of the aforementioned Logan-Colbert exchange, a click through to the network’s war coverage displayed on its Web site, "Afghanistan: The Road Ahead," reveals first-rate access to the generals, the suits, and the battlefield. But one look at the final, odious product and you’re instantly compelled to ask, "At what price?"

First, there’s this useless interview with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in which super-anchor Katie Couric sounds like she is channeling Joe Lieberman and/or Lindsey Graham:

"Our stated objective in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to quote, ‘Disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al-Qaeda and prevent their return to Afghanistan.’ Can that goal be accomplished without providing stability to the country, in the form of security and economic opportunity for the people of Afghanistan?"

Lara Logan in Iraq (U.S. Army)

Key stories include "Cooperation Rises Between Iran and the Taliban" and "Afghan City’s Close Ties with Iran," both by Lara Logan. Fellow correspondent David Martin asks, "Not Enough Troops?" Logan gains access to Taliban fighters on the ground in "Taliban Gaining Firepower and Influence" and again surmises:

"The fight against the Taliban has become inseparable from the war against al-Qaeda. The momentum now is on the side of the insurgents and terrorists. They’re watching antiwar feeling in the U.S. grow, and they smell victory."

In fact, Logan does a lot of surmising, and CBS seems to assume we all want to hear it. The Oct. 8 interview with her own network (she does a lot of those) was spectacular in that it showed she has absolutely no shame in advocating for more war – in particular, a war that she and her husband (a federal contractor) have benefited from, both professionally and financially, since the beginning.

In this presentation, which a now appreciative HotAir.com refers to as "CBS’s Afghan Correspondent Tears Obama’s Taliban Strategy to Shreds," Logan says a proposed shift to a "counter-terrorism plan," as advocated by Vice President Joe Biden, is "just ludicrous" and "an absolute disaster," before leaping into apparatchik territory with McChrystal:

“‘You can’t do any of those things if you have no security in most of the country,’ Logan told moderator Bob Orr. ‘I don’t understand why no one will listen to the man you put your faith in and said he is the guy who is going to do this for us,’ she said referring to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for more combat troops. …

"’Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are clearly at war with the U.S. They are not concerned with the counterinsurgency, counterrorism… They are at war and McChrystal has to fight that war,’ Logan said, reiterating the need for the Obama administration to give more combat troops to the effort."

Logan’s remarks left the normally cynical posters at Malkin’s HotAir.com a bit baffled, including "Mojave Mark," who enthused, "Maybe some at CBS have been listening to Rush on CBS affiliates."

In CBS’ desperate post-Rathergate quest for right-wing forgiveness, Logan unleashed could be a positive first step on the road to redemption. And this is more than McChrystal & Co. could hope for. Even combined, all of the academics and think-tankers the general has collected for his
growing "brain trust" couldn’t equal the 100-proof appeal of Lara Logan. Contrary to conventional wisdom, most Americans still watch network TV to get their news, and the younger set increasingly considers The Daily Show and Colbert primary news sources. Logan and her Afghan epiphanies have been making the rounds with the force of a country preacher, hitting all the target audiences smack in the eyeballs.

In the end, the 101st (keyboarders, that is) may think they’ve gained a worthy accomplice. And maybe they have. It’s more important, however, to recognize that for the U.S. military, having its way – advancing COIN in Central Asia with the tens of thousands of U.S. troops and billions of dollars it demands – means engaging in high-stakes media hardball, Strategic Communications-USA, if you will. And Lara Logan is the Message Force Multiplier for today’s mission.

Read more by Kelley B. Vlahos

• PATRIOT Act Fight Needs More Patriots – October 5th, 2009
• The Two Faces of Kimberly Kagan – September 28th, 2009

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Report: Israel planning wave of Jerusalem house demolitions

13/10/2009 13:55

Jerusalem – Ma’an – Israeli authorities are planning to demolish 150 Palestinian houses, home to about 1,000 people in East Jerusalem, according to a new report from the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights.

The leveling of two structures in the town of Beit Hanina on Monday were the first of a series that Israeli officials are planning over the coming year, the center said in a report released on Tuesday.

In a statement released Tuesday the center explained the demolition orders were issued during the administration of former Israeli Jerusalem Mayor Uayor Uri Lupolianski, who finished his term as the head of the Israeli-controlled Jerusalem Municipality in 2008. The orders were recently renewed under the current mayor, Nir Barkat, the center said.

The center’s research unit reports that the majority of the houses under threat are in the neighborhoods of Beit Hanina, Shu’fat, Al-Ashqariyya, Nusayba, Silwan, Ath-Thuri, Al-Mukabbir, Sur Bahir, At-Tur, Az-Za’yyim, Iisawiyya, and Ras Khamis. Many of the houses slated for destruction were build at least three years ago.

The group of houses under threat does not include another 125 houses and apartments whose owners were given demolition orders in the neighborhoods of Al-Bustan, Al-Abbasiyya, and Wadi Hilwa.

On Monday, witnesses told Ma’an, Israeli troops forcibly evicted Amjad At-Taleiqi and his family of five from their 70-sqaure meter house in Beit Hanina before flattening it with bulldozers. At-Taleiqi’s hands were bound until the demolition was complete, witnesses said.

Israel frequently demolishes houses because they have been built without permits. Palestinian residents universally report, however, that such permits are nearly impossible to obtain.

The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem reports that Israel have demolished about 420 Palestinian-owned houses in East Jerusalem since 2004 on the grounds that they were built without permits.

Humanitarian Law Applies to All

By Tammy Obeidallah
October 12, 2009

Throughout the world, people have attempted to distinguish ordinary Americans from the United States government. Perhaps our complacency for aiding and abetting war crimes has been attributed to lack of education, apathy in the face of an omnipotent pro-Israeli lobby or that we are simply hapless workaholics with time for little else. Yet private citizens, either for some warped religious or political viewpoint, or through sheer ignorance often exacerbate the control pro-Israel interest groups have over American institutions.

In September, the city of Dayton, Ohio--population roughly 160,000--signed a three-year commitment to share military technology with Israel. One of the key components of the agreement is the further development of unmanned aircraft. County officials reported $350,000 in private donations was raised to contribute to this and other "economic development projects" in Israel.

The attitude of this small Midwestern city is reflective of the American nation as a whole. Sharing military technology with a nation that is known to use such technology against civilians is against international law; yet human rights take a back seat to the promise of job opportunities and economic growth at the expense of people half a world away. While Americans enjoy the freedom of unfettered Internet access and ample educational opportunities, the majority choose to remain deliberately ignorant of the law and an all but forgotten value system.

The American Society of the Red Cross offers a four-hour class on International Humanitarian Law during armed conflict, which draws its legal basis from the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. Ratified by all 194 of the world's countries, the Conventions prohibit attacks on civilians and institutions such as hospitals, houses of worship and schools. They also mandate the humane treatment of sick and injured combatants as well as prisoners of war.

In 1998, the world community took additional steps to establish a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) responsible for prosecuting individuals for violations of International Humanitarian Law. Ironically, the United States did not ratify the Rome Statute which created the ICC and notified the United Nations that it will not recognize the authority of such a court.

Not coincidentally, the United States made this announcement in May 2002, less than a month after Israel's attack on the Jenin refugee camp. Untold numbers of civilians were massacred in the onslaught and survivors were subsequently denied Red Cross and Red Crescent access, representing yet another grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. Journalists were kept out in an attempt to conceal mass graves of Palestinian men, women and children from the rest of the world--crimes worthy of referral to the ICC.

Small wonder the United States, protector-in-chief of the Jewish State, chose that time to deny the court's right to exist. Yet, as horrific as was the Jenin massacre, it served as a merely a bloody preamble to Israel's attacks on Lebanon in 2006 and most recently, Gaza.

During Israel's December 2008-January 2009 offensive, Gazans suffered indiscriminate attacks on civilian neighborhoods, mosques, clinics and a UN school.

The BBC reported a clinic run by Christian Aid, along with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medical equipment, was destroyed in an Israeli missile attack. The clinic provided free health care, with specific focus on mothers and children. Its purpose was well-known, as Israeli military officials called the organization 15 minutes prior to its destruction, alleging "terrorist operations in the area."

Civilians, particularly children, were targeted by Israeli soldiers. Dr. Ahmed Yahia, head of neurosurgery at the El-Arish hospital in Egypt told BBC News that brain scans "made it clear that a number of the child victims had been shot at close range."

Compounding the human toll, Israel used white phosphorus and the DIME bomb, a heinous weapon causing catastrophic internal wounds and the rapid onset of cancer in those exposed to it.

The Geneva Convention calls on its signatories--all 194 of them--to prosecute war crimes. When a nation is unwilling or unable to do so, it is up to the international community to step in and apply sanctions against the offending nation.

However, when governments are unwilling to live up to their agreements, it should fall into the hands of private citizens to pressure these said governments; when private citizens are ignorant of international law, the pro-Israeli media juggernaut and corrupt politicians are all too eager to fill the vacuum.

Such was the case at the recent G-20 summit held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The United States, France and Britain called for sanctions against Iran for pursuing nuclear power, hypocritically ignoring Israel's already hefty nuclear arsenal along with its demonstrated willingness to use weapons of mass destruction.

It is time International Humanitarian Law be made an educational requirement in our public schools rather than an optional course offered intermittently. Only then will we have a citizenry capable of demanding government adherence to the Geneva Convention.

The alternative is unfolding before our very eyes: a decline in civility, the breakdown of morality and the rapidly decreasing value we place on a human life. This is the legacy the children of the world are doomed to inherit if teaching international law is not made a priority.

- Tammy Obeidallah is a writer based in Dayton, Ohio. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

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Massacre in Ireland, Massacre in Iraq

British Government Still Covering Up Bloody Sunday

By EAMONN McCANN
October 12, 2009

The families of 14 men killed by British paratroopers in Derry in Northern Ireland on January 20 1972 - “Bloody Sunday” - have been paying close attention to a ruling of the High Court in London in the case of Khunder al-Sweady.

Mr. al-Sweady is one of six Iraqis who claim that soldiers of the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment tortured and murdered a number of civilians in southern Iraq in May 2004. On October 6th last, three judges ruled on the men’s application for previous decisions to be set aside and a new, public inquiry ordered into the incident.

Upholding the application, Judges Scott Baker, Silber and Sweeney, none of them noted as a radical maverick, accused the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Royal Military Police and the Treasury Solicitors of deliberately withholding evidence and of dishonesty with regard to the evidence which they did present. Civil servants from the Treasury Solicitors were said by the judges to have lied persistently in telling the court that they knew of no undisclosed documents which might throw light on the case.

Under current plans for publication of the Bloody Sunday report, the Treasury Solicitors - in essence, the British Government’s solicitors - will be allowed to go through the text after it has been delivered to the Northern Ireland Office but before the public, including the Bloody Sunday families, are allowed to see it. According to Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward, the reason is so that they can recommend the removal of passages which they reckon might contravene the rights under Article Two of the European Human Rights Convention of anyone named in the Report

Woodward himself would then decide whether to accept or reject the recommended cuts.

Article Two deals with the right to life. Woodward’s concern, so he says, is that the lives of soldiers might be put at risk if they were identifiable from the Report.

The implication is that Saville, a senior British Law Lord, William Hoyt, former Chief Justice of New Brunswick, and John L. Toohey, a former member of the Federal Court of Australia and a Justice of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territories, may have failed to discharge their duties under Article Two in compiling the Report and that the Treasury Solicitors must be brought in to check on their work.

Saville and his colleagues dealt with a series of Article Two applications during the hearings. The applications came mainly from soldiers, politicians and others who claimed that their lives would be at risk if they were made to testify in Derry and from others who, on the same ground, claimed a right to anonymity. The notion that the three members of the Tribunal might not be up to speed on Article Two is fanciful. That this is being advanced as a reason for giving British officials an opportunity potentially to tamper with the Report before its publication may indicate that Woodward tried but failed to come up with an even remotely plausible excuse for planned political interference with a judicial report.

The Treasury Solicitors were the instructing solicitors for barristers representing British soldiers at Tribunal hearings.

The arrangements proposed by Woodward would also give the soldiers’ side a huge advantage when it comes to responding to the Report. It is expected that the document, to be published next March or April, will run to more than 4,000 pages. Allowing British officials to comb through the text for two or three weeks (Woodward’s estimate) before the families set eyes on it - the relatives are to be given access in a “secure environment” for 10 hours before publication - will mean that the soldiers’ supporters will be much better prepared than the families for the propaganda battle which will erupt once the findings are in the public domain. The British side will have had ample opportunity to tease out any sentence which can be quoted to suggest that the soldiers’ behaviour had been reasonable in the circumstances or that marchers on the anti-internment demonstration that the paratroopers fired into had somehow been the authors of their own misfortune.

The apprehension of the British authorities at the Report’s possible findings has been expressed over the past year in a barrage of abuse aimed at Saville from right-wing politicians and commentators. He has taken far too long to complete his task, they say. His Inquiry has cost far too much. And maybe so. But there are mitigating factors.

It will be 11 years in January since Tony Blair announced the establishment of the Inquiry. There were 434 days of hearings between March 2000 and November 2004. The judges have since spent five years writing up their findings. The final cost is likely to be around £200 million.

One reason for the length and cost of the exercise is that Bloody Sunday happened in broad daylight in a built-up area thronged with people gathered for a rally following a 10,000-strong civil rights march. Every death and wounding was witnessed by dozens of people huddled in the gutters or crouched behind lamp-posts or peering from the windows of houses and flats where they’d found shelter from the shooting. A total of 921 witnesses gave oral evidence, written statements from a further 1,555 were read. Sixteen million words were spoken. In all, around 40 million words, plus 109 videos and 13 volumes of photographs were considered. No military operation in British history - maybe history full stop - has ever been subjected to such detailed examination. It was the brazenness of the atrocity which made this possible. And then the Tribunal - to the amazement and concern of those who’d set it up, apparently - took its task seriously and grasped the possibility.

As well, the soldiers’ Article Two claims resulted in a series of delays as bevies of barristers betook themselves to the higher courts for arcane argument. Hearings were further delayed by applications from the soldiers’ representatives for the exclusion of items of evidence on the ground that disclosure would compromise national security.

All the time, the lawyers’ taximeters were whirring at a rate of up to 2,000 guineas (guineas!) a day.

In the al-Sweady case, applications were made by the MoD last May to have evidence which “related to the permissible limits of the techniques of tactical questioning of captured individuals by military interrogators” ruled out on grounds that exposure would damage national security. At that point, the court accepted the integrity of the Defence Minister who had signed the relevant Public Interest Immunity (PII) certificates.

But on October 6th, the High Court judges said that the MoD’s intention in making the applications had in fact been to thwart the court by concealing evidence: “The Secretary of State had relied on what transpired to be a partly false public interest immunity certificate...The court had been persuaded that the balance of public interest required that the material should not be disclosed. It was a matter of deep regret that the court...as a result had made a number of rulings which had subsequently been shown to have been wholly wrong. The court should not have been misled...

“Until such time as the Ministry had demonstrated that it had taken steps to ensure that false assertions were never again made in a [PII) certificate and schedule, it would, in the court’s view, be incumbent on the courts to approach the content of any such documents from the Ministry with very considerable caution.”

Far from resigning in face of this indictment, Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth has not felt compelled even to offer a comment. There have been no calls for his sacking from parliamentarians or in the editorial columns of any but fringe, radical journals.

The al-Sweady case demonstrates that there are few lengths to which the British ruling class won’t go to hide evidence of its army’s criminality. This is what they are at when they seek to pollute the atmosphere in which Saville’s conclusions are made public.

The complaints about the time Saville’s Tribunal has taken to report, against the background of the al-Sweady case and given the quarters the complaints are coming from, can fairly be regarded as arising from fear that Saville might, by exposing the truth, illuminate an appalling vista.

It shouldn’t need repeating, but it does, that Bloody Sunday differs from the other atrocities which litter the recent history of Northern Ireland in this crucial respect - that this wasn’t an outrage perpetrated by people purporting to represent one community against people from another community - much as that is the perspective in which Irish Nationalist and Ulster Unionist as well as British politicians either pretend or tend instinctively to see it.

When the State kills its citizens it is the interests of all that the truth be uncovered and those responsible held to account.

The armed group responsible for Bloody Sunday hasn’t called a ceasefire or decommissioned its weaponry but has moved on to other theatres of war, where, as in the case of Mr. al-Sweady, allegations of outrageous behaviour continue to be made.

Mr. al-Sweady, Hussein Fadel Abass, Atiyah Sayid Abdelreza, Hussein Jabbari Ali, Mahdi Jassim Abdullah and Ahmad Jabbar Ahmood claim that that, following a gun-battle on May 14th/15th known as “the Battle of Danny Boy”, around 20 Iraqis, including farmers caught in crossfire who had sought cover in adjacent fields, were taken at gunpoint by soldiers to the nearby Camp Abu Naji where they were hooded and had their hands tied, were kicked and jumped on until bones were smashed, in some cases had their eyes gouged out or their genitals pulped. A number were then shot or hanged. The six say they are the survivors. They say that a previous investigation by Royal Military Police fell short of the requirements of Articles Two, Three and Five of the European Convention. Hence the appeal for a new, public inquiry now upheld by the High Court

The determination of senior British politicians and commentators in predictable newspapers to damage Saville’s credibility in advance is similar in intent to the political and civil service misbehaviour in the al-Sweady case which the High Court has deemed disgraceful. The purpose in both instances is to conceal or obscure the truth.

Woodward, the chief political representative in Northern Ireland of the perpetrators of the Bloody Sunday massacre, should be told in no uncertain terms that the arrangements he proposes for publication of the Saville Report are indicative of bad faith, wholly outrageous and utterly unacceptable.

One of our problems is that Nationalist politicians here, including Sinn Fein, may be reluctant to alienate the British ruling class at a time when they and their Unionist partners/opponents want British endorsement of their position on how to solidify the wobbling power-sharing administration. The result is that some of the families may be left to fight the last battle for the truth about Bloody Sunday on their own.

(A summary of the al-Sweady judgement can be found at http://www.lawreports.co.uk/WLRD/2009/QBD/al-sweady.htm) Eamonn McCann can be reached at Eamonderry@aol.com

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"A clique that the Palestinians must get rid of"