“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.

Source

Why Does AIPAC Spy on Americans?

by Grant Smith, November 05, 2009

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.

Source

New York Mets called on to cancel settlement fundraiser

Hebron colonist

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

by Jason Ditz, November 04, 2009

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.

Fugitive Renditioner Robert Seldon Lady

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.

Source

Report on the J-Street conference

Max Ajl, The Electronic Intifada, 4 November 2009

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

Once one obtains Seriousness credentials in the Washington media, they are irrevocable no matter one's conduct.

By Glenn Greenwald - November 4, 2009

Michael Ledeen of National Review & American Enterprise Institute, writing in "Pajamas Media," January 4, 2007:

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.

Michael Ledeen of National Review & American Enterprise Institute, writing in "Pajamas Media," October 13, 2009:

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.

• Continue Reading

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.

Feminism’s Freedom Fighter?

On Feminism, Atheism and Ayaan Hirsi Ali

By Sikivu Hutchinson - BAR - November 4, 2009

In mainstream media, public conversation about the intersection between atheism and what I will loosely term third world feminism is as rare as Halley’s Comet. In the corporate media universe, the groundbreaking work of feminists of African descent like bell hooks, Angela Davis and Patricia Hill Collins remains largely unknown, relegated to academe. Feminism, when invoked at all in mainstream media, is framed as the province of white women, a vestige of a less “enlightened” phase of American civil society.

The phenomenon of world renowned atheist feminist author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, however, would seem to defy this pattern. In a recent Los Angeles Times interview entitled “Feminism’s Freedom Fighter,” the Somalian-born Ali proclaimed women’s rights the human rights issue of the 21st century. An outspoken critic of Islam, Ali is a controversial and uncompromising figure with a compelling personal story of triumph over adversity. A victim of clitoral mutilation in her youth, she has dedicated her life to challenging institutional sexism and patriarchy in Muslim societies. Her activism against gender-based terrorism and repression of Muslim women has been influential in the West, generating international accolades as well as death threats from Muslim extremists. Rising to prominence in the post 9/11 anti-Muslim hysteria of the Bush era, Ali has elicited controversy for her perceived Muslim-bashing, garnering a plum position at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute and morphing into a champion of Israel.

Much of Ali’s feminist ideology is based on the contrast between the violent repression of women under Islam and the liberal humanist traditions that supposedly shape women’s rights in the West. In her writings and public discourse she is fond of making sweeping pronouncements deriding the cultures of Muslim societies, valorizing the West in ways that downplay its cultural hierarchies. In a 2007 interview with Reason Magazine she waxed, “Western civilization is a celebration of life…everybody’s life, even the life of your enemy.” Of course, in many Muslim societies feminism is still a dangerously radical concept. For many Muslim feminists, the very notion of women’s personal freedom is a space of epic struggle. Yet Ali’s totalizing assessments set up a false dichotomy between the West and Muslim societies. By portraying feminism as a battle that the West has already won, she absolves bourgeois democracies like the United States of their schizoid relationship to women rights and human rights, a relationship in which rape and domestic violence are part of the national “democratic” currency. And by ignoring the historical context of the “third world within the first world,” she ignores the very real socioeconomic differences that exist between American women of color and white women.

For Ali, white supremacy is no longer a credible threat or motivation for feminist struggle. In the Times interview she rightly criticized men of color for their perpetuation of sexist beliefs and practices, calling for heightened focus on the “internal” politics and tyrannies of misogyny in “third world” communities. Addressing the subject of President Obama’s recent trip to Cairo she stated, “It would have been fantastic if…Obama had said, we have taught the white man that bigotry is bad and he has given it up, at least most of it. Now bigotry is committed in the name of the black man, the brown man, the yellow man.” Ali’s apparent unwillingness to engage the connection between white supremacy, imperialism and sexism is a critical blind spot. Her failure to acknowledge the persistence of institutionalized segregation and its relationship to the disenfranchisement of women of color is problematic. These biases, and her paternalistic stance on Islam, explain why she has been such a darling of the European American conservative elite.

Certainly when one assesses women’s socialization into and investment in organized religion there are many commonalities between Muslim and Christian systems of patriarchy. Granted Western women are not subject to some of the more overtly terroristic and repressive social prohibitions that Muslim women are. Clitoridectomies and honor killings are not part of Western cultural practices (nor, as many critics of Ali have pointed out, do they occur in all Muslim societies, and in fact derive from tribal not Islamic law). And granted men of color are responsible for the very intimate interpersonal violations of the lives and bodies of women of color. However, legacies of colonialism and racist beliefs about the sexuality of women of color continue to limit equitable access to health care and social welfare in the U.S. Women of color in Western societies are still subjugated by the dictates of Judeo Christian culture masquerading as secularized society. Puritanical prohibitions on women’s sexuality and mobility inform institutionalized sexual and domestic violence against women. Rising rates of sexually transmitted disease and (in many highly religious white fundamentalist Christian and Latino Catholic communities) compulsory pregnancy due to failed abstinence-only sex education policies continue to imperil life conditions for women. Staggeringly high HIV/AIDS contraction rates, infant mortality rates and intimate partner homicide rates among African American women bespeak unequal access to health and social services in communities of color. Epidemic rates of sexual assault among Native American women reflect not only patriarchal control but the invisibility of Native communities vis-à-vis federal health public policy.

Thus Ali’s contention that the West has “adjusted” its cultural and institutional structures to redress the hierarchies of Judeo Christian ideology is short sighted. Indeed, one need look no further than the wide cultural berth given to the Religious Right to see that it is one of the most powerful contemporary threats to civil rights and civil liberty in American history. The white Christian fundamentalist movement’s assault upon human rights, women’s rights and reproductive justice have the potential to reverse gains women have made in the U.S. over the past few decades. In the aftermath of decades of abortion clinic vandalism, bombings and murders of practitioners there is still no international outcry over the insurgent white Christian fundamentalist terrorist movement in the U.S.

From an atheist feminist of color perspective it is problematic to espouse reductive critiques of non-Western religions through the lens of a Western or American exceptionalism; particularly when these paradigms are based on the othering of people of color. The West has xenophobically demonized Muslim societies for their backwardness while “whitewashing” its own anti-democratic traditions and human rights transgressions. Ali’s perspectives unfortunately reinforce this propaganda.

As an atheist woman of African descent Ali’s life narrative and struggle for gender justice is a powerful example for women under the yoke of traditional Islam. Yet her analysis of the path to liberation has been severely clouded by superstar patronage from the very forces that would undermine the human rights mission of feminism.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of blackfemlens.org and a commentator for KPFK 90.7 FM.

Jewish settlers break into, occupy home of 83-year-old Palestinian woman

03/11/2009 - 02:21 PM

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Tens of armed Jewish settlers on Tuesday stormed and occupied the home of 83-year-old Rifka Al-Kurd in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in the heart of occupied Jerusalem. The PIC reporter said that about 60 settlers broke into the house under the threat of guns and with Israeli police protection and settled in it despite an Israeli court order banning them access into this part of the house. Kurd's family is one of 28 Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah suburb threatened with displacement after Jewish fanatic groups claimed that their homes were built on lands owned by these groups. The report said that Kurd's home was repeatedly stormed by those groups but this time they came to stay. The Israeli occupation authority controlled municipality of Jerusalem ordered closure of this particular section of the house at the pretext that it was built without permit. Tension is running high in the neighborhood after the settlers refused to evacuate the house while Israeli police were barring its owners from reaching it.

Italy's Secret Ships of Poison

Berlusconi, the Mafia and the Radioactive Wrecks

By MICHAEL LEONARDI - November 4, 2009

The colors of the Mediterranean are strong at this time of year on the border of Calabria and Basilicata. The sun shines brightly and low in the sky. The mountains and the sea are beautiful here and rich in traditions of organic agriculture, music and art that date back to the findings of paleolithic man and the Magna Grecia civilization before the Roman Empire. But all is not well. The Mediterranean Sea, calm at times and agitated at others, holds the wrecks of “secret ships,” as it whispers and roars the hidden history of its revolutionary past. These ships are known here as the Navi Dei Veleni (ships of poison), and their contents are kept secret from the population and the world by the Italian Mafia/State. This Berlusconi led Mafia/State with its unconstitutional decrees that violate Article 32 (see note) of the Italian constitution along with others, puts the health of the population at risk through a legacy of toxic and radioactive dumping now coming to light across the sea and landscape. People are worried: about the economy, the flu, the poor conditions of the hospitals, schools constructed with contaminated building materials that poison the young, and a sea full of ships whose cargos lie unknown and uninvestigated on the sea floor.

In the city of Amantea, Calabria, on October 24, there was a mass International demonstration. Simultaneous actions were held in solidarity in France and Spain as well. Over 400 organizations, local and from all across the Italian peninsula joined together to call for an end to the intentional poisoning of our lands and waters by a criminal/political caste submersed in scandals of sex, prostitution, and corruption, both on the left and the right. The October 24th demonstration in Amantea was called by the local organizing committee which takes its name in memory of the former commander of the Italian Navy, Natale De Grazia, who died in 1995 under very mysterious circumstances at the age of 39. Commander De Grazia was at the forefront of the investigation into the trafficking of radioactive and toxic wastes and was the key point person in the investigation of the lost Ships of Poison. The 24th of October rally brought over 30,000 citizens together with buses from all across the region and as far away as Rome. On a day in Amantea where the sea roared loudly, the people voiced their anger in unison at a State that represents the interests of business and criminals before the health of its citizens and the environment.

Much contamination has poisoned the land and water throughout Calabria and Basilicata, with illegal dumpsites and government documentation of elevated levels of cancer-causing substances in the environment. These substances were mixed with building materials in the city of Crotone and toxic materials were discovered on the site of an abandoned textile factory on the shores of the sea in Praia a Mare. There is a profound lack here of effective water treatment facilities along the Calabria’s Tyrrhenian coast, and especially in the summer during high tourist season, tons of raw sewage are dumped directly into the sea. There are thought to be ships with radioactive and toxic waste sunk off the coasts of Cetraro and Maratea, a wild coastline still teaming with sea life that stretches from Calabria to Baslilicata in the north. The ship off Cetraro is though to be the Cunsky and that off of Maratea the Yvonne A. There are many others.The Italian public prosecutor says there are 40 Ships of Poison, Loyds of London says 24 ships, while Bruno Branciforte, the former head of Italian intelligence SISMI (now AISE) on the 25th of September confirmed 55 ships.

In the week following the passionate cry from Amantea, the Italian national government went to work on an investigation of a shipwreck off the coast of Cetraro. This investigation was a follow-up to one already initiated by the region of Calabria. The region’s investigation discovered and filmed a shipwreck that included what seemed to be iron drums on the sea floor. The ship was covered in fishing nets and was in the same area where analyses of fish done by the local health authority ASL (Aziende Sanitarie Locali) showed high levels of arsenic, chrome and other heavy metals. This Regional investigation was initiated in part due to the testimony of Mafia Pentito (turncoat) Francesco Fonti, and in part because fisherman had actually fished out waste drums from the sea’s depths.

The national government’s investigation was led by the National Public Prosecutor’s Anti-Mafia division and the Environmental Minister, Stefania Prestigiacomo. A research ship called the Mare Oceano was hired. The Mare Oceano is the property of a company called Geolab from Naples that is controlled by the Italian Petroleum and Mining Industry Association. Geolab is being paid 43,000 euros a day for the work of Mare Oceano by the Italian Mafia/State as this is being written. The national government’s research has been conducted with no transparency. Local and regional officials, including Calabria’s Assessor of the Environment Silvio Greco – a marine biologist - , were excluded from this investigation as were representatives of national environmental organizations Legambiente and the World Wildlife Federation.

Some of the now “state secret” findings of this investigation called “Operation Cetraro” were reported in the Italian daily La Repubblica on October 29. The Environmental Minister, Prestigiacomo, and Piero Grasso, public prosecutor and head of Italy’s Anti-Mafia division, reported their findings to the media. Equipped with photographs and a short video, they revealed: that the ship under investigation was a passenger ship called the Catania that was sunk in 1917 by a German submarine, that there was no radioactive or toxic cargo, that the mafia pentito (turncoat) Francesco Fonti who said he sank a ship off of Cetraro’s coast was an unreliable source, that the regional government had caused undue alarm in the population and that all is well beneath the waters of Cetraro. They said that the “case is closed.” This same Piero Grasso admitted for the first time this October that the Italian State has negotiated and made agreements with the Mafia to save the lives of government and judicial figures, generating a wave of condemnations and criticism of a State and Mafia working together hand in hand. The revelations of “Operation Cetraro” are not sitting well with the local population here as many discrepancies have arisen and many questions remain as to where this Mafia/State’s real intentions lie.

Italy’s Environmental Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo has a questionable past. She comes from the town of Siracusa in Sicily and was part owner of a company there called Sarplast s.p.a.. This company went into bankruptcy in 1997 as a result of diseases and injuries among its workforce from exposure to toxic chemicals and hazardous working conditions. An investigation by police into the practices of the company documented violations of worker safety regulations. Three of the workers had children with birth defects. During the investigation of this company’s bankruptcy, fraudulent activities were discovered that included the embezzlement of billions of the old Italian monetary unit, the lire. The bankruptcy investigation into this company was halted by the Public Prosecutor of Siracusa because of a law called the maxi amendment, that was made by the Berlusconi government in 2003 and which suspended punishments for these types of corporate legal infractions. Now Prestigiacomo is responsible for protecting Italy’s lands and seas.

After a couple days of media reports that all was well with the sea in Cetraro, this story still hadn’t convinced local, regional and national environmental activists and organizations, the local and regional authorities, Calabria’s Environmental Assessor Silvio Greco, or the leadership of the opposition parties in Italy. Also at the level of the European Parliament, concerns are being raised by the European Green Parties, the European Commission on the Environment and others about the Italian government’s handling of this situation. Government insiders in Rome tell me that the government is playing politics with the health of the people and environment and has only worked to obstruct the truth on the story of these ships. The spokesperson for the Environmental Minister became very defensive and incredulous when I posed the possibility of State and Mafia collusion, but could give me no clear responses to any of my questions. He ducked around the question of whether or not the minister believed that any of these ships really exists, by repeating that they didn’t find any waste on the ship they investigated. Calabria’s Environmental Assessor Silvio Greco is hoping that this story gets out across the world and that the Italian state is followed closely in this investigation by the international community.

On Saturday, October 31, a press conference was held in Cetraro by representatives of the coalition that organized the October 24 demonstration in Amantea. They outlined their concerns about the discrepancies and doubts left by the Italian Mafia/State’s “Operation Cetraro” investigation. There concerns included: notable differences in the videos of the ships from the region and the state, different coordinates for where the research was conducted, and a complete absence of transparency on the part of the national authorities. One notable difference in the State’s video is that the fishing nets are no longer visible and nor are the iron drums. They voiced perplexity as to why the Ministry of the Environment would want to throw water on this and other burning environmental emergencies across the region instead of working on solutions to the grave health risks that face the population here in Calabria. The participants in this press conference included environmental expert Francesco Cirillo who has followed these issues for over a decade, Mauro de Marco of the organization Zero Rifiuti (i.e., Zero Garbage), and Gianfranco Posa representing the Natale de Grazia committee among others.

The health risks here are caused by serious and documented ecological emergencies. In the city of Crotone a school, roads and other buildings were built using materials mixed with toxic wastes. Analyses administered by the local health authorities revealed high levels of cancer causing heavy metals in blood samples taken from children that attend the school, now known as the “School of Poisons” in Crotone. In Praia a Mare near the border of Basilicata and Maratea, an abandoned textile factory sits on lands contaminated by toxic dumping, also on sea coast. In Aiello Calabro near Amantea and along the river Oliva, radiation levels 6 times higher than normal have been measured and a population plagued with cancerous tumors seeks the truth about the cargo of the Jolly Rosso. The Jolly Rosso beached on the shore of Amantea in 1990 after a failed attempt to sink it at sea and then disappeared after two days. Numerous other stories were documented, as well as the analysis of the fish off the coast of Cetraro. The analysis of the fish off Cetraro was done by the regional health authorities ASL and showed levels of heavy metals like arsenic, cobalt and chrome at higher than levels considered safe by Italian standards. In April of 2007, based on the findings of these analyses, the regional health authorities and the head of the Port of Cetraro banned fishing in certain areas. Then in August of 2008 this ban was mysteriously lifted despite the fact that no other analyses of the fish were taken. At the October 31 press conference the participants asked that the entire population of Calabria be given a health screenings to determine the risk factors posed by the environment.

On the first of November, the first major reports of problems with the Italian government’s “Operation Cetraro” began to surface in the regional media. Domenico Micelli reported in the daily newspaper Calabria Ora that there are at least three ships sunk off the coast of Cetraro and the coordinates of the ship investigated by the region did not match those of the ship investigated by the state. On the November 2, the World Wildlife Federation of Italy asked for the case of the ship off Cetraro to be re-opened by Minister Prestigiacomo and Piero Grasso. WWF also pointed out discrepancies in the videos made by the region and the state. They asked for an explanation as to why the coordinates of the area investigated by the Region and the State are over 6 kilometers apart. They call on the government to carry out their investigation with transparency and involvement of independent researchers from national environmental organizations and regional and local governments.

On November 3, this sequence of discrepancies was reported in the national press. The Italian daily La Repubblica reports that a secret document has come to light from 2006 that confirms at least 3 different shipwrecks off the coast of Cetraro, thus bringing into question the State’s quick investigation and closing of the case. There are also serious questions being posed by Environmental Assessor Silvio Greco about the research methods employed by the Mare Oceano, he points out that the research vessel does not have the correct equipment to measure certain types of radionucliedes. There are also discrepancies about the timing of Prestigiacomo’s revelations to the media. She said that the ship was not the presumed Cunsky even before the robot was sent down to shoot the images of the Catania, giving the Mafia/State’s version a prefabricated veneer.

Italy is facing difficult times. The economy shows no signs of rebound and the stagnancy of wages keeps the majority of people struggling to make ends meet. The mass media are dominated by scandalous reports on prostitutes and transsexuals. Berlusconi faces the imminent risk of prison for corruption and fraud and says that even if he is found guilty by the “communist” judges he will not leave his post. On the October 22, after being arrested for having 20 grams of marijuana, a young man named Stefano Cucchi was beaten to death at the hands of state authorities in the Regina Coeli prison in Rome sending shockwaves throughout the peninsula. Social and ecological justice are hard to find in Italy, and while much of the population seems content with their football games and material distractions, a growing and very well informed mass movement is afoot. Here in Calabria the voices are clamoring for the truth about what dangerous secrets the Mafia/State is hiding beneath the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The restless citizenry here is also proposing their own investigation into this matter and is coming up with all types of creative solutions to the problems facing this area. There is a strong streak of resistance in the people here as they refuse to allow a corrupt political class to play games with the health of the people and the future of our beautiful mountains and sea.

Note: Article 32 [Health]

(1) The republic protects individual health as a basic right and in the public interest; it provides free medical care to the poor.

(2) Nobody may be forcefully submitted to medical treatment except as regulated by law. That law may in no case violate the limits imposed by the respect for the human being.

Michael Leonardi currently lives in Calabria. He teaches English at the University of Calabria in Cosenza and at the Vocational Highschool in Maratea for training hotel and restaurant workers. He can be reached at mikeleonardi@hotmail.com

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