Do Unto Others

Can murder be commensurate with justice?

2012-01-05T21:34:00.000-08:00

Ed Note: I found this while going through files from this past semester. I wrote it, for a class, back in November following the killing of Libyan leader, Colonel Qaddafi. The news is months old, but the point of the piece remains salient.

Deceased former Libyan leader, Muammar Qaddafi

What we know: Qaddafi was captured alive, beaten and dragged behind a vehicle, and shot in the head. The exact details of those events are unclear, but numerous reports and witnesses have corroborated that Qaddafi was intentionally shot in the head after he was captured.

Qaddafi was a cruel and ruthless dictator who undoubtedly oversaw the torture, disappearance, and killing of many Libyans over his four decades of tyranny. Qaddafi was wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, crimes which were great in their quantity and severity.

The local and global reaction to Qaddafi's killing has been varied, but the enormous majority of state representatives and media outlets have heralded the end of a dark era in Libyan history, the demise of a cruel dictator. On the other end of the spectrum, human rights advocates and lawyers have condemned the killing of Qaddafi because it eliminated Qaddafi's right to due process and undermined the court's ability to seek truth and accountability for his crimes. Absent from the discussion has been analysis of the ubiquitous acceptance of justice by execution.

Pundits in Washington, Paris, and London didn't outright condemn the killing of Qaddafi because it's actually the solution they sought from the beginning. Several possible Qaddafi hideouts were bombed throughout the course of NATO's offensive in Libya, and to my understanding, bombs are usually intended to kill, not read Miranda rights.

The United States has been incredibly consistent, especially under the Obama administration, in its insistence on using targeted assassinations and extrajudicial killings in a handful of countries. The United States recently assassinated U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, while he was in Yemen, and shortly thereafter, another U.S. drone strike also killed his teenage son, also a U.S. citizen. In an aura of secrecy, the Obama administration has refused to release information about the rationale for those targeted assassinations and has even declined to name the intended targets of those strikes.

The United States also felt no obligation to explain why Osama bin Laden was killed instead of captured. Initially the U.S. described the events at Bin Laden's compound as a “firefight” but later conceded that Bin Laden was unarmed when he was killed.

The most shocking element of these examples is the flippancy with which a major world power, theoretically subject to the confines of international law, decides who should be killed instead of given due process. In today's world, the burden of proof for execution is as simple as making a statement, such as, “it was not possible to subdue and arrest the individual, so we used the necessary force.” Period. End of Q & A.

This lack of consideration for seeking justice through the legal process was recently demonstrated by former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, in her NPR interview regarding the sending of US troops to stop Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army leader. Frazer was asked, “and what would success look like in this situation? How will you know if this mission has succeeded?” She responded, “Kony's dead. I think that's the most important strategic goal, is that he's dead. Obviously, if you capture him, that's just as well. But basically, to remove him from the battlefield.” Frazer's inclination to cite killing Kony as the primary objective of the mission, and only later adding the footnote that capturing him would serve the same purpose, speaks volumes about the U.S. approach to “justice.” Clearly, justice by murder is possible, even preferable.

Many of those disgusted with the killing of Qaddafi, the subsequent celebrations in the streets, and the days-long display of Qaddafi's body in a meat locker have asked how the Libyan people could celebrate death in such a manner. But our critique of 'justice by execution' would fall short if we failed to broaden the scope of our discussion beyond the acts of the Libyan rebels.

The fact is that the United States has cornered the market on executions, targeted assassinations, and arbitrary killings. We would have done the deed with a drone, I mean, hell, we tried a number of times but just couldn't finish him off.

The decision to kill Qaddafi – Awlaki, his son, and Bin Laden – fails to consider the function of the legal process and blurs the distinction between ourselves and those we abhor.

In death, there can be no truth-telling, no explanation of disappearances or cruel repression. Peace will not magically arrive to Libya's doorstep because their dictator has a bullet in his head. Qaddafi's regime has come to and end, and would have likewise ended if Qaddafi was sitting in a cell awaiting a national or international criminal trial. The killing of Qaddafi demonstrates the incongruity of the US seeking to establish more democratic societies around the world while, at the same time, teaching the world the benefits of killing those whom you deem worthy of death.

U.S. turned on the sink and refuses to turn it off or pay for clean up

2012-01-04T23:11:00.000-08:00

I am reading a fine book by the practical philosopher, Peter Singer, called One World. Singer suggests that the world is increasingly becoming one, and therefore, as the human race we must adapt our ethic to account for a singular, globalized world. One of Singer's chapters, called One Atmosphere, argues that the reality one global climate, increasingly subject to rising temperatures, necessitates that we embrace an ethic that recognizes our responsibility to maintain and protect the environment. Much of the chapter highlights the responsibility of industrialized countries, particularly the United States, in the dramatic acceleration of greenhouse gases, and subsequently, the industrialized world's contribution to global warming. Sadly, those most culpable for gross emissions refuse to commit to legally-binding agreements that would reduce emissions and the possibility for continued global warming. One passage struck me as particularly profound:

It is true that there are some circumstances in which we are justified in refusing to contribute if others are not doing their share. If we eat communally and take turns cooking, then I can justifiably feel resentment if there are some who eat but never cook or carry out equivalent tasks for the good for the entire group. But that is not the situation with climate change, in which the behavior of the industrialized nations has been more like that of a person who has left the kitchen tap running but refuses either to turn it off, or to mop up the resulting flood, until you -- who spilt an insignificant half-glass of water onto the floor -- promise not to spill any more water. Now the other industrialized nations have agreed to turn off the tap (to be strictly accurate, to restrict the flow), leaving the United States, the biggest culprit, alone in its refusal to commit itself to reducing emissions.

We teach life, Sir.

2011-11-15T22:01:00.001-08:00

Musician sings Occupy-inspired protest song to the world's leaders

2011-11-14T09:09:00.001-08:00

Hawaiian musician, Makana, was invited to perform some pleasant background music for the summit of APEC, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, which included the presence of Barack Obama. Makana, who had recently recorded a protest song inspired by the Occupy Movement and the greed of Wall Street, decided to sing his song for the leaders of the world's economic powers. He ended up singing the song for 45 minutes, yep, forty-five minutes.

Here is the music video:

Here is a video Makana posted that speaks to his conviction to sing the song:

We don't do universal rights, We're America

2011-10-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

For one of the classes I currently have, we read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (go read it). This is a foundational document for human rights practitioners and advocates as it forms, in part, what is known as the International Bill of Rights.

Here are some excerpts:

Article 18 - Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19 - Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 22 - Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Article 24 - Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
Article 28 - Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
Article 29 - (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

My professor asked us after having read the declaration, "What was your impression of the declaration when you read it? How did you feel when you read it?"

One of my classmates from the Middle East/North Africa raised her hand and asked if we were to respond based on the most recent time we had read it, or the first time we had read it. The professor said we could respond however we wanted, and another classmate from South America proceeded to recount her feelings the first time she read the declaration during elementary school. The clarity of her answer started to fade as I got hung up on the fact that she had read the declaration in elementary school.

The first time that I had read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in completion was for this every class, in graduate school. I am 26 years old, educated in the United States with a BA degree in the humanities, and now pursuing an MA degree in peace studies, and I finally got around to reading the declaration.

I'll take the blame for some of this. I was doing human rights work in the West Bank and rarely sat down and read human rights law or international conventions, something, in retrospect, I should have done.

But I think the issue is larger than a personal issue. Several students in the class, from outside the US, talked about reading the declaration in a public elementary school. As opposed to teaching international law and international human rights conventions, we, in the United States, have a degree of contempt for international law and human rights law.

Or maybe the contempt is at the governmental level, most clearly exemplified by George W. Bush and his cronies, while the public is simply unaware of international law and international human rights. We learn the Bill of Rights, found in the US Constitution, but we know damn well that only applies to people in the United States, and frankly, it may only apply to US Citizens, unless you're Muslim and/or brown, or your last name is Awlaki.

We've even created prisons outside of the United States so that we don't have to extend domestic law to those people, knowing full well that we will not extend international human rights standards to those we've locked up in these clandestine prisons.

What if we read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 5th grade classrooms and talked about how these rights should be granted to and protected for all people, regardless of where they reside of where they were born. Sure, that would somewhat undermine the "supremacy" of the United States and the elitist, not to mention fictional, notion that the US has the market cornered on values. But we'd be conveying a message that all people are equal, even across national boundaries, that there's a set of moral standards and baseline behavior, codified in international law, that we're obligated to respect. Now wouldn't that be a dangerous message for the empire of all modern empires.

Kroc Institute's 25th Bday

2011-10-12T09:52:00.000-07:00

The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame just celebrated its 25th anniversary. Here is a timeline -- with text, photos, and videos -- of the history of the program. Check it out.

Kroc Institute 25th Anniversary on Dipity.

Trailer for upcoming film: Some of my best friends are Zionists

2011-09-14T19:55:00.001-07:00

This needs to be watched. It's compelling.

Initial Development Trailer: Some of My Best Friends Are Zionists from Open Letter Productions on Vimeo.

A collection of quotes from 9/11 columns

2011-09-11T20:41:00.000-07:00

The last several weeks have seen a flurry of coverage and attention paid to the commemoration of one decade since the violent attacks of September 11th, 2001. Many newspapers and media outlets have provided extensive coverage of the rememberance. I've been slowly wading through the material from sources like the New York Times, Al Jazeera, Common Dreams, and the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism.

What I've provided below is a collection of some of the best quotes I found within the columns I read. I took issue with the overall tone of a couple of the articles below, while others, I agreed with almost completely. The point of the exercise wasn't to provide examples of people with whom I agree, but to present a readable chunk of material, covering a relatively wide range of issues spiraling out of 9/11, with links so you could explore what piques your interest.

ROBERT A. PAPE: The End of Fear, The Beginning of Understanding

Have these actions – which some have called, “World War IV” – made America safe?
...
Anti-American suicide terrorism rose rapidly around the world in the decade since September 11, 2001. In 2003, then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously asked, “Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?” As even a casual glance at the facts shows, the answer is a disappointing no. The negative side of the balance sheet is daunting.
...
Look at the numbers. In 2000 – the year before 9/11 – there were 20 suicide attacks around the world and one – against the US Cole in Yemen – was anti-American inspired. By contrast, in 2010, there were well over 200 suicide attacks and about 90 percent were anti-American inspired – against US troops or those working with America – a ten-fold increase over the past decade.
...
Islamic fundamentalism is not the main driver of suicide terrorism. What drives this phenomenon more than any other single factor is foreign military presence – which inspires wave after wave of individuals to join terrorist groups in order to carry out suicide attacks in the hope that these would end the foreign presence in their lands.

SCOTT SHANE -- Al Qaeda’s Outsize Shadow: The brazenness and sheer luck of the 9/11 plot have stood for a decade as an argument that anything is possible

Nonetheless, the brazenness of the 9/11 plot and the brilliance and sheer luck of its execution have stood for a decade as an argument that, no matter what any expert says, anything is possible. The attacks inflicted on the American psyche a kind of collective post-traumatic stress disorder, producing at a societal level the hypervigilance that soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan know too well.

RAMI KHOURI: The Middle East Ten Years After 9/11

The biggest policy failure in the response to 9/11 in the West and the Middle East was the inability or unwillingness of governments to analyze Al-Qaeda terror in its full context for what it really was: a small fringe movement – a violent, marginal cult on the run – that consistently failed to resonate with publics across the Arab-Asian region, but that exploited widely held grievances against Arab and Asian governments and the foreign policies of the United States and Israel.

AHMED RASHID -- And Hate Begat Hate

The wave of anti-Americanism is rising in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, even among many who once admired the United States, and the short reason for that is plain: the common resentment is that American plans to bring peace and development to Afghanistan have failed

JOHN ESPOSITO: The Consequences of Islamophobia, in the U.S. and Abroad

Because the small number of extremists responsible for 9/11 and terrorist attacks in Europe and the Muslim world legitimated their acts in the name of Islam, we have seen an exponential increase in the past ten years of hostility and intolerance towards fellow Muslim citizens. This hatred threatens the democratic fabric of American and European societies and impacts not only the safety and civil liberties of Muslims but also, as the attacks in Norway demonstrate, the safety of all citizens.
...
Like other Americans, Muslims also were victims; they too lost loved ones and friends in the 9/11 attacks. Moreover, they have seen their religion vilified and many in the mainstream Muslim majority have been victims of serious abuses — racial profiling, overzealous and illegal arrests and detentions, surveillance, wiretapping and trials using “secret evidence”

CHRIS HEDGES -- A Decade After 9/11: We Are What We Loathe

There would soon, however, be another reaction. Those of us who were close to the epicenters of the 9/11 attacks would primarily grieve and mourn. Those who had some distance would indulge in the growing nationalist cant and calls for blood that would soon triumph over reason and sanity. Nationalism was a disease I knew intimately as a war correspondent. It is anti-thought. It is primarily about self-exaltation. The flip side of nationalism is always racism, the dehumanization of the enemy and all who appear to question the cause. The plague of nationalism began almost immediately.
...
We produced piles of corpses in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, and extended the reach of our killing machine to Yemen and Somalia. And by beatifying our dead, by cementing into the national psyche fear and the imperative of permanent war, and by stoking our collective humiliation, the state carried out crimes, atrocities and killings that dwarfed anything carried out against us on 9/11.

The Kuffiyeh is Arabic (music video)

2011-09-07T07:19:00.000-07:00

Great new song from Palestinian MC, Shadia Mansour, featuring M1 of Dead Prez.

Arabic translations of verses and chorus (h/t Seham and Inanna):
Good morning cousins, welcome, you honor us,
What would you like us to offer you,, Arab blood or tears from our eyes? “
I think that’s how they expected us to welcome them,
That’s why they got embarrassed when they realized their mistake,
That’s why we wore the keffiyeh, the white and black,
And now these dogs are wearing it for fashion,
No matter how they redesign it, no matter how they change its colour,
the kuffiysh is Arab and will remain Arab.

Our kuffiyeh, they want it, our culture, they want it,
Our dignity they want it, Everything that’s ours, they want it.
We shut up for them, we allow(excuse) them, (1)
Why, why, it suits them, Stealing something that’s none of your business,
They imitate us, what we wear, all this land, enough of this (2), they’re greedy,
About Jerusalem, the Holy City, know how, be humane,
Before you ever wore a kuffiyeh, we’re here to remind you this is our keffiyeh, against the will of your damn fathers (3).

Chorus:
That’s why we wore the keffiyeh, because it’s patriotic, the kuffiyeh is Arab, That’s why we wore the kuffiyeh, it’s our essential identity, the kuffiyeh is Arab. Come on, raise the kuffiyeh, raise it up for me, the kuffiyeh is Arab

Raise it up Bilad as-Sham (Greater Syria or the Levant), the kuffiyeh is Arab and it will remain Arab.
There’s none yet like the Arab people, Show me another nation in the world more influential,
It’s clear, we are the cradle of civilisation, Our history and culture testify/bear witness to our existence,
That’s why I wore the Palestinian ‘tob’, From Haifa, Jenin, Jabar al-Nar to Ramallah,
Let me see the kuffiyeh, the white and red, Let me raise it up to the sky,
(next 3 lines unclear – Palestinian accent is confusing me)

Record! I am Shadia Mansour and this is my kuffiyeh (4)
From the day I was born, raising consciousness was my responsibility
Because I was raised between destruction, between evil, between religions between aliens (interlopers) (5) between the poor. I’ve seen life from both sides.
I’m like the kuffiyeh, Wherever you wear me, wherever you toss me away, I remain true to my origins, Palestinian.
Chorus

Notes:
(1) These lines are interesting because they are a play on words. They can mean ‘We shut up for them, we allow them’ but the she says them splits what is a single word in Arabic into two words which means Half the country, half the land. So I think she is trying to convey both meanings.

(2) The Arabic for ‘Enough of this’ is ‘bikaffi al ghinnij’, which means literally means ‘that’s enough spoiling of them’. In other words, we allowed them (the Israelis) to get away with too much, they’re taken too much away from us.

(3) The Arabic is ‘ghas min 3an abukun’ which is tough to translate. I’ve translated it above but Haytham’s translations are also acceptable.

(4) I’ve translated ‘sajjal’ as ‘record’ since that is the way that Darwish’s poem is translated and, in Arabic, to listen and to record are two different words, which the translator above should have known!

(5) the Arabic dakheel means aliens or interlopers – she’s referring to the invasion of the zionists of Palestine

Draw the line in the Tar Sands before it's too late

2011-08-22T18:18:00.000-07:00

From Firedoglake:

A major two-week action involving daily sit-ins at the White House against the granting of a permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline began Saturday. Just over seventy people were arrested. The action continues today, as over thirty plan to engage in civil disobedience at the White House again.

The Keystone XL pipeline, transporting petroleum, would flow from Alberta, Canada to ports in the southern US. The environmental impacts of this project would be astronomical. There is a plethora of information available about the tar sands fields in Alberta and about the high degree of processing that must occur before bitumen, a semi-solid state of petroleum, can be made into usable petroleum. This is the dirtiest petroleum around that requires the highest energy input in order to create petroleum. It's also destroying indigenous communities in Canada. An excellent documentary detailing the fatal health impacts on an indigenous community near the Tar Sands sites is available from Al Jazeera English in two parts, here and here (highly recommended).

Firedoglake continues:

The possible construction of the Keystone XL pipeline is a prime example of something that would be a huge injustice that would threaten justice everywhere. The TransCanada pipeline will wind its way from Alberta to Texas through Nebraska and ruin the livelihoods of farmers while at the same time polluting the Sandhills and the Ogallala aquifer in Nebraska. It would put the Missouri, Yellowstone, Cheyenne and Niobrara Rivers at risk of spills.

So what are people asking in their civil disobedience? They're asking Obama and the State Department to say no to this dirty tar sands oil. The Keystone XL pipeline would solidify our dependence on oil for many more decades, while greatly accelerating our approach of catastrophic global climate change.

If built, the Keystone XL Pipeline would lock America into a future of planet-warming energy dependency. Indeed, Dr. Hansen – America’s top climate scientist – has said that full exploitation of Canada’s tar sands would be “game over” for efforts to solve climate change. President Obama alone – without input from Congress – has the power to approve or reject the Keystone XL Pipeline. He will decide as soon as September whether to honor his campaign pledge to create a clean-energy economy, or to lock us in as a nation that cooks and distills filthy tar sands for much of our energy. Building this pipeline will be an economic and moral setback for clean-energy sources of all types. This is a line in the sand. The tar sands!

Follow Common Dreams for near daily press releases on the issue and the ongoing demonstrations in front of the White House.

East Bay represents with Arabic stop signs and good questions

2011-08-06T11:55:00.000-07:00

I stayed at my sister's place in Oakland last week. My M.O. was to see my friends, in a band called The Tree Ring, play some great music and also to see three Giants games. I successfully accomplished my MO, but I also had a pleasant morning near the Oakland port after dropping off a friend at the 12th St. BART station. I parked and headed towards Blue Bottle Coffee when I stop sign caught my eye.

It's a double-language stop sign in English and Arabic. 'Stop' and 'Qaff.' I stopped, smiled, and snapped a photo as Oakland wormed it's way a little closer into my heart.

I arrived at Blue Bottle Coffee and while standing in line I noticed the people to my left were looking at me fairly intently. I had been getting 'Hey, it's Lincecum,' comments all week long, and frankly, I was tired of it. I looked over in their direction with two objectives: 1) to give them a full view of my face, instead of a just a profile, so that they would decide that I wasn't Tim Lincecum, and 2) to make them feel guilty for staring at me. But once I made eye contact, the women of the male-female pair made it clear she wasn't a Lincecum-look-alike fanatic by asking, "What does your shirt say?"

I am always pleased with the opportunity to talk about my shirt, that's in fact why I wear it. "In Hebrew and Arabic, it says, 'Stop the occupiers in Sheikh Jarrah, which is a neighborhood in Jerusalem.'"

I continued with the explanation as I turned around to show them the back of the shirt, "and on the back it says, 'end the occupation.'"

Others have asked me about this shirt before, such as the young man who excitedly stopped me at a Seattle Sounders game. He said he recognized the Hebrew from his Hebrew school days, and wondered what it meant. When I said the words, 'end the occupation,' his face transformed from a smile into something horribly serious, yet expressionless. He turned and walked away without even responding to my translation of the shirt.

So the fact that this Oakland couple had pretty neutral reactions was a positive sign. She responded, "so it's a pro-Palestinian shirt," more matter-of-factly than interrogatively. "No, it's a pro-justice shirt," I clarified.

She smiled and nodded approvingly.

Ending the occupation is good for Palestinians and Israelis, it's good for the whole world.

Go Oakland.

Criminal thugs beat peace activist (also, my friend) with iron bar

2011-07-29T00:53:00.000-07:00

My friend and colleague (whose name will be withheld for his own security in the territories) was beaten by Israeli settlers who hit him over the head with an iron bar. What was he doing to deserve a beating with an iron bar? Well after we establish that no one ever deserves a beating with an iron bar, I can explain that he was standing in solidarity with a local shepherd who is often chased off his land by violent, hateful Israeli settlers. He stood by to document or to intervene in case of an attack against the shepherds and their flocks. Unfortunately, these hate-filled scum of the earth caught up with my friend, and struck him over the head with a metal pipe. The U.S. government is actively supporting this group of racist colonizers as they push an indigenous people off of their land, and savagely beat anything or anyone who comes across their path with a message of tolerance and peace. I am ashamed of Israeli and U.S. leaders and citizens, ashamed of all the politicians who kowtow to the near-sighted Israeli lobby. I am ashamed of my friends and acquaintances who try to defend the Zionist project in Israel, which is largely responsible for this racist, hateful ideology that results in premeditated attacks against Palestinians and those who advocate for justice. But I am proud of my friend, for standing up for what is right, for advocating for justice for all people, regardless of their nationality, ethnicity, religion, or creed.

Here's the press release, pictures are below (and they're bloody, fyi):

At approximately 9:15 AM on July 27, 2011, masked settlers from the Havat Ma’on outpost armed with stones and an iron bar harassed three Palestinian shepherds and attacked two international observers. The settlers threw stones at the internationals, and hit one of them in the head with an iron bar.

The Palestinian shepherds were out with their flocks on Palestinian land near Mesheha hill when the four masked settlers attacked them. The shepherds were able to leave the area, but the settlers attacked the internationals. One of the internationals was a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams, the other was visiting the area. The settlers destroyed the CPTer’s camera and chased them both back to At-Tuwani. The CPTer went to the hospital and received 8 stitches.

Christian Peacemaker Teams and Operation Dove have documented 6 occasions since June 22, 2011 in which settlers from Havat Ma’on have attacked Palestinians or internationals near Mesheha Hill.

Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams have maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

Picture gallery here.

'Terrorism' doesn't apply to acts committed by white, christian males

2011-07-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

Democracy Now interviewed Glenn Greenwald regarding the US media coverage of the attacks on Norway:

The other aspect of it, though, is what you referenced in your question, which is, when it was widely assumed, based on basically nothing, that Muslims had been responsible for this attack and that a radical Muslim group likely perpetrated it, it was widely declared to be a "terrorist" attack. That was the word that was continuously used. And yet, when it became apparent that Muslims were not involved and that, in reality, it was a right-wing nationalist with extremely anti-Muslim, strident anti-Muslim bigotry as part of his worldview, the word "terrorism" almost completely disappeared from establishment media discourse. Instead, he began to be referred to as a "madman" or an "extremist." And it really underscores, for me, the fact that this word "terrorism," that plays such a central role in our political discourse and our law, really has no objective meaning. It’s come to mean nothing more than Muslims who engage in violence, especially when they’re Muslims whom the West dislikes.

He continues:

But the idea that Islamic terrorism is some sort of unique threat is completely belied by the E.U.'s own statistic. This idea of equating Muslims with terrorism is an incredibly propagandistic and deceitful term. The idea is to suggest that, as several of your guests were saying, that Islam is some sort of existential threat to Western civilization, to Europe and the like, and it's propagated with this myth that terrorism is an Islamic problem. And that’s why the idea that the establishment media in the United States and in political circles equates terrorism, as a matter of definition, with violence by Muslims is so problematic, because it promotes this lie that terrorism is a function of Islamic ideology.

The whole interview is worth hearing, it's about a 13 minute segment:

Guatemala Gleanings

2011-06-19T15:55:00.000-07:00

Not having my computer with me is quite liberating, but not having my computer means I can't hash my thoughts on a computer before putting something together in the form of a blog post. I brought a journal with me with the sole purpose of being able to get some thoughts down before I got to a computer. But I'm too lazy, and I haven't used my journal yet.

Things that have struck me in my first week (a terribly unexhaustive list):
-The United States has a terrible, awful history in Guatemala. Overthrowing democracies and replacing them with brutal dictatorships. Genocide was committed, targetting indigenous populations. Multinational corporations were given free reign, free access to the market and the freedom to exploit laborers, landowners and indigenous farmers. The US has had a terrible, oppressive historical role in the great majority of countries I have visited: Syria, Palestine, Guatemala, Mexico, Egypt. Ugh.
-Somewhere around 60% of Guatemalans are indigenous, not like 1/16, but full-blooded indigenous. There are something like 23 indigenous languages spoken in Guatemala (largely different groupings of Mayans). K'iche and Mam are both widely spoken, with more than 700,000 speakers for each. There is a third widely spoken language but I can't recall at the moment. Because of large numbers of indigenous people in the country, many indigenous customs, dress, and languages have remained intact. Many ugly things have been done to reduce the indigenous presence in the country, such as genocides, placing different tribes of Mayans together in forced communities so they'd be forced to learn Spanish to communicate, etc, etc. But it's beautiful that despite all of the colonial ventures, the native people of this land have retained large pieces of their identity. It's beautiful. I hope to keep reading and learning about the people of this land.
-Nationality, ethnicity, religion, class, and race are incredibly complicated concepts that have real effects. More on that in another post, I hope.
-I met an Iranian guy here, who spoke French, Farsi, German, Spanish, Arabic, and Portugese. Meeting a guy who speaks six languages was awesome. Meeting a guy in Guatemala who spoke Arabic was more awesome. Meeting a guy who spoke six languages, whom I had to speak with in Spanish and Arabic because one of his six languages was not English was the most awesome.
-I forgot so much Arabic. It took me 5 minutes to remember how to ask the Iranian guy where was from in Iran. ¿Seriously?
-Today I bought vegetables from a teenage girl. I asked her how much the carrots were, in Spanish, she responded in Spanish. Her friends, who also had their vegetables laid out on the edge of the road, started to speak to her in an indigenous language (I'm guessing it was K'iche, because a compañero of mine is taking K'iche and was teaching me some of the guttural sounds). All the girls laughed at a good joke that had been cracked, and as they laughed they looked at me simultaneously. They kept speaking K'iche and laughing while looking at me. I had my hair in a ponytail and had a headband on, I am guessing they thought my overall look was pretty 'feminine.' They totally got away with making fun of me by speaking a language I was certain to not know. Good times.
-I love farmers, and farms, and fields. There are a lot of them in Guatemala. Most of the work is done my hand, from what I can tell. Farmers till big plots of soil by raising their hoe up over their head, slamming it into the dirt, pushing the handle towards the earth, and turning over a scoop of soil. Over and over again.
-Farmers carry around big machetes. Awesome.
-There are volcanoes everywhere. I've hiked the top of two so far, and am hoping to explore more.

Xela, Guatemala

2011-06-13T15:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I arrived in Guatemala City and heading directly to Quetzaltenango (more commonly called Xela -- pronounced Shay-la, a shorthand version of the indigenous name for the city, Xelaju). I plan to be here for six weeks, studying Spanish and generally trying to enjoy my time here. I'm studying Spanish because of an upcoming university exam, but more importantly, it's a language that is increasingly important for those living in the United States to know, especially as anti-immigrant legislation in Arizona and Albama, targeted at Latinos, is gaining more widespread support. It's a way to live with neighbors, to love neighbors better, to stand beside neighbors and raise our voices with theirs, to speak out against discrimination and to advocate for human rights. It's one way to slowly undo my ethnocentrism, to reveal my priviliges, and to undo another category of people I've classified as the other. Commnicating with the others usually undoes the constructs of the very category. Not to mention, a huge chunk of the land mass of planet Earth contains Spanish speakers. So there you go, Xela for six weeks, because I wasn't yet tired of living out of a backpack and leaving friends and family behind while traveling with my stupid backpack and my non-verbal books.

I'll ~~probably~~ certainly be blogging very lightly on foreign policy, the Arab Spring, or developements in Palestine and Israel. Forgive me.

My absence and Saudi women campaigning for the right to drive

2011-05-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

No post in the last two weeks, that must set some kind of recent record for me.

I've still been reading and staying up on as much Israel, Palestine, and Arab Spring news as I can, I just haven't gotten around to writing much.

I find myself getting into a pattern of posting lots of links, and sentence or paragraph commentary, to facebook and twitter. Check out my twitter feed for more of that, or friend me on facebook. There's so much good reporting, analysis, and commentary out there I often feel I don't have much to contribute, especially when I don't have current first-hand accounts from the West Bank. But alas, I get around to writing every now and then.

My latest is at Waging Nonviolence. Here's the opener.

Saudi women have started a right-to-drive campaign that has quickly garnered the attention of the international media as well as the concern of conservative Saudi Arabian authorities. The organizers of Women2Drive had began encouraging women to take to the streets en masse, behind the wheel, on June 17 in defiance of a religious edict, fatwa, forbidding women to drive automobiles. A figurehead of the movement, Manal al-Sharif, was detained and released on Saturday and then arrested on Sunday by Saudi police shortly after she posted a video of herself driving a vehicle.

Here's lies the link.

This is Gaza

2011-05-14T23:43:00.000-07:00

This video shows the beauty and the pain of Gaza, side by side, as they exist in reality. It reminds us that Gazans are human beings with hopes and aspirations, exploding the myth created by Israel, and parroted by the United States, that Gazans are terrorists and militants that have earned an inhumane imprisonment and siege.

Nir Rosen on Osama Bin Laden and Al Qa'eda

2011-05-14T23:06:00.000-07:00

Nir Rosen, author and independent journalist, has published a new piece on the killing of Bin Laden that has been published various places under various titles, "Al Qa'eda was always a fringe group with no roots in the Arab world," is my personal favorite. Before I get any further, I have to give props to Nir Rosen on his newest book, "Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America's Wars in the Muslim World." It's an excellent, thorough read, taken from Rosen's extensive work in Iraq and Afghanistan. I had the privilege of carrying Rosen's book through Israeli security and getting as many dirty looks for his title as I got for carrying Arabic language vocabulary lists. Rosen was previously writing for mainstream publications such as Rolling Stone, but has gone the independent route, apparently in an effort to stay true to reporting what he sees, hears, and believes. Some of Rosen's most recent long-form pieces are at Jadaliyya, here's his author page.

Go read his most recent Bin Laden piece, it's great. But for people who don't have 30 minutes to spare, here are some great excerpts. I had to stop taking excerpts halfway through because I realized I was taking a quarter of the article. The section of the article from which I did not excerpt deals with a favorite topic of mine: terrorism. Rosen deconstructs the definition of terrorism and differentiates it from resistance. Ok, without further ado, The Excerpts:

It turns out Arabs understand democracy better than we do in the stagnant west, they proved that leaders rule only with the consent of the governed and if the people demand their rights they cannot be stopped. On the other hand America, a nation in economic and political decline but perpetual war, was engrossed in right wing conspiracy theories about where President Obama was born only to receive a nationalist fillip by an assassination ten years and trillions of dollars in the making.
...
The truth is al Qaeda was a fringe organization without roots in the Arab world, and it has barely had any successes since it got lucky on September 11. The attacks on September 11, 2001 were tragic and criminal. They were painful for the victims and their families and a shock to a powerful, arrogant and proud nation blissfully unaware that it was so resented. But other than the murders the attacks had little real impact on the American economy or way of life. It was the American response, both at home and abroad, that changed everything. Al Qaeda used it’s “A team” on that day to attack a slumbering nation, and they got lucky. But could a few hundred angry and unsophisticated Muslim extremists really pose such a danger to a superpower, especially one that was now hyper alert to potential threats?
...
The Bush administration had to transform its response to the 9/11 attacks into crusade because when looked at in purely security terms the United States, the most powerful nation the world has ever seen, went to war against two hundred unsophisticated extremists. Looking at it like that diminishes the enemy and the threat to the absurd, but many were nostalgic for a real enemy, like fascism or communism, and so they made the conflict about culture. The United States adopted al Qaeda’s view of the world and it too treated the entire world stage as a battlefield.
...
Al Qaeda was not a villainous bad guy out of a Bond film or a comic book, determined to do evil for the sake of evil. It was a movement that arose in response to America’s imperial excesses. Many of its grievances were legitimate, even if killing American civilians is not the proper means of addressing them. If America ceased supporting the Israeli occupation and oppression of Palestinians, and if America ceased coddling Middle Eastern dictators, and if America ceased bombing Muslims, there would be little reason for Muslims to resent America, or retaliate against American civilians.
...
There is no al Qaeda. It was not defeated by drones and “the quiet professionals” who can assassinate at will. It was defeated by its own excesses and by the millions of Arabs who have led a leaderless revolution, overthrowing dictators and ignoring al Qaeda’s view that a vanguard was needed.
...
Americans complain when others celebrate the killing of Americans, but the world watched Americans grotesquely celebrating an execution. While the Americans keep trying to present their violent acts as somehow sanctioned by notions of law and right and the “international community”, Muslim masses will continue to have the opposite view because of how ingrained their enmity to colonialism is. Decades of oppression, the recent occupation of Iraq and most recently with American support for Mubarak until the last minute mean that many Arabs will not trust the American account, they have been lied to before, and they will not sympathize with the American narrative, because Americans showed them only cruelty.
...
When you drop bombs on populated areas knowing there will be some ‘collateral’ civilian damage, but accepting it as worth it, then it is deliberate. When you impose sanctions as the US did on Saddam era Iraq, that kill hundreds of thousands, and then say their deaths were worth it, as secretary of state Albright did, then you are deliberately killing people for a political goal. When you seek to “shock and awe,” as president Bush did, when he bombed Iraq, you are engaging in terrorism.

Young girl in reference to Israeli soldiers, "They can never shut me up"

2011-05-14T21:17:00.000-07:00

A 14 year-old Palestinian girl writes about her experience of Israeli soldiers raiding her home and holding her and her family hostage while they searched for her father. Here's a compelling excerpt:

We started asking them questions, non-stop. “We hope you won’t steal our valuables from the rooms?” “We never take anything that is not ours,” one shouted indignantly. Hanin replied, “Other than stealing our land every day, you have stolen precious items from Palestinian homes during previous invasions!” Their commander appeared again, giving them new orders. I could not resist saying, “You so remind me of sheep. He’s your shepherd, and all of you are just mindless followers.” One of them pointed his M16 at me, and said: “Shut the f*** up!” So I said: “If you hate the truth so much why don’t you refuse to follow his orders? Why do you insist on terrorizing us?” He repeated his favorite insult and moved closer, with his rifle pointed at my face. Suha jumped and shouted at him, “She is only 14, do you have anything human left in you?”

I was boiling with anger, but I refused to give them the pleasure of watching me cry. They were not only humiliating me, they were also trying to make me a silent victim. I didn’t want to shut up. And I didn’t want to be submissive in anyway. I have had enough already. I wanted them out, now. I was very tired and sleepy. But I still wanted to show them what a Palestinian teenager is made of! Images from Tunisia and Egypt filled my head, and I felt proud.

She's 14 years old and is far more courageous than I will ever be. Read the rest here.

Documentary: Stolen Children, Stolen Lives

2011-05-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

Below is a documentary, split into two clips, created by a former CPT colleague of mine, Gerry O'Sullivan. Stolen Children, Stolen Lives focuses on Israeli arrests of Palestinian children, and the effects of those abuses on Palestinian children and Israeli soldiers.

It's worth watching, really. I swell with pride and heartache at my friend, Layla, who describes the imprisonment of her son. Such a brave, courageous woman faced with such dark, tragic inhumanity.

Israeli soldiers throw tear gas at displaced Palestinian residents sleeping under tarps

2011-05-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

From CPTnet: On Friday, May 6, the Israeli military declared the area of Amniyr, a Palestinian village south of Yatta, a closed military zone and chased away the families who own the land, after demolishing structures and trees on the land the day before.

The demolitions occurred at 5 a.m. on Thursday, May 5, when the military destroyed six shacks and uprooted 150 olive trees in Amniyr.

On Friday, the Palestinians of Amniyr had returned to the land and hung six tarps to create makeshift tents. The Israeli army issued a "closed military zone" order on the area at 9:00 a.m. At 2:00 p.m. seven military jeeps arrived, including police and border police. The commanders showed the order and gave the people one minute to leave.

Using sound bombs and tear gas, the soldiers and police forced off the land all the Palestinians present—about thirty adults, many of them elderly, and ten children—as well as accompanying internationals. One woman, Fatmi Mahmoud Jaboor, passed out due to the bombs and required medical attention. The Palestinian Red Cross evacuated her to the hospital, and she was dismissed in the evening. At 7 p.m. four military jeeps returned to Amniyr and destroyed the tarps and what had been left standing in the area.

This is the third time in ten weeks that the military has destroyed trees, tents, dwellings and other structures on the land of Amniyr, effectively demolishing the entire village and affecting six families. Although Amniyr is Palestinian-owned private property, Israel has declared it "state land" and prohibits the people of Amniyr from building any structures or using the land. A local Palestinian leader has told CPT that he believes Israel is trying to confiscate the land of Amniyr because of its proximity to the Israeli settlement of Susiya.

The outraging part of this video is the soldier who speaks very little Arabic, and refuses to listen to reason, questions, and pleas from the local residents. Instead, he keeps repeating the same refrain: Dqiqa, fesh wahad. Given it's gramatical mistakes, it roughly translates, "One minute, there is not one." Sure he says enough to convey the message he wants to get across, he wants people to know that in one minute everyone needs to be gone from this place. Message conveyed, but the dynamics are ugly. You demolished a village and the next day demand the residents get out from under the tarps they threw on their destroyed belongings to provide a semblance of shelter. When they ask questions you don't listen and probably don't speak enough Arabic to understand anyway. So you repeat one of the phrases you know (in addition to IDF favorites, "Show me your ID," "Stop," "Where are you going," "Go to your house," "It's forbidden for you to be here"), in all it's preschool grammar, to demand that people leave.

So it total, we have Palestinian people living on a piece of land deep into the West Bank. They are farmers and shepherds, and having been to this village many times I can tell you it's mostly elderly people in their 50s and 60s, people who are tired and haggard from a life under the sun and under occupation. Their village has been demolished three times in 10 weeks. Each time their houses get a little shittier, because after each demolition they have less to rebuild with. When their home was demolished most recently they hung some tarps on the rubble of their houses for shelter. The next morning, soldiers arrived to evacuate the area with a 'closed military zone' order. The people wanted to show their displeasure and also ask questions to know the exact borders of the closed zone so they could actually leave the area. Palestinians living in Area C have seen closed military orders dozens of times, and they know it's not a hill worth dying on. The people in the video are clearly asking for further explanation and one person explicitly says, "Ok we will leave, but just clear this up for me..." Seconds later, tear gas and sound bombs.

Photos available here.

The hypocrisy of demanding only Palestinians abandon violence

2011-05-09T21:16:00.000-07:00

Palestinians in Gaza City celebrate the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas

My latest is up at Waging Nonviolence. Here's a teaser:

The United States, Israel, and other Western governments issue carbon-copy statements about the need for Hamas to renounce violence; meanwhile, Israel gets a pass as it daily uses violence to suppress nonviolent demonstrations across the West Bank.

Violence used to resist illegal occupation, land annexation, demolitions, and the transfer of Israeli citizens into occupied Palestine territory is illegitimate. Yet, violence used for the purpose of maintaining and expanding empire is legitimate, and continually defended.

No amount of Palestinian nonviolent resistance will be satisfactorily nonviolent to Israel or the United States.

Read the rest.

Video: Introduction to CPT Palestine

2011-05-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

This is a new video created to provide a glimpse into the work of Christian Peacemaker Teams in Palestine. Check it, there are clips of interviews with myself and other CPT colleagues.

This is a somber day where we should be remembering all of the victims

2011-05-02T20:06:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Scahill, a writer for The Nation, who came to prominence after his in-depth research of Blackwater, spoke on Democracy Now about the killing Osama Bin Laden. He had lots of good things to say in the interview, especially this:

I found it quite disgusting to see people chanting, like it was some sort of sporting event, outside of the White House. I think it was idiotic. Let’s remember here, hundreds of thousands of people have died. Iraq was invaded, a country that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda, nothing to do with Osama bin Laden. The United States created an al-Qaeda presence in Iraq by invading it, made Iran a far more influential force in Iraq than it ever would have been. We have given a grand motivation to people around the world that want to do harm to Americans in our killing of civilians, our waging of war against countries that have no connection to al-Qaeda, and by staying in these countries long after the mission was accomplished. Al-Qaeda was destroyed in Afghanistan, forced on the run. The Taliban have no chance of retaking power in Afghanistan. And so, I think that this is a somber day where we should be remembering all of the victims, the 3,000 people that died in the United States and then the hundreds of thousands that died afterwards as a result of a U.S. response to this that should have been a law enforcement response and instead was to declare war on the world.

The coverage of the killing of Osama Bin Laden

2011-05-01T23:48:00.000-07:00

Full disclosure: I don't have collected, organized thoughts on the matter. But I do have a bit of pent up emotion. If I waited to write this post, I could compartmentalize my thoughts and put something together that I am proud of. But if I wait, I may never write this post.

The news of Osama Bin Laden's death was pretty cut and dry for me. Ok, the guy who founded an organization that orchestrated and carried out deplorable acts is dead. Is this the end of Al Qaeda? No. Is this the end of anger and hatred for Americans because of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and the Muslim world? No.

Terrorist attacks and ~~myopic~~ nonexistent analysis
It's amazing that we never speak about the motivation for terrorist attacks. And I'm not speaking specifically about acts with which Bin Laden was involved, but any terrorist attacks. The furthest we get is, 'well, they hated Americans and everything America stands for.' But, why? Why do they hate America? Did America do something to deserve their hatred? Well, I'm not sure, but, God Bless America and Support Our Troops.

Leading up to 9/11, and following 9/11, Osama Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda figures clearly stated the reasons for their beef with the US. First, they deplored and called for an end to the US' military presence on the Arabian peninsula. Second, they were enraged by the US' unconditional support of Israel. Did US leaders and politicians listen? Nope.

Celebration
The celebration outside of the White House -- which streamed for hours on Al Jazeera English, MSNBC, CNN, and every major news network -- was appalling and jingoistic. Would that many people be gathered in the streets if Obama declared the end of the Afghanistan war? Will thousands of people gather at a local air force base to welcome home US troops at the end of the Afghanistan war? Probably not. When's the next time you will see so many frat boys with American flags chanting U-S-A, U-S-A? Probably in London at the Summer Olympics of 2012.

And what were we celebrating again? The killing of someone? Isn't that disturbing, at least a little bit? Would if General Petraeus was killed and people celebrated in the streets of Afghanistan? Petraeus was responsible for orchestrating the killing of tens of thousands of Afghan civilians. What would we think of those people celebrating?

American lives are more valuable
The news anchors were continually referencing 9/11, saying the victims' families will now have a sense of closure, they kept quoting the number of people killed, that today was such a watershed moment. What about the tens of thousands of Afghan civilians killed? Are they still just collateral damage and nothing more? We got our man, alright, we got our man -- but at what cost? One news anchor on MSNBC (he was the one recently reporting from Libya) talked about the fact that people all over the world had begun to doubt whether America was still a nation that could accomplish anything it set its mind to, but tonight we proved that we still can. If we kill tens of thousands of civilians in Afghanistan, carry out increasingly frequent and deadly drone strikes in Pakistan, occupy a country for nearly a decade and drastically accelerate the radicalization of its population resulting in a growing numbers of militant Islamic jihadists -- then yes, we can get our way. Is there any consideration of the cost? I know we'll only give a shit about the cost to 'us', and not to 'them.' But even the cost to the United States...2,000 US troops killed and 10,000 more Bin Laden's created over the last decade. That's a great cost. A great cost.

And no, this isn't the end of Al Qaeda or militants targeting US institutions and civilians. The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya and the continued support of the occupation of Palestine will ensure that Wahhabis, Salafis, and Islamic Jihadists will continue to target the US.

And to quote my facebook self, in a stream of consciousness rage, induced by CNN and MSNBC:

Can a US news agency please quote how many Afghan civilians were killed? Or no, only Bin Laden and those killed on 9/11 are the relevant ones? Afghan civilians (we also call you 'collateral damage'), sorry but you lived in the wrong country. We got him, but we don't care about the cost. We're America dammit.

You would do the same if you had to bread at home

2011-05-01T23:13:00.000-07:00

Large numbers of Palestinian day laborers cross from the West Bank into Israel each day.

Israel is just one of many places in the world where people are filling unwanted, manual-labor jobs and are criminalized because of their lack of proper documentation.

Since the influx of Russian and East African immigrants into Israel, the need for Palestinian labor has decreased. Nonetheless, every Palestinian man I have ever met, has worked in Israel at one point of another. The poorer and more desperate are likely to continue returning to Israel for work regardless of the cost. Several people I know have served around one year in prison for entering Israel to work without a permit.

On fear and the changing nature of horses

2011-04-26T11:24:00.000-07:00

Cycling through the rolling Sierra foothills of California in springtime is wonderful. One of my favorite routes passes by the numerous ranches on Lone Star Rd. The pastures are expansive with texture not dissimilar to the rolling ocean sea.

The grasses and weeds that comprise the fields are brilliant green as their rain-soaked roots haven't yet been subject to the scorching heat of the summer sun.

As I rode along this potholed-road with expansive ranches on either side, I was suddenly struck by the horses that stood in the fields. As I spotted a horse close to the road, I slowly came to a stop. I inched over the fence to get as close as I could to the horse. I didn't want to touch it, I just wanted to see it and have it see me. It was a majestic creature with a strange blend of strength and elegance – enormous muscles in its legs and thighs that rippled with each movement while it's mane simultaneously blew gracefully in the breeze.

I felt alien, like a creature with developed intelligence from another world that was seeing a horse for the first time, taking note of its anatomy and disposition. I just stood and stared at these horses for sometime, trying to reshape my perception of them.

The great majority of my experiences with horses in the last few years have been traumatic and fear-filled. As horses are large, powerful animals, they have been used in many cultures through various points in history as a show of force. Horses are used in battle, in duels, to demonstrate wealth, etc.

Israeli settlers in the West Bank have also used horses as a form of intimidation. Settlers will often ride their horses around the Palestinian West Bank with an M-16 strapped to their back and a handgun holstered. It's the real life Wild West with armed bad guys shooting into the air while peasants and farmers hold their wives and children to the ground to protect them from the marauding bandits.

My encounters with settlers on horseback usually occurred when I was walking to visit Palestinian friends of mine who live in an adjacent village. I would skirt along the edge of the settlement, trying to remain a safe distance from the violent people who live within it, but also trying to reach my friends in a reasonable amount of time. In a paranoid fashion, I would continually look over my shoulder, so as to not be ambushed. My pace was quick, the quicker I got out of there, the less of a chance that I would get a beating.

In my paranoid head-turning, I see a settler on horseback approaching me. He's a teenager, but he looks armed. I can't outrun him. So I'll look tough and hang in here. I don't want to appear weak, or scared.

But as soon as that horse got near me, fear overtook me. The huge animal standing before me in all of it's power, and it's power unfortunately harnessed in the hands of an ignorant, hate-filled teenager. Curses and demands were being hurled at me in Hebrew, a language I don't understand. Lo, lo ivrit. Speak English, please.

You, out of here. This my land.

Yeah ok, I'm leaving. No problems here. But there is a problem here, I thought to myself as my courage and conviction tried to subdue my fear, this isn't your goddamn land. And how dare you use that horse and your M-16 to scare me off this land when I was, in fact, invited to visit the very people who actually own this land, and are being forced of it by your government in a slow-form genocide.

-----

As I stood and looked at the horses on Lone Star Rd, I realized there was nothing inherently dominating, aggressive, or violent about these animals. They seemed incredibly docile and friendly, so much so that if I took care of one, I might even love it.

Among the myriad daily crimes and atrocities against humans, I hate how settlers have made an accomplice out of horses, an innocent creature. How dare they kill donkeys of Palestinians, and then turn their animals into a tool of intimidation and fear.

History, reality, land rights, and the true nature of animals. What won't they twist and distort?

The (lack of) logic of drone attacks in Pakistan

2011-04-22T19:20:00.000-07:00

Glenn Greenwald's latest needs to be read widely. Greenwald's analysis is spot on, and frankly, I can't imagine arguing with with the points he makes. Killing civilians with unmanned drones foments anger, hatred, armed resistance and/or terrorism. Period. No question. Look at the numbers. Put yourself in the shoes of a father whose child is killed by a US-operated unmanned drone. Here's Greenwald with the especially poignant section:

A U.S. drone attack in Pakistan killed 23 people this morning, and this is how The New York Times described that event in its headline and first paragraph:
An American drone attack killed 23 people in North Waziristan on Friday, Pakistani military officials said, in a strike against militants that appeared to signify unyielding pressure by the United States on Pakistan’s military amid increasing opposition to such strikes.
When I saw that, I was going to ask how the NYT could possibly know that the people whose lives the U.S. just ended were "militants," but then I read further in the article and it said this: "A government official in North Waziristan told Pakistani reporters that five children and four women were among the 23 who were killed." So at least 9 of the 23 people we killed -- at least -- were presumably not "militants" at all, but rather innocent civilians (contrast how the NYT characterizes Libya’s attacks in its headlines: "Qaddafi Troops Fire Cluster Bombs Into Civilian Areas").

Can someone who defends these drone attacks please identify the purpose? Is the idea that we're going to keep dropping them until we kill all the "militants" in that area? We've been killing people in that area at a rapid clip for many, many years now, and we don't seem to be much closer to extinguishing them. How many more do we have to kill before the eradication is complete?

Beyond that, isn't it painfully obvious that however many “militants” we're killing, we're creating more and more all the time? How many family members, friends, neighbors and villagers of the "five children and four women" we just killed are now consumed with new levels of anti-American hatred? How many Pakistani adolescents who hear about these latest killings are now filled with an eagerness to become "militants"?

The NYT article dryly noted: "Friday’s attack could further fuel antidrone sentiment among the Pakistani public"; really, it could? It's likely to fuel far more than mere "antidrone sentiment"; it's certain to fuel more anti-American hatred: the primary driver of anti-American Terrorism. Isn't that how you would react if a foreign country were sending flying robots over your town and continuously wiping out the lives of innocent women, children and men who are your fellow citizens? What conceivable rational purpose does this endless slaughter serve? Isn't it obvious that the stated goal of all of this – to reduce the threat of Terrorism – is subverted rather than promoted by these actions?

Death toll rises as Syrian forces use lethal force against unarmed protesters

2011-04-22T18:56:00.000-07:00

In the largest, most deadly day of protests in Syria, at least 88 people were killed by Syrian forces on Friday.

Here's analysis from Al Jazeera's interview with Robert Fisk, the long-term Middle East correspondent for the UK daily, Independent.

Some articles/media for more understanding:
Anthony Shadid with the NYT.
Videos on War in Context.
Article from Al Jazeera.
Article and videos from the LA Times.

A long walk home, thanks to Passover

2011-04-21T11:37:00.000-07:00

From the blog of Maureen Jack, a CPTer from Scotland:

Yusuf is five years old. He attends the kindergarten just across the landing from our women’s apartment. He’s a bright little boy, who interprets in sign language for his mother, who is deaf. He has congenital physical difficulties: he has no left arm and one leg is significantly shorter than another.Yesterday morning a friend and I happened to meet up with Yusuf and his kindergarten teacher as she took him home after class. They unsuccessfully tried to get through two gates before going through the ladder lady’s house.

Yusuf tried to walk home from school on the first day of Passover, 20 April 2011, when the Israeli military presence in Hebron was heightened. The checkpoints he usually passes through were closed, so he tried a few alternate routes before making him home.

Israeli controlled prison permits killing, shooting, abuse of Palestinian prisoners

2011-04-18T11:45:00.000-07:00

Israeli Channel 2 aired a story on a combat exercise inside a prison that went awry. Israeli Prison Services allowed Masada, an Israeli combat unit, to enter Ktziot prison, a large facility housing Palestinian prisoners, to conduct an operation.

The operation was called 'early wake-up call' and one of its explicit written goals was increasing the morale and motivation of the prison guards.

It looks like a calloused, morally-bankrupt swat team descending on sleeping prisoners. (Press the CC button for English subtitles.)

I wonder how many other stories there are like this that have successfully been hidden and have never leaked out?

Our opinion of war starts at the pump

2011-04-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

I've started Alia Malek's book, A Country Called Amreeka: U.S. History Retold Through Arab-American Lives, it's excellent. Malek tells the history of Arabs in America by selecting monumental events and narrating those events through the eyes of a character, or a handful of characters, who lived through those formative moments.

Malek follows an America man, Alan, who is of Lebanese descent, as he lives through the Detroit riots that ran in parallel with Israel's routing of the Arab nations in the War of 1967 and the Six Day War of 1973.

Alan struggles to understand why no one in Detroit, MI cares about the 20,000 Arabs killed in the war nor how the American media could so blatantly tell half-truths about the war and Israel's role therein. But as I have certainly seen in my lifetime, people start to care about America's wars only when it starts to affect their prized pocketbook. In this instance, Arab oil-producing nations had began an oil embargo in hopes of making the West pay attention to Israel's annexation of land through warfare.

During the twenty days of fighting, which ended with a ceasefire on October 26, it seemed to Alan most Americans had not given the war much thought. The oil embargo, on the other hand, had forced Americans to pay more attention. While in 1967, the war had been 'over there' and out of mind, Americans were now waiting in line for has and not getting any. And a lot of the, from politicians to newspeople to regular folk, were blaming Arabs for it.

It smacks of the current U.S.-led war in Libya. What is the news coverage of the war centered on? Prices at the pump. Does local Sacramento news interview people to ask them what they think about their country getting involved in its third, costly war in the Middle East/North Africa? Do residents get asked about their opinion of military intervention in this particular instance? Do people even talk about it over coffee or lunch?

I have seen countless news segments about the price of gas and how its affecting people. Flipping channels I will inevitably find an image of a gas prices sign displayed with some apocalyptic subtext, such as, "Will prices continue to rise" or "How much worse can it get."

Sure, it's a real life economic impact, and is thus, newsworthy. What I fail to understand is how the wars that the United States military executes, under the direction of elected United States politicians, is completely irrelevant to the citizens of the country.

We are paying for these wars too -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya -- just like we're paying for the gas.

P.S. Libyans, Afghanis, Iraqis, Palestinians are being killed, maimed, slaughtered in our name. But that's neither here nor there.

This is a really important sentence

2011-04-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

Phillip Weiss writes about the recent murders of an Italian journalist/activist and an Israeli-Palestinian actor and director.

Whoever the fanatics are that killed Vittorio Arrigoni and Juliano Mer-Khamis in the last two weeks, it can be safely said that the occupation killed them: that both good men died because the denial of freedom for Palestinians over 44 years of military occupation has produced despair and radicalism and brutalization.

At this point no evidence has come forth that Israeli soldiers or settlers killed either of these men, in fact, there is some evidence that these courageous men were likely killed by radical Palestinian militant factions. Nonetheless, the above sentence stands alone, in truth. It's not a default, "oh, just blame the Israelis, just blame the occupation." No, it's placing responsibility where it's due, on an occupation and a siege that produce desperation and utter hopelessness.

Racist protest in Tel Aviv targets refugees and migrants

2011-04-11T17:48:00.000-07:00

From +972 magazine:

Racism in Israel is nothing new. There is racism against Palestinians, against Arabs, against non-Jews. There is racism between Jews from Europe and Jews from Arab countries. In our racism, we are no different from many other Western countries. However, the past year in Israel has seen an a significant increase in the number of racially motivated attacks on foreign workers and Palestinians by gangs of Jewish nationalists who seek to ‘cleanse Israel of non Jewish and dangerous elements.’ The problem is reaching endemic proportions as lawmakers have largely remained silent and the crimes continue unabated.

David Sheen, an Israeli journalist with Haaretz, has been quietly documenting the rise of racism in Tel Aviv. His latest video (below) is a look into the ugly work of nationalism which is the foundation of the current spike in racist attacks. In the video, Sheen attends a rally of Jewish nationalists who seek to expel foreign infiltrators ‘that are taking over the southern part of Tel Aviv.’ The interviews that he conducts on the street show a disturbed society in crisis.

Israel's treatment of unarmed Palestinian protesters

2011-04-09T15:43:00.000-07:00

The violence against the protesters starts around the 2:45 mark.

The soldier pointing his gun at the Palestinian protester and sitting on him is screaming, "Shut your mouth!" [uskut].

Joseph Dana's report about the incident in Nabi Saleh is here.

Juliano in Wonderland

2011-04-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

Another video on Juliano Mer Khamis, the Arab Israeli actor, director, activist who was murdered in Jenin Refugee Camp.

Mer Khamis speaks about resistance about the subversive themes in the last play he directed, Alice in Wonderland.

Calling all Christians who aren't hypocrites

2011-04-06T18:53:00.000-07:00

Aziz Abu Sarah, a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem who splits his time between Palestine and Washington DC, where he teaches at George Mason University, speaks to Christians of the West in his recent post that appeared at +972 magazine.

Abu Sarah critiques a recent (Islamaphobic, uber-zionistic, and misinformed) Ynet column written by Johnnie Moore -- an evangelical American minister and vice president of Liberty University, a university founded by Jerry Falwell -- to demonstrate the Western Christian establishment's hypocritical and unconditional embrace of the Israeli state and its policies at the expense of any, and all Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim.

I must say that I don’t understand Christians who value the life of one group over another. Even if American Christians consider Muslims as enemies, in the New Testament Jesus commanded his followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. The word he used for “love” in Greek (agapao) means to entertain or to welcome in. This concept seems to be in direct opposition to the doctrine of Islamophobia spread by many Christian evangelical groups in the United States. Moreover, Isaiah says “”Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?” The scripture does not apply only to Jews, to the “foreigner” and “alien.” Hundreds of millions of Americans profess to be Christians and believe in the divine inspiration of these verses, so where are these “believers” when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Moore’s article is a reminder that many American Christians view supporting Israel as a tenant of faith, without thinking critically about the theological and practical implications of this viewpoint. As Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.” Like many Christian groups who visit Israel, Moore’s group did not bother to visit any Palestinian towns. My guess is that neither Moore nor any of his church members have ever even met a Palestinian. Perhaps then their demonization of Palestinians is unsurprising.

Go read Aziz Abu Sarah's column in total.

Quote of the day: on anger

2011-04-06T17:17:00.000-07:00

From Amira Hass' article on the murder of Juliano Mer Khamis:

Palestinians must conquer the anger, mellow it; they must tame it, repress it, sublimate it. That's the only way to stay both alive and sane (without getting arrested, wounded or killed ) under the conditions of physical and non-physical violence dictated by Israel.

We don't expect that of many people in the world. We want to be able to express our anger when we ourselves have been wronged. We feel it's our right to be angry when it's warranted.

It reminds me how Edward Said responded to the imminent agreement which resulted in the Oslo Accords. Said suggested, "all that's being offered to the Palestinians is for them to negate themselves."

Palestinians are forced to negate themselves and we demand that they negate their anger.

US activists to launch boat to Gaza

2011-04-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

My latest is at Waging Nonviolence.

A US boat named The Audacity of Hope is scheduled to sail to Gaza next month along with a flotilla of 15 ships from Europe, Canada, India, South Africa, and the Middle East, carrying passengers from more than 22 nations. The US Boat to Gaza is part of a larger campaign to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip and draw attention to Israel’s inhumane blockade of the Palestinian coastal enclave.

The article continues to explain the measures taken by the Israeli government to criminalize all dissent in Israel and to silence all criticism from the international community.

The Israeli Knesset passed the first reading of a “boycott law” that would criminalize any calls for academic, cultural, or economic boycotts against Israel. According to the law, courts could levy fines of up to 30,000NIS (approximately $8,500) against Israelis calling for boycotts whereas foreign nationals who violate the law could be denied entrance to Israel for 10 years or more.

This is just a teaser. Go read the article and then write a letter to send with the US Boat to Gaza.

Israeli activist, director, actor is assassinated in Jenin Refugee Camp

2011-04-04T17:58:00.000-07:00

From the Guardian:

An Israeli actor and peace activist who ran a drama project in a Palestinian refugee camp has been shot dead by masked men, metres from the theatre he founded.

Juliano Mer Khamis, 52, had received threats for his work in Jenin in the northern West Bank but continued to divide his time between Jenin and Haifa in the north of Israel. Witnesses said he was shot five times.
[...]
He was born to a Jewish mother and an Arab Christian father. His mother, Arna, was renowned for setting up a theatre group in Jenin during the first Intifada which started in 1987. Mer Khamis directed the film Arna's Children, which celebrated her work, which he continued after her death in 1994. His wife, Jenny, a Finn, is pregnant with twins. She heard of his death from Israeli radio.

Dimi Reider, of +972 magazine, writes about his fondest memory of Juliano Mer Khamis:

There will be so much said. I would just like to share this memory. It’s seven years ago, 2004. The Student Coalition at Tel Aviv University, an organization I co-founded, is staging a massive teach-out on the university square, trying to disrupt the normalcy of dozy lectures as the streets were burning.
At the end of a long, long day with lectures and arguments and songs and chants, as darkness fell on plush northern Tel Aviv, we screened Juliano’s film, “Arna’s children” – still, to my mind, the best documentary ever done about the Occupation. We, some five hundred students, sat in the outdoor auditorium, stunned. Before us, the “Palestinian gunmen” of the newscasts we knew since childhood – these footnotes in the reports, usually afforded no visuals, just “three Palestinian gunmen were shot in the West Bank today, IDF spokesman said. In other news…” – were coming to life as human beings, speaking about their childhood dreams, their slain comrades, their hopes or lack of hope for a future; sometimes as children, sometimes as grown, gun-wielding men, with children just like they used to be clustered around their knees. After the credits rolled and passed, the plaza was completely silent. One girl, a moderate centre-leftist from the campus chapter of Meretz, raised her hand. Juliano called her out. She got up and asked: “What can we do to help?”

Watch this video that gives a glimpse into Mer Khamis' Freedom Theatre, including some of his own thoughts.

Mer Khamis' film, Arna's Children, can be seen in its entirety on YouTube.

Update: Arna's Children, has been taken down. Go rent it or purchase it.

The IDF crosses every red line in Beit Ummar

2011-04-03T14:43:00.000-07:00

From Joseph Dana at +972 magazine:

Yesterday, a group of Ta’ayush activists were returning to Jerusalem after spending the morning with Palestinian farmers in the South Hebron Hills. They made the quick decision to check on the closure of Beit Ummar on the drive home.

“Within five minutes of arriving at a series of concrete barriers in front of the village, we were surrounded by soldiers. We walked to a large gate [which the army had installed two months prior in order to seal the village] at another entrance to the village only to find that it was locked shut” Kurz recalled, “At this point there were a lot of soldiers, many of whom were officers. So we decided to have an impromptu nonviolent protest against the closure of the village.” Speaking to one Israeli activist present at the demonstration, the commander in charge threatened that “every time you do this (demonstrate), I will close the village.”

The commander in charge pronounced the area a ‘closed military zone’, after which one member of the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity group asked the commander to see the closed military zone warrant. Being a stout guy, soldiers felt threated by his presence and attacked him. This set off a chain of violent events as soldiers attacked anyone bold enough to look them in the eye. Virtually everyone was arrested. According to activists, the commander never showed them the closed military zone warrant, a legal right afforded by Israeli law.

The violence exerted by the Israeli soldiers against unarmed Israeli activists is hardly surprising, but it is certainly alarming and is clearly a disproportionate amount of force.

It's important to note that Beit Ummar has been on complete lockdown for a number of weeks. The day of this particular incident, all of the entrances/exits were blocked. The "large gate" that Kurz describes is the main entrance to the village which connects the village to Route 60, which heads south to Hebron and north to Bethlehem. The secondary entrance was also locked.

Beit Ummar, a Palestinian town, was effectively under siege by the Israeli military and Israeli solidarity activists, trying to gain access to the village and/or to visit folks in Beit Ummar, were attacked without cause.

Dana continues with Kurz's explanation of the hatred the soldiers have for the solidarity activists:

“I understand that soldiers get scared and nervous but they crossed every red line,” Kurz told me, “as the soldiers were beating and arresting everyone, one solider said to me: ‘I would rape your mother and sister if I could’ and another said that he would shoot me if he was allowed to.” In the embedded video, one brave activist caught a solider calling one of the activists an ‘Arab son of a bitch.’

Kurz, a former Israeli soldier, was appalled at the inexplicable use of force.

“I can’t recognize this anymore, these soldiers were totally out line. I’ve been a soldier in their position, I know, but this was way worse than I’ve ever seen or experienced. No one will be held accountable for that, they can do whatever they want. They even get away with murder.”

-------------

A number of the activists in this video are friends, and are good people. It's hard to see people who are dedicated to bringing an end to the occupation through direct action each Saturday, being physically manhandled, shoved to the ground, and verbally assaulted with horrendous threats.

Here's to an overflow of strength, encouragement, and optimism for Amiel, Yehuda, Micha, and the rest of the activists. Here's to the opening of the gates and fences which imprison the residents of Beit Ummar.

This is our life in Hebron

2011-04-01T16:31:00.000-07:00

This is the checkpoint stationed between the Old City of Hebron and the Ibrahimi Mosque. This is one of two access points to the mosque and is used by the great majority of residents and visitors. Imagine what's it like to get through here on a religious holiday when there are thousands of people passing through that turnstile.

This is our life in Hebron from anne skaardal on Vimeo.

Update: The following is a Twitter exchange that I had after posting this video. (Note: I tweeted the video and engaged in the exchange using the @CPTPalestine account).

Me: Watch this video depicting on of the many restrictions on movement in the city of Hebron. http://fb.me/USpmvQDL

Margaux52: @cptpalestine as a us citizen and valid resident I have to go thru security check and pat down when I fly from LA to SF.

Me: @margaux52 do you go through metal detectors, pat downs, and show ID to an occupying military when you walk to the grocery store?

Margaux52: @cptpalestine I didn't see a grocery store in the video. Btw why do I have to visit Hebron in an armored bus?

Me: @margaux52 the vegetable market is just beyond that checkpoint. Come to hebron w/o armored bus, you'll be welcomed with open arms.

Margaux52: @cptpalestine would love to. Would live to visit the temple mount too but I cant

A couple quick things. The point wasn't that there is actually a grocery store in the video, obviously there wasn't (cause pretty much the only grocery store in Hebron is inside the Israel settlement, Kiryat Arba). The point was that people get stopped doing normal things in their normal, everyday life, like in your case, Margaux, going to the grocery store.

Secondly, you don't have to visit Hebron in an armored bus. I travel there in a regular old shared 'taxi,' and you can too. Who's forcing you into an armored bus? I swear, Arabs won't kill you if you take an Arab bus, they'll actually smile at you. As far as armored buses, are you talking about the Egged buses (an Israeli bus company) that serve settlers, at rates subsidized by the Israeli government, living in the occupied Palestinian territories? 'Nuff said.

Thirdly, you can't visit the temple mount? Yeah well many Palestinians who were born in Jerusalem aren't even allowed to go to Jerusalem because Israel occupies East Jerusalem and controls who can/can't enter Jerusalem. For example, my friend Tarek was born in Jerusalem and he can't go to Jerusalem, ANYWHERE in Jerusalem. The temple mount is THE ONLY place you can't go in Jerusalem. Some perspective, please.

Photo of the Day: A human wall in Bil'in

2011-04-01T11:15:00.000-07:00

From the April 1, 2011 protest against the separation wall and its illegal annexation of land in the Westr Bank village of Bil'in. A protester uses his body to block the advancing Israeli riot soldiers

Obama's Speech on Libya

2011-03-28T19:54:00.000-07:00

Generally, I thought Obama's speech to the ~~world~~ nation was fair. It was well-written and he made a relatively compelling case for 'just' war in Libya (even though I personally don't believe that terminology to be very helpful). You can come to your own conclusions about the military intervention, I, personally, have a lot of friends and respected thinkers on either side of the issue, interventionism and anti-interventionism.

One of the points that Obama formulated in his address was in regard to the "well why not military intervention in _____, there is a humanitarian crisis there" argument. I think it's a valid argument and Obama addressed it by saying that the military intervened in this case because American interests and values were at stake (although he didn't very clearly define what those interests of values were -- and no, I don't find 'protecting civilians' to be an American value. See 1,000,000 dead in Iraq for evidence) and because stopping Qaddafi was, more or less, a winnable battle.

Even though Obama made his counter-argument, I do want to return to "well, what about ______, why doesn't the US military do shit there" argument for the sake of pointing out the hypocrisy of it all. Here are excerpts from Obama's speech:

In the face of the world's condemnation, ______ chose to escalate his attacks, launching a military campaign against the _____ people. Innocent people were targeted for killing. Hospitals and ambulances were attacked. Journalists were arrested, sexually assaulted, and killed. Supplies of food and fuel were choked off. Water for hundreds of thousands of people in _____ was shut off. Cities and towns were shelled, mosques were destroyed, and apartment buildings reduced to rubble. Military jets and helicopter gunships were unleashed upon people who had no means to defend themselves against assaults from the air.

Sure, the president is obviously talking about Libya. But he could as easily be describing the Gaza Strip. Fill in the blanks with Netanyahu, Gazan, and Khan Younis, respectively. It fits like a glove, like a freaking glove.

It's true that America cannot use our military wherever repression occurs. And given the costs and risks of intervention, we must always measure our interests against the need for action. But that cannot be an argument for never acting on behalf of what's right. In this particular country — ______ — at this particular moment, we were faced with the prospect of violence on a horrific scale. We had a unique ability to stop that violence: an international mandate for action, a broad coalition prepared to join us, the support of Arab countries, and a plea for help from the _____ people themselves. We also had the ability to stop _______'s forces in their tracks without putting American troops on the ground.
...
To brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and — more profoundly — our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as President, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.

Operation Cast Lead, anyone? 400 murdered children. You could cut aid to Israel, to the tune of $9 million/day, and you wouldn't have to put troops on the ground to stop the violence. Hell, you wouldn't even have to impose a no-fly zone. Just stop the hemorrhaging of US dollars and you bring the 'only ~~half-assed attempt at~~ democracy in the Middle East' to its knees.

Criticism of an occupied and subjugated people

2011-03-24T13:15:00.000-07:00

This paragraph, in Amira Hass' recent column in Haaretz, has been challenging me:

In the binary thinking of those who oppose the Israeli occupation (Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners), public criticism of the tactics used in the struggle of an occupied and dispossessed people is taboo. It is as if criticism would create symmetry between the attacker and the attacked. To a large extent, this taboo has been broken with regard to the Palestinian Authority: Many opponents of the occupation have no qualms about portraying the PA as a collaborator, or at least as the captive of its senior officials' private interests. But when it comes to Hamas' use of arms, silence falls. As if there were sanctity in the Qassam soaring high into the sky, only to fall amid the clamor of Israeli propaganda.

For sometime, I have held that an oppressed people's chosen form of resistance shouldn't be criticized by the (latent or active) oppressors. We should use our words criticizing the unjust sytems, policies, and players who create desperation that pushes people to respond with any means at their disposal. I still believe that. Let's not waste our words preaching to the oppressed, but let's use our words to undermine the powers that be.

Nonetheless, Hass' article is making me think. Shooting rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilians isn't morally defensible nor is it a step towards a just peace. Israel's actions, or justification for their actions, are rarely (if never) defensible. But that doesn't help me figure out how to participate, as a privileged American whose government provides and arms Israeli warplanes, in a discussion about Hamas militants' response to Israel's illegal and cruel siege of Gaza.

Maybe I just keep critiquing the American government and lamenting my and my government's role in the ongoing imprisonment of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. Maybe I try to explain why Hamas militants would launch rockets at Israel by describing the desperation inflicted on Palestinians that I have seen. Maybe I explain that launching Qassam rockets at Israel is strategically stupid (and it contributes to the cycle of violence and hatred) and will result in the death of innocents in Gaza.

I'm thankful for a brain that has the ability to think, analyze, shift, and transform -- even though sometimes, it feels like a curse.

Military intervention in Libya: A few thoughts and some links (part 2)

2011-03-24T10:12:00.000-07:00

The Western military campaign continues in Libya as does the fighting between pro-democracy rebel groups and forces loyal to Qaddafi.

Along with the armed tension, the debate over the efficacy and morality of Western military intervention has continued. I previously wrote a post presenting a handful of viewpoints about military intervention. Since then, I have continued to read well-presented arguments both for and against military intervention.

Because you are dying to know, I find myself, in this particular situation, more firmly on the anti-intervention side of things. We didn't exhaust any options before we got to a military campaign. Granted, innocents were being killed so action needed to be taken quickly, but there are effective coercive methods that were not employed, they weren't even discussed. The second reason I am hesitatant to support this military intervention is because of the United States' track record when it comes to military interventions (that's just a euphemism for war, right?). Did the U.S. send planes and warships to Libya because it's so concerned with the humanitarian situation there and because human rights in the world are worth dying for? Please. See Sudan, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, and Gaza. There are strategic interests involved in Libya, there always are when the U.S. military is sent abroad.

Here are four articles I found worthwhile:

•As'ad AbuKhalil in The Economist -- A debate on Arab revolutions: This house believes the West should keep out of the Arab world's revolutions. Read it, here are some good lines:

This sudden Western concern for the people of Libya raises more suspicions than it raises hopes.
...
It is not that democracy cannot be imposed from outside—as liberal critics of George Bush often put it—but the notion that Western governments ever pushed for democracy and enlightenment in the Middle East is dubious at best.

•Max Ajl on his blog, Jewbonics -- How we missed you, humanitarian intervention.

Furthermore, air campaigns don’t dislodge dictators. What they do is turn children into corpses.
...
Popular insurgencies defeat illegitimate regimes. Their inability to do so does not mean that the regimes are legitimate. But it highlights the fact that we cannot intervene effectively in civil wars. The outcome is always disaster. When you hit a society with a hammer, only the strong remain standing, and the strong tend to be the most vicious. History tells us few lessons, but it does tell us that we will inevitably make things worse.

•Seham on Mondoweiss: I waiver, and still I approve of military support for the Libyan resistance

Seham generally supports the intervention because it's what Libyans have asked for and goes on to make connections to the recent bombings in Gaza and Jerusalem.

•Eric Stoner in Waging Nonviolence: Why war on Libya is wrong.

How people who are so knowledgeable about US foreign policy can buy in to the humanitarian argument for war is beyond me. It should be abundantly clear to anyone who really pays attention that the US doesn’t ever intervene out of concern over civilians or because of our desire to uphold democracy, human rights and freedom. These nice ideals are used only to sell war to the public.
...
The historical record is clear: in almost every case the US intervenes in other countries to protect its perceived economic or geostrategic interests. The same is undoubtedly true in Libya, which sits atop the largest oil reserves on the African continent and has largely been a hold out against neoliberalism.

Food for thought. Hope it helps to continue to turn the wheels about the ongoing violence in Libya and the role of the United States.

This is why borders suck

2011-03-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

After a one-year moratorium on deportations to Haiti, the United States resumed deporting people back to Haiti in January in 2011, determining conditions had drastically improved in Haiti.

The Haitians being deported are primarily those convicted of misdemeanors and minor drug offenses but have already served their time in the States.

Freedom Packages

2011-03-22T11:22:00.001-07:00

You just need to watch this skit from the Daily Show.

The Daily Show - America's Freedom Packages
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Military intervention in Libya: A few thoughts and some links

2011-03-20T20:39:00.000-07:00

Britain, France, and the United States are bombing targets in Libya. This military intervention follows a United Nations Security Council resolution which gives allowance to protect Libyan civilians using military force. From what I have read, it seems that bombing targets and installations from the air is pushing the limits of the resolution that was passed.

The Arab League was in favor of the UN's move to institute a no-fly zone over Libya, but the Arab League has expressed concern over how the UN resolution and the no-fly zone has, seemingly without hesitation, became a military bombing campaign.

I don't have any analysis to provide at this point as this isn't my area of expertise and I've been disconnected for several days while traveling across the Atlantic Ocean and adjusting to the 10-time difference. What I will provide is a series of links which have helped my understanding of the issues around non-intervention/intervention opinions based on historical, moral, and/or strategic rationale. Here are some of the articles I found useful, with a short description for those of you who may pick and choose amongst this list.

Richard Falk - Qaddafi, Moral Interventionism, Libya, and the Arab Revolutionary Moment
Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories and emeritus professor of international law at Princeton University, has a post which helpfully breaks down the non-interventionist and interventionist perspectives into three categories: realists, moral interventionists, moral and legal anti-interventionists.

Asli U. Bâli and Ziad Abu-Rish, Al Jazeera - The Drawbacks of Intervention in Libya
The title says it all and this is a brilliant article. These aren't pacifists calling for anti-intervention but are pragmatists (who happen to be experts in international law) looking at the history of Western (colonial) intervention while looking strategically at the proposed military intervention and are asking, "will this work?" They seem to think it won't work as effectively as other methods could.

Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy - What does the UNs decision mean for Libya? For the rest of the world?
Stephen Walt, foreign policy expert and co-author of the seminal The Israeli Lobby and US Foreign Policy, cautions that this action might not quickly cripple Qaddafi, he might hang on despite military intervention, as many other regimes have survived when faced with armed international pressure. He calls the air strikes and no-fly zone "the politico-military equivalent of a hail mary pass." That's a great line.

Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation - Obama's Women Advisers Pushed War Against Libya
The last paragraph of this article is sharp. It appears there is a civil war in Libya and there are not genocidal massacres taking place. So what gives France, U.S., and Britain (with the loose support of the United Arab Emirates) the right to intervene in an internal matter?

Abdel al-Bari Atwan, The Guardian - Relief will fade as we see the real impact of intervention in Libya
The intervening countries drafted a UN resolution because they are so concerned with the loss of civilian life? So why were 40 people killed in a drone attack in Pakistan, and why were Western leaders sitting on their hands while the Bahrain and Yemeni regimes are murdering pro-democracy protesters. Also, what are the long term effects of this action? Will Libya turn into another failed state as a result of this chosen form of intervention?

Stateside again

2011-03-20T15:28:00.000-07:00

I was welcomed back to California with an early-spring storm. They're predicting rain for the next week.

Posting has been light, and will continue to be for a number of days, as I acclimate to this time zone and dedicate myself to watching as much of the NCAA men's basketball tournament as humanly possible.

I am planning to be in the states for a number of months, as opposed to going back to Palestine after a month at home, fyi.

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters joins BDS movement

2011-03-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

The frontman for the notorious rock n' roll band, Pink Floyd, has publicly called for boycotts, divestments, and sanctions to be levied against Israel in hopes of bringing about a just peace in the seemingly intractable conflict.

My article is over at Waging Nonviolence, here's an excerpt:

Waters’ public stance is huge. He is the highest-profile musician to declare his support for the BDS movement to date. The nonviolent struggle against Israeli apartheid is going mainstream, and not in some soft, cuddly, watered-down manner; but BDS is a means of nonviolent struggle that really has some teeth, as was seen in South Africa. A cultural boycott of Israel, where artists would refuse to entertain and whitewash Israeli apartheid, is a nonviolent tool with the power to rapidly erode the moral standing of Israel in the world.

Palestinian women call for justice on International Women’s Day

2011-03-12T11:18:00.000-08:00

How did Palestinian women commemorate International Women's Day? Go see my recent post at Waging Nonviolence that outlines the various ways Palestinian women called for their rights to be acknowledged.

Free my people; Long live Palestine

2011-03-12T09:38:00.001-08:00

I wonder if Peter King will speak with these folks

2011-03-10T05:29:00.000-08:00

US Congressman and Chair of the Committee on Homeland Security, Peter King, of New York, is beginning hearings today in the radicalization of Islam in America. It's a witch hunt reminiscent of the McCarthyism of the 60s. I doubt any of these American Muslims are slated to speak at the hearings.

Roger Waters: Fear builds walls

2011-03-10T04:33:00.000-08:00

Riz Khan interviewed Roger Waters on Al Jazeera about the walls being constructed across the world, special attention is paid to the separation wall that Israeli is building in the West Bank.

The whole interview is worth watching but if you can't then pay special attention after 8:00 when Waters how he heard about the boycott, divestment, and sanction (BDS) movement against Israel after he had scheduled a concert for Tel Aviv. Waters ended up cancelling the Tel Aviv show and instead played at Neve Shalom (an intentional multi-religious community in Israel -- a concert which he now says he partially regretted, because it still violated the BDS call). At 17:00 Waters speaks about his recent call to musicians and artists around the world to support the Palestinian freedom struggle by participating in BDS.

Boycott or Terror

2011-03-09T05:38:00.000-08:00

Here is a piece written by a friend, Amos Givirtz. Givirtz is a Jewish Israeli who resides in the Negev and is a tireless advocate for Bedouin residents of the Negev struggling to obtain their rights. Givirtz recognizes in this piece that Palestinian society will never cease struggling against the occupation. If that's true and Israeli fails (which it ultimately will) to suppress Palestinian resistance, then Israel and the international community have a choice to make: will they push Palestinians towards armed resistance or will they support nonviolent resistance, including boycotts. It's in everyone's interest, most clearly the interests of Israel, to support the latter.

Boycott. Divest. Sanction.

Here's Amos:

The Grad missile that fell in Beer Sheva was a reminder of the danger to the security of Israeli citizens, a danger that lies in the violent Palestinian struggle against Israel. Throughout the years of struggle over the land between the Zionist movement and the Arab Palestinian people, we have witnessed different modes of action to which the Palestinians have resorted in their attempt to resist their dispossession: war and terrorism of various kinds have been the main ones. Today we witness a relatively new kind of struggle: a popular struggle, basically non-violent. It takes place in villages whose people demonstrate against the erection of the Separation Barrier that robs them of their lands. It is also manifested in the Palestinian Authority's attempts to build institutions of a future state while opposing terrorism. We also witness the non-violent struggle of Palesitnian civil society organizations calling for various types of sanctions and boycott of Israel as a means of pressure to put an end to the Occupation and its violations of human rights.

As long as Israel persists in its occupation and reinforces it, the Palestinians will persist in their struggle against it. The question is only what type of struggle they choose: the option of armed struggle, namely suicide attacks, personal assaults, bombings, missiles, bargain abductions etc., or the option of a popular non-violent struggle.

We, citizens of Israel, have a security interest in supporting the popular non-violent struggle. It does not jeopardize our lives and security. It is a struggle that does not risk the lives of soldiers maintaining the Occupation, it does not even jeopardize the settlers' security. But it is a struggle that clarifies for us and for the world at large who the assailant is in this conflict, and who the victim. It is the type of struggle that shows us and the world who actually wants peace and who opposes it! It is a struggle that sows conflict between the majority of Israeli citizenry and the government of Israel and the radical right-wing! It is a struggle that will show us and the whole world that the Israeli army, rather than defending the people, is busy with Occupation and its enhancement.

Non-violent struggle, unlike armed struggle, enables the party against whom it is launched to recant - then pressure is lifted. It is a struggle that does not create irreversible facts on the ground, unlike killing and destruction that result from violent struggle: the killed cannot be revived. The often wounded cannot retrieve their former state. Boycott, on the other hand, can be lifted at any moment. It is a struggle that invites Israelis and international bodies to participate. No Israeli who opposes Occupation and human rights violations would give a hand to a violent struggle against Israel. However, many of the opponents of Occupation and the violation of human rights it entails would lend their hand to a non-violent struggle against the Occupation and its injustices.

Since there is no chance that Palestinians willingly rescind their claims to their lands and homes, there is no chance that they give up their struggle, as long as Israel continues to push them out. Our own interest, as Israeli citizens, is that the Palestinians resort to non-violent struggle. This includes demonstrations, creating institutions of their state-to-be, protest and support flotillas, non-collaboration, strikes, reconstruction of houses demolished by Israel, planting trees where Israel has uprooted them, various types of boycott etc.

A harsh struggle within Palestinian society revolves around the question what kind of road to choose. The recent Grad missile has reminded us of the violent option, while the calls to boycott Israel are a reminder of the non-violent option. Israelis who support boycott are more concerned with the security of the citizens of Israel than those who attempt to silence them.

US congressman claims there is no Israeli occupation

2011-03-06T08:25:00.000-08:00

Brooklyn congressman, Max Weiner, recently debated former congressman, Brian Baird, on the Israel/Palestine issue. Weiner is loved by many progressives but is unfortunately a PEP (progressive except Palestine) and has drawn the wrath of the leftist Israel/Palestine blogosphere over his comments at the debate held at the New School in New York, NY. Watch the whole debate here. Here's an astonishing excerpt (Roger Cohen, columnist of the NY Times, moderated the debate):

WEINER: You can see a difference in the development in the West Bank with 11 percent year over year growth, with no Israeli occupation there either, with increasing access to checkpoints —

COHEN: What about area C, D,

WEINER: Hold on, maybe this would be helpful

COHEN: No occupation in the West Bank, did I hear you right?

WEINER: Yes.

COHEN: Have you been to the West Bank lately?

WEINER: Yes.

COHEN: You didn’t see the IDF there?

WEINER: In Ramallah? No. In Nablus? No. Now can I tell ya there might be some people in this room who think Jerusalem is occupied.

COHEN: Well hold on a second there, let’s stick to the West Bank. You’re saying there is no IDF presence there?

WEINER: No.

Palestinians demand opening of Shuhada St

2011-02-28T07:04:00.000-08:00

My latest at Waging Nonviolence covers the February 25th demonstration in which Palestinians demanded the opening of Shuhada Street in the West Bank city of Al-Khalil (Hebron).

Protestors attempted to reach Shuhada Street but were intercepted by Israeli forces who formed human walls to prevent Palestinians from reaching the street that formerly hosted the city’s main market. The protestors marched towards the line of soldiers, holding signs and chanting, “We don’t want the settlers nor the occupation,” and, “the people want Shuhada Street.”

Finish reading the post. There's compelling video there as well.

Irish journalist attempts to arrest Israel's Foreign Minister

2011-02-23T12:01:00.000-08:00

Irish journalist David Cronin, correspondent for IPS and commentator for The Guardian, on Tuesday attempted a citizens arrest on Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Cronin wrote for the Electronic Intifada explaining his attempted citizen's arrest:

If apartheid is a crime, there is only one way to treat its practitioners: arrest them. That is precisely what I tried to do when I confronted Avigdor Lieberman, the architect of a series of laws designed to make Israeli apartheid even more draconian than it already is.

As the Israeli foreign minister was about to give a press conference in Brussels today, I stood in front of him and shouted: "Mr. Lieberman, this is a citizen's arrest. You are charged with the crime of apartheid. Please come with me to the nearest police station." I was about to explain the charge further but two security guards had already whisked me away from Lieberman and his inscrutable glare. So I shouted "Free Palestine" and "Israel is an apartheid state" to underscore my point.

My action will probably lead to the confiscation of the badge that had given me access to the headquarters of the EU's main institutions. Most journalists to whom I have spoken in the past few hours appear to view this as a major issue. For me, it is a trivial one. Palestinians are deprived of liberty every day because of the policies pursued by Lieberman and his government colleagues. Compared to the restrictions on movement caused by military checkpoints in the West Bank or by that medieval blockade of Gaza, the loss of my press card is of no consequence.

Israeli military demolishes Amniyr village

2011-02-23T01:09:00.000-08:00

I get tired of coming up with adjectives and superlatives to describe the emotions I feel or to describe the degree of injustice or humanity that I see. This time, I'm not going to try. I hope you filed the void by uttering some superlatives or expletives as you were watching the above video.

On Wednesday, we got a call at 7:20 in the morning that the Amniyr demolitions were taking place. No one in at-Tuwani, where our house is located, has a proper permit to drive on the settler road that connects at-Tuwani and Amniyr. I called folks in Susiya, adjacent to Amniyr, to see if they could come and pick us up, but they said the whole area was a 'closed military zone' and the IDF wouldn't permit them to leave. After moments of thinking we wouldn't be able to get there in time, I happened upon a group of ISM activists, who kindly shared their taxi. As the video shows, we got there right as the bulldozers were being driven off and the military jeeps were leaving the scene.

The woman who can be seen holding the olive branch in the video was crying for the majority of 2+ hours I was there. At one point she was looking over the well, asking God why the soldiers would destroy her source of water (it was destroyed by filling it to the brim with dirt). She lamented that the well might run dry forever. Through her tears of despair, the Palestinians gathered around her were offering words of support, "walla ihimmak ya hajji, ma bitsiir fadi, il bier bitsiir bi dalu, bitsiir bi dalu, inshallah," -- don't worry ma'am, this well won't run dry, it will soon be filling buckets, this well will overflow your cup (roughly translated).

Most of the families' belongings were smashed underneath piles of dirt and building supplies. The residents of Amniyr tried to find glasses that had survived the demolitions in order to serve us tea.

I spoke with Moath Jaboor, a resident of Amniyr, who is in his final year of high school and hoping to score well on the tawjihi (the SAT, more or less -- good scores are necessary for university admittance) in order to study journalism. Moath served the visitors tea, comforted his distraught mother, and provided me with important documentation and information regarding the history of the Amniyr residents. Moath joked that he at least got a day off from school today, because of the demolitions. He paused and then reflected that it's better when all the students get a day-off, instead of him taking a personal day-off because of the demolition of his village.

I spoke with Maan News shortly after the incident who then reported on the demolitions. The CPT press release is here in full:

22 February 2011 - At 5 AM this morning the Israeli army, accompanied by members of the Israeli District Coordinating Office, arrived at the village of Amniyr and demolished five tent-houses, two cisterns and the village's olive trees. The demolitions effectively destroyed the entire village and left its three families homeless. All that remained unharmed after the military left was a cave and a small taboun oven.

According to villagers, the military had been coming frequently for the past several months and delivering demolition orders and maps claiming that the village was on Israeli state land, and that their homes would be demolished unless everyone left.

Residents of Amniyr told CPT that they have suffered from years of settler and army harrassment. Years ago, members of the Jaboor family lived in the cave in Amniyr, but Israeli military and settler harassment forced them to move to a different area a few kilometers away. The harrassment continued in their new location, however, convincing the family to move back to tents close to their original cave just over a year ago.

What was once a small village is now a pile of dirt mounds, uprooted olive trees and shattered clocks and dishware.

"Where are we supposed to sleep tonight?" said Moath Jaboor, who lived in a tent with his mother. "We'll have to rebuild our homes so that we can sleep."

Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams have maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

EI article: Al-Tuwani children's struggle to go to school

2011-02-21T12:46:00.000-08:00

My latest is up at Electronic Intifada. I write about settler harassment of schoolchildren that occurred on February 7, 2011. I previously posted the press release.

The Electronic Intifada article is a reflection piece tries to paint a picture that usually doesn't come through in writing. I hope it helps to convey the humanity of these kids as they're treated so very inhumanely.

Go read the article.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11817.shtml

A cold wind and standard humiliation

2011-02-20T07:00:00.000-08:00

The wind was blowing so hard that 2-inch blades of grass were lying horizontally on top of one another. The cold wind seemed to convert my jacket into a layer of porous mesh.

We walked down the hill towards two Palestinian vehicles and an Israeli Border Police jeep. Israeli Border Police officers had two Palestinian men in the back of their jeep, handcuffed, when we arrived.

Responding to my questions about the purpose of the men's arrest, the officers stated the men had been driving stolen cars.

After the handcuffs were removed and the men were allowed to sit on the ground outside of the jeep -- and subsequently, the blood flow returned to their hands where the zip ties had been cinched down -- they described started to describe their side of the story.

Detained Palestinian men sit in the cold

Israeli forces had been stopping and searching cars in Yatta. This is strange in and of itself because Yatta lies firmly in Area A, territory where Palestinian Authority is tasked with ensuring security. Additionally, the Oslo Accords (supposedly) prevent Israelis from conducting operations in Area A without coordination with the PA. So either the PA allowed Israeli forces to stop and search cars in Yatta (quite likely, given the PA is corrupt, unelected and held up with US money) or Israel was in contravention of the Oslo accords (also not hard to believe).

After being stopped in Yatta, the men were thrown in the back of the Border Police Jeep. Officers then took the men's keys and drove their cars out to Area C, near at-Tuwani. After arriving in the Area C, the officers could conduct their operation in accordance with the Oslo Accords and other agreements that resulted from the (non)peace process. The officers, with the help of the Israeli police, called in the vehicle identification numbers (VIN's) and determined the cars were stolen.

Both men swore they didn't know the cars were stolen, and ended up signing statements to that effect.

The Border Police officers had meanwhile stopped a friend of ours, Mahmoud, who was driving his tractor to take his daughter to her university classes in Yatta.

Mahmoud's daughter sits on wheel well of the trailer.

The soldiers photographed his tractor and called in his VIN.

Border Police officer photographs VIN, Mahmoud watches

Mahmoud was eager to get his daughter to university punctually -- I'm sure she was even more eager to get there punctually -- so he suggested leaving his wallet and ID card with the officers while he dropped off his daughter in Yatta. His return would, of course, then be guaranteed and he would be return to answer any questions or face any consequences deemed appropriate by the Israeli forces.

Mahmoud's suggestion was not accepted. His daughter was probably late to class.

The two men, who we originally came upon, were later arrested after sitting in the bitter cold for 3 hours. The men were taken to Kiryat Arba Police Station and there cars were taken away by a toe truck. During their detention, one of the men had to pee in public several times, with a soldier standing guard about 12 inches behind the urinating man.

Whenever I tried to speak with the men, I was told to be quiet, that it was forbidden to talk to the men. The officer would then yell at the Palestinians in Hebrew, telling him not to speak with me. Despite the unlawful nature of the request, the detained men asked me to go along with it so as not to make matters worse. During moments when the officers were busy joking around, smoking, or eating snacks I got information from the men about the detention and their knowledge of the legality of their cars.

The most insulting part of the encounter was one Border Police officer coming over every 30 minutes, or so, and asking the men, "Kull shi tamaam?" [Is everything alright]. The men never responded verbally but one would flip his palms upward, as if to say, What are we supposed to say, man? It's freezing cold, we're not allowed to talk, we've been here for three hours, and I have to pee in public while you stand guard. Not to mention the fact I am going to lose the car I paid money for, not knowing it was stolen. Does it sound like everything's alright?

Bedouins resist 17th demolition of their village

2011-02-19T09:06:00.000-08:00

My latest piece is up at Waging Nonviolence.

Read the whole piece, here's the intro:

The residents of al-Arakib, a Bedouin village in Israel’s Negev Desert, refuse to leave and they refuse to cease rebuilding, despite 17 demolitions in a span of just eight months - the most recent taking place on Wednesday. As the number of demolitions has risen, the severity of force used against al-Arakib residents, who rightfully resist the demolition of their homes, has also risen. Those at the scene on February 16, reported that Israeli forces arrived and immediately began shooting tear gas, stun grenades, and foam-tipped bullets at the residents.

Commerce, life, and culture returning to Hebron Old City

2011-02-16T05:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday marked the celebration of the Prophet Mohammed's birthday. The souq (market) was full of people on their way to the Ibrahimi Mosque for noon prayers.

The Old City of Hebron used to be the vibrant hub of life in the city. Week-long curfews and shop closures by the IDF during the second intifada resulted in the sharp decline of commerce and residency in the Old City. The Old City is now slowly returning to its former glory, despite severe obstacles due to the occupation, thanks to the efforts of the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee and international donors.

Here is some video I shot yesterday. Large crowds gathered outside the mosque after prayers, and they had to pass through Israeli military checkpoints, in the form of turnstiles. Oh, and I LOVE that Turkish Delight candy, it's delicious.

IDF soldiers detaining young boys near Ibrahimi Mosque

Palestinians are allowed to walk on one side of the road

Turkish delight factory

Selling beans

New Old City Museum opened recently

Ancient plow. Farmer would press down on handle (upper left) and blade would dig in to ground (bottom left)

Museum

Anyone know what this is?

Video: Long live Masr

2011-02-13T01:42:00.000-08:00

تحيا مصر long Live Egypt - 11-02-2011 from karim shaaban on Vimeo.

I don't have idealistic dreams of a utopia based upon national identities and national pursuits. But I think this is something more, it's something more than nationalism. It's about a suppressed and repressed people, who couldn't express their discontent with the government or their dissent from the political power brokers, who decided that they'd had enough and it was time to liberate themselves. And it's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing.

Video: Israeli forces arrest, manhandle young child

2011-02-12T07:17:00.000-08:00

Inside the Military Repression of Nabi Saleh: Arrest of Children from Joseph Dana on Vimeo.

From Joseph Dana, who posted the video:

The above is another video from Nabi Saleh, shot a couple of days after the night raids. It was taken on a Tuesday morning after Israeli authorities had completed another house raid. As the army and police were leaving, one police van stops and two border police officers jump out. 11-year-old Kareem Tamimi comes running into the frame, running towards his mother. The camerawoman begins shouting “Child! Child!” in Hebrew to the border police officers to no avail.

The border police officers capture the child, handling him as if he was a fully grown adult. Within seconds he is in the police van and on the way out of the village toward an undisclosed location. His mother’s cries as she slams her hands against the windows of police van are disregarded by the border police officers.

Kareem’s arrest was part of a strategy to apply as much pressure as possible on his 14-year-old brother Islam, who was arrested the previous day in a night raid, in order that Islam will deliver any script that his investigators wanted. The strategy worked, and Kareem was released later the same evening.

After this arrest happened, the army spokespersons unit alerted the media and twitter followers that another ‘wanted suspect’ was taken in for security questioning. They failed to mention that he was an 11-year-old child.

A couple instances in the video are worth translating.

-As Dana says, 'Yalad' is Hebrew for boy. The woman is continually pleading with the Israeli forces, 'yalad zghir, yalad zghir,' meaning, 'he's a young child, he's a young child.'
-0:45 - Woman taping tells at the boy, "hold on to me," while the police are dragging him away.
-1:10 - Policeman begins pushing woman videotaping, she responds, "I'm from B'tselem, I'm from B'tselem," referring to the Israeli human rights organization that places cameras in many Palestinian villagers as a part of their 'Shooting Back' campaign.
-1:50 - Woman yells to those in the distance that they have taken Kareem.
-2:00 - Woman dressed in black runs to car and is imediately shoved away by the aggressive policeman. The woman videotaping tells the policeman that Kareem is her son to explain why she is so eager to get to the van.
-When they open the door to let her speak to her son they keep telling her not to get in the car.

Haunting video. The kid is 11 years old for crying out loud, detained because his village and his family have engaged in a nonviolent resistance movement against the Israeli occupation. I guess the struggle is proving successful because the oppressors are trying to crush the resistance, and they're resorting to arresting kids and forcing them to give bogus testimony against nonviolence leaders in Nabi Saleh.

Masked Israeli settlers chase schoolchildren, give directions to Border Police

2011-02-09T11:20:00.000-08:00

The latest incident in the village where I work. I was present and was running in fear just like the kids who were with me. I hope to write a reflection in the coming days, cause this press release doesn't justly describe the horror of masked thugs puffing up their chests and chasing little kids.

At-Tuwani, South Hebron Hills, West Bank—On the afternoon of 7 February 2011, three Israeli settlers from Havat Ma'on outpost chased a group of twelve Palestinian schoolchildren who were walking home from school. The Israeli military had failed to arrive to escort the schoolchildren, forcing the children to take a longer path without the army's escort.

Shortly after the schoolchildren and Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) volunteers set out on the path towards Tuba and Maghayir al-Abeed villages, Israeli settlers, two of whom were masked, emerged from the grouping of trees that encompass Havat Ma'on and began moving towards the children. Upon seeing the settlers, the children turned and sprinted to distance themselves from the settlers. Several children cried and screamed as they ran away from the settlers; one young girl began shaking uncontrollably as soon as she stopped running from the settlers.

The Israeli Border Police, who were located on an adjacent hill for the duration of the incident, arrived at the scene after the Palestinian children had safely distanced themselves from the settlers. The Border Police stopped and spoke with the settlers, two of whom remained masked during the entire conversation.

The Border Police then approached the edge of At-Tuwani village where the children, CPT volunteers, and Palestinian adults had gathered. Border Police officers spoke with a CPT volunteer and an At-Tuwani resident, seeking to understand what had happened. After hearing their accounts but refusing to hear the role the settlers had played, the officers suggested that the Palestinian children, internationals, and At-Tuwani villagers were the ones causing problems, rather than the settlers.

Before the children had set out on the longer path without the military escort, CPT volunteers had called the Israeli military four times inquiring as to the whereabouts of the escort. During CPT's final call to the military—more than thirty minutes after their initial call—the military dispatch office said that they had not yet called the soldiers who were to provide the escort, because they had more important duties to perform.

The Border Police officers eventually escorted the children home, but all of them remained in their jeep, laughing, as the children walked behind the jeep, visibly shaken.

Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams have maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and South Hebron Hills since 2004.

[Note: According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Court of Justice, and several United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements and outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts, including Havat Ma'on (Hill 833), are considered illegal also under Israeli law.]

Where else to find me

2011-02-09T11:12:00.000-08:00

I said I would keep readers up to date on where my posts are being picked up. My recent satirical post after hearing McCain calling the Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen pro-democracy movements a 'virus,' is up on Mondoweiss.

It's nice to see something get a slew of comments and a semblance of a discussion take place afterward. Hopefully we can get more of that here on 'Do Unto Others.' I'm looking at you, yes you.

Introducing: Mona Eltahawy

2011-02-09T10:34:00.000-08:00

Writer and blogger, Mona Eltahawy, has been making a lot of appearances on US Television. She is a brave sole for squaring off against many antagonistic voices (i.e. US and Israeli pundits) in the mainstream media.

It's telling how many nongermane claims are made to discount Eltahawy and her point about the democratic and classless nature of the revolution in Egypt. The doubters are forced to refer to PEW poles regarding stoning and sharia law and to make erroneous connections to burqas and Hamas.

Ep. 201: February 4, 2011 - Overtime

Short Film: Ali's Wall

2011-02-06T10:00:00.000-08:00

The third film honored in the Israeli Apartheid Film Contest is 'Ali's Wall.'

Ali's wall, which won the Palestine Jury Prize, is the story of Ali 'Jidaar' Fathi Al-Jouri. Ali, a 16 year-old boy who lives in Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, was sentenced to eight years in prison for placing a Palestinian flag on the separation barrier which borders Aida Camp. This is his story.

Macy Gray concert: they're checking race cards at the door

2011-02-06T00:10:00.000-08:00

For background on Macy Gray's internal, and public, dilemma over whether to play in Tel Aviv, see my Mondoweiss post (for the public's opinion on the concert, see my supplementary post).

Max Blumenthal interviewed Sa'id from Na'alin village, about whether he thinks Macy Gray should play Tel Aviv.

The takeaway point is that Sa'id cannot attend the concert based on his ethnicity, not on his place of residence, as many would have you believe. Neighboring Jewish settlers, living in the West Bank, can attend the Macy Gray concert. Palestinians living in the West Bank cannot. That's a racist system. And Macy's part and parcel.

Short Film: Confront the Wall

2011-02-05T10:00:00.000-08:00

The second film honored in the Israeli Apartheid Film Contest is 'Confront The Wall,' which won the Global Jury Prize. The Grand Prize winner can be seen here.

'Confront The Wall' tells the story of the Aamer family, whose home was imprisoned in a solitary cell by the separation barrier. This short film documents the family's resistance against their imprisonment, and the support they received from Israeli and international friends.

Democracy is a virus

2011-02-05T09:27:00.000-08:00

If John McCain had beaten Obama, this is the speech he would be making:

This menacing wave washing over the Middle East is one of the gravest dangers this world has ever seen. This virus has already crept in and destroyed Tunisia. Tunisia's president was forced to leave the country to spare his own life from this awful turn of events. The virus has moved across North Africa and is currently festering in Egypt. We have recommended that President Mubarak leave the region to avoid drastic consequences of this virus. As I address you tonight, this sickness is threatening to spread to nearby Jordan and Yemen.

Our scientists and technicians have been working tirelessly to discover more about this awful virus. It seems to be targeting our allies: oppressive dictatorships and undemocratic regimes whose stability are necessary for our way of life. Our brightest minds are working to protect us from this beast which threatens not only our great nation, but all of humankind.

Citizens of this great country, this is the most dangerous time in all of modern history. But this is not a time for fear; but is instead, a time to be brave and to heed the call to defend our liberties and our freedoms. Go home tonight and hold your loved ones, look them in the eyes and tell them why this nation is a great nation, remind yourself of why we have persevered and prospered as a light on the hill for all of the world.

We will overcome this disease that threatens to undermine our way of life. We will defeat democracy and we will be free. Thank you and good night.

What do Israelis think of Egpytian solidarity protests?

2011-02-05T08:46:00.000-08:00

Palestinian citizens of Israel gathered in northern Tel Aviv in support of the anti-dictator uprising that has spread all across Egypt. An Israeli journalist was on hand to ask the opinions of Israelis who gathered to observe the protesters. The results are shocking, but not in the surprising sense of the word.

This video evokes in me a great degree of sadness. Each one of the people interviewed is motivated, in large part, by their fear. Fear of the Palestinians, of the Palestinian flag, of the Arabic language, or of Egyptian democracy. In some people, the fear has clearly morphed into anger and hatred.

Some of these Israelis refuse to accept the fact that those demonstrating in central Tel Aviv are in fact Israelis themselves. At the end of the video, those yelling at the Palestinian Israelis to return to their homes are just ignorant. The Palestinian Israelis are still in Israel because they were among the fortunate Palestinians who never had to leave their homes in 1948 or 1967. They are truly at home, but have been made a minority by the birth of Israel -- that's not necessarily a moral judgement, it's just a fact.

Those interviewed have never had a friendship with a Palestinian, much less an in-depth conversation with a Palestinian, I can nearly guarantee you of that.

It also struck me how self-centered and nationally-centered these folks were, which isn't unique to Israelis, but is (God forgive us) symptomatic of the human race. These Israelis interviewed believe Mubarak is good. Why? They believe Mubarak is good because he maintained peace with Israel, and Israel didn't have to defend itself against a hostile Egyptian state. Does calling him a man of peace have any relation whatsoever to the way he treated the Egyptian people? Does his 30-year-long torture and repression of those who expressed public dissent have any relation to whether Mubarak was a good man, was a peaceful man? No, of course not. Mubarak was good if he was good to me. He should be kept in power because his rule was good for me and my countrypeople.

Nationalism is a nasty thing. Racism is even nastier.

How would you like your democracy?

2011-02-05T07:17:00.000-08:00

(h/t Andrew Sullivan via whatstherumpus)

Art is hope; great political cartoon

2011-02-04T22:38:00.000-08:00

Best video (yet) from Cairo protests

2011-02-04T14:07:00.000-08:00

Cairo Intifada from tabulagaza on Vimeo.

New look

2011-02-04T13:03:00.000-08:00

The old template I was using on this blog was driving me crazy. From day one I never got it to look the way I wanted, it was fairly colorful and busy, and it acted so finicky when I tried to make HTML changes. So I acted on impulse and decided to change things around.

Let me know if you like the changes, color scheme, header image, widgets in sidebar, etc. I'd love your feedback.

Also, I was having a terrible time picking an image for the header. I have a LOT of images of Palestine at home (in the States) on a hard drive, but I don't have many images with me on this computer. So out of my limited supply, I was debating between two images. I actually prefer the image I didn't choose but the dimensions weren't right. I couldn't crop the height of the picture enough without cropping it right about their heads, so it resulted in a really long header. Here is the one I thought about using:

Here is the current one, to give you some perspective on the size of the headers in comparison with one another:

Whats's your preference? Let me know in the comments.

Short Film: Road Map to Apartheid

2011-02-04T04:54:00.000-08:00

Stop the Wall and itisapartheid.org collaborated to create the Israeli Apartheid Video Contest. Out of the submissions, the top 10 films were selected to be featured on itisapartheid.org. Out of those 10 films, three were chosen for higher honors. I will post these each of these three films in the coming days.

The Expert Panel Prize and Overall Prize were given to 'Road Map to Apartheid.' This 10-minute film is excerpted from a forthcoming feature-length documentary. This short film is extremely well done, containing interviews with Israeli Jews, Palestinians, and black and white South Africans. Enjoy.

(h/t to US Campaign)

Mike Huckabee: You make me sick

2011-02-04T00:03:00.000-08:00

Mike Huckabee was recently in Israel. While he was there he attended a cornerstone laying ceremony in east Jerusalem's Mount of Olives neighborhood. Just to be clear, this was a ceremony for a the building of a new settlement. The settlement lies east of the Green Line, and not one international body has officially recognized any Israeli colony east of the Green Line. Despite the lack of support for Israeli settlement, neither by an international body nor any nation state, Huckabee seems to think Israel extends from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River:

I can't let Huckabee get away with being an outright liar. Huckabee says in that video:

It is inconceivable in many ways that we would have to argue and debate whether or not Israelis can live in Israel, not just in part of Israel but anywhere they want to live. I cannot imagine as an American being told that I could not live in certain places in America because I was Christian, or because I was white, or because I spoke English. I would be outraged if someone told me that in my country, I would be prohibited and forbidden to live in a part of that country, for any reason.

Facts: Israeli Jews can live ANYWHERE in Israel they want to live. Due to international law, it is illegal for Israelis to live outside of Israel while being protected by the Israeli army. The fact is that Israelis can actually live anywhere they want in the West Bank as well, despite the clear contempt for international law in doing so, because no one is holding Israeli settlers accountable for choosing to steal land and squat on Palestinian territory. Mike, as an American, you can live anywhere in your country, just like Israeli Jews can live anywhere in their country.

Tangent: Why am I using the term Israeli Jew when speaking about those Israelis who can live anywhere in Israel? Well because 20% of the Israeli population is Arab, and due to a racist system, Israeli Arabs cannot live anywhere they choose. Israeli citizens in al-Araqib, a town in Israel's Negev Desert, have seen their village demolished nine times in the last year. Because their ethno-religious category is not Jewish, they cannot live where they would like.

The AJC reports that Huckabee presented some ideas about where Arabs living in the Holy Land should move to since the West Bank and Gaza are actually pseudonyms for Eretz Yisrael, and are to be settled by Jews and Jews only.

Huckabee suggested that a Palestinian state were to be established, it shouldn't come at Israel's expense. "There are vast amounts of territory that are in the hands of Muslims, in the hands of Arabs. Maybe the international community can come together and accommodate," he said in a meeting with reporters.

Huckabee basically presents the idea of ethnic cleansing and of the population transfer of Palestinians while cloaking the ideas in softer terms. Also, is he suggesting that we send these Palestinians to Muslims or to Arabs? Because not all Muslims are Arabs and not all Arabs are Muslims. I can't imagine Palestinians would feel terribly at home in Pakistan or Afghanistan, where they wouldn't even speak the same language as the locals. I also can't see that Palestinian Christians would feel like they were arriving to their people if they were sent to Persian and Muslim Iran. These are bigoted statements that refuse to grant Palestinians a nationality, but rather lump them all into the category of 'Muslim' and 'Arab', and I am fairly certain Huckabee doesn't distinguish between 'Arab' and 'Muslim' and doesn't acknowledge the various nationalities of brown people in the Middle East.

Huckabee has no concept of the Palestinian history of dispossession as a result of the birth of the state of Israel. He has completely flipped the reality of the current situation and seems to believe Palestinians (or 'Arabs' as he would prefer) are squatting on Jewish land. He thinks there are racist undertones and overtones in demanding that Jews stop building houses in their own country. However, the opposite is true. The Israeli apartheid system, which controls all of the land from the sea to the river, privileges Jews over non-Jews and is leading to the slow genocide of Palestinian residents of the region.

Huckabee is such a novice on this issue, and has such a myopic view of the political and demographic realities, that I would accept a public debate with him on the issue. Even more, I am hereby publicly challenge Mike Huckabee (I feel like Stephen Colbert right now) to a debate with yours truly. Bring it on Mike, I would shred you in a public debate on Israel and Palestine (and I know 200 people who could shred you infinitely harder!).

Mubarak takes a page out of Netanyahu's book; dismisses Obama while raking in the money

2011-02-03T09:54:00.000-08:00

Juan Cole, a historian of the modern Middle East and South Asia at University of Michigan, is a brilliant man with opinions and analysis that I consistently find spot on. His latest piece covers the ongoing protests in Egypt and the United States' financial support for the repressive and criminal government in Egypt. Cole connects the United States support of Egypt to their unwavering, and continually increasing, financial support of Israel. Cole doesn't mince words as he calls Israel's treatment of Palestinians a 'slow genocide' that is 'among the worst ongoing crimes of one people against another in the world.' Cole's point is that Netanyahu and Mubarak are giving Obama the finger, refusing to capitulate to his requests, yet they keep shoveling U.S. money into their pockets -- and in Mubarak's case, I mean literally, into HIS own pocket. The whole piece is pasted below because you need to read the whole thing.

It should be remembered that Egypt’s elite of multi-millionaires has benefited enormously from its set of corrupt bargains with the US and Israel and from the maintenance of a martial law regime that deflects labor demands and pesky human rights critiques. It is no wonder that to defend his billions and those of his cronies, Hosni Mubarak was perfectly willing to order thousands of his security thugs into the Tahrir Square to beat up and expel the demonstrators, leaving 7 dead and over 800 wounded, 200 of them just on Thursday morning.

It might seem surprising that Mubarak was so willing to defy the Obama administration’s clear hint that he sould quickly transition out of power. In fact, Mubarak’s slap in the face of President Obama will not be punished and it is nothing new. It shows again American toothlessness and weakness in the Middle East, and will encourage the enemies of the US to treat it with similar disdain.

The tail has long wagged the dog in American Middle East policy. The rotten order of the modern Middle East has been based on wily local elites stealing their way to billions while they took all the aid they could from the United States, even as they bit the hand that fed them. First the justification was the putative threat of International Communism (which however actually only managed to gather up for itself the dust of Hadramawt in South Yemen and the mangy goats milling around broken-down Afghan villages). More recently the cover story has been the supposed threat of radical Islam, which is a tiny fringe phenomenon in most of the Middle East that in some large part was sowed by US support for the extremists in the Cold War as a foil to the phantom of International Communism. And then there is the set of myths around Israel, that it is necessary for the well-being of the world’s Jews, that it is an asset to US security, that it is a great ethical enterprise– all of which are patently false.

On such altars are the labor activists, youthful idealists, human rights workers, and democracy proponents in Egypt being sacrificed with the silver dagger of filthy lucre.

Mubarak is taking his cues for impudence from the far rightwing government of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, which began the Middle Eastern custom of humiliating President Barack Obama with impunity. Obama came into office pledging finally to move smartly to a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Netanyahu government did not have the slightest intention of allowing a Palestinian state to come into existence. Israel was founded on the primal sin of expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in what is now Israel, and then conniving at keeping them stateless, helpless and weak ever after. Those who fled the machine guns of the Irgun terrorist group to the West Bank and Gaza, where they dwelt in squalid refugee camps, were dismayed to see the Israelis come after them in 1967 and occupy them and further dispossess them. This slow genocide against a people that had been recognized as a Class A Mandate by the League of Nations and scheduled once upon a time for independent statehood is among the worst ongoing crimes of one people against another in the world. Many governments are greedy to rule over people reluctant to be so ruled. But no other government but Israel keeps millions of people stateless while stealing their land and resources or maintaining them in a state of economic blockade and food insecurity.

The policy of the United States has been for the most part to accommodate this Israeli policy and to collaborate in the maltreatment of the Palestinians. Those states and groups that refuse to acquiesce in this egregious policy of epochal injustice are targeted by the US Congress for sanctions and branded terrorists and aggressors. As a sop to all the hundreds of millions of critics of the serial rape of the Palestinians, the US at most occasionally makes noises about achieving a “state” for them, which, however, would have no real sovereignty over its borders, its land, its air or its water. The price of such a eunuch state would be for the Palestinians to renounce their birthright and acquiesce in their expropriation and reduction to the flotsam of the earth.

And the Netanyahu government even disdained the tepid proposals of the Obama administration, for such an emasculated Palestinian “state”, which had to be willing to recognize Israel as a “Jewish” state, thus implicitly denaturalizing the 20% of the population that is Palestinian Christians and Muslims.

Because Israel’s enterprise in denying Palestinian statehood is so unnatural and so, at its fundament, immoral, it can only be pursued by the exercise of main force and by the infusion of billions of dollars a year into a poverty-stricken region. The US has in one way or another transferred over $100 billion to Israel so as to ensure it can remain a tenuous fortress on the edge of the Mediterranean, serving some US interests while keeping the millions of Palestinians in thrall.

US military aid to Israel allowed that country to prevail over Egypt in 1967 and 1973, and forced the Egyptian elite to seek an exit from ruinous wars. Anwar El Sadat decided ultimately to betray the hapless Palestinians and seek a separate peace. For removing all pressure on Israel by the biggest Arab nation with the best Arab military, Egypt has been rewarded with roughly $2 billion in US aid every year, not to mention favorable terms for importation of sophisticated weaponry and other perquisites. This move allowed the Israelis to invade and occupy part of Lebanon in 1982-2000, and then to launch massively destructive wars on virtually defenseless Lebanese and Gaza Palestinians more recently. Cairo under Mubarak is as opposed to Shiite Hizbullah in Lebanon and fundamentalist Hamas in Gaza as is Tel Aviv. The regime of Hosni Mubarak appears to have taken some sort of bribe to send substantial natural gas supplies to Israel at a deep discount. It has joined in the blockade against the civilians of Gaza. It acts as Israel’s handmaid in oppressing the Palestinians, and is bribed to do so by the US.

The US-backed military dictatorship in Egypt has become, amusingly enough, a Bonapartist state. It exercises power on behalf of both a state elite and a new wealthy business class, some members of which gained their wealth from government connections and corruption. The Egypt of the Separate Peace, the Egypt of tourism and joint military exercises with the United States, is also an Egypt ruled by the few for the benefit of the few.

The whole system is rotten, deeply dependent on exploiting the little people, on taking bribes from the sole superpower to pursue self-defeating or greedy policies virtually no one wants or would vote for in the region.

So the Palestinians objected to Obama’s plan to start back up direct negotiations with the Israelis in 2009, on the grounds that the Israelis were rapidly colonizing the Palestinian West Bank and were taking off the table the very territory over which negotiations were supposedly being conducted. Even the corrupt and timid Mahmoud Abbas, whose term as president has actually ended but who stayed on in the absence of new elections, demanded an end to new Israeli colonies in Palestinian territory (including lands unilaterally annexed to the Israeli district of Jerusalem in contravention of international law).

The Obama administration thought it had an agreement from Netanyahu to freeze settlements, and sent Joe Biden out to inaugurate the new peace promise. But when Biden came to Israel, he was humiliated by an Israeli announcement that it would build a new colony outside Jerusalem on land that Palestinians claimed. Then when the ‘settlement freeze’ in the West Bank proper came to an end during negotiations, Netanyahu announced that it would not be extended.

In other words, Netanyahu has since early 2009 taken billions in American money but told the US government to jump in a lake. The Obama administration did nothing, nothing whatsoever to punish this outrageous behavior.

So it can come as no surprise that Obama, Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been humiliated by Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. They told him to transition out of power. Instead, he on Wednesday and Thursday initiated the Massacre of Liberation Square, which has wounded nearly 1,000 people, most of them peaceful protesters.

Just as Netanyahu takes Washington’s billions but then pisses all over American policy objectives with regard to erecting a Palestinian State Lite, so Mubarak has stuffed tens of billions of dollars from Washington into his government’s pockets but has humiliated and endangered the United States.

When Netanyahu steals Palestinian property or deprives Gaza Palestinians of their livelihoods, and when Mubarak uses American military aid to crush a popular demonstration, they underline to the peoples of the Middle East that their corrupt and unacceptable situation is underwritten by Washington. That message generates fury at the United States.

As long as the president and the Congress are willing to lie down and serve as doormats for America’s supposed allies in the Middle East– out of a conviction of the usefulness of their clients and the inexpensiveness of putting them on retainer– there will be anti-Americanism and security threats that force us to subject ourselves to humiliating patdowns and scans at the airport and an erosion of our civil liberties every day. We are only one step away of being treated, with “protest zones” and “Patriot Acts” just as badly as the peaceful Egyptian protesters have been.

Lupe Fiasco - Words I Never Said

2011-02-02T08:59:00.000-08:00

Chicago MC, Lupe Fiasco, has a new song out. It's politically charged, honest, and creative.

Some of my favorite lines:

I really think the war on terror is a bunch of bullshit
Just a poor excuse for you to use up all your bullets
---
Limbaugh was a racist, Glen Beck is a racist, Ghaza strip
was gettin bombed but Obama didn't say shit
That's why I didn't vote for him, next one either
---
Jihad is not holy war, where's that in the worship?!
Murdering is not Islam and you are not observant
---
I think that all the silence is worse than all violence
Fear is such a weak emotion, that's why I despise it

Pre-packaged US State Dept templates

2011-01-31T02:35:00.000-08:00

Al Jazeera blogger Imran Garda has a great post about the U.S. response when a U.S. ally is using extreme force against peaceful protestors calling for change, or when a U.S. ally is 'bombing civilians to smithereens.' Here is the template the U.S. uses to respond to U.S. allies:

“We continue to monitor the situation and are very concerned about recent events in ______. We call for restraint on both sides. We urge President/Prime Minister/King ______ to facilitate dialogue and provide concrete steps towards a peaceful resolution.”

The response varies quite a bit if the state using disproportionate force and violating international law/human rights happens to NOT be a U.S. ally:

Luckily, there’s more flexibility if you’re not dealing with an ally - there is no stock template.

Try to throw in as many colourful condemnatory adjectives as possible. Toss in a couple of reminders of International Law, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions; dig up a few things about what Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have to say - and basically be honest.

PJ Crowley

As evidence, check out a recent tweet from US State Dept Spokesperson, PJ Crowley:

#SecClinton spoke this afternoon with FM Aboul Gheit of #Egypt. She encouraged restraint and dialogue, and offered U.S. support for reforms.

Look for the US 'ally template' being used by the State Department in the near future.

Tea, arghileh, and whiskey

2011-01-30T11:19:00.000-08:00

After about a week in the South Hebron Hills, I was able to visit one of my favorite families in the area. After being served tea, the following dialogue ensued:

"Sam, how many times did you have tea in the 4 months you were home?"

"Well, if you mean black tea with sugar...zero."

The family, in unison, let out various expressions of shock. "What! That's unbelievable," the mother exclaimed. "And how many times did you smoke arghileh (hookah) when you were in the States?"

"Not once."

Then the father of the family, the man who always lectures me about religion and often quotes 45-minute sections of the Koran, spoke loudly over the clamor of his family's questions, "Yeah and how many times did you drink whiskey? Wait, don't even answer, we know you drank whiskey every day."

Armed man kills two animals; Escapes to Havat Ma'on settlement

2011-01-28T04:12:00.000-08:00

The first day I arrived in at-Tuwani, settlers tried to prevent Palestinian from cultivating their land. The second day, a settler killed two animals belonging to a Palestinian shepherd. From CPT's release:

Two teenage shepherds reported that they were watering their family's flock at a well just above their village when a man running through the area, carrying an M-16, fired four or five shots at the dog which accompanies their flock. The shooter proceeded to chase the flock, kicking a ewe and throwing rocks at its head. The dog died immediately from four gunshot wounds and the incapacitated sheep died approximately two hours after the beating.

One of the most startling things about the incident was how the Israeli Police immediately doubted Mukhamri's account. As Mukhamri explained the details of the shooting, he was using the word 'settler' to describe the assailant. The Police detective immediately interrupted him and and asked him how he knew it wasn't an Arab. Mukhamri laughed in an irritated tone, and asked the Policeman if he had ever seen a Palestinian civilian with a gun in this area. Mukhamri offered that never in his life had he seen a Palestinian civilian carrying a firearm. Yeah, but how did you KNOW he was an Israeli? Mukhamri proceeded to describe the man's dress, including a yarmulke, which suggested he was Jewish. The description of the man's dress seemed to temporarily assuage the Policeman's doubts.

The dog looked pretty gruesome. It had four gunshot wounds, and the blood was still dripping out of the animals' nose and mouth when we arrived.

If a man can shoot, without second-thought or regard, an innocent animal with an assault rifle, what else can this man do? If a man can walk up to a pregnant ewe, throw rocks at its head and kick the animal in the face and the stomach, what else can this man do?

Israeli settlers lay in front of tractors; attempt to prohibit Palestinian agricultural work

2011-01-28T03:30:00.000-08:00

Israeli settlers, living in the West Bank in contravention of international law, engaged in a bizarre act of civil disobedience in an attempt to stop Palestinians from cultivating their own land. Despite the fact that Palestinians legally own the land, and have the paperwork to prove it, settlers were angry because they believe that their land ownership is divinely ordained. And land ownership from 'on high' certainly supersedes the ownership documents that these Palestinians still hold from the Ottoman empire. Fortunately, these Palestinian farmers wouldn't concede an inch and continued plowing as two settlers laid in the dirt on front of the tractors while other settlers mounted the tractors. The settlers' harassment wasn't enough to stop the farmers from completing their work.

An excerpt from the CPT release:

On Saturday, 22nd of January, Palestinian farmers successfully plowed fields in Khoruba valley, despite heavy harassment by settlers from the nearby settlement of Ma'on.

In the early morning, about twenty farmers from At-Tuwani started sowing seed and plowing fields in Khoruba valley, southeast from At-Tuwani. Soon thereafter, five settlers arrived from nearby Havat Ma'on outpost and positioned themselves in front of the tractors, in an attempt to prevent the farmers from completing their work. As more settlers arrived, tempers flared and the farmers attempted to move the settlers and physically block them from interfering with the land cultivation.

When the settlers first arrived they headed directly for the tractors without speaking with anyone. The army hadn't arrived yet and I feared the incident would escalate, which of course would result in Palestinians being arrested, or worse.

Picture Credit: Operation Dove (more available here)

The army soon arrived and thus commenced the charade of Palestinian farmers having to spend hours convincing the soldiers the the civil administration that their documents were legitimate and they did in fact have the right to plow this land.

A settler couple, who spoke English as a first language, came out shouting like a broken record that we were all Nazis. After realizing that calling us Nazis wasn't really getting them anywhere, they moved to a more civil discourse about Jewish right to the land and, ironically, European property rights:

The farmers were extremely positive about the outcome of the day. The civil administration had agreed to let the farmers continue working, and Israeli forces stayed in the area to keep the settlers at bay. I'm certain most farmers in the world wouldn't feel positive about antagonistic, gun-wielding land thieves jumping on and in front of their tractors. Nonetheless, the fields were plowed and will yield wheat for harvest season.

How to stay connected to CPT's work in Palestine

2011-01-28T02:51:00.000-08:00

I'm behind on updating this blog. There are only two of us in At-Tuwani at the moment which means that after a incident happens, I am writing a release, uploading and editing video and pictures, and contacting the media. Once that's done and the media has been notified, I usualy feel the need to get away from the computer, especially if I have been translating/editing video. Thus, the timeliness of posts on this blog suffers a bit.

One remedy is for you to subscribe to the CPT Palestine (actually named cpthebron) email list. After a release goes out to the press, we next send the release to the cpthebron yahoo group email list. By subscribing to this list, you will get updates as quick as we are getting them out. Follow this link to sign up for the 'cpthebron' yahoo group email list. This will require you to create a yahoo account if you don't have one, but don't fret, you won't be bombarded with yahoo spam. I would say on average we send out 1-2 releases a week on the cpthebron list.

The second remedy is to subscribe to CPTnet, via RSS or email. CPTnet includes releases, analysis, and multimedia from all of the CPT project teams; including: Palestine, Colombia, Canada (First Nations), and Iraq.

If I knew that you were all subscribed to CPTnet and/or the cpthebron yahoo group, I wouldn't be as concerned about delays in posting to this blog. So, you should go sign up for cpthebron yahoo group to get immedate releases from the CPT teams in Palestine and to alleviate my anxiety.

This wasn't supposed to be a full post, but it turned into one...

New documentary: Israeli soldiers asked to 'cleanse' neighborhoods in Gaza

2011-01-27T08:44:00.000-08:00

Israeli filmmaker, Nurit Kedar, has finished a documentary composed of a series of testimonies from Israeli soldiers about their experience in Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009. British television, Channel 4 News, ran a part of the documentary on a recent broadcast.

I hope that some of the soldiers in this film who are obviously suffering from acute trauma and PTSD are able to get some help. I hope the film gets picked up by Israeli television (it doesn't have a broadcaster at this point) and convinces some young men and women to refuse to put themselves in a position where they might be asked to kill another human being.

New Yorkers protest American company with connections to Israeli tear gas

2011-01-25T07:14:00.000-08:00

The U.S. government gives somewhere around $9 million of military aid to Israel each day. So it's no surprise that there are U.S. companies with close ties to the Israeli military. Due the rising number of deaths and injuries caused by the Israeli military's misuse and overuse of tear gas, activists are targeting the suppliers of the tear gas, which happen to be US companies.

My latest post on Waging Nonviolence (and by latest I mean Jan 14th, which goes to show that I have been quite busy since arriving in Palestine, and haven't had much time for this blog) covers a recent NY protest against one of the companies providing Israeli with tear gas canisters, Combined Systems INC.

Go read the entire thing, and sign the petitions too if you want to express your distaste with how your tax dollars are being spent.

Tunisia: A revolution happened

2011-01-19T10:21:00.000-08:00

Tunisia had a revolution, but it wasn't covered by the U.S. mainstream television media. I read a truckload of articles but haven't written anything yet. You should catch up on the situation with some simple Google searches. To sum it up, for the first time in modern history a corrupt Arab dictator was overthrown by a mass unarmed protest. It was one of the first secular revolutions in the modern Arab world. It's a big deal. Here's a great picture of a common man gunning down armed riot police with a loaf of bread.

Go see the rest of the pictures here, and then go figure out what happened in Tunis.

More Macy Gray facebook madness

2011-01-19T09:53:00.000-08:00

My last post on Macy Gray was originally going to be elaborate with lots of screen captured comments for or against her Tel Aviv concerts. Then I figured you could go read some of the responses yourselves. Then I realized how long I had taken to read the responses and take some screen captures, and how much I prefer visual posts. So now, I will put up some comments I found interesting in case you aren't gonna read all the responses on Macy's facebook page.

So again, a reminder of what Macy asked her fans:

I'm booked for 2 shows in TelAviv. I'm getting alot of letters from activists urging/begging me to boycott by NOT performing in protest of Apartheid against the Palestinians. What the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians is disgusting, but I wana go. I gotta lotta fans there I dont want to cancel on and I dont know how my NOT going changes anything. What do you think? Stay or go?

And the comments...

A totally tangential (and factually unfounded) comment. Also, did she not read what Macy actually asked people to comment on?

A commonly-voiced rationale encouraging people to speak your mind in the boycotted country, rather than boycotting:

Crucial. Palestinians can't go see the show, but Israelis can tramp around and steal land in the West Bank.

Yes, play in Palestine. The occupation strangles culture in the West Bank and Gaza. I wish more artists would challenge that strangulation by bringing their talents to Palestine.

Yes.

That's just a partial example of how the tide turned in the comments. This particular string of pro-BDS comments was about 3x that long, but my screen isn't that big.

You don't get it. Macy will be soothing the souls of Israelis who don't live under a cruel occupation. They aren't having a rough time, unless they are Israelis who are Arab, African, Mizrahim, or any other minority.

Your lives are full of political acts. Our acts affect people, which in turn make them political. We don't need a time out from reality, but we need to acknowledge what the reality is and listen to people who have suggested ways to change it.

Update: There were 300 comments on Macy Gray's blog when I drafted this post and went to eat dinner. Now its up to more than 580. My post also went up on Mondoweiss, and I keep seeing tweets telling people to go tell Macy Gray what they think.

Macy Gray criticizes Israeli policy; asks if she should play in Tel Aviv

2011-01-19T07:59:00.000-08:00

Macy Gray is reconsidering the concerts she has planned for Tel Aviv. On Facebook, Gray had the following for her fans:

I'm booked for 2 shows in TelAviv. I'm getting alot of letters from activists urging/begging me to boycott by NOT performing in protest of Apartheid against the Palestinians. What the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians is disgusting, but I wana go. I gotta lotta fans there I dont want to cancel on and I dont know how my NOT going changes anything. What do you think? Stay or go?

Before we go any further, this if fantastic. BDS opponents love to suggest that BDS stifles debate, but on the contrary, BDS fosters debate, and this is exhibit A. It's also noteworthy that Macy Gray clearly states her negative views of Israeli government policies. What the Israeli government is doing to Palestinians is, in fact, 'disgusting.' Well said, Macy.

Macy Gray's post went up on Monday and the feedback was sparse but largely supportive of her Tel Aviv concerts. The feedback significantly picked up today (January 19th) and took an overwhelming turn towards asking Gray NOT to perform in Tel Aviv. Go read the responses for yourself, and more importantly, give Macy Gray your two cents.

Note: You'll have to 'like' Gray's main page before you comment on the Tel Aviv concerts.

(h/t to @ibnezra 's tweet)

Rain: A blessing, a curse, a need for action

2011-01-13T12:43:00.000-08:00

Rain is falling outside right now. I see drops splashing on the tiny reservoir of water created by the lip on the outdoor table. I see drops appear as they fall in front the dark evergreen trees. I hear the rain hitting the garden window that protrudes from the edge of the house. I hear the rain echo through the house as it hits the metal damper of the fireplace. Rain changes the physical appearance of everything it touches, it creates a sound that is not replicated anywhere else.

I used to vacillate between tolerance and distaste of rain which varied solely on my mood. Living in Auburn, in the Sierra Nevada foothills, I usually tired of the rain in the winter. The rain in Auburn is not overwhelming, never dangerous, but I used to feel that it was inconvenient at times: getting wet running to cars, or the rain soaking your jeans and your backpack as you walked home. In San Diego, I always cherished the rain because it was so rare, although I didn't revel in rainy weather as much as my friends who were transplants from the Northwest.

Now that I have lived in the southern West Bank, a place that is dangerously starved of rain, I have learned to thank the skies for every rain that falls. As the rain now falls in the foothills, I know that the rain storm has already passed through California's San Joaquin Valley, a valley that has been hailed the 'food basket of the world,' and acknowledged for its great diversity of food production. A good, steady rain on the plowed fields of the valley will serve to nourish the plants and animals that will in turn serve to nourish the bodies of people worldwide.

Often the rain in California makes me wish I could bottle the storm, and cast the bottle to the Atlantic Ocean, on a journey to the Mediterranean. Upon arrival on the Mediterranean shore the storm-filled bottle would be earmarked for the southern West Bank. As the bottle was opened, stirring the clouds and forming precipitation, the farmers would give thanks to God for the rain which would nourish their wheat fields, fields which depend solely on rainfall. Shepherds would give thanks, knowing that the rain would bring sprouts of green grass on the hillsides, which would soon be prime food for their sheep and goats.

But I also see that rainfall has put parts of Australia under water. Brisbane is being currently described as a war zone. Last year's floods in Pakistan were devastating, killing thousands and submerging more than 1/5 of Pakistan's total land area.

The weather patterns of Earth provide sustainability for life, but severe weather systems also have the ability to destroy life, through an abundance or a scarcity of water. Those of us who live in the mediums, in places rarely experiencing life-threatening quantities of water, should give thanks. We need to drastically decrease our water consumption, so that water can be routed to places with a scarcity, or can be saved for future generations. We should reach out to those suffering from storms which threaten lives with our awareness, energies, and monies. We should also listen to the calls for the global north to work to combat global warming. Why the north? Well, because the north is responsible for the great majority of greenhouse gases. As temperatures soar, glaciers melt, and oceans rise, impoverished people and nations in the global south are placed in peril disproportionate to their contribution to the warming of the planet.

May we give thanks for the rain, which nourishes the earth. And may our thankfulness for the water we do have urge us to adopt sustainable practices which ensure the longetivity of life on earth and may it challenge us to make water available to people everywhere.

Terrorism should be expunged from the dictionary

2011-01-11T12:17:00.000-08:00

I don't have any profound thoughts on the Tucson killings. It's a tragedy when murder happens anywhere, and I don't want to trump up this killing over and above the killings happening in other places. This is a sad incident because lives were cut short that had so much potential to contribute to the betterment of this world, full stop. Likewise, the deaths of American soldiers and the deaths of Iraqis and Afghans are deaths that we as Americans should be equally outraged about (as Americans because we are implicated as voters in a democracy and financial supporters of the war through taxes).

What I do want to bring to the forefront is the way the discourse around this killing was shaped. The killer, Jared Loughner, was immediately described by the press as being mentally unstable. That seems to be accurate after seeing interviews with classmates and viewing videos Loughner published to YouTube. But when Muslims, Arabs, Arab Muslims, or even Arab Americans commit murder,the first thought is never, "oh, this person must be mentally unstable, let's find interviews and videos that might support that claim." The idea is always to find connections to violent Islamic jihadist movements that seek to target sick, free, liberal democracies in the West. I could keep ranting, but for your sake, I will present a few tweets and a blog post that really helped me to frame some of this in my own head.

From Scott Dagostino:

From Anna Lekas Miller:

From Barry Eisler:

And an excerpt from Bill Quigley's post at Dissident Voice:

Question: Why is there so little talk of terrorism?

Apparently when a mentally unstable white male is accused, terrorism is not the first thing that comes to mind.

When Clay Duke, a white male, threatened Florida school board members with a gun and shot at them before shooting himself, in December 2010, he was mentally imbalanced.

When Michael Enright, a white male, was arrested for slashing the throat of a Muslim NYC cab driver in August of 2010, his friends said he had a drinking problem.

When Byron Williams, a white male, was arrested after opening fire on police officers and admitted he was on his way to kill people at offices of a liberal foundation and a civil liberties organization, in July 2010, he was an unemployed right wing felon with a drinking problem.

When Joe Stack, a white male, flew his private plane into a federal building in Austin, Texas, in February 2010, he was angry with the IRS.

When a white male is accused of mass murder, terrorism is not much talked of; rather it becomes a terrible tragedy but not one where race or ethnicity or religion need be examined.

Now if the accused had been Muslim, does anyone doubt whether this would have been considered an act of terrorism? US Muslims could have expected increased surveillance and harassment at home and the places where they work and worship. They could have expected a Congressional inquiry into the radicalization of their people. Oh, Representative Peter King (R-NY) has already started that one!

Update: Max Blumenthal's tweet really brought the point home.

A compelling video which contains 100 other compelling stories

2011-01-07T17:52:00.000-08:00

Watch this video, it gave me the chills, it speaks the truth:

It was taken off YouTube for unknown reasons, but was replaced because of dissent to its removal. Well frankly it wasn't taken off for unknown reasons, YouTube has a long history of restricting videos that challenge empire, especially Israeli empire (a challenge, which of course, gets chalked up to antisemitism).

At 0:55 there is a picture of a man holding up a piece of paper to a cinder block home, there are Palestinians standing in the cutout window. I took this photo, and its story deserves to be told. Residents of At-Tuwani had got some supplies to built some new one-room buildings which would be used to store grain and other supplies. Soon after they were built, Israeli settlers came in the night and knocked over one of the buildings. Later, the Israeli civil administration arrived and delivered demolition orders to each of the houses. Each picture tells 1,000 words, here's the video:

Killing of Palestinian sparks protests by Israeli peace activists

2011-01-07T17:42:00.000-08:00

I neglected to post my latest piece here on my blog. In it I covered the killing of a Palestinian nonviolent demonstrator, Jawaher Abu Rahma. Jawaher Abu Rahma was killed by gross amounts of teargas fired by Israeli soldiers.

The post ran on Waging Nonviolence and was picked up by Sojourners. I was pleased to see Sojourners pick it up. When Sojourners comes up in Google the subtitle for their site is, 'Christians for Peace and Justice.' And yeah, Christians who care about peace and justice should care about the killing of nonviolent activists struggling for their freedom. But it's rare that Christian publications pick up things so overtly political. Right on Sojo.

I've barely had the time to keep up myself with all the fallout of the Jawaher Abu Rahma killing. Following the incident the IDF tried to say that Jawaher wasn't even present at the protest, then they said she had a pre-existing condition, then she had cancer, then she didn't even die at the hospital like Palestinian reports claimed, then they held a session where a bunch of right-wing bloggers crafted a narrative of the death with the help of the IDF in an attempt to counter all of those who actually saw her inhale tear gas at the protest and then watched her die. Their attempts to cover up their killing of a woman who did nothing wrong, whatsoever, and their denial of the lethal-potential of CS gas (which has been widely abandoned because of its toxicity) is shameful.

Democracy Now ran a great piece on the IDF's attempt to discount the facts in which they interviewed two Israelis who were at the protest. A lot of IDF story-shifting countered by activists who presented the facts and the evidence has transpired since the Democracy Now piece, but it still provides a pretty solid summary of the events surround Jawaher Abu Rahma's death.

Settlers set fire to home as seven Palestinians sleep inside

2010-12-31T10:53:00.000-08:00

So there seems to be a trend starting, but it's a good trend, don't worry. The posts that I spend more time on, are ending up on other sites before they end up here on Do Unto Others. This blog gets pretty low readership, whereas sites like Mondoweiss, Electronic Intifada, and Waging Nonviolence get significantly more hits. So if I can submit a piece to one of those sites, or somewhere else with good readership, then that's what I will do because it makes sense to reach the biggest audience you can without watering down your message. So if you are a reader of this blog and you feel neglected, don't. You're still getting access to the same content, and you'll get to see me the same amount of time, but you'll just have to share me with more people.

My latest piece is on Mondoweiss. Here's a nice summary:

In the incident which occurred on 29 December 2010, there were seven members of a family asleep in the tent when settlers set fire to the structure. Fortunately, a hajji (an elderly matriarch) was awake and heard the dogs warning of the intruders.

Friendly, Sabbath-respecting Israeli settlers set fire a family's dwelling as they were sleeping inside it.

On the topic of suicide bombing

2010-12-26T23:00:00.000-08:00

I just finished Talal Asad's, On Suicide Bombing, a series of lectures which were put together in book form. The book is comprised of philosophical reflections on Western societies' horror at the act of suicide terrorism. Why do we respond to suicide attacks with horror then turn and give tacit approval to massive death dealt by state armies? Asad posits a series of explanations for the horror expressed at killing (and dying) through the mode of suicide attack, that I may elaborate on in a later post. For now, here's an excerpt:

The perception that human life has differential exchange value in the marketplace of death when it comes to 'civilized' and 'uncivilized' peoples is not only quite common in liberal democratic countries, it is necessary to the hierarchical global order. It is quite true that the death of poor people in the world does not matter as much as the death of people in affluent societies. In saying this and acting on this belief, the patterns of living and dying in the world come to be affected by it.

Arab-Americans have intelligent voices!?

2010-12-22T11:41:00.000-08:00

Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the Washington-based Palestine Center, writes on the need for the United States to find a backbone. Big ups to the LA Times for publishing an op-ed from another eloquent, educated Arab-American. Not many other major US newspapers even consider publishing Arab voices when it comes to Israel-Palestine.

Generally, the incentive to rectify bad behavior in the international community — behavior like expanding settlements despite road map obligations and international law — is delivered by sticks, not carrots. But the deal offered to Israel, which included billions of dollars' worth of advanced F-35s in exchange for a 90-day freeze, was all carrot and no stick.

Read the whole thing.

Israel frees one Palestinian nonviolent leader, continues to imprison another

2010-12-22T10:39:00.000-08:00

My latest at Waging Nonviolence covers the ongoing cases of Palestinian peace activists Adeeb and Abdullah Abu Rahmah. Adeeb was recently released after serving more than 18 months in prison on trumped-up charges of incitement. Abdullah was due to be released on 10 December 2010 but remains in prison due to an appeal by the state prosecution.

A plethora of human rights organizations and public figures have condemned the conviction and unlawful imprisonment of Abdullah Abu Rahmah, including the European Union.

Unsurprisingly, the United States has not followed the lead of their fellow Quartet member, but has instead remained silent throughout Abdallah Abu Rahmah’s show trial. Associated Press reporter, Matthew Lee, recently brought Abu Rahmah’s case to the attention of Assistant Secretary of State, P.J. Crowley, in consecutive U.S. State Department briefings.

Read the full article to see photos and videos and to get the full scoop.