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Knesset approves first reading of bill to extend Israeli law over West Bank museums
Haaretz 20 July -- The Knesset passed a preliminary reading on Wednesday of a bill that would extend Israeli law to museums in West Bank settlements. The bill passed by a vote of 51 to 9. According to its creator, National Union MK Uri Ariel, the bill is the first in a series whose purpose is to strengthen Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank and put an end to the "humiliating discrimination" against the settlers.
It has been nearly seven months since I wrote, "The Phantom Menace: Fantasies, Falsehoods, and Fear-Mongering about Iran's Nuclear Program" (posted here on Mondoweiss), a time-line of false U.S., Israeli, and European assertions regarding the supposed inevitability and immediacy of a nuclear-armed Iran, hysterical allegations that have been made repeatedly for the past thirty years. Whenever new predictions and claims about Iran's nuclear program are released, I have added updates to my original piece. To read all 47 updates, click here. Here is the latest:
Alarmist editorializing about Iran, its regional influence, and its nuclear energy program has picked up considerably in the past few weeks. In the wake of the latest IAEA report this past Spring which revealed no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, a hefty Sy Hersh article confirming that all 16 American intelligence agencies still stand by their 2007 assessment that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and the potential for a large-scale U.S. withdrawal from Iraq at the end of the year, career fear-mongers have been hard at work trying to re-raise the Iranian threat level from mild khaki to frantic crimson.
An opinion piece published last night in the Wall Street Journal is a perfect example of the heightened hysteria. The article, entitled "America's Intelligence Denial on Iran", was written by former CIA agent Fred Fleitz, a neoconservative Bomb Iraner who served as John Bolton's State Department chief of staff and is currently a columnist for the right-wing outlet Newsmax.
In May of 2010, the Mavi Marmara sailed from Turkey with the mission of reaching Gaza. Remember? I will not go into details of what may or may not have happened, or what was or was not being transported, aboard that ship and its companions while they were in international waters.
At the time, Eli Yishai (Shas) also requested of the Attorney General that he be permitted to strip her of her Israeli citizenship [PDF] under the premise that her participation in the flotilla constituted treason.
Further, on June 7, 2010, the Knesset House Committee tasked with debating her punishment “recommended that the Knesset plenum rescind three of MK Zoabi’s rights as a member of Knesset (denial of rights requires the plenum’s approval): the right to exit the country; the right to hold a diplomatic passport; and the right to payment by the Knesset of a portion of a member of Knesset’s legal expenses if prosecuted for a legal offense. “ [PDF]
In the end, she did lose these privileges, though she was allowed to travel to countries with diplomatic relations to Israel.
Perhaps the most demonstrative insult hurled at MK Zoabi throughout this diplomatic and often-childish melee was a fake Iranian passport with her name and picture in it.
Fast forward one year. The French yacht, the lone remainder of the 2011 Flotilla, has been diverted to Ashdod and its passengers deported. On its heels, as if by clockwork, the Knesset stripped MK Zoabi of what remained of her parliamentary privileges and responsibilities; she has been reduced to near-observer status in the Knesset.
An excellent point from the great Henry Siegmanat Huffington Post. It is about the power of the Israel lobby in American politics, on the Democratic side too. And so the question is: Why is Obama nullifying his own ideas in favor of a Republican neoconservative's ideas? Didn't Obama whup the neocons in '08? No: the neocons have a beachhead inside the Democratic Party because the neocons are the hawkish part of the Jewish family and we are simply too important in Democratic politics to be cast aside. Siegman excerpt-- here he urges Obama to hold Israel to the '67 lines to create a Palestinian stat and concludes with that Abrams wisdom:
Today in Charlotte, North Carolina, CREF, part of TIAA-CREF (Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America and the College Retirement Equities Fund), a $400 billion finanical services, investment and retirement company, held its annual shareholders’ meeting. The company elected trustees, considered shareholder resolutions and “any other business that may properly come before the meeting.” This year, however, was not business as usual.
TIAA-CREF states, “our socially screened funds and accounts invest in companies that satisfy environmental, social and governance criteria...” As a socially responsible investor, the company has attracted the portfolios of people like myself in the academic, cultural, research, and medical fields, and has become one of the largest retirement funds in the world. It is dedicated to the nonprofit sector and recently divested from assets in Sudan due to concerns about human rights violations in that country.
So what happens when a group of shareholders, organized by a national Jewish peace group, asks TIAA-CREF to divest from companies that profit from or maintain the Israeli occupation? It seems that despite the Arab Spring and a growing recognition of Arabs as fellow human beings, human rights do not apply equally to everyone.
We are not talking about subtle accusations. These companies:
· Supply armor-plated and weaponized bulldozers to destroy Palestinian homes and olive orchards in the West Bank and Gaza (Caterpillar);
· Run segregated bus services for Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories and manage the Tovlan landfill in the Jordan Valley, dumping trash from Jewish settlements and Israel into the West Bank (Veolia);
According to B'Tselem, a human rights organization that uploaded the video, on June 18 IDF forces came to arrest a youth from the village for allegedly throwing stones when his cousin stopped the IDF officer to try to prevent the arrest.
The video shows the IDF officer, a First Lieutenant, shouting and pushing the Palestinian man and then immediately cocking his loaded gun into the man's face. When the man continued to fight with him, the IDF officer again pointed the gun at him.
The use of sport to unite children divided by street violence and traumatized by war is a compelling idea. 'Serious Play: The Goal is Peace' is the title of a 7 July Huffington Post article by Alison Craiglow Hockenberry. It opens with the anecdote of a young Jürgen Griesbeck overcoming the murder of his friend in Colombia in 1994 by founding a program called Football for Peace, which brings at-risk kids together to play in Medellín, “one of the most dangerous and violent cities in the world”. Next up is the story of Palestinian children, of whom interviewee Hani Qattan of PACES - the Palestinian Association for Children's Encouragement of Sports is quoted as saying, "are exposed to drugs, smoking, and... extremism that may result in violence" if they are left idle in the street. Looking at the PACES website homepage, these young girls do not look like potential terrorists, but never mind, they are Palestinian. That is why the Peres Centre for Peace, established in 1996 by current Israeli president Shimon Peres, who has played a prominent role in successive Israeli wars of choice, inflicting death and suffering on countless children, has stepped in with its ‘Twinned Peace Sport School’ to bring over 2,000 Palestinian and Israeli kids together on teams to play and compete.
Hockenberry is not strong on political context, but the two words ‘Israeli occupation’ would have gone a long way to explaining the dark future envisioned for these children. Those words do not appear on the website of the Centre with the oxymoronic name either; instead we are warned of 'the dire situation that exists in certain areas of the Palestinian Authority as a result of the lack of infrastructural development and continuing conflict'. The Sport School is an initiative for Israeli, ‘Arab-Israeli’ and Palestinian children from the ‘Palestinian Authority’. Fragmentation being a major tool of Israeli control, children from the besieged Gaza Strip need not apply. We learn that ‘most of the participating Israeli communities are within 40 kilometers of the Gaza Strip’, and as such during the 2008/9 Israeli Operation Cast Lead massacre in Gaza, ‘it was forbidden by the Israeli Home Front Command to gather for outdoor activities… Furthermore, demonstrations in the West Bank which resulted in general strikes also limited the amount of activities held on the Palestinian side.’ The clear implication is that it was Palestinian terrorist activity and revolts that threatened to ‘setback’ the program. Last year, Mr Dawood Hammoudeh, a researcher at Stop the Wall NGO, told the Palestine Monitor about the use of sports for pro-Israel propaganda. The Peres Centre organised a mixed Israeli/Palestinian football team to play Barcelona FC in Spain in 2005: "'It was a response to the Spanish boycott movement of Israeli football, an attempt to improve Israel’s image'".
Marty Peretz is back on his soapbox again positing hostility towards Israel is "fashionable" for "chic progressives". Hey Marty, it's the apartheid. I learned something new about Marty from this article, his hero is George Washington. I wonder if he read Washington's Farewell Address to the nation? Money quote:
Settlers ‘attack’ foreign observers near Hebron BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 19 July — Three settlers from the illegal Havat Maon settlement south of Hebron attacked a group of internationals on Monday in the Meshakna valley, a Christian peace group said. “Around 6.35 p.m. three settlers attacked two members of Operation Dove and one member of the Christian [...]
Walter Russell Mead is the apotheosis of the American establishment in our time, which tends to make his pronouncements of great profundity exercises in extreme silliness. With that noted, he wrote on his blog yesterday, for some strange reason having to do with the anniversary of the publication of Mein Kampf, a courageous stand against [...]
Lately Samah Sabawi offered a critique of the New Israel Fund’s stance on boycott-divestment-sanctions at this site. A response from NIF: The article by Samah Sabawi, regarding Professor Naomi Chazan’s visit to Australia and our organization’s stance on global BDS, deserves response. The New Israel Fund arrived at its current BDS policy after much thoughtful [...]
Why isn’t the New York Times doing this cutting-edge journalism? Harriet Sherwood of the Guardian goes out with Gaza fishing boats to see what they are up against, and as Israeli gunboats close in on them inside Gazan waters she files a bunch of frightening tweets. If the Times did this kind of journalism, it [...]
A week or so back Jerome Slater published a piece on the right of return, to which Weiss responded last Friday. Slater’s response: My blog on the right of return was a response to Michael Walzer’s comment on the Dissent weblog that the “no Palestinian has even hinted at a willingness to give up the [...]
Is Murdoch’s reversal good for the Jews/Israel? is the only question for the JTA. And no it isn’t! Murdoch who has made philo-semitism a great principle of action, who said that the world can’t survive without Israel… “’Is this curtains for pro-Israel Murdoch?’ the London Jewish Chronicle asked in a column last week.” Etc. (Thanks [...]
The French-flagged ship, Dignité – al Karama, was halted by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) en route to the shores of Gaza this morning. The small vessel was boarded and reportedly towed to the Israeli port of Ashdod. There were 16 people on the boat, with French, Greek, Tunisian, Canadian, and Swedish passengers among them. As coalition organizers stated, [...]
This is fabulous. Eli Clifton at Think Progress has blown the lid off the funding for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, the neocon shop that helped give us the Iraq war and that “has become one of the the premiere DC organizations promoting more aggressive actions against Iran.” The people who underwrite this [...]
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has now publicly expressed his opposition to two highly partisan Yisrael Beitenu-intiated bills that threaten to further undermine Israeli democracy and the automony of Israeli human rights groups, though the PM says he won’t ask the rest of Likud to follow his lead. The refusal to enforce party discipline over this [...]
A few years ago Terry Gross of Fresh Air attacked Jimmy Carter for using the word “apartheid” to describe the situation in the Occupied Territories. How will she reckon with Shlomo Gazit? How many Americans and American Jews will even contend with a retired Major General in the IDF, a past head of the intelligence [...]
From the US Boat to Gaza: Earlier today, the Israeli navy took control of the one boat from Freedom Flotilla II that had made it into international waters on their way to Gaza. The French-flagged boat – Dignite/Al Karama – carried 16 people from France, Canada, Greece, Sweden and Tunisia. They were stopped about 40 [...]
Big hasbara push to annex the Palestinian territories today. We’ve got Glick making her appeal on JPost, annex or else “national suicide”. There’s Danny Danon, a member of Knesset, on public radio saying that “when the so-called Palestinians are threatening to take their bid for Statehood to the UN,” it is “an opportunity to annex [...]
Boulos is a longtime friend of this site, a pseudonymous Palestinian-American scholar with a doctorate from an east coast school. Last week he sent Weiss several letters from Cairo following a visit to Israel. These emails are so powerful that we sought Boulos’s permission to publish them, with some edits to preserve his anonymity, because [...]
Another Republican standing by Israel no matter what. Will the Democrats politicize this issue? Can Ron Paul? Someone, please. Or maybe Obama has decided not to attack Iran, but he cannot say so? Too politically damaging? From Washington Times:
Have you noticed that the boycott movement is largely ignored by the mainstream American press? The nonviolent movement to bring human rights to Palestine– overlooked. The new Israeli law against boycott advocacy may thaw this policy. Desmond Tutu got a piece into the Charlotte Observer this past weekend endorsing the Jewish Voice for Peace initiative! [...]
From Public Radio international, a feel-good story by Matthew Bell about an Israeli doctor treating patients in Tel Aviv who are ferried to him from Gaza: One of the doctors working on Odai [al-Kefarna]’s case was Akiva Tamir. While the vast majority of Israelis have almost no personal contact with Palestinians anymore, Tamir is an [...]
From Joseph Dana on +972: A new film by Israeli director Ra’anan Alexandrowicz tackles the issue of military courts in the West Bank like it has never been investigated on film. Israel’s military legal justice system in the West Bank has been treated on +972 in relatively great detail especially in reference to the unarmed [...]
In the Independent. Catrina Stewart reporting. Is this in the New York Times? Why isn’t it on the front page. For as the Independent tells us, these are the people, the settlers, who have pwn’d Barack Obama:
