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By Robert Barsocchini

As Saudi Arabia, backed and coordinated by the United States, continues a war of aggression against Yemen, the US has decided to sell Saudi dictator Salman bin Abdulaziz four more warships as well as munitions and other equipment valued at $11.25 billion.

Saudi Arabia is currently using US ships to block food, fuel, and medical supplies from entering Yemen, with US-manned ships “patrolling alongside”. Doctors Without Borders has reported that the blockade is “killing as many people in Yemen as the bombing”, and the Red Cross and other groups have said it is causing a humanitarian crisis, as Yemen imports almost one hundred percent of its food.

While nationalist news outlet Reuters asserts that deals like the current weapons shipment to Saudi Arabia are “carefully vetted”, independent investigative journalist Gareth Porter asked the Obama regime about the clear “illegality of resupplying further munitions to the Saudis”, and was told only that the US has asked King Abdulaziz to investigate himself regarding his war crimes.

US government sources told Reuters that “Saudi Arabia’s concerns about Iran” hastened the new weapons deal. Sources failed to mention that among these “concerns” is that Iran’s influence might bring democratic reform to the Saudi kingdom.

Reuters quotes another anonymous US government source who says that by using the Saudis as a proxy to destabilize, starve, and spread Saudi-style despotism to Yemen through war of aggression, the US is “promoting peace and stability”. Since the US/Saudi campaign against Yemen began, al Qaeda and ISIS have both made major gains in that country.

Obama has a history of large arms sales to the Saudis. The “world’s largest” arms trafficker and peace prize winner secured the biggest arms sale in US history in 2010, stocking the Saudi dictator with $60 billion in lethal weaponry and equipment, and later hundreds of millions of dollars in banned cluster bombs, which the dictator has since used against Yemenis.

Robert Barsocchini focuses on force dynamics, national and global, and also writes professionally for the film industry. Updates on Twitter.

22 October, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Ali Abunimah

Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly asserted that Adolf Hitler had no intention of exterminating Europe’s Jews until a Palestinian persuaded him to do it.

The Israeli prime minister’s attempt to whitewash Hitler and lay the blame for the Holocaust at the door of Palestinians signals a major escalation of his incitement against and demonization of the people living under his country’s military and settler-colonial rule.

It also involves a good deal of Holocaust denial.

In a speech to the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Netanyahu asserted that Haj Amin al-Husseini convinced Hitler to carry out the killings of 6 million Jews.

Al-Husseini was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the highest clerical authority dealing with religious issues pertaining to the Muslim community and holy sites during the 1920s and ‘30s, when Palestine was under British rule.

He was appointed to the role by Herbert Samuel, the avowed Zionist who was the first British High Commissioner of Palestine.

In the video above, Netanyahu claims that al-Husseini “had a central role in fomenting the final solution. He flew to Berlin. Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here.’ ‘So what should I do with them?’ he asked. ‘Burn them!’”

There is no record of such a conversation whatsoever, and Netanyahu provides no evidence that it ever took place.

The Mufti did meet Hitler, once, but their 95-minute conversation took place on 28 November 1941. Husseini used it to try to secure the Führer’s support for Arab independence, as historian Philip Mattar explains in his book The Mufti of Jerusalem.

By then, Hitler’s plans to exterminate the Jews were already well under way.

Hitler’s orders

In her classic history The War Against the Jews, Lucy Davidowicz writes about the preparations among Hitler’s top lieutenants to carry out the genocide: “Sometime during that eventful summer of 1941, perhaps even as early as May, Himmler summoned Höss to Berlin and, in privacy, told him ‘that the Führer had given the order for a Final Solution of the Jewish Question,’ and that ‘we, the SS, must carry out the order.’”

She adds: “In the late summer of 1941, addressing the assembled men of the Einsatzkommandos at Nikolayev, he [Himmler] ‘repeated to them the liquidation order, and pointed out that the leaders and men who were taking part in the liquidation bore no personal responsibility for the execution of this order. The responsibility was his alone, and the Führer’s.’”

Davidowicz also explains that “In the summer of 1941, a new enterprise was launched – the construction of the Vernichtungslager – the annihilation camp. Two civilians from Hamburg came to Auschwitz that summer to teach the staff how to handle Zyklon B, and in September, in the notorious Block 11, the first gassings were carried out on 250 patients from the hospital and on 600 Russian prisoners of war, probably ‘Communists’ and Jews …”

According to Netanyahu’s fabricated – and Holocaust denialist – version of history, none of this could have happened. It was all the Mufti’s idea!

The Mufti in Zionist propaganda

Why would Netanyahu bring up the Mufti now and in the process whitewash Hitler?

The bogus claim that the Mufti had to persuade reluctant Nazis to kill Jews has been pushed by other anti-Palestinian propagandists, notably retired Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz.

As Columbia University professor Joseph Massad notes in his 2006 book The Persistence of the Palestinian Question, Haj Amin al-Husseini has long been a favorite theme of Zionist and Israeli propaganda.

Husseini “provided the Israelis with their best propaganda linking the Palestinians with the Nazis and European anti-Semitism,” Massad observes.

The Mufti fled British persecution and went to Germany during the war years.

Massad writes that al-Husseini “attempted to obtain promises from the Germans that they would not support the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine. Documents that the Jewish Agency produced in 1946 purporting to show that the Mufti had a role in the extermination of Jews did no such thing; the only thing these unsigned letters by the Mufti showed was his opposition to Nazi Germany’s and Romania’s allowing Jews to emigrate to Palestine.”

Yet, he adds, “the Mufti continues to be represented by Israeli propagandists as having participated in the extermination of European Jews.”

Citing Peter Novick, the University of Chicago history professor who authored The Holocaust in American Life, Massad notes that in the four-volume Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, sponsored by Israel’s official memorial Yad Vashem, “the article on the Mufti is twice as long as the articles on [top Nazi officials] Goebbels and Göring and longer than the articles on Himmler and Heydrich combined.”

The entry on Hitler himself is only slightly longer than the one on Husseini.

In a 2012 article for Al Jazeera, Massad explains that “Zionism would begin to rewrite the Palestinian struggle against Jewish colonization not as an anti-colonial struggle but as an anti-Semitic project.”

Keystone of Zionist mythology

The story of the Mufti has thus become a keystone for the Zionist version of Palestinian history, which leaves out a basic fact: the Zionist movement’s infamous agreement with Hitler’s regime as early as 1933 .

The so-called Transfer Agreement facilitated the emigration of German Jews to Palestine and broke the international boycott of German goods launched by American Jews.

Massad explains: “Despairing from convincing Britain to stop its support of the Zionist colonial project and horrified by the Zionist-Nazi collaboration that strengthened the Zionist theft of Palestine further, the Palestinian elitist and conservative leader Haj Amin al-Husseini (who initially opposed the Palestinian peasant revolt of 1936 against Zionist colonization) sought relations with the Nazis to convince them to halt their support for Jewish immigration to Palestine, which they had promoted through the Transfer Agreement with the Zionists in 1933.”

Indeed, the Mufti would begin diplomatic contacts with the Nazis in the middle of 1937, four years after the Nazi-Zionist co-operation had started.

Ironically, Massad adds, “It was the very same Zionist collaborators with the Nazis who would later vilify al-Husseini, beginning in the 1950s to the present, as a Hitlerite of genocidal proportions, even though his limited role ended up being one of propagandizing on behalf of the Nazis to East European and Soviet Muslims on the radio.”

It should be kept in mind that many Third World nationalist movements colonized by the British were also sympathetic to the Nazis, including Indian nationalists. This was primarily based on the Nazis’ enmity toward their British colonizers, and not based on any affinity with the Nazis’ racialist ideology. It was certainly on this basis that India’s Congress Party opposed the British declaration of war on Germany, as Perry Anderson notes in The Indian Ideology.

Indeed, the Mufti made it clear to the Germans as well as to the fascist government of Benito Mussolini in Italy, as Mattar states, that he sought “full independence for all parts of the Arab world and the rescue of Palestine from British imperialism and Zionism. He stressed that the struggle against the Jews was not of a religious nature, but for Palestinian existence and for an independent Palestine.”

That Husseini met Hitler and had relations with the Nazis is no secret. But the fabrications of Netanyahu and other Zionists should be seen for what they are: an attempt to falsely blame Palestinians for Europe’s genocide of Jews and in the process erase from memory Zionism’s own collaborationist history with Hitler’s genocidal regime.

This vile propaganda can have no other purpose than to further dehumanize Palestinians and justify Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing and murder.

Netanyahu’s attempt to blame Palestinians for the Holocaust is itself a form of genocidal incitement.

Ali Abunimah is Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

22 October, 2015
Electronic Intifada

By Ramzy Baroud

My first stop, after living for 22 years in a refugee camp in Gaza, was the city of Seattle, a pleasant, green city, where people drink too much coffee to cope with the long, cold, grey winters. There, for the first time, I stood before an audience outside Palestine, to speak about Palestine.

Here, I learned, too, of the limits imposed on the Palestinian right to speak, of what I could or should not say. Platforms for an impartial Palestinian discourse were extremely narrow to begin with, and when any was available, Palestinians hardly took center stage.

It was touching, nonetheless. Ordinary Americans, mostly from leftist and socialist groups defended Palestinian rights, held vigils following every Israeli massacre and handed out pamphlets to interested or apathetic pedestrians.

However, after spending almost two decades living in the US, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and travelling across the globe to speak about human rights – starting with Palestinian rights, history and struggle – I began to grasp the seriousness of an unmistakable trend: where the Palestinian narrative is marginalized and fundamentally misunderstood.

Back in the day, common justifications included: there were not enough Palestinian intellectuals around to speak for themselves; or that the benevolent leftists who took charge of the Palestinian story spent a week in Ramallah and another in Jerusalem, thus they were capable of enunciating the Palestinian experience; or that the struggle of Palestine is part of a larger battle against imperialism, thus one socialist speaker can mention Palestine, along with Cuba, Angola and Indochina in one, all-encompassing paragraph; or that Jewish speakers were more credible, because they are closer to the consciousness of American and western audiences; and so forth.

So it was not uncommon to see an entire two-day conference on Palestine divided into several sessions and many workshops without a single Palestinian on the podium.

Things began to change in recent years, though, especially following the massive shift that the internet and social media has brought about. However, the frame of mind that neglected or avoided the Palestinian narrative has not been defeated completely.

The problem is not a matter of adding a Mohammed, an Elias or a Fatima on the list of speakers as a token to show that Palestinians are incorporated into a discussion which is essentially about them, their past and future. It is, rather, the failure to appreciate the authenticity of the Palestinian narrative to the central discourse of the ‘Palestine-Israel conflict’ at every available platform, be it political, academic, cultural, artistic or in the media.

Thanks to the efforts of thousands of people around the world, there has been a solid push to bring the Palestinian to the fore; alas, it is not enough, because the challenge is multi-pronged.

There is a generational gap, where men of past generations think that the most clever way of reaching the hearts and minds of their countrymen is by obscuring the real Palestinian, whose language, historical references, priorities and expectations might be too alien to, say, an American audience. It is best, they believe, to have sympathetic voices, ‘from the other side’, to address Palestinian grievances.

An equivalent to this would be having sympathetic British, Afrikaans or Germans address the historical plights of Indians, South Africans or Jews and other victims of Nazi atrocities. Not only is it unacceptable, it is also destined to fail.

Even Palestinian themselves, who came from a generation that never stood, or were given the chance to stand at a podium, remain unable to appreciate the value of a genuine Palestinian story, that reflects the language of the fellahin, the refugees and the resisting women and men throughout Palestine and the region. They seek to tell their stories through apologists, ‘soft-Zionists’ and half-hearted supporters because they are defeated psychologically, having been blinded themselves by elitist propaganda that has been churned out over generations. Ultimately this is dangerous as it dilutes the reality of the Palestinian struggle, and distorts authentic history.

The media discrepancies are far more pronounced. The moral crisis in mainstream western media on the subject of Palestine requires volumes, and much has, indeed, been written about it. Palestinian intellectuals in that field are either of the ‘native informants’ variety, as described by Edward Said, or are also used and abused, such as being attacked personally for holding the views that they do. Either way, mainstream media has utterly failed to bring about any measurable change in its biased attitude towards Palestine and its long-suffering people.

The struggle in Palestine requires – in fact, demands – global solidarity, a critical mass of a support base that is enough to turn the tide against the violent Israeli occupation, incorporating governments and companies that currently support, sustain and bankroll Israel’s daily crimes against Palestinians.

Once and for all, there has to be a decisive recasting of roles regarding what solidarity actually means, and how Palestinians fit in as the protagonists of their own story. The first step is that we must learn not to conflate between solidarity and assuming the role of the Palestinian himself or herself.

Palestinian history, from a Palestinian point of view, remains an enigma in the minds of so many Palestinian supporters. That version of the Palestinian narrative, as told by people who lived, experienced and are capable of accurately and clearly depicting their own reality is overshadowed by alternative depictions of that same reality.

For example, some find the media narrative of the Israeli newspaper, ‘Haaretz’, quite adequate, despite the fact that it is operated by Israeli, Zionist Ashkenazi men who represent a distinctive Israeli idea of the ‘left’ which, of course, has little to do with the left outside Israel. For some readers, then, both sides of the media narratives are actually addressed by two groups of Israelis, the right and the left, who, in actuality are in agreement regarding most of the tragedies that have befallen Palestinians, starting with the Nakba.

Once more, imagine the formerly colonized India, Apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany being the subject of this discussion in order to understand the intellectual failure to appreciate the centrality of the Palestinian to the Palestinian narrative, whether deliberately flouted or otherwise.

As Palestinians are once more rebelling against the Israeli occupation, we ought to also confront past misconceptions and mistakes. We live in an age where a generation of well-educated and articulate Palestinians are extensively present in hundreds of top universities, media companies, including in theater, film and every other educational and cultural facet around the Middle East and the world. Palestine, itself, is rife with numerous journalists and eloquent women and men, who can do the Palestinian account much justice.

It is time to give them the microphone, let them speak, and let us all listen. We have 67 years of catching up to do.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include ‘Searching Jenin’, ‘The Second Palestinian Intifada’ and his latest ‘My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story’. His website is: www.ramzybaroud.net.

22 October, 2015
Countercurrents.org

By Alan Hart

In his major speech at Cairo University on 4 June 2009 which he labelled as marking “a new beginning” in the relationship between the Islamic world and the West, President Obama described the. Palestinian situation as “intolerable”. And he put flesh on that bone by saying, “They endure the daily humiliations, large and small, that come with occupation.”

He also said the only resolution of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel “is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.”

He then gave this commitment:

QUOTE

That (the two-state solution) is in Israel’s interest, Palestine’s interest, America’s interest, and the world’s interest. That is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience that the task requires.

UNQUOTE

More than six years on all that is left of that commitment is its rhetoric.

On Obama’s watch the pace of Israel’s colonization of the occupied West Bank, on-going ethnic cleansing slowly and by stealth, has been speeded up and confirmed what has long been the case – that the two-state solution is dead and cannot be resurrected.

It’s true that quite early in his presidency Obama called for a halt to illegal Israeli settlement activity but Prime Minister Netanyahu effectively told him to go to hell.

The evidence that supports my headline for this article was in one of Obama’s responses to the current upsurge of violence and killing in Israel/Palestine. To his repeated assertion that two states was “the only solution” he added that it (a peaceful resolution of the conflict) “is up to the parties.”

Given that one of the two parties, the Zionist (not Jewish) state, has no intention of making peace on terms the other could accept, Obama’s words can mean only one thing. He was effectively saying, “In what is left of my presidency I have no intention of using the leverage I have to try to cause Israel to end its defiance of international law and denial of justice for the Palestinians.”

That would have been the sweetest music to the ears of Israel’s Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked. Speaking at a conference in Washington D.C. she said: “We are against a Palestinian state. There is not and never will be a Palestinian state.”

There is still some speculation that because he loathes Netanyahu and all he represents Obama may decide that America should not veto any future Security Council resolutions that are critical of Israel and demand that it be serious about peace on terms the Palestinians could accept. But even if Obama did refuse to appease Zionism by saying “No” to another America veto, that would change nothing on the ground in Israel-Palestine.

It is interesting to recall that way back in February 2011 when he was running against Obama for the White House, Republican Mitt Romney said Obama “has thrown Israel under a bus”.

That was Romney’s response to an Obama statement that not only called for a two-state solution but said that Israel’s pre-1967 war borders should roughly guide the formation of a Palestinian state though some land could be swapped.

Given the way things are today and look like going my speculation is that future honest historians will conclude that Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby in America threw Obama under the bus.

I myself would go one stage further and say that Obama threw the Palestinians under the bus.

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent. He is author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs at http://www.alanhart.net and tweets via http://twitter.com/alanauthor

22 October, 2015
Countercurrents.org

By Shobha Shukla

(CNS): The world is agog with excitement at the recent adoption by the 70th UN General Assembly, of the new framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, composed of 17 goals and 169 targets to wipe out poverty, fight inequality and tackle climate change over the next 15 years. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, hails these goals as “A blueprint for a better future…. to transform the world. We must leave no-one behind.”

Justin Kilcullen, co-chair of CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness (CPDE), and Paul Quintos of IBON International spoke with CNS (Citizen News Service) on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, on the implications of these goals to the people for whom they are actually meant.

“We should rejoice in what we have achieved, but we must not believe that it is going to be easy,” Justin remarked pertaining to the advance of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) compared to its predecessor MDGs.

Critics point out that one of the main flaws of the MDGs is the lack of ownership and engagement – something the SDGs have the potential to overcome. During the last 15 years, the world has seen an increasing engagement of citizens, NGOs and government organizations around issues of development. “The challenge now lies in governments fulfilling their commitments to the people,” Justin added.

Each of the 17 Global Goals for sustainable development is essentially a human right, says Justin, with the last goal (Goal 17) being the most important, as it is about resources and new partnerships, without which countries will not be able to deliver the other 16 Global Goals. He calls this the contradiction of the summer of 2015.

“While the SDGs tell us of ‘what the governments have agreed to do for their people’, they do not give a sense that ‘governments will work with the people to help them bring the change these goals envisage’. It is very much top-down”, warns Justin.

Binding trade treaties versus non-binding development agenda

Other members of civil society have also expressed concerns on how the SDGs will be implemented. One reason to worry, according to Paul Quintos of IBON International is the apparent over emphasis on business sector participation in the 2030 agenda. Like many CSOs, Quintos too is cautious, if not skeptical, of the 2030 sustainable development agenda that according to him “was launched by the UN with much hype and fanfare, with advice from professional corporate marketing agencies.”

“This is ironic, because 15 years ago, when the Millennium Declaration was unveiled, much the same aspirations, hopes and promises had been pledged by these same governments in these very halls. And 15 years hence the world faces the same problems, if not worse,” he added.

The paradox, according to Quintos, lies in the fact that while governments seem to commit to ending poverty by 2030 by agreeing on a ‘non-binding’ global agenda, these same governments are also in the process of negotiating free trade agreements, which are binding and may potentially reverse any development progress the world has gained in the last century. Quintos further warns that these FTAs will grant enormous new powers to corporations by allowing them to veto laws and national regulations in the name of profit making.

Public Private Partnerships (PPP)

Quintos is also vocal about governments raising the ambition of the Global Goals while at the same time avoiding making concrete commitments in terms of public financing. Governments are constructing a narrative wherein there are not enough public resources to fund such an ambitious development agenda, which consequently justifies greater private sector involvement under the garb of PPP, Quintos noted.

“But by resorting to the private sector as being the main driver of development, we are making interests of the private sector primary in terms of what is likely to be prioritized in this agenda,” said Quintos.

PPP has been prominently featured in various development forums and seminars as an innovative means to bridge the funding gap in terms of financing national development. Civil society however fears that PPPs primarily serve business interests over public welfare. In most cases of PPPs, governments end up paying more to cover ‘regulatory risk guarantees’ in order to ensure the profit returns of business concessionaires.

“So what we see is a socialization of risks and further privatization of gains or profits. This is the most alarming aspect to this agenda”, he added.

Role of civil society

As we talk of a new global partnership, Justin Kilcullen wonders about the role of civil society in it. He agrees that civil society organizations, like CPDE, are in a very strong position today as civil society has been recognized as an independent development actor, having a voice in the negotiations. But there is a question mark over the future of this role because SDGs are purely intergovernmental. In the UN, the role of civil society remains consultative with minimal if totally no actual influence in policy-making. Other than playing a role in implementing projects in sectors like agriculture, health, and education, what is needed more is to hear the voices of citizens holding governments to account and challenging them if they make mistakes. This is what good citizenship is about, feels Justin, and wonders why governments perceive active citizens and civil society as a threat, instead of as an asset.

He gives the example of his own country, Ireland, where civil society played a very significant role in its development after it got independence from British rule. “The Catholic Church did a lot for education and healthcare of poor people; other NGOs were involved with homeless people; sports organizations built up the national spirit of the new state; and cultural organizations helped re-establish our Irish identity. All this was done outside the government, with civil society playing a major role in making Ireland a modern and wealthy state”.

Paul sees the 2030 agenda as non-transformative, as it does not challenge existing unequal relationships of power and distribution of wealth. So it remains for the civil society to continue engaging with governments and making sure that they are held accountable for the promises that they have made. Most importantly, it is about how we build power from below through people’s collective action, in challenging those who are in power.

“People will have to continue to challenge the status quo by resisting and fighting land grabs, mining expansions and plunder, making sure that corporations are held accountable for human rights violations and environmental impacts of their operations, and governments’ complicity to all that. That is where the hope lies,” said Paul.

Leaving no one behind

The theme of the post 2015 goals is that ‘No one will be left behind.’ For Justin it is a big challenge to ensure that this becomes a reality. “For me hope is a very strong virtue and with the commitment and the energy of civil society around the world we can make something of these goals. No matter how difficult it may be, I believe in the end it will be right”.

According to Paul, people are not just left behind but they are actually pushed back by the current mode of development– “It is the market and private sector led mode of development that we must leave behind if we want no person on this planet to be destroyed by the current system”.
Video of Paul Quintos’ interview is online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I0Z0hvIKe0

Video of Justin Kilcullen’s interview is online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juf1nYzrnbA
(The author is the Managing Editor of CNS, and is supported by CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness (CPDE) to provide thematic coverage around UN General Assembly where Global Goals for Sustainable Development are being adopted. Follow us on Twitter: @Shobha1Shukla, @CNS_Health and @CSOpartnership_ )

Shared under Creative Commons (CC) Attribution License

22 October, 2015
Citizen News Service

While there are some positive features in the 2016 Federal Budget, there is a glaring omission in it: there is hardly any mention of how the government intends to step up its battle against corruption or how it plans to reduce persistent leakages or enhance integrity in governance. And yet, integrity at all levels of society — especially at the apex — is the greatest challenge facing the nation today.

The Budget could have addressed this challenge from various perspectives. It could have proposed specific, concrete measures that government departments and state agencies would undertake in order to overcome problems arising from ministerial and departmental over-spending, above market-price purchases and delays in approvals — all of which have often been highlighted by the Auditor-General in his comprehensive audit reports. The millions of ringgit lost year in and year out from acts of omission and commission of this sort could have been better utilized for the well-being of the people.

The lack of effective enforcement by state institutions has also cost us dearly. Instead of dealing with the culprits through punitive measures that serve as effective deterrents, the tendency is to choose a mild mode of punishment which has very little impact upon the wrongdoer. As a result, wrongdoings have become more and more serious over the decades. The human trafficking tragedy at the Malaysia-Thai border exposed earlier this year that resulted in the deaths of scores of Rohingyas is an example of what can happen when enforcement officers fail to carry out their duties mainly because they had compromised their integrity.

If such erring officers are not caught or punished severely, part of the reason may be because there is no institution that has the powers to conduct truly independent investigations into the misdeeds of enforcement personnel and enforcement agencies. There is an urgent need for such an independent institution which will have the full authority to act against enforcers whether they are from the police or immigration or some other agency. The present Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) does have the power to act effectively. This is why the Budget could have provided for the establishment of such an entity staffed with well trained personnel capable of adhering to the highest standards of integrity.

The Budget could have also perhaps allocated more resources for the enhancement of knowledge and skills among anti-corruption officials at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) which by and large has discharged its duties with distinction. Such upgrading is imperative in an environment in which acts of corruption have become more sophisticated and transcend national boundaries. The 1MDB episode is a case in point. Money-laundering today for instance has become far more complex than what it was two or three decades ago.

To put it in a nutshell, the 2016 Budget does not indicate that the powers-that-be are serious or sincere about combating high-level corruption and strengthening the sinews of integrity in Malaysian society. It is perhaps a manifestation of the major cause of the spread of the scourge of corruption: the lack of political will among those who wield power and influence.

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar,
Chairman,
Board of Trustees,
Yayasan 1Malaysia.

Petaling Jaya,

24 October 2015.

By Simon Jenkins

The British could pretend to care about China’s human rights, but it would be impolite, pointless, hypocritical and probably counter-productive

British ministers are to “raise human right concerns” with their Chinese guests this week. What on earth for? It is impolite, pointless, hypocritical and probably counter-productive. We are cringing supplicants for Chinese capital – as we claim to be for Saudi “intelligence”. What has this to do with human rights?

The itch to pass judgment on other people’s affairs is the occupational disease of British rulers. Sometime it drives us wretchedly to war, as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya.

Otherwise it is merely rude, a diplomatic tic, a state of mind. If I were a Chinese guest at dinner tonight and a British minister dared to mention human rights, I would reply in kind.

I would ask how come if you British are so clever your David Cameron and George Osborne come knocking endlessly at our door, bowing and scraping for cash? They have a stash of vanity projects we know no sane capitalist will touch: for trains in the wrong places, madcap power stations, crystal palaces, luxury flats, even Weetabix factories. They are so stupid they offer us profits and guarantees against risk, even when they know we will fill the projects with cyberspies.

Then the British perform this ritual. They puff up their chests and “raise human rights concerns”.

Their Lord Coe and Tessa Jowell did it when kowtowing over the Olympics. Theythink they are so good at politics they can run China better than we do.

Two can play at “issues raising”. If I were that Chinese person I would politely warn the Queen of “legitimate” Chinese concerns over her surveillance cameras in every street; her police listening to private phone calls; her slave workers in the fields and domestic service. I would ask what kind of justice denies legal aid and charges a fee to use a court. How can Britain export terrorists to the Middle East and kill Muslims by the thousand for not accepting “British values”? How can it fail to teach its children simple maths?

Should Her Majesty claim this is all terribly rude and none of China’s business, I would tell her in that case she knows where she can take her HS2s, Hinkley Points and human rights issues. If Britain cannot get capitalists to build them, why should China pour its savings into them?

The reality is that Osborne’s trade opening to China makes sense. It was about money. So why jeopardise it with talk of human rights, which the Chinese government will politely ignore, just so a few British lobbyists can feel good? If the government cared about China’s human rights, it would not do business there. So it cares just enough to be rude.

Simon Jenkins is a journalist and author. He writes for the Guardian as well as broadcasting for the BBC. He has edited the Times and the London Evening Standard and chaired the National Trust. His latest book is England’s Hundred Best Views.

20 October 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/

By Abby Zimet

Here’s a chance to hear the great Gideon Levy, Israeli-born-and-bred writer for Haaretz and indefatigable critic of Zionism, who spoke this week in Westchester, N.Y. A guest of Jewish Voice For Peace and Wespac, Levy faced down several obstreperous hecklers by turning their strident claims – “Terrorist! Levy=Hate” – back on them, charging them with the same blind ignorance practised by too many Israelis, and insisting on a concise defense of Palestinian rights: “When someone steals your car, you have to get (it) back. The Palestinian car was stolen by Israel, and it must be returned, without any conditions.”

A longtime anti-Zionist who has been called “the most hated man in Israel,” Levy has described growing up “totally blind to the occupation – it was a word I didn’t dare to pronounce.” His political evolution began with writing stories from the Occupied Territories – “I was attracted gradually like a butterfly to a fire or to a light” – and realizing “there was no one to tell (the story of the Occupation) to the Israelis. Today he regularly blasts “the brutality and cruelty” of his country, a place that represents “Democracy (for) Jews, discrimination for Israeli Arabs, and apartheid for Palestinians.”

Speaking last night at the Greenburgh town hall, Levy outlined the three deeply flawed beliefs that rule Israel’s increasingly extremist politics: As Jews, we are the chosen people and can do whatever we want; the Holocaust renders us the biggest and only victims in history – “The only occupation in history where the occupier presents itself as the victim” – and because Palestinians aren’t really human, killing them isn’t really a violation of human rights. In response to this criminal mindset, Levy counters with the blunt reality of his country: “If two peoples share one piece of land, and one people gets all the rights in the world, and the other people don’t get any rights, this is apartheid. There is no other way to call it.” In the end, he insists, “The struggle, the discourse is simple – equal rights for all.”

Because Israelis are too blind and brainwashed to change from within, Levy called for international pressure, intervention and boycott to force them to respond. Even amidst ongoing violence, he offered hopeful models from the past: the end of apartheid in South Africa, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the “many times in history things happen in the most unexpected way.” Israel too can fall, he suggested, like a big tree that one day mysteriously crashes down, because “it turns out to be totally rotten from the inside.” Many thanks to Mondoweiss for this video.

20 Oktober 2015

By Anand Singh

Last year, when Israel was carrying out one of the most barbaric genocides of this century by bombarding the Gaza strip, justice-loving people across the world, including India, were out on streets to protest. But it was the same time, when frenzied triumphalism of Hindutva fascists was at its peak in the corridors of power. Now more than a year has elapsed since the Hindutva fascists came to power in India under the leadership of Narendra Modi. As expected, the BJP government has made it clear through its conduct in the last one year that Hindutva fascists and Zionists are the ideological kins. To strengthen this bonhomie, Narendra Modi has announced his visit to Israel. As a gesture of friendship, Modi government has thrice abstained from voting in United Nations in the last three months, instead of voting against Israel.

India’s relationship with Israel started getting warmer as India embarked upon the path of neo-liberalism, when the Congress government of P V Narsimha Rao established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992. After that, Deve Gowda’s United Front government signed the Barak missile agreement, which also marked the beginning of defense ties with Israel. Notably, parliamentary and pseudo communists were part of that government and they had a portfolio as important as the home ministry with them. Atal Bihari Vajpayee led NDA government took the relations with Israel to new heights. It was the same time, when the cannibal prime minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon visited India. It was the first visit to India by an Israeli prime minister. Between 2004 and 2014 also, the process of expanding the defense ties with Israel, continued uninterrupted, during Manmohan Singh led Congress rule.

The efforts to strengthen the relationship with Israel had started ever since Modi led Hindutva forces came to power last year. While Israel was bombing Gaza, the Hindutvavadis refused to conduct a debate in the parliament on this issue so as not to cause any embarrassment to their Zionist friends. Last year in September, during the UN General Assembly session in New York, Modi shook his hands which is stained with the blood of innocent victims of Gujarat genocide with that of Netanyahu which was immersed with the fresh blood of the innocent victims of Gaza genocide. Netanyahu seemed overwhelmed with this meeting as if he had found his lost cousin. He immediately invited Modi to visit Israel. Modi has already visited Israel as the chief minister of Gujarat, this will be his first visit as prime minister.

After Modi-Netanyahu meet, Defense Acquisition Council sanctioned defense projects worth Rs.8 billion. Out of this, Rs.5 billion will be spent to build six submarines for the Navy. Rs.320 million will be spent in the purchase of 8000 Spike, Israeli anti-tank guided missiles. It is to be noted that India has preferred this Israeli missile over American Javelin missile, for which USA had been lobbying for a long time. Also, the US defense minister Chuck Hagel lobbied for this missile to sell to India during his last visit. But preferring Israeli missiles over the American ones reveals the deep relationship between Hindutvavadis and Israeli Zionists. Israel also wants to sell to India its anti-missile system Iron Dome, in future.

At the beginning of November last year, home minister Rajnath Singh visited Israel. After Lal Krishna Advani, who visited Israel in year 2000, this was the first visit by any Indian home minister. During this visit, Rajnath Singh invited Israeli defense companies to invest in India as part of the ‘Make in India’ campaign. During his meeting with the Israeli defense minister Moshe Ya’alon, he especially underlined Modi government’s decision to grant concessions to FDI in the defense sector. Israeli defense minister expressed his intent to transfer cutting-edge technologies to India in the field of defense. During the visit, Rajnath Singh also visited Israeli military checkpoints on the Gaza border. Authorities said that Singh seemed quite impressed with the modern technology being used by Israel for their border security. This technology includes the long range day and night camera observation system. Besides, Rajnath Singh was also quite impressed with the radar system allowing detection of cross-border movement up to several kilometers. Not only this, he also seemed impressed with the seismic system motion sensors employed to crackdown on any efforts to dig tunnels on the Gaza border. Obviously, Israel is planning to sell these technologies to India in future. Demonstration of these technologies to Rajnath Singh can be understood only in this context.

Several countries of the world have limited their trade relations with Israel as part of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement going on since last decade, which has endangered its economic growth. In this context, Israel’s growing relationship with India is proving to be a boon for its economy. India is one of the few countries, besides US, with which Israel’s defense and trade relations are prospering. India is the largest importer of weapons being sold by Israel and Israel is the second largest supplier to India among all countries. Not only defense, Israel has opened its centers of excellence in many Indian states in the fields of water conservation and irrigation etc. for technical assistance and has plans to open several more in the coming days. With Hindutva forces in power, the spectre of Islamic terrorism is being erected yet again. A famous Israeli historian has termed the strategy of killing innocents in the name of anti-terrorism by Israel, as ‘Incremental Genocide’. Hindutva fascists are desperate to learn this skill of incremental genocide from their ideological kins, so that they can practice it in India too. Modi’s upcoming trip to Israel needs to be understood from this perspective.

Anand Singh is an activist and writer associated with a labour monthly ‘Mazdoor Bigul’ and a students-youth magazine ‘Ahwan’. He is also part of a forum called ‘Indian People in Solidarity with Palestine’ which was launched last year to express the solidarity of Indian people with the liberation struggle of the Palestinian people.

19 October, 2015
Countercurrents.org