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By Ron Forthofer

U.S. transnational corporations are working behind the scenes to change the rules governing them. You may say ‘big deal, this doesn’t affect me’. However if you use the internet, view movies, take pharmaceuticals, want a clean and safe environment, believe in democracy, etc., you likely will be negatively impacted.

Media’s Failure to Inform

Negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), based on the fatally flawed NAFTA model, currently involve twelve nations in the Pacific region and have been underway since 2010. Mainstream media’s coverage about these negotiations has been essentially nonexistent. When mentioned, the media reports that the negotiations are about trade instead of being about easing rules governing transnational corporations.

Why the Lack of Transparency?

This May, Senator Elizabeth Warren said: “From what I hear, Wall Street, pharmaceuticals, telecom, big polluters and outsourcers are all salivating at the chance to rig the deal in the upcoming trade talks. So the question is, Why are the trade talks secret? You’ll love this answer. Boy, the things you learn on Capitol Hill,” Warren said. “I actually have had supporters of the deal say to me ‘They have to be secret, because if the American people knew what was actually in them, they would be opposed.’”

Undue Corporate Influence on U.S. Negotiating Positions

In 2012 Senator Ron Wyden, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness, whose office is responsible for conducting oversight over the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and trade negotiations, said: “Yet, the majority of Congress is being kept in the dark as to the substance of the TPP negotiations, while representatives of U.S. corporations—like Halliburton, Chevron, PHRMA, Comcast, and the Motion Picture Association of America—are being consulted and made privy to details of the agreement.”

In a May 2012 letter, thirty law professors from multiple countries involved with the TPP negotiations made the same point about corporate representation. They said:

“The only private individuals in the US who have ongoing access to the US proposals on intellectual property matters are on an Industry Trade Advisory Committee (ITAC) which is dominated by brand name pharmaceutical manufacturers and the Hollywood entertainment industry.

There is no representation on this committee for consumers, libraries, students, health advocacy or patient groups, or others users of intellectual property, and minimal representation of other affected businesses, such as generic drug manufacturers or internet service providers. We would never create US law or regulation through such a biased and closed process.”

Investor-State Dispute Settlements Threaten Sovereignty

In June 2012 a draft of the TPP’s Investment Chapter was leaked. According to Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch: “Via closed-door negotiations, U.S. officials are rewriting swaths of U.S. law that have nothing to do with trade, and in a move that will infuriate left and right alike, have agreed to submit the U.S. government to the jurisdiction of foreign tribunals that can order unlimited payments of our tax dollars to foreign corporations that don’t want to comply with the same laws our domestic firms do. U.S. trade officials are secretly limiting Internet freedoms, restricting financial regulation, extending medicine patents and giving corporations a whole host of other powers.”

State legislators are greatly concerned about the threat to states’ ability to maintain their sovereignty and to protect rules protecting their citizens. For example, Maine State Representative Sharon Treat, one of the drafters of a July 2012 letter from 130 members of state legislatures from all 50 states, said: “The U.S. government should not be negotiating trade deals that undercut responsible state and federal laws enacted to protect public health and the environment, preserve the stability of our financial system, or make sure working conditions are safe and healthy.”

In addition, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) strongly opposes this investor-state dispute resolution process. Its position is:

“NCSL will not support Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) or Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with investment chapters that provide greater substantive or procedural rights to foreign companies than U.S. companies enjoy under the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, NCSL will not support any BIT or FTA that provides for investor/state dispute resolution. NCSL firmly believes that when a state adopts a non-discriminatory law or regulation intended to serve a public purpose, it shall not constitute a violation of an investment agreement or treaty, even if the change in the legal environment thwarts the foreign investors’ previous expectations.

NCSL believes that BIT and FTA implementing legislation must include provisions that deny any private action in U.S. courts or before international dispute resolution panels to enforce international trade or investment agreements. Implementing legislation must also include provisions stating that neither the decisions of international dispute resolution panels nor international trade and investment agreements themselves are binding on the states as a matter of U.S. law.”

More Financial Deregulation

Given the recent financial crisis, it’s alarming that financial deregulation will likely be pushed in the TPP. A letter from 100 economists to the TPP negotiators expressed concern and stated:

“We, the undersigned economists, write to you regarding the capital transfers provisions in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). We are concerned that if recent U.S. treaties are used as the model for the TPPA, the agreement will unduly limit the authority of participating parties to prevent and mitigate financial crises.”

They went on to point out the importance of capital controls. “While capital controls and other capital management techniques are no panacea for financial instability, there is an emerging consensus that they are an important part of the macro-economic toolkit. Indeed, all G-20 leaders endorsed the following statement at the 2011 Cannes Summit:

“Capital flow management measures may constitute part of a broader approach to protect economies from shocks. In circumstances of high and volatile capital flows, capital flow management measures can complement and be employed alongside, rather than substitute for, appropriate monetary, exchange rate, foreign reserve management and prudential policies.””

Fast Tracking of the Agreement

President Obama has sought trade promotion authority (‘fast track’) to get TPP through Congress. Fast track usurps Congress’s constitutional authority over trade issues. Congress would have a very limited time to debate the deal and would not be allowed to make any changes. Fortunately, Congress has not yet abrogated its responsibility over trade issues. It is important to keep pressure on Congress to deny Obama this authority.

Represent Public Interest, not Transnational Corporations

Let your representative and senators know that you want them to oppose both fast track and the TPP. If they fail to do this, they are sending a clear message to voters.

Ron Forthofer is a retired professor of biostatistics and am now a volunteer working for peace and social justice.

12 July, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Nile Bowie

South Korea must seize the opportunity to improve relations with Pyongyang and lay the groundwork for détente between the two sides based on mutual respect and cooperation.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the passing of the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung, North Korea issued a high-level statement last week calling for improved inter-Korean relations and an end to military hostilities with its southern neighbor.

Pyongyang’s recent proposal has been relatively consistent with demands it has voiced on previous occasions, such as calling for the suspension of US-South Korea joint military drills, for both sides to settle all issues bilaterally, and an end to the exchange of slanderous language. It also called on Seoul to halt cooperation with other countries on the issue of North Korean nuclear weapons.

In a reference to the June 15th joint declaration signed by both sides at the first inter-Korean summit in 2000, Pyongyang reaffirmed calls for moving toward a federation with South Korea aimed at the eventual goal of reunification, in a way that benefits both sides and allows for differing ideological and social systems.

Since the beginning of this year, Pyongyang has attempted to call greater attention to its preference for improving relations with South Korea. The National Defense Commission (NDC), the North’s top military organ, has made several proposals throughout the year, all of which the government in Seoul has dismissed.

The recent statement is significant in that it was issued directly by the North Korean government after Seoul rejected a special proposal by the NDC issued in late June, stating that the North “keeps making the same irrational claims.” South Korea has, however, accepted Pyongyang’s proposal to send a cheerleading squad to the upcoming Asian Games scheduled to be held in Incheon this September.

While there are certainly some areas of the proposal, such as international cooperation against Pyongyang’s nuclear program, that the South would find inherently problematic, but for the government in Seoul to entirely dismiss as ‘irrational’ the current proposal by the North is a serious misstep.

There are growing sentiments among various analysts and academics in South Korea who believe that President Park Geun-hye’s government is not taking a proactive and meaningful approach toward developing inter-Korean relations, which have ceased to improve since Park came to power in early 2013 following her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak.

The Hankyoreh, South Korea’s leading independent daily, recently issued an editorial calling for a new approach from Seoul to ease frictions with the North. “If we want things to turn around, what we need most are a firm commitment and creative effort from the South Korean government. It’s easy to criticize the North, but it doesn’t fix anything,” the editorial said.

To be sure, there is much in Pyongyang’s recent statements that the South can work with, certainly in the North’s call for the opening of “a broad avenue for contacts, visits, cooperation and dialogue,” on both government and civilian levels. While contentious issues remain, there is clearly a window of opportunity for both sides to implement previous joint agreements.

Engaging in practical dialogue and trust-building measures can allow for more frequent reunions of families and relatives separated by the Korean War, in addition to a cooling of military tensions on the Korea Peninsula. While voices in western capitals readily dismiss Pyongyang’s sincerity, the South Korean government is unwilling to create conditions for that sincerity to be tested.

In late March, President Park unveiled her ‘Dresden Declaration’ proposal during an official visit to Germany. Pyongyang took immediate offense, as the plan was unveiled in the former East German city of Dresden, which implies the South’s intention of achieving unification by absorption along the German model, which is contrary to positions taken by previous South Korean administrations.

Park offered major inter-Korean infrastructure building projects and other investments on the condition that Pyongyang agrees to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. Seoul, following the position taken by Washington, has placed the North’s voluntary denuclearization as a “pre-condition” for dialogue, a measure that essentially ensures that meaningful negotiations never take place.

Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program and missile defense systems are a reaction to the asymmetry created by the entrenched US military presence in South Korea. North Korea views UN resolutions against its military programs as attempts by the outside world to criminalize its legitimate right to self-defense.

One cannot deny that North Korea is a nation under siege: it is subjected to one of the world’s harshest international sanctions regimes that has invariably exacerbated the suffering of its civilian population; it also faces a southern neighbor armed with the same sophisticated missile technology that it is internationally prohibited by the UN from indigenously developing.

Most significantly, it faces the largest military power in human history, which does not hesitate to use nuclear-capable strategic bombers and massive nuclear-powered carriers during its annual joint exercises on the Korean Peninsula, which are undeniably aimed at Pyongyang.

If any progress can be made on the nuclear issue, it will require the waiving of preconditions-for-dialogue and genuine political will to change the status quo of inter-Korean relations by both Seoul and Washington, who have until now preferred to elbow Pyongyang into a confrontational stance that deepens mistrust and negates any opportunity for peaceful development and co-existence.

If any denuclearization could ever conceivably take place, it should be achieved through restarting the now-defunct mechanism of the six party talks, with the aim of prohibiting all nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula – including the US nuclear umbrella. All other issues should be handled bilaterally between Seoul and Pyongyang as agreed upon in joint declarations.

The opportunity exists for both Korean nations to engage in peace-building efforts to find common ground and responsibly move forward for the sake of future generations. Until a platform for engagement based on mutual benefit and mutual respect can be reached, any talk of reunification at this stage is entirely premature and unrealistic.

However, the success of any nascent rapprochement depends upon both sides identifying and agreeing to the principles of reunification, which would need to accommodate two different systems and governments within one nation and one state.

In order for progress to be made in this area, both sides must cease disparaging and incendiary language, even if the other side fails to cooperate. Pyongyang’s olive branches are simply not seen as genuine when it violates diplomatic norms by referring to members of the South Korean and American governments in offensive and pejorative ways.

North Korea should make a conscious effort to reign in these voices and maintain a consistent and restrained line, which will invariably help its international image and help build momentum for détente with the South.

Even with past transgressions between the two sides considered, preconditions and moralizing judgements must be aside to allow both parties to more effectively and straightforwardly engage in high-level dialogue. Any other concerns regarding human rights and internal issues can only begin to be broached once both sides reach a common understanding on the way forward.

Nile Bowie is a columnist with Russia Today, and a research affiliate with the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), an NGO based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

12 July 2014

By Seumas Milne

The international revival of public ownership is anathema to our City-led elite. But it’s vital to genuine economic recovery

Privatisation isn’t working. We were promised a shareholding democracy, competition, falling costs and better services. A generation on, most people’s experience has been the opposite. From energy to water, rail to public services, the reality has been private monopolies, perverse subsidies, exorbitant prices, woeful under-investment, profiteering and corporate capture.

Private cartels run rings round the regulators. Consumers and politicians are bamboozled by commercial secrecy and contractual complexity. Workforces have their pay and conditions slashed. Control of essential services has not only passed to corporate giants based overseas, but those companies are themselves often state-owned – they’re just owned by another state.

Report after report has shown privatised services to be more expensive and inefficient than their publicly owned counterparts. It’s scarcely surprising that a large majority of the public, who have never supported a single privatisation, neither trust the privateers nor want them running their services.

But regardless of the evidence, the caravan goes on. David Cameron’s government is now driving privatisation into the heart of education and health, outsourcing the probation service and selling off a chunk of Royal Mail at more than £1bn below its market price, with the government’s own City advisers cashing in their chips in short order.

No amount of disastrous failures or fraudulent wrongdoing, it seems, debars companies such as G4S, Atos and Serco from lucrative new contracts in what is already an £80bn business – and one with an increasingly powerful grip on Westminster and Whitehall.

You might think this would be an open goal for the opposition – and no case more so than the scam for siphoning off public money that is Britain’s privatised rail system. Rail has been the ultimate dysfunctional selloff. Shoehorning private markets into a natural monopoly has delivered fragmentation, rock-bottom investment, annual costs of £1.2bn, the most expensive train fares in Europe, and more than double the level of state subsidy than under British Rail.

The East Coast mainline, by contrast, has provided a far better service under public ownership and delivered £800m to the exchequer (not unlike the publicly owned Scottish Water). So naturally the coalition is going to sell it off, while Labour is in a tailspin over whether to back the highly popular demand for renationalisation.

Ed Balls, now keeper of the flickering New Labour flame, insists public ownership would be “ideological”. The rail profiteers and corporate barons, alarmed by Ed Miliband’s plans to freeze privatised energy prices, agree. So Labour is toying with a halfway house, where franchises continue but the public sector is allowed to bid to run them as well as the privateers.

That sounds like an expensive dog’s breakfast. Rail renationalisation has the advantage of being not just popular but entirely free – as each franchise can be brought back under public control as it expires. To resist it in those circumstances can only be about the power of corporate lobbies or market ideology.

But the need to break with 30 years of cash-backed dogma against public ownership goes well beyond rail. The privatised industries haven’t only failed to deliver efficiency, value for money, accountability or secure jobs. They have also sucked wealth, rentier-style, out of sitting-duck monopolies, concentrated economic decision-making in fewer and fewer hands, deepened inequality and failed to deliver the investment essential to sustainable growth.

At a time when the entire corporate sector is sitting on an uninvested cash mountain and productivity is actually falling as a result, the lack of a publicly owned economic motor to drive recovery is dire. In the case of energy, the privatised system is failing to deliver the most basic goal of investing – to keep the lights on.

The alternative of tougher regulation, seen as the acceptable political alternative, means trying to do by remote control what’s far better done directly and won’t fix the problem on its own. Experience has shown that you can’t control what you don’t own.

As the Glasgow academic Andrew Cumbers argues in a paper for the thinktank Class, it’s only by huge incentives and perverse subsidies – such as those paid to Danish and Swedish state-owned companies to meet renewable targets – that the government is able to coax the privatised monoliths to do what the public sector could have done itself far more cheaply.

The case for new forms of public ownership in the banking sector and utilities – energy, water, transport and communications infrastructure – is compelling. A core of socially owned and democratically controlled enterprises could set the pace of investment, reconstruction and the shift to a greener economy.

It’s a policy that has support from the majority of the public but is regarded as beyond the pale by the business-as-usual elite. It would be prohibitively expensive, they claim, and a throwback to a better yesterday. In reality, there need be no net cost to the public purse. Even if full market compensation is paid, that would be in the form of a government bonds-for-shares swap. Interest would have to be paid on the bonds of course, but it could be funded with a slice of these companies’ profits.

But Britain’s City-focused governing class has also failed to notice what’s happening in the rest of the world. From Latin America and the United States to western Europe, in both the global south and north, privatised public services, utilities and resources are being steadily brought back into public ownership. In the past decade, 86 cities have taken water back into social ownership. In Germany alone, more than 100 energy concessions have been returned to public ownership since the 2007-8 crisis.

Even as austerity is being used to try to breathe new life into privatisation, the tide has started to flow in the other direction. The new wave of public ownership is taking innovative, sometimes hybrid, forms, and overcoming weaknesses that hobbled earlier nationalised industries.

But in Britain the power of City and corporate vested interests engorged on the profits of privatisation is a powerful obstacle to this essential shift. Pressure for a genuinely mixed economy – something previously regarded as the commonsense mainstream – is bound to grow as the costs and failures of unbridled capitalism mount. Rail can only be the first step.

9 July 2014
The Guardian

By Lambert Strether

Quietly, subtly, almost imperceptibly, the rules governing global trade and financial markets are changing. It is not happening by accident, but by wilful design. Despite the enormous impact it will have on all our lives, the public is not being consulted on any aspects of the process. Most people are not even aware it is happening.

The main driver of this change are the bilateral and multilateral trade and investment treaties being negotiated in complete secrecy and behind closed doors between corporate lobbyists, free trade activists and our own elected “representatives” (a term I use in the loosest possible sense, especially given the context). The ultimate goal of these treaties is to reconfigure the legal apparatus and superstructures that govern national, regional and global trade and business – for the primary, if not exclusive, benefit of the world’s largest multinational corporations.

Corporations have long been powerful economic and political entities, but in recent decades some have grown to dwarf even middling-sized national economies. According to a ranking published by Global Trends, 58 percent of the world’s biggest 150 economic entities in 2012 were corporations. They include oil, natural gas, and mining majors, banks and insurance firms, telecommunications giants, supermarket behemoths, car manufacturers, and pharmaceutical companies.

Changing the Law

Right now, the representatives of many of these firms are engaged in late-stage negotiations with the U.S. and European political leaders that would make it financially calamitous for a nation-state to take any actions against the interest of corporations. If passed — and at this rate, it almost certainly will be — it will be the biggest bilateral trade deal in the history of mankind.

What’s up for grabs in the innocuously named “Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership” (TTIP) is nothing short of the control and ownership of virtually every economic sector and public service in both Europe and the U.S. – with the exception, at the insistence of the U.S. government, of the financial services industry. Unbeknownst to almost all Europeans, the European Commission has shown a keen interest in opening up all public services to foreign corporate ownership, from health care to education, pensions to water provision.

Wikileaks also revealed that a group of 50 nations, fronting themselves as “Really Good Friends of Services” (who said lobbyists don’t have a sense of humour?), is secretly negotiating the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA). The countries taking part in negotiations include the U.S., the member nations of the EU (who are naturally leading the proceedings), and U.S.-aligned nations of Australia, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Peru, South Korea, and Switzerland. Conspicuously absent from the list are the five BRICS nations Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa and Latin American members of Mercosur.

Based on the draft copy recently released by Wikileaks, the treaty seeks to (among many other things):

“Lock in” the privatisations of services – even in cases where private service delivery has failed – meaning governments can never return water, energy, health, education or other services to public hands.
Restrict a government’s right to regulate stronger standards in the public’s interest. For example, it will affect environmental regulations, licensing of health facilities and laboratories, waste disposal centres, power plants, school and university accreditation and broadcast licenses.
Specifically limit the ability of governments to regulate the financial services industry at exactly the time when the global economy is still recovering from a crisis caused by financial deregulation.
The trade treaties are not just about rewriting laws; they are also about enforcing them. As the author of Debt Generation, David Malone, explained in a recent talk on bilateral and multilateral trade agreements (essential viewing for anyone interested in the subject), what gives trade treaties such as TTIP and TISA their “claws and teeth” is the inclusion of an innocuous-sounding provision called the “investor-state dispute settlement.” This effectively allows private companies to sue entire nations if they feel that a law lost them money on their investment.

No Trial, No Judge, No Jury

Say, for example, a newly elected government decides — not unreasonably — that the involvement of price-gouging U.S. firms in the nation’s health service is not such a good idea after all. Each and every one of those U.S. firms will now be able to launch expensive legal battles, potentially for billions of pounds, in the name of foregone profits.

The case would not be heard in a court of law, under the scrutiny of a judge and jury, but rather in front of arbitration panels made up of three professional arbitrators — one representing the company, one representing the country and the other chosen by the first two to sit as president of the panel. None of these arbitrators are trained judges; they are private individuals often representing some of the biggest international corporate law firms, mostly from the U.S. and Europe.

The secrecy of the arbitration process is, in Malone’s words, “mind-blowing.” No citizen of any affected country can demand leverage or accountability over the proceedings. The arbitrators meet behind closed doors and do not even need to inform the people of a country that their government has been taken to arbitration.

Advocates of the system claim that international arbitration is needed because national courts are not sufficiently neutral. While there may be some truth in that, investment arbitrators themselves are hardly neutral guardians, as Corporate Europe reports:

Arbitrators, to a far greater degree than judges, have a financial and professional stake in the system. They earn handsome rewards for their services. Unlike judges, there is no flat salary, no cap on financial remuneration.

Arbitrators’ fees can range from $375 to $700 per hour depending on where the arbitration takes place. How much an arbitrator earns per case will depend on the case’s length and complexity, but for a $100 million dispute, arbitrators could earn on average up to $350,000. It can be far more. The presiding arbitrator in the case between Chevron and Texaco v. Ecuador, received $939,000…

Evidence shows that many of the arbitrators enjoy close links with the corporate world and share businesses’ viewpoint in relation to the importance of protecting investors’ profits. Given the one-sided nature of the system, where only investors can sue and only states are sued, a pro-business outlook could be interpreted as a strategic choice for an ambitious investment lawyer keen to make a lucrative living.

Revolving Doors, Conflicts of Interests

The arbitration industry, very much like our political systems, is rife with conflicts of interest and revolving doors. To wit, from the Transnational Institute:

Arbitrators tend to defend private investor rights above public interest, revealing an inherent pro-corporate bias. Several prominent arbitrators have been members of the board of major multinational corporations, including those which have filed cases against developing nations.
Law firms with specialised arbitration departments seek out every opportunity to sue countries – encouraging lawsuits against governments in crisis, most recently Greece and Libya, and promoting use of multiple investment treaties to secure the best advantages for corporations… In short, investment lawyers have become the new international ‘ambulance chasers’, in a similar way to lawyers who chase hospital wagons to the emergency room in search for legal clients.
Arbitration law firms as well as elite arbitrators have used positions of influence to actively lobby against any reforms to the international investment regime, notably in the US and the EU. Their actions, backed by corporations, succeeded in preventing changes that would enhance government’s policy space to regulate in the US investment treaties that had been proposed by US President Barack Obama when he came to office.
The rise of investor-state dispute settlements and the broad application of arbitration procedures are the ultimate victory in the global corporatocracy’s decades-long coup d’état. If allowed to take universal effect, the system will impose above you, me, and our governments a rigid framework of international corporate law designed to exclusively protect the interests of corporations, relieving them of all financial risk and social and environmental responsibility. From then on, every investment they make will effectively be backstopped by our governments (and by extension, you and me); it will be too-big-to-fail writ on an unimaginable scale.

And yet, in the most perverse of ironies, it is a system that appears to be almost universally endorsed by our political leaders. It is an irony that was not lost on the Spanish arbitrator Juan Fernandez-Armesto, who had the following to say:

When I wake up at night and think about arbitration, it never ceases to amaze me that sovereign states have agreed to investment arbitration at all […]. Three private individuals are entrusted with the power to review, without any restriction or appeal procedure, all actions of the government, all decisions of the courts, and all laws and regulations emanating from parliament.

As I warned in early November 2013, the global corporatocracy is almost fully operational. The intentions of those negotiating the multiple trade treaties are now crystal clear: to place complete power and control over our economies in the hands of the largest global corporations, many of which bear the lion’s share of responsibility for the economic and environmental mess we’re already in.

In the meantime, the clock continues to tick down. At any moment, a few quiet strokes of a pen behind the tightly closed doors of a luxury conference room could usher in a new age of corporate domination. With it will come a new kind of dystopia, bearing an uncanny likeness to the inverted totalitarianism foreseen by Sheldon Wolin.

22 June 2014
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/

 

By Paul Craig Roberts

Alone among the governments in the world, Washington requires sovereign governments to follow Washington’s laws even when Washington’s laws contradict the laws of sovereign countries.

The examples are endless. For example, Washington forced Switzerland to violate and to repeal Switzerland’s historic bank secrecy laws. Washington executes citizens of other countries, as well as its own citizens, without due process of law. Washington violates the sovereignty of other countries and murders the countries’ citizens with drones, bombs, and special forces teams. Washington kidnaps abroad citizens of other countries and either brings them to the US to be tried under US law or sends them to another country to be tortured in secret torture centers. Washington tells banks in other countries with whom they can do business and when the banks disobey, Washington blackmails them into compliance or imposes fines that threaten their existence. Last week Washington forced a French bank to pay Washington $9 billion dollars or be banned from its US operations, because the bank financed trade with countries disapproved by Washington.

Washington issues ultimatums to sovereign nations to do as they are told or “be bombed into the stone age.”

Washington violates diplomatic immunity and forces down the planes of presidents of sovereign countries to be illegally searched.

Washington ordered its UK vassal to violate the laws and conventions governing political asylum and to refuse free passage to Julian Assange to Ecuador.

Washington ordered Russia to violate its laws and to hand over Edward Snowden.

Russia is strong enough to refuse to comply with Washington’s orders.

So what did Washington do?

The city upon the hill, the light unto the world, the “indispensable, exceptional government,” kidnapped Roman Seleznyov, the son of a Russian MP, in a foreign country, the Republic of the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean. Seleznyov was seized by Washington as he boarded a flight to Moscow and was spirited away on a private plane to US controlled territory where he was arrested on bogus fraud charges.

The Russian Foreign Ministry accused Washington of kidnapping a Russian citizen in “a new hostile move by Washington” against the Russian people.

There is no doubt whatsoever that Seleznyov’s kidnapping is illegal–as is everything Washington has done since the Clinton regime. Seleznyov’s father, a member of the Russian legislative body, believes that Washington kidnapped his son in order to exchange him for Edward Snowden.

Seleznyov was immediately, without any evidence, charged with imaginary offenses amounting to 30 years in prison. The fascist head of Homeland Security declared that the completely illegal action by the Washington Gestapo is an “important arrest” that “sends a clear message” that “the long arm of justice–and this Department–will continue to disrupt and dismantle sophisticated criminal organizations.”

The US Secret Service declared the Russian MP’s son to be “one of the world’s most prolific traffickers of stolen financial information.”

What utter bullshit!

As the entire world now knows, the greatest thief of financial information is Washington’s National Stasi Agency. Washington’s Stasi Agency has stolen for the benefit of US corporations that make generous political contributions financial information from companies in Brazil, Germany, France, China, Japan, indeed, everywhere. Washington’s Stasi have even stolen the Chancellor of Germany’s private cell phone conversations.

The world was stupid to trust American information systems which serve as spy devices. Anyone who purchases an American brand name computer, or relies on American Internet services, can know for a fact that Washington’s National Stasi Agency has complete information about them. The other governments thought that they had a free ride on US capital investment, but what this free ride meant was that no government and no population had proprietary information and secrets.

The US National Stasi Agency can blackmail the entire population of the world.

According to the neoconservatives, the right to spy on the world is the right of the “indispensable” people, as represented by the “exceptional government” in Washington.

The world is stupid in many other ways in the trust misplaced in Washington. NGOs funded by Washington operate in many countries and serve as Washington’s Fifth Columns. Washington can call out its NGOs into the streets to challenge and overthrow non-cooperating governments or to create for Washington propaganda against targeted governments, as Washington did when it called out its Russian NGOs to protest in the Russian streets that Putin stole the election. These NGOs are proud of the blood that they have, or soon will have, on their hands. It shows that they are important agents of the Empire.

With a captive Western media and European governments plus Japan, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, S. Korea and the Philippines, Washington can brazen out its lies and false charges. “Saddam Hussein has weapons of Mass Destruction.” No one has been punished for this costly lie. “Assad of Syria used chemical weapons against his own people.” No one has been punished for this costly lie. “Russia invaded Ukraine.” No one has been punished for this costly lie. “Edward Snowden is a Chinese/Russian/someone’s spy and a traitor to boot for telling Americans about the illegal actions of their government.” No one has been punished for this lie. “Julian Assange is a spy for making leaked documents of Washington’s crimes available on the Internet.” No one has been punished for this lie.

Every American opposed to Wall Street’s and Washington’s hegemony has been declared to be persona non grata. Such Americans are “domestic extremists,” who are now the focus of the Gestapo Homeland Security, a well armed military force, in contravention of the Posse Comitatus Act. Homeland Security is an illegal and unconstitutional force directed at the American people. The sheeple American people are forced to pay for it as their homes are foreclosed and those that aren’t foreclosed are invaded by goon thug SWAT teams.

Environmentalists are in the way of capitalist profits, and the capitalists rule, not the environmentalists. Environmentalists are “domestic extremists.”

War protesters are investigated as “agents of foreign powers.”

People concerned with the fate of animals and the decline of species due to habitat destruction by greedy, short-term motivated corporations, are on the list of “domestic extremists.”

The Supreme Court is owned by the private interest groups who have bought our government. The US Supreme Court is the great enemy of the US Constitution.

Law is misused to send millions of innocents, especially the young, and Americans whose violations are inconsequential to prison in order to support the revenue needs of the privatized prison system and the career needs of prosecutors.

It is difficult to imagine a country as wrong as the US, where government serves not the people but a tiny handful of the one percent, a government incapable of delivering any kind of justice, a government that if it uttered truth would destroy itself.

Washington reeks of evil. And the world is beginning to realize it.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.

10 July, 2014
Paulcraigroberts.org

 

By Ramzy Baroud

As Iraq stands on the verge of a complete breakdown into mini sectarian states, former leading neoconservative and Iraq war advocate Richard Perle made a sudden appearance on Newsmax TV. His statements in the interview were yet another testament to the intellectual degeneration of a group that had once promised a ‘new Middle East’, only to destabilize the region with violent consequences that continue to reverberate until this day.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which didn’t exist at the time of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, has seized large swathes of Syria and, along with a brewing Sunni rebellion, stands in control of large chunks of western, northern and central Iraq.

At the time of the invasion, Perle was one of the leading so-called intellectuals that was known for his strong support of right-wing Israeli parties and his particular closeness to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu . He served as an advisor to the Netanyahu election campaign in the mid 1990’s, and, along with other leading neocons, made Israeli security – read regional domination – a top American priority.

Perle is in no mood to accept any responsibility of Iraq’s protracted tragedy, a behavior that mirrors that of the administration of US President Barak Obama.

As for Perle’s new line of logic, he seems to feel that if you criticize the neocons, you are, well, more or less, an anti-Semite. Although the line is quite useful in the lexicon of Israel’s defenders, Perle’s use of the tactic reflects a level of unprecedented desperation.

Perle said the term ‘neoconservative,’ is “often used to describe Jewish Americans because, as it happens, some of the original thinkers whose ideas have now been characterized by this general term ‘neoconservative’ were in fact Jewish, and it often carries conspiratorial tones on the part of people who throw the term around.”

One could in fact agree, except that the former assistant secretary of defense is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute , which served as a major lobby platform for Israeli interests, and is also one of the major organizations behind the failed Iraq war strategy.

But Perle’s smokescreen of the implied accusation of anti-Semitism could hardly hide the big fib he was about to impart: The neocons “were not doing it (the war and occupation of Iraq) to bring democracy to Iraq, we were not doing it .. on behalf of any other government (meaning Israel). We believed the intelligence that was available at the time that the CIA and other intelligence organizations . . . that Saddam (Hussein) had weapons of mass destruction and there was a danger after 9/11 that he would share those weapons.”

Perle, who was known for his nickname ‘Prince of Darkness’, is slyly presenting himself as an innocent, if not gullible average American who too was misled by false intelligence. But it was not the first time that Perle, along with his neoconservative peers, disowned their horrific record in Iraq.

Writing in Vanity Fair in November 5, 2006, under the title ‘Neo Culpa’, David Rose caught up with Perle together with other neocon enthusiasts as they were starting to repudiate the failed policies of George W. Bush, which until then they had championed.

In 2006, the Iraq war was taking a terrible toll. “At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible,” he told Vanity Fair when the calamity was becoming irrefutable. Although Perle’s views were quote rosy and optimistic just before and soon after the US invasion incited a sectarian civil war.

“Iraq is a very good candidate for democratic reform,” he was quoted earlier as saying. Iraq “won’t be Westminster overnight, but the great democracies of the world didn’t achieve the full, rich structure of democratic governance overnight. The Iraqis have a decent chance of succeeding.”

But that ‘decent chance’ at success will never be achieved through the barrel of a gun and no self-respecting intellectual would argue otherwise. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis lost their lives and a whole generation was raised in the embrace of death and humiliation as the Prince of Darkness was giving interviews from fancy hotels. Now, he is back, hopefully briefly, crying foul and anti-Semitism.

What is equally appalling is that neocon thinking is also consistent with the philosophy of American foreign policy makers in the Obama administration as well. Not only is Obama failing to accept even a level of moral responsibility over the current plight of Iraqis, but it is haggling to achieve some political gains from Iraq’s misery. Hundreds of US troops have been ordered back to Iraq to ‘assess’ the fighting capabilities of the Iraqi army, and a cautious attempt at intervention is building up slowly in Washington.

Interventionism is once more permeating American foreign policy thinking; this time around, however, it is ‘soft’ intervention, although it is laden with the same kind of language and misleading references. It seems that the American government has learned so very little since the last botched effort, championed by Perle’s neocons at remaking the Middle East to its liking.

On June 26, the White House asked Congress for $1.5 billion to bolster ‘stability’ in Syria’s neighbors – Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey. A third of that amount will be dedicated to train ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels for the purpose of fighting the Syrian army and its allies on one hand, and on the other, holding back the growing influence of militants from ISIL who are also in control of large parts of Iraq.

Considering the level of complexity in the Syrian battleground, and the predictable splinters within existing groups, it’s difficult to imagine that the $500 million would lead to anything but greater instability in Syria and neighboring countries including those who are part of the proposed US Regional Stabilization Initiative , for which the funds are requested.

It is reported that the administration was pressured by Republican Senator John McCain and others. But the reading of the Middle East by McCain has been as erroneous as that of the former leading intellectuals of the neoconservative movement. McCain is as discredited as the rest, but the recent gains of ISIL left the US administration with difficult choices: intervention (which proved to be a complete disaster in the past) or non-intervention (which would leave the pro-US camp in the Middle East vulnerable).

The US seems to be opting for neither option, but ‘soft’ intervention: military and financial support of some groups and forging, even if temporary, alliances with others including Iran.

Despite its attempt to exert pressure and demonstrate its relevance, the collapse of US foreign policy is unmistakable and proves to be, at times, meddling for the sake of asserting its relevance, and nothing more.

Considering the multiple crises created by the US in Iraq in past years, no one, not even the supposedly level-headed Obama, can make any difference without a clear and decided shift in US foreign policy, which is yet to actualize.

Such clarity and decidedness would have to be predicated on a level of moral responsibility and legal accountability for the numerous war crimes committed in Iraq. The roots of today’s war was implanted by that of the original sin, the invasion of a sovereign country, promoted by the likes of Richard Perle, and now manipulated for temporary gains by the Obama administration.

Ramzy Baroud is the Managing Editor of Middle East Eye. Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist.
10 July, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Fazal M. Kamal

The recent murders of three Israeli and one Palestinian teenagers—and the merciless torture of another Palestinian-American teen) are unquestionably barbaric, beyond tragic and comprehensively reprehensible. No rational person can even come close to condoning any such brutality. But if one follows the trail it leads directly to the door of Israel’s leaders and primarily to Benjamin Netanyahu who, partially but not wholly, to appease his extremist supporters has been for months spewing hatred utilizing constantly the language of violence, intransigence and belligerence while punishing an entire people.

It’s merely natural that when the relentless greed for land overwhelms all including the urge for peace and when an entire population is subjected ferocious repression apart from being hounded out of their homes to spend their lives in total indignity and uncertainty, there can be precious little expectation of peaceable solutions. At present though, it appears, the Tel Aviv regime continues to believe that brutal force will bring the kind of peace it wishes, regardless of the inhuman price that is being extracted from the Palestinians.

Here’s only one instance how recent events were provided opportunities. Shortly after it was confirmed that the three Israeli teens were killed Netanyahu, as is his predilection, reacted with words of incitement. Twenty-four hours later, an AFP report states, more than 200 Jewish extremists took to the streets of Jerusalem, screaming “Death to Arabs!”, dragging people out of cars and storming the light rail system in what one witness described as “a pogrom”. Several hours later, the Palestinian youth Abu Khdeir was snatched before dawn as he went to the mosque to pray, with his burnt body found by police shortly afterwards.

And now this is the consequence: “The diabolical murder of 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir is the Shin Bet’s nightmare scenario,” commented Yossi Melman in Maariv newspaper, referring to Israel’s internal security agency. And more to the point and much more significant: “It is a scenario in which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict turns into a tribal battle between two communities according to the biblical formula of an eye for an eye, which is likely to leave in its wake destruction, ruin and scorched earth on both sides.” The world is now therefore witnessing more horrors unfold and more deaths as Israel opts for all-out military assaults.

According to the French wire service, two particular extremist groups are also believed to be behind a growing wave of racist, anti-Arab vandalism, euphemistically termed “price tag” attacks which initially began as a reaction to state moves against the settlements but has morphed into a much broader expression of xenophobia. The report goes on to elaborate, “Ideologically, such groups take their inspiration from Kahanism, a racist anti-Arab ideology espoused by Rabbi Meir Kahana whose Kach party and another offshoot were banned in 1994 after one of its members gunned down 29 Muslims in a Hebron mosque.” And even though for months, ministers and former intelligence chiefs have been pushing the government to clamp down on Jewish extremists, and declare those responsible for “price tag” violence “terrorists” their calls have fallen on deaf ears, with the government agreeing only to declare the perpetrators as being in an “illegal organization”.

Explaining the extant situation Ludwig Watzal writes: “Nobody should be surprised at the outbreak of racism towards the Arabs in Israel. From the kindergarten to the grave, the Israelis are indoctrinated by Zionism, which is an exclusivist ideology. After the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the late Israel Shahak has in his groundbreaking book ‘Jewish History, Jewish Religion. The Weight of three Thousand Years’ elucidated the political implications of this belief system. But the real roots of racism in Israel and the hatred of the goyim can be found in ‘Classical Judaism’, which is used ‘to justify Israeli policies that are racist, as totalitarian and as xenophobic’. And Shahak continues: ‘Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in Jewish attitudes to the non-Jewish peoples of Israel and the Middle East.’ ”

Dr. Watzal goes on to observe: “The crocodile tears of Netanyahu for the murder of the young Palestinian are hypocritical. For the record: Netanyahu and his extremist predecessor Ariel Sharon did not moderate a mob at a demonstration in Jerusalem, which slandered Rabin as a ‘traitor’ and carried Rabin dummies in Nazi uniform, one of the most despicable symbols in Israel. Shortly after, Rabin was assassinated. Not without reason, Lea Rabin refused Netanyahu’s condolences at the state funeral. Therefore, one should not believe the political arsonist who calls for the fire brigade.” Evidently, one of the major hurdles in that conflict is the absence of rational leadership in Israel; especially a leadership that doesn’t equate religion with land.

It’s not that there are no sagacious people in Israel; it’s only that, as in most cases, their voices of sanity are drowned by the always vociferous screeching of the extremists. In this context it has also to be noted that while Israel is touted as a democracy by many of its promoters, to the oppressed Palestinian people the Tel Aviv leadership, naturally and especially because of events since the days of al Nakba, can only be viewed as tyrannical, despotic and murderous. That shouldn’t surprise anyone capable of thinking in logical and secular terms as opposed to cogitating using xenophobic and chauvinistic vocabulary.

For example, soon after the deaths of the teenagers Sima Kadmon commented in a top-selling Israeli newspaper, “And perhaps the incitement we have been seeing for the past week on the social networks, and the tens of thousands of ‘likes’ received by each call for revenge, for murdering Arabs — maybe that is our face…Perhaps something bad has happened to us as a society, and without having noticed, hatred, racism, violence and extremism have taken over our lives like a malignant disease, from the price tag actions to the calls on the streets and on the social networks to murder Arabs.” But at the moment, obviously, the violence-prone and those who have an interest in ensuring that a perennial war persists are winning. What’s even more obvious is that those with a vested interest in this status can’t be moved aside easily.

On the other side Adie Nistlerooy wrote from Gaza: During its military assaults on Gaza, the Israeli army sometimes rings people to tell them; ‘leave your house; we are going to bomb it in a few minutes’. People then have to rush their children out of the house and run for their lives, and wait for that terrible moment when their homes are reduced to rubble. Today, the Al Qaware family received that dreaded phone call. In response, their neighbors gathered on the rooftop, to prevent the airstrike from happening. Since the many drones hovering above their heads can read even the prints on their t-shirts, they would certainly be able to see them (civilians, including children) collectively standing on the rooftop. What happened; the house was bombed anyway. At least 7 people were killed including at least 2 very young children in this attack and over 25 were injured. Rescue workers are still digging through the rubble….”

This then is today’s Palestine. By the time this article is published it’s anybody’s guess how many would be dead, how many would be maimed, how many would lose their homes, how many would lose their livelihood, how many would be rendered orphans…And so the unrelenting massacre continues as the prospect for a peaceful resolution recedes further into the distance. Who in the right frame of mind can even ponder about peace under these circumstances? Still, the aggressive Tel Aviv leadership declares, unabashedly, it wants peace. Clearly, mere pieces of Palestine won’t satisfy their hunger; total subjugation is the objective.

The writer has been a media professional, in print and online newspapers as editor and commentator, and in public affairs, for over forty years

10 July, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By PIEF

Justice and security are two sides of the same coin. Israel’s security can never be an excuse for denying justice to the Palestinian people.”

In the spirit of the living God who sanctifies all life and in keeping with our faith and its teachings we appeal to all people across the world to work with their fellow citizens and governments to end Israel’s Operation Protective Edge and the brutal military siege that has been going on for the past seven years which includes a naval and economic blockade. Gaza has no port or airport thus no way to import or export its products.

This is not an escalation or a war. Gaza has no military or ability to protect itself other than to fire some homemade rockets. The 1.7 million people, mostly children (2/3 of the population) are also mostly refugees (1.1 million) from areas of 1948 and 1967. Furthermore under the 4th Geneva Convention Palestinians, as a militarily occupied people, have the right to defend themselves.

Our justice loving God demands us to speak out on behalf of the security for all people. In the name of the Advocate Spirit, we ask you to speak out now to call a halt to this long term offensive operation which aims to wipe out a legally elected government and its people. Whether you think the new unity government is viable or not, or if Hamas is a terrorist organization or not, or whether you think they might have been behind the death of the three Israeli teens murdered near Hebron, it is against international law to collectively punish or target them. It is not only inhumane. It is a war crime.

As of July 10th, the date of this Appeal Israeli military struck 430 targets across the Gaza Strip. 77 people have been reported dead and more than 500 wounded.. The majority of the dead are civilians. 18 are children including a baby one month old.

We pray for the memory of those killed. Each of them has a name and a family who is suffering great loss. We also pray for all those wounded or injured in body, mind, or spirit. We pray for solace and comfort also for the families whose homes, businesses, agricultural fields, or fishing boats that have also been destroyed. We pray for the people of Gaza and ask that God be with them.

Support Palestinian’s right to life by joining with Christians throughout the world in their call for a just peace in this land that all call holy. We have been down this road one too many times and know what will happen if we fail to act. Please join us through letters and petitions to your government officials to raise awareness about this offensive military operation and Gaza’s ongoing siege. Ask them to pressure Israel to stop its brutal assault or face sanctions from the international community.

Support Palestinian’s right to life by joining with Christians throughout the world in their call for a just peace in this land that all call holy.

“Who Mourns for Palestine.”(Quote from article by Jeremy Corbynn)

11 July 2014

 

By Robert J. Burrowes

Human beings stand at the edge of extinction and yet few of us are mobilized in defense of human existence. Why is this? And what can we do about it?

Unless someone lives in a cave secluded from all news, the evidence that human beings are in deep trouble – with violence in its many forms intruding on all aspects of our lives and threatening our very existence – is readily available. Of course, you won’t necessarily hear the news this
bluntly from the mainstream media but even they must convey at least occasional and/or muted reports of military violence in many parts of the world and the threat of nuclear war over Ukraine, ongoing massive deaths by starvation in many parts of the world, vanishing ecosystems and species under our combined and unrelenting assaults on the natural environment and violence in many other forms, including in our homes and on our streets. The information might not always be in the headlines but it is a recurring feature of 21st century news if someone takes the slightest interest in checking it. Given the threats, an aware person might ask ‘Why so little action in response?’

Of course, the usual answers include such explanations as these: people don’t necessarily ‘know’ (for one reason or another) and elites make considerable effort to manipulate people into believing one or more of these three things: it is the responsibility of governments (not ordinary people) to act, people can do nothing to make a difference and/or anything they do will be ineffective. Having people passive and dependent, rather than powerful agents of change, suits governments and corporations nicely: Social control is easiest in this circumstance.

However, explanations such as this, truthful though they may be, are superficial and obscure the deeper, psychological reasons why most people are so powerless.

At birth, a child is genetically programmed to use their many capacities, including their senses (such as sight, hearing and touch), feelings (such as thirst, hunger, fear, anger, sadness, happiness, pain and sexual arousal), memory, ‘truth register’, intuition, conscience and intellect to explore, learn about, understand and interact with their natural and social world. Evolution intended children to become powerfully Self-aware individuals by doing this.

However, if you want obedient adult subjects who passively accept social control, then it is simpler to work on rendering individuals powerless by stifling the development of their innate capacities during childhood. Human socialization processes, which I call ‘terrorization’, including parental practices and school, do this superbly: see ‘Why Violence?’ http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’ http://anitamckone.wordpress.com/articles-2/fearless-and-fearful-psychology/ Let me give some simple examples.

If a child is crying and you comfort them, you will (presumably unintentionally) scare them out of feeling their sadness when, in fact, their crying is a functional response to something not working out as the child wanted and for healing from this event. The same applies to fear, anger and all other feelings. Unfortunately, if we scare a child out of feeling their natural responses to events (by ignoring, comforting, reassuring, distracting, laughing at, ridiculing, terrorizing or violently controlling them when they express their feelings), the child has no choice but to unconsciously suppress their awareness of these feelings and they will not be able to identify the appropriate way forward: this reduces their power to respond unctionally and powerfully to events in their life. And helps to create the passive slaves that elites want.

Another way in which we adults make children powerless is by endlessly thwarting the child’s initiatives so that they learn that ‘nothing works’ or even that ‘Mum/Dad doesn’t want it to work’. If a child is thwarted often enough, it will unconsciously internalize the message that trying to investigate things for themself and trying to do anything in response to their own initiative is a waste of time and they will progressively suppress their awareness of the evolutionary urges to investigate and ‘keep trying’.

So have a look around you and ask yourself this: ‘Who do I perceive as being powerfully able to respond to what is happening in the world?’ If you are like me, you see a lot of scared and powerless people (even though I spend considerable time identifying powerful people and working with them). If you are one of these powerful people, then consider participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’ http://tinyurl.com/flametree or an equivalent sustainability initiative. You might also consider joining the worldwide movement to end all violence by signing online ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’ http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com

Powerful individuals must play the central role in shaping a human future that nurtures life on Earth. And while we are heavily outnumbered and under-resourced for now, as Gandhi once said ‘A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history’.
Do you feel powerfully able to help ‘alter the course of history’?

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence.
09 July, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Alan Hart

In a recent article with the headline Charting A New Course, Alon Ben-Meir made the statement that “Only the Palestinians can modify and subsequently change the Israelis’ mindset.” The modification and subsequent change he hopes for would climax with a majority of Israel’s Jews insisting that their leaders stop being the victims of their own propaganda and make peace on terms the Palestinians could accept.

As those familiar with my work know, I think most Israeli Jews have been brainwashed by Zionist propaganda to the point where they are and will most likely remain beyond reason on the matter of justice for the Palestinians. But in this article and for the sake of discussion I am going to take Ben-Meir’s argument a big step forward and explore how, perhaps, the Israeli mindset could be changed.

For those not familiar with the Baghdad-born, Jewish-American Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, he is a widely respected expert on the Middle East. He is also a self-declared “passionate proponent” of the Arab Peace Initiative, of which more later.

The essence of his case is that the Palestinians must recognize that the average Israeli believes they do not seek real peace and are still committed to Israel’s destruction.

That is indeed what most Israelis have been conditioned to believe, so the key question seems to me to be something like this. What could be done and by whom to open Israeli minds to the truth?

The essence of the truth to which all Israeli Jews need to be exposed is in two parts.

Leaving aside the fact that despite some stupid rhetoric to the contrary the Arab regimes never, ever, had any intention of fighting Israel to liberate Palestine, the first is that the pragmatic Arafat prepared the ground on his side for peace on terms which any rational Israeli government would have accepted with relief as far back as the end of 1979 – more than 35 years ago! He did it by persuading the Palestine National Council (PNC), then the highest decision-making Palestinian body, to endorse by 296 votes to four his policy of politics and what until then had been unthinkable compromise with Israel.

From then on the deal available to Israel was peace based on an end to its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to create the space for a viable Palestine state with East Jerusalem its capital or the whole of Jerusalem an open, undivided city and the capital of two states. Arafat subsequently informed Israeli leaders through secret emissaries that he and his senior Fatah leadership colleagues accepted that the Palestinian right of return would have to be restricted to the land of the sovereign Palestinian state. (It took Arafat 10 long years to sell the idea of unthinkable compromise with Israel to first his Fatah leadership colleagues and then the PNC. At the beginning of this demonstration of real leadership he knew he was putting his credibility with his own people and perhaps even his life on the line. Israel’s response was an invasion of Lebanon all the way to Beirut where the PLO was then based with the aim of exterminating its entire leadership and destroying its infrastructure).

The second part of the essence of the truth to which all Israeli Jews need to be exposed is that there is on the table, and has been since 2002, an Arab peace plan. Because I am going to suggest that a massive promotion of it offers perhaps the only hope for changing the Israeli mindset, let’s now take a look at it.

Formally known as the Arab Peace Initiative (API), it was first presented on 27 March 2002 at the Beirut Summit of the Arab League by then Crown Prince and today King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. (Arafat was unable to attend the summit because Sharon’s government told him that if he left the occupied West Bank he would not be allowed to return). The API has since be re-endorsed by Arab leaders on a number of occasions.

What’s in the API for Israel?

An end to the conflict and with the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement the establishment of normal relations between Israel and the entire Arab world (and also, although the API does not say so, the establishment of normal relations between Israel and the entire Muslim world including Iran).

What does Israel have to do to secure this deal?

It has to end its occupation of all Arab land (including the Syrian Golan Heights) grabbed in 1967. It has to accept the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem its capital. And it has to agree to a just solution of the Palestinian refugee problem in accordance with UN General Assembly resolution 194 of 11 December 1948.

This resolution states that “the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest possible date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for the loss or damage of property which, under principles of international or in equity, should be made good by the governments or authorities responsible.”

One of several given reasons for the instant, knee-jerk rejection by Israel’s leaders of the API when it was first presented was that the return of Palestinian refugees would swamp the “Jewish state” and turn it into an Arab state. From Zionism’s pathological perspective that fear was well grounded, but…… If Israel’s leaders had been interested in peace on terms other than their own, terms which require a Palestinian surrender to Zionism’s will, they could have discovered through back-channel exploration that the API was open to negotiation so far as Arab leaders were concerned. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, subsequently said so.

In particular Israel’s leaders could have discovered that if they engaged in good faith negotiations for a comprehensive peace arising out of the API, the Arabs would effectively endorse Arafat’s pragmatism by accepting that the return of Palestinian refugees would have to be restricted to the territory of the Palestinian state – not Israel inside its borders as they were on 4 June 1967.

As I have pointed out in previous articles, Arafat was well aware that if his pragmatism on the matter of the return of the refugees had become public while he was preparing the ground on his side for peace, he would have been accused by some Palestinians of betraying their cause. When I discussed this with Arafat he made two comments. One was to the effect that it was better for the Palestinians to have “some justice rather than none.” The other was an expression of his hope that a two-state peace might lead eventually to a one-state by mutual consent. So he did not regard his compromise on the return of the refugees as necessarily closing that door for ever.

The other thing Israel’s leaders could have discovered about the flexibility of the API is that its requirement for East Jerusalem to be the capital of the Palestinian state is not a take it or leave it option. If Israel’s leaders were prepared to negotiate for a real peace, Arab leaders would be very open to the idea that Jerusalem should be an undivided, open city and the capital of two states.

To sum up so far: In return for an end to its occupation of all Arab land grabbed in 1967 (in a war of Israeli aggression not self-defense) the API offered and still offers Israel a comprehensive peace with the governments and therefore the vast majority of the peoples of the entire Arab and wider Muslim world. (Within that context it’s reasonable to assume that violent Islamic fundamentalism in all its manifestations could be isolated, contained and defeated).

The main reason why Israel’s leaders are not under any internal pressure to take the API seriously is, as indicated by public opinion polls, that the vast majority of (Jewish) Israelis have not been informed about it.

That being so the question arising is this.

Would knowledge of the API, I mean a real and true understanding of what it offers Israel, be enough to change the mindset of a significant majority of Israelis to the point where they insisted that their leaders responded positively to it in order to get good faith negotiations for a comprehensive peace underway.

For the sake of discussion I am going to assume that the answer is “Perhaps”.

In that light the question that needs to be asked and answered is this.

What can be done to inform all Israelis about what is on offer to them in the API?

My answer is that the Arab League should call and push for the convening of a special session of the UN General Assembly to focus on the API.

The UN Charter (Chapter IV, article 20) provides for the General Assembly to meet in special sessions. It states: “The General Assembly shall meet in regular annual sessions and in such special sessions as occasion may require. Special sessions shall be convoked by the Secretary-General at the request of the Security Council or of a majority of the Members of the United Nations.”

So if the Obama administration blocked a request for a special session on the API from the Security Council to the Secretary General, it could be made to happen by a majority of all the member countries.

At the special session the foreign ministers of each and every country in the Arab and wider Muslim world would re-endorse the API, spell out what is in it for Israel and indicate that if Israel was prepared to negotiate in good faith, a final agreement for a comprehensive peace would state that the return of Palestinian refugees is to be restricted to the territory of an independent and sovereign Palestine (with compensation for those unable to return), and, that Jerusalem would be an undivided, open city and the capital of two states.

In their own and various ways Arab and other Muslim foreign ministers could also take the opportunity to speak directly to all Israeli Jews. The main message to them would boil down to something like this. “If you really want peace on terms that guarantee your security and wellbeing and an acceptable amount of justice for the Palestinians, it’s time for you to stop believing the propaganda of your leaders and insist that they negotiate in good faith. Peace and security for all is there for the taking so far as the Arab and wider Muslim world is concerned.”

Media coverage of such an event ought to guarantee that most if not all Israelis were made aware of what they had to gain from a real peace process kick started by the API. No doubt some writers, broadcasters and other commentators in the Israeli media would assert that it was all an Arab and other Muslim confidence trick, and that Arabs and all Muslims were never to be trusted. But the message from such an event would be clear to all but those whose minds have been closed and locked by decades of Zionist propaganda

Question. Would such an event be enough to change the mindset of a majority of Israeli Jews and cause them to insist that their leaders be serious about negotiating a comprehensive peace on terms that would provide an acceptable amount of justice for the Palestinians and security for all?

My answer is….. Probably not but it’s well worth a try.

Last question. Does the Arab League have the political will to take such an initiative?

My answer is….. Probably not but it should.

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent.
09 July, 2014
Alanhart.net