Just International

Corruption And Saudi Arabia

One of the by-products of regional uncertainty and the Arab Spring has been the steady rise in oil prices. And this added revenue has helped rapidly fill state coffers. Today, some of the GCC countries are putting that revenue to task in mega-billion projects across the land.

In Saudi Arabia alone, it is estimated that over $77 billion have been allocated for major projects which include the setting up of industrial cities and massive infrastructure development across the country. With that kind of money floating around, it has become very tempting to be seduced into the arms of corrupt business practices.

It should be noted that corruption has been one of the elements that served as a springboard to the Arab Spring. And we have not been immune to it. Perhaps, the most public example was brought up following the Jeddah rains in 2009 which caused the deaths of over 130 people by the resulting floods. It was determined that bribery played a major part with city officials granting housing permits illegally on city land not zoned as residential areas.

According to a published report at the time, the flood disaster exposed bribery and other corruption practices in government departments, which also suffered from the absence of clear policies. “What happened in Jeddah clearly illustrated the poor performance of government departments because of bribery and widespread corruption. These institutions are also suffering from the lack of clear policies and action plans besides bureaucratic complications in decision-making.”

Three years on, and the trial of that tragic incident is still in progress with charges and counter-charges. Most of the defendants occupied key positions in the Jeddah Mayoralty but are currently under suspension pending the outcome of the trial. Many of the defendants who had previously admitted their complicity in taking bribes and looking the other way are today retracting their confessions, stating that such admissions were made under duress. Those following the case wonder if it would eventually be swept under dismissed or reduced charges as the web of deceit could entangle a wide spectrum of public sector officials.

They may be justified in their reasoning by the recent acquittal of six former soccer club officials accused of bribery and illegal appropriation of public land. According to published reports, the six defendants ‘retracted their earlier testimonies alleging that they were extracted under duress, which the board’s representative denied. After the hearing, the court took a 30-minute recess for consultation with the panel members. They were fined SR10, 000 each. All six defendants expressed their satisfaction with the verdict while the prosecution said it will contest the ruling.’ Such verdicts do not inspire confidence in a judicial system that has become suspect as of late, with charges of malpractices and corruption among those dispensing justice!

In another instance, in a major charitable organization with funding in the millions, the directors of the charity started first with charitable acts towards themselves. Trusted with dispersing much needed relief by the needy, some went so far as to pad up their per diems by falsifying the number of days on their trips or on their flight expenses! And since audit and accountability were sketchy at best, they got away with it.

A new anti-corruption body was formed at the behest of the King himself to stem the rising tide of corruption and report on the offenders. King Abdullah issued a royal decree in March 2011 for the formation of the commission. This body is set up to deal with all forms of financial and administrative graft, and also promote the principle of transparency.

Earlier this year, the chairman of the National Authority for Combating Corruption (NACC) affirmed its intent to spare no one in its campaign to stamp out mismanagement and other malpractices at public establishments, adding that there would be no exception.

“We will not hesitate to strike at corruption wherever it is. Our crackdown will target small and big heads…no one, whoever he is, will be excluded in line with instruction by King Abdullah.” Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Sharif was quoted as saying.

He also added that the public should also play an active part in alerting the appropriate authorities. “Every one has a role to play in this respect whether he is an official, a businessman, a citizen, a journalist or a scholar…the Kingdom’s anti-corruption strategy also stresses that school curricula must include lessons advocating sincerity and protection of public funds.”

There are calls for more social transparency and economic reforms. Declaration of assets by public servants can be one tool of checking and arresting illegal gotten gains. Public institutions will need to set up ‘fair and sustainable compliance management systems.’ This will help to determine areas vulnerable to corruption. They should also launch anti-corruption training for all employees. Whistle-blowing should be encouraged. And finally, public service organizations should promote the message to the business sector that the contract with best bid and not the biggest bribe will be the winner.

It may take a while, and perhaps more than a few jail sentences, but we all must set our course on the road to arresting the rampant spread of bribery and corruption if not stopping it altogether. The alternative would be nothing short of eroding the moral fiber that binds society.

By Tariq A. Al-Maeena

5 June, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Tariq A. Al-Maeena is a Saudi socio/political commentator. He lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and can be reached at talmaeena@aol.com.

Can Obama Stop Casino Capitalism?

The recent JPMorgan scandal where billions of dollars were lost in risky bets has re-ignited the move to properly regulate the U.S. banking system.

Among those asking for new regulations is Robert Reich, former labor secretary to Bill Clinton. Recently Reich made a plea of sorts to President Obama, whom he wishes would take the commonsense approach to bank regulation by re-installing the depression-era regulation, the Glass-Steagall Act.

Reich’s first sentence places him among those who naively hope that Obama would listen to reason and act boldly, instead of merely putting forth populist catch phrases while obsequiously serving corporations:

“I wish President Obama would draw the obvious connection between Bain Capital and JPMorgan Chase.”

This quote alone proves that Obama’s vilifying of Mitt Romney’s former business venture is hypocritical, since Obama has been simultaneously protecting and praising JPMorgan.  Obama’s populist-style attacks on Mitt Romney are cynical election campaigning.

Reich’s article also points out Obama’s incredible lack of action against the banks that happened during the post financial crisis, assuring that such a crisis will emerge yet again, as the recent JPMorgan scandal has foreshadowed:

“As a practical matter, the Volcker Rule [Obama’s still incomplete regulation attempt] is hopeless. It was intended to be Glass-Steagall lite — a more nuanced version of the original Depression-era law that separated commercial from investment banking. But JPMorgan has proven that any nuance — any exception — will be stretched beyond recognition by the big banks.”

Reich goes on to admonish the banking system’s dominance of the economic system in general, partially the result of the lack of financial regulations:

“It’s the substitution of casino capitalism for real capitalism, the dominance of the betting parlor over the real business of America, financial innovation rather than product innovation. It’s been terrible for the American economy and for our democracy.”

What Reich fails to mention is that he worked directly under a Democratic President, Bill Clinton, who helped tear down key aspects of the financial regulations that Reich hopes to reconstruct, including first and foremost the Glass-Steagall Act. Jimmy Carter, too, helped weaken banking regulations that encouraged the boom of the big banks.

The question that must be asked, then, is why did the Republicans and Democrats alike take turns at undermining banking regulation over the course of decades? And why do they both continue to agree — in varying degrees — that reconstructing the original regulatory policies would be undesirable?

The answer is that the version of capitalism that Reich would like to see cannot be re-created by regulation alone; the idyllic capitalism that Reich waxes nostalgia about has evolved into what we have now: an economy dominated by the highly profitable but volatile financial institutions while manufacturing has migrated to other countries in search of a higher rate of profit.

The capitalists, then, insured themselves that they would have a profitable place to invest their money. The billionaire Warren Buffett, for example, recently invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs with a guaranteed annual rate of return of 10 percent . The U.S. banking system is one of the few U.S. industries that competes well internationally, and is propped up — as we saw by the bank bailouts — by the U.S. government itself. The industry is now so rich and powerful that it routinely reinforces and expands its power by the purchase of lobbyists and congressmen, not to mention presidential candidates.

The number of politicians calling for real banking reform are insignificant. The banking industry has captured Congress and regulators alike. The banking oligarchy is so intertwined with the political and economic establishment at this point that real regulatory change cannot happen until the system itself is transformed from below, by a powerful social movement.  Pleading to politicians to fix so-called Casino Capitalism is increasingly naive, and Reich should know better.

By Shamus Cooke

26 May 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action ( www.workerscompass.org )

By not lifting sanctions, West and Obama are helping Iran enrich uranium

The West just blew its latest chance of reining in Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

Iranian officials expressed willingness to comply with some of the major demands being made by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the “P5+1” (the permanent five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany). But, evidently, these countries just could not take “yes” for an answer. By refusing to ease sanctions on Iran in any meaningful way, the P5+1 offered no meaningful reciprocity in return for Iranian compliance.

The P5+1’s attitude of “take but not give” directly led to the failure of the talks. And by derailing the possibility of a deal with Tehran, these global powers are essentially helping Iran stockpile even more enriched uranium.

The hawks in the West who don’t seem to want to ease sanctions are helping the hawks in Iran who want to continue gathering more and more enriched uranium, which might give them a nuclear weapon option in the future. Deadlock rewards the hawks on both sides, and increases the chance of armed conflict in the Middle East.

There were two main demands being made of Iran going into the latest round of talks: that it must halt enriching uranium to 20 percent (a level closer to weapons-grade), and that it must shutter its highly secretive Fordow enrichment facility.

The Iranians offered as an initial gesture to give UN inspectors access to the Parchin military base, where the International Atomic Energy Agency believes Iran may have done nuclear-weapons related work in the 1990s. Iranian officials have also conveyed a willingness to compromise on the 20 percent enrichment issue, given the right incentives.

Naturally, in return, Iran asked that at least some sanctions begin to be lifted. This is, of course, the natural give-and-take of negotiations.

Unfortunately, in exchange for these major Iranian concessions, the P5+1 states only dangled the paltry promise of access to some spare parts for civilian airplanes, help with nuclear safety, and supplying Iran with some fuel plates for its research reactor. If Western countries were serious about their alleged worry about Iran’s nuclear program they would have been more willing to reciprocate properly, for example, by beginning to ease the draconian sanctions on Iran.

It makes one wonder if the West is really worried about Iran’s nuclear program or if it just wants to prolong the pain in Iran in hopes of inducing a regime change there.

Why not cap Iran’s enrichment and in return ease some of the sanctions? Certainly, election-year politics and hawkish congressional pressure ensures that the US administration (which leads the P5+1 in these talks) cannot consider easing sanctions no matter what Iran does with its nuclear program. President Obama would be cast as “weak” if any of the sanctions were lifted before the elections. Oddly, a successful diplomatic resolution of the Iran nuclear issue would be spun as a failure.

Unless the P5+1 nations can specify exactly what Iran would need to do in order to begin to ease the sanctions, further talks – planned for next month in Moscow – seem like a waste of everyone’s time.

The sanctions appear to be a one-way street: They are easy to enact as punishment, but evidently cannot be removed to reward positive Iranian behavior. The net result is that the Iranian people suffer, the Iranian regime keeps stockpiling more and more enriched uranium, and the US congressional hawks can feel smug in the false knowledge that continued sanctions will magically lead to regime change in Tehran.

In fact, a careful reading of the legislative text of the sanctions shows that the sanctions have very little to do with Iran’s nuclear program and everything to do with regime change. For instance, the US sanctions can only be lifted after the president certifies to Congress:

that the government of Iran has: (1) released all political prisoners and detainees; (2) ceased its practices of violence and abuse of Iranian citizens engaging in peaceful political activity; (3) conducted a transparent investigation into the killings and abuse of peaceful political activists in Iran and prosecuted those responsible; and (4) made progress toward establishing an independent judiciary.

Just in case those conditions are insufficiently implausible, the president has to certify further that “the government of Iran has ceased supporting acts of international terrorism and no longer satisfies certain requirements for designation as a state sponsor of terrorism; and [that] Iran has ceased the pursuit, acquisition, and development of nuclear, biological, chemical, and ballistic weapons.”

Many US allies, such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, could not satisfy all these conditions. So even if Tehran were to stop all uranium enrichment and dump all of its centrifuges into the Gulf and shutter its nuclear program entirely, Iran would still continue to be sanctioned by the US.

The Obama administration ought to clarify that it will not really hold Iran to these completely unrealistic standards, else it seems there may never be a resolution.

The irony of it all is that Iran is not currently doing anything that violates its legal right to develop nuclear technology. Even by agreeing to talks about suspending its 20 percent enrichment, Iran is showing a sign of good faith that it is not legally obligated to do. Iran says it needs continued enrichment to this level to fuel its research reactor.

There is a lot of concern in the West about Iran’s “clandestine” nuclear facilities, like Fordow, but it appears we have forgotten the history of Iran’s nuclear program. In 1983, Iran went to the IAEA and asked for help with its nascent nuclear infrastructure. The IAEA agreed to help Iran in setting up a pilot plant to study enrichment, but then the United States intervened to stop this. Only after this political intervention did Iran go clandestine in some of its nuclear work: it certainly was not sneaky from the start.

Under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) – to which Iran is a signatory – it is not illegal for a member state to have a nuclear weapons capability – or a “nuclear option.” If a nation has a well-developed civilian nuclear sector – which, of course, the NPT actually encourages – it, essentially, already has a pretty solid nuclear weapons capability.

Like Iran, Argentina, Brazil, and Japan also maintain a “nuclear option.” They, too, could break out of the NPT and make a nuclear device in a few months. And like Iran, Argentina and Brazil also do not permit full “Additional Protocol” IAEA inspections.

The real legal red line, specified in the IAEA’s “Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements,” is the diversion of nuclear materials to a weapons program. However, multiple experts and official reports have affirmed over the years that they have no evidence that any such program currently exists.

For example Mohamed El-Baradei, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who spent more than a decade as the director of the IAEA, said that he had not “seen a shred of evidence” that Iran was pursuing the bomb. The November 2011 IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program also backs up this assessment, stating that Iran’s research program into nuclear weapons “was stopped rather abruptly pursuant to a ‘halt order’ instruction issued in late 2003.”

Even US officials have conceded that they have no proof that Iran is actively pursuing a nuclear bomb at present – and, in fact, that they have good evidence that Iran has not re-started its nuclear weapons program since 2003.

Following the release of the classified National Intelligence Estimate in 2011, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper confirmed in a Senate hearing that he has a “high level of confidence” that Iran “has not made a decision as of this point to restart its nuclear weapons program.”

And Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in early 2012: “Are they [Iranians] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No. But we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability. And that’s what concerns us.”

By refusing to ease sanctions on Iran, the P5+1 nations so easily gave up on what could have been a golden opportunity to inspect the Parchin facility and suspend Iran’s 20 percent uranium enrichment. This indicates that they are not truly worried about any Iranian nuclear weapons program.

What they really appear to be doing is using nuclear issues as an excuse to attempt to destabilize the regime via never-ending draconian sanctions. All the while Iran will continue to stockpile enriched uranium.

By Yousaf Butt

25 May 2012

@ The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com

Yousaf Butt, a nuclear physicist, serves as a scientific consultant for the Federation of American Scientists.

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Bob Dylan Allows Masters Of War To A Put Medal Around His Neck

But Obama is familiar with Bob’s “You masters of war/You play with my world like it’s your little toy/You put a gun in my hand/As young people’s blood flows out of their bodies you hide in your mansion/ the money will never buy back your soul.You lie and deceive/But I see through your eyes/And I see through your brain/And I hope you die/And your death’ll come soon/And I’ll stand over your grave ’til I’m sure  you’re dead.”

In a White House ceremony on May 29th, Bob Dylan, a beloved war protest singer and anti-imperialist songwriter celebrity stood before cameras as the Presidential Medal of Freedom was laid on his ches t from behind by the most recent of the twelve US presidents since Truman that have done the bidding of a community of private investors engineering atrocity wars and covert violence upon defenseless and colonially plundered small nations

Tens of thousands of Bob Dylan fans dedicated to making America’s illegal and undeclared wars unacceptable and inoperable in the name slain Martin Luther King Jr’ demand, must have winced.

Obama is ordering death in more than a dozen Muslim nations and taking credit for having initiated the deadly bombing for four of them.

Thousands of the more bitterly disappointed must have thought of no longer being able to stomach listening to Dylan’s, previously inspiring antiwar recordings.

But more thousands, perhaps millions, world wide, your truly included, will discount a strange and contradictory moment, in which, Bob Dylan, now elderly and frail looking, lets himself be used by an corporatist backed angel of death to make it look like even this wonderful singing humanitarian might  perhaps support Obama’s lies for taking the lives of so many of us and our children.

What Bob Dylan expressed in singing of the power of truth that will some day sweep away the insanity of wars for money and put our pathetic war criminals in their place, will always remain infinitely more important than the composer and artist himself to a mankind still imprisoned and tortured after centuries of rule by investment banking.

Of all Dylan’s poignantly sung songs of imperialist wars, his Masters of War stands out as the most penetrating. It projects an bitter determination that masters of war (might we not say, like Obama) and their minions and co-conspirators and accessories before the fact in crimes against humanity will most surely come to be prosecuted.

One suspects as the momentum for bringing the full weight of the law down on sixty-three years of illegal and undeclared wars for maintaining, as Martin Luther King Jr. emphasized, “unjust predatory overseas investments, Obama, in between administrating Wall Street’s violent genocidal reach toward fulfilling absolute global hegemony and economic looting supremacy, might reflect on the lyrics Bob Dylan’s Masters Of War – as much applicable today as when first performed in 1963:

Come you masters of war

You that build all the guns

You that build the death planes

You that build all the bombs

You that hide behind walls

You that hide behind desks

I just want you to know

I can see through your masks.

 

You that never done nothin’

But build to destroy

You play with my world

Like it’s your little toy

You put a gun in my hand

And you hide from my eyes

And you turn and run farther

When the fast bullets fly.

 

Like Judas of old

You lie and deceive

A world war can be won

You want me to believe

But I see through your eyes

And I see through your brain

Like I see through the water

That runs down my drain.

 

You fasten all the triggers

For the others to fire

Then you set back and watch

When the death count gets higher

You hide in your mansion’

As young people’s blood

Flows out of their bodies

And is buried in the mud.

 

You’ve thrown the worst fear

That can ever be hurled

Fear to bring children

Into the world

For threatening my baby

Unborn and unnamed

You ain’t worth the blood

That runs in your veins.

 

How much do I know

To talk out of turn

You might say that I’m young

You might say I’m unlearned

But there’s one thing I know

Though I’m younger than you

That even Jesus would never

Forgive what you do.

 

Let me ask you one question

Is your money that good

Will it buy you forgiveness

Do you think that it could

I think you will find

When your death takes its toll

All the money you made

Will never buy back your soul.

 

And I hope that you die

And your death’ll come soon

I will follow your casket

In the pale afternoon

And I’ll watch while you’re lowered

Down to your deathbed

And I’ll stand over your grave

‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead.

Post Script:

To add insult to Bob and perhaps seeking to compromise his integrity before media audiences, that afternoon in the same ceremony in the Oval Room, Obama honored, with the same Presidential Medal of Freedom, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, irrevocably infamous for her heartless reply on 60 Minutes (5/12/96) to a question about U.S. sanctions against Iraq:

‘We have heard that a half million children have died. That’s more   children than died in Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?’  Secretary of State Madeleine Albright replied: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.”

In 2003, Albright, while holding a high position on the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange, was involved in a compensation scandal which resulted in her resignation. She currently serves on the Council on Foreign Relations Board of directors [shudder], Not very nice company for a hero of the common man with a world wide reputation of inspiring decent folk to resist the oppression of Wall Street rulers.

Shall we be disappointed? No. Let us just be sorry for a pathetic end to a contribution that spoke to the many suffering death and maiming of loved ones and destruction under capitalism’s final stage of global imperialism, now aiming and preparing for a new world-wide conflict that will realize trillions of dollars in profits monthly from use of its present massive investments in weapons of mass destruction.

Maybe an elderly Bob has been suckered into thinking that murdering Taliban (Students of God) and suspected enemies of America (brave men fighting the most powerful high tech Armed Forces in the histroy of the world in dozens of countries), is somehow different as the murdering of Vietcong defending their poor country that was ongoing at the time of his strongest protest songs.

We end this sad denunciation of a war promotion effort to make Bob Dylan appear to be betraying himself and the poor people he sought to defend and empathize with, with a quote from one of Dylan’s contemporaries, shot down as was Martin Luther King jr., surely for having been too influential in a time of easily exposed deceit to an American public not quite so decadent and war willing as today’s.

“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends.” – John Lennon

We cannot know what Bob Dylan might come to do about this obvious and horrible contradiction intentionally featured in media this week, but throwing medals of honor back by those ashamed of holding them has become a popular practice to relieve one’s conscience.

By Jay Janson

31 May 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and the US; now resides in NYC;. Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Global Research; Information Clearing House; CounterCurrents.org; Minority Perspective, UK; Dissident Voice, OpEdNews; HistoryNews Network; Vermont Citizen News and others have published his articles, 250 of which are available at http://www.opednews.com/author/author1723.html Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; articles China Daily, 1989.  Is coordinator of the ( King Condemned US Wars) and creator of Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign fearuting a country by country history of US crimes. Studied history at CCNY, Columbia U., U. Puerto Rico, Dolmetscher Institut München, Germany; Korean National University of Arts, Seoul; Radiotelevisione Italiana, Rome; Zagreb Radiotelevision,Yugoslavia; Hong Kong Arts Academy.

 

PA Goes To UN Without Palestinian Consensus Behind It

PA Goes To UN Without Palestinian Consensus Behind It

Gaza Strip : “We have been living under occupation for more than six decades now and we believe it is time for the international community to help us realize our dream of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

“What is this UN bid? Is it meant to restore our rights, mainly the right to return of millions of refugees worldwide? Will a UN recognition of a Palestinian state on 1967 border lines allow us to take care of our Palestinian brothers and sisters in neighboring Arab countries like Jordan and Syria?”

These are the words, respectively of Luay, a 42-year-old Palestinian Authority employee and Iman Qaddada, a 22-year-old university student, both from Gaza City.

Luay, who did not give his last name, and Iman were reacting to the Palestinian Authority’s effort to seek full UN membership for a Palestinian state in New York this month.

While the PA has not published any text describing what a Palestinian state would mean practically, it is expected to ask the United Nations for recognition and membership for a state within the territories occupied by Israel in 1967: the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Together, these territories comprise just 22 percent of historic Palestine.

US leads efforts to block UN bid

The bid, mobilized by PA leader Mahmoud Abbas and backed by the Palestinian Authority, most of the Arab states and some others, is aimed, according to Abbas, to move beyond the current “peace process” impasse.

In a televised speech last Friday, Abbas said that “the move aims at internationalizing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict after more than two decades of bilateral Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have failed to achieve a two-state solution.”

However, Abbas maintained that he is willing to go back to the negotiation table with Israel regardless of what happens with the UN bid.

Upon arrival at the UN, where Abbas is expected to make a speech on 23 September, the PA delegation will be likely met with Washington’s veto power. US officials have said repeatedly that they will block any PA request for statehood at the UN Security Council.

The US government, according to media reports, were attempting to lobby enough UN Security Council members to vote against the Palestinian move to defeat it without the US having to use its veto.

Washington insists that a Palestinian state can only come about through negotiations, despite the fact that almost two decades of such US-brokered negotiations have failed to achieve any progress, and the Obama administration’s efforts over the past two years have resulted in complete failure as well.

Israeli retaliation withheld for now

Ghassan Khatib, spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, told The Electronic Intifada that the PA’s endeavor is meant to help resolve the conflict.

“I think the essence of the Palestinian move is an attempt to attract the international community to get involved in helping Palestinians and Israelis observe implementation of the international vision of peace that is based on a two-state solution,” Khatib said by telephone. “If the international community admits Palestine to the United Nations, then Israel has to show more sensitivity to international legitimacy, so Israel must agree to negotiating a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders.”

Yet Israel itself is totally opposed to the bid, saying it would constitute a setback to long-standing peace talks between Israel and Palestinians.

On the ground, Israel has threatened to withhold tax money it collects from Palestinians on behalf of the PA, and further expand its settlements in the occupied West Bank and even declare a state of emergency, in addition to the military rule that has governed Palestinians living under occupation for decades.

Israel contends that the 1967 borders are “indefensible.” Nevertheless, the international Quartet for Middle East peace involving the United States, United Nations, the European Union and Russia, demanded that Israel refrain from any action until the results of the UN bid are clear. Israel has so far complied.

No consensus among main Palestinian factions

In the Gaza Strip, which has lived under a tight Israeli siege for the past four years, Palestinian political factions have different views regarding the UN bid.

The Hamas party — which administers Gaza and remains divided from Abbas’ Fatah faction, which has limited authority the West Bank — says it neither accepts nor opposes the UN move.

“We in the Hamas party consider the September bid as an individual step that is not based on any national Palestinian consensus and that it would not bring anything to the Palestinian cause,” Sami Abu Zuhri, a spoksesperson for Hamas in Gaza, told The Electronic Intifada.

“It also poses a threat to the national Palestinian rights, including the right of return. Such a step would likely negate previous UN resolutions like resolution 194, which guarantees the Palestinian people’s right to return. I do not believe that the Palestinian people want a seat at the UN, but rather they want freedom and self-determination on their own land,” Abu Zuhri added.

Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian faction, embraces armed struggle against Israel but is adhering to a current ceasefire. It rejects the UN move and considers it untimely, as Dawood Shehab, the group’s spokesperson in Gaza, explained.

“In 1988, late Palestinian president [Yasser Arafat], declared a Palestinian state [during the Palestinian National Council meeting] in Algeria and more than 120 world countries recognized that state and so what?” Shehab said.

Like Hamas, Shehab said his group views the UN move by Abbas “an individual move without national Palestinian consensus.”

Shehab raised a number of other questions that have caused considerable doubts amid a broad spectrum of Palestinians: “What about the future of the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] under a Palestinian state declaration, what about the problem of Palestinian refugees, what about the right of return?”

Shehab added, “All Palestinian factions within the PLO have aimed at liberating Palestine, not establishing a state; a state comes after liberating Palestine.”

Leftist Palestinian factions, which belong to the Abbas-controlled PLO, back the September bid, based on a longstanding position that Palestinian-Israeli peace talks should go through the UN.

Rabah Mhanna, who is one of the political leaders for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in Gaza, appeared neither pessimistic nor optimistic about the statehood move at the UN.

“We consider the UN bid as a part of our ongoing struggle against the Israeli occupation,” Mhanna said. “Going to the UN should not end up with improving the bilateral peace negotiations under US patronage.”

Yet even Mhanna expressed doubts.

“Such a diplomatic battle requires first and foremost a Palestinian consensus,” he added. “However, we are concerned that a Palestinian state with a Palestinian government will be dealt with as an alternative to the Palestine Liberation Organization.”

Such a Palestinian consensus, as The Electronic Intifada’s interviews with various factions and broader debates indicate, is decidedly lacking.

A cause greater than a Palestinian state

Much of the doubt comes from concern of the potential effects of the PA’s move on the rights of the Palestinian people. Dr. Naji Shurrab, a Gaza-based political analyst, told The Electronic Intifada that moving the cause to the UN would not likely bring about a concrete progress.

Shurrab pointed out that the UN had passed numerous resolutions affirming Palestinian rights and the illegality of Israeli colonization over many decades but none had ever been enforced.

Given this history, Shurrab wondered what fate would await millions of Palestinian refugees worldwide if the UN recognized a Palestinian state limited to within the 1967 lines.

“Would the UN would allow the return of millions of Palestinian refugees to the boundaries of historical Palestine, from which these millions of people were displaced by Israel in 1948?” he asked rhetorically.

“I think that the Palestinian cause is greater than the Palestinian state,” Shurrab said. “I am not fully optimistic about such a state. The recognition of a Palestinian state would require Palestinians to recognize an Israeli Jewish state.” This could further risk Palestinian rights, as 1.5 million Palestinians live within Israel itself.

Shurrab also worried about the impact on support for the Palestinian cause. “I am afraid that this would allow the Arab states to free their hands of the Palestinian people’s problem,” he said. “So the Arab states would say then to the Palestinians, you now have your own state, which we helped you to attain, so you can rely on yourselves.”

Just days before Abbas arrives at the UN, it is clear that many Palestinians remain at best doubtful that the promised confrontation in New York will do anything to advance their rights and aspirations.

By Rami Almeghari

22 September 2011

The Electronic Intifada

Rami Almeghari is a journalist and university lecturer based in the Gaza Strip.

 

 

ON THE CONCEPT OF PARADISE AND HELL

ON THE CONCEPT OF PARADISE AND HELL

Friends often ask me what do you think about paradise and hell? Are these spaces located somewhere out there wherein people would enter according to their deeds good or bad?  Or are these mere symbols as those who believe in batini (concealed meaning) of Qur’an? Are these places wherein people would eternally abide in physical sense? In fact it is like people used to ask the Prophet (PBUH) about the Day of Judgment

It is important to note that Qur’an, like other scriptures, is more symbolic than descriptive though not altogether symbolic. No scripture could be mere descriptive in order to remain eternal. Symbolism both makes it multi-layered in meaning as well as eternal in application.  The scriptures should make sense equally for ordinary people as well as those who have attained great heights in knowledge. Scripture, if it is means only for highly knowledgeable would leave ordinary people uninspired and if it is flat in description and without layers of meaning would not enthuse highly knowledgeable.

Thus what the Qur’an says about paradise and hell (jannat wa  jahannam) should be inspiring for both lay persons as well as knowledgeable. And indeed it does provided we take description of paradise and hell both in literal as well as symbolic sense, its literal as well as concealed sense. There is one more aspect which one must be aware of and sufis have often emphasized that aspect. Sufis believe that one must not do anything for greed or fear i.e. for reward or punishment.

This is symbolized in the famous story of Rabi’ah Basri, the noted lady sufi saint. One day she was carrying burning flame in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When people asked her why are you doing this, she replied I want to set fire to paradise with this burning flame and put our fire of hell with this bucket of water so that people stop worshiping Allah for greed of paradise or fear of hell. A true worshiper would do that for neither but for its own merit. More of this little later.

Qur’an is wonderfully balanced book in terms of its symbolism and flat descriptive language. An ordinary reader benefits from it as much as one who has achieved great heights of knowledge. The rationalists found it as much useful as blind followers but there was great difference between the two in terms of its understanding. The m’utazila (rationalists of Islam), the Isma’ilis (those who believed in hidden meanings along with literal) and the sufis understood the Qur’an very differently from other literalists (zahiris).

For zahiris (literalists) paradise and hell have been described in vivid details in physical sense, like a place where there will be eternal gardens with canals of milk and honey flowing therein etc. and hell with burning fire causing great physical pain and nothing can rescue them from there. Both would be eternal. The whole description is quite tempting about paradise and that of hell inspires great fear.  Description of hell is so fearsome that one can start trembling.

However, those who are knowledgeable treat this more symbolically and dive in for deeper meanings. The Qur’an calls paradise place of peace and security and it says :We will root out  whatever of rancor is in their breasts – they shall be as brethren on raised couches, face to face, Toil  shall but afflict them therein, nor shall they be ejected there from.” (15:45-48)

Firstly paradise is a state in which a believer would be feeling perfectly at peace and secure. There will be no fear or feeling of doubt, restlessness and fear. Only a person who is perfect in his/her faith can have such stage of mind. A doubter, an sceptic, without perfection of faith cannot feel so secure and peaceful at heart. The sufis talk of  insan-e-kamil  i.e. a perfect being. Their whole effort is to achieve this state of insan-e-kamil and such person is perfectly at peace with himself.

Also, there are stages of perfection and one has always to try to achieve higher and higher stage of perfection. It is not correct to say that paradise is a place of rest and enjoyment. Far from it. It is a place of constant e3fforts to raise oneself in higher degrees of perfection. Thus Qur’an says, “But those who keep their duty to their Lord shall have high places, above them higher places, built (for them)” (39:20).  Thus paradise is not at all place of eternal rest and enjoyment but that of spiritual efforts for further stages of perfection.

It is abiding in the sense that these are ceaseless efforts and once you achieve one stage of perfection there is no looking back and one goes on and there is great enjoyment in making these efforts. More such efforts and more one feels at peace with oneself.

Similarly hell is, for those who are people of deep knowledge, a state of mind in which one is far from perfection in ones faith but in a constant state of doubt or even hypocrisy and thus remains in a state of torment and it is fire of doubt or hypocrisy which keeps on tormenting him/her and as those who rise in a state of perfection in case of paradise, one keeps on falling lower and lower in case of hell. Greater the depth of fall, greater the torment. However, Qur’an provides for what it calls taubat al-nusuh (sincere repentance which can redeem one of this torture.

One always has a choice either to rise higher and higher in a state of perfection or fall low and low in a state of lowest of low.

By Asghar Ali Engineer

22 September 2011

 

Obama Widening War In Somalia

Obama Widening War In Somalia

Led by the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA) the U.S. is stepping up its war in Somalia, The Nation magazine reports.

“The CIA presence in (the capital) Mogadishu is part of Washington’s intensifying counter-terrorism focus on Somalia, which includes targeted strikes by US Special Operations forces, drone attacks and expanded surveillance operations,” writes Jeremy Scahill, the magazine’s national security correspondent.

According to well-connected Somali sources, the CIA is reluctant to deal directly with Somali political leaders, who are regarded by U.S. officials as corrupt and untrustworthy. Instead, Scahill says, the U.S. has Somali intelligence agents on its payroll. Even the nation’s president, Sharif Sheihk Ahmed is not fully briefed on war plans.

The CIA operates from a sprawling walled compound in a corner of Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport defended by guard towers manned by Somali government guards. What’s more, the CIA also runs a secret underground prison in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency headquarters, where conditions are reminiscent of the infamous Guantanamo Bay facility President Obama vowed to shut down.

The airport site was completed just four months ago and symbolizes the new face of the expanding war the Obama regime is waging against Al Shabab, and other Islamic militant groups in Somalia having close ties to Al Qaeda.

Typical of U.S. strongarm tactics, suspects from Kenya and elsewhere have been illegally rendered and flown to Mogadishu. Former prisoners, Scahill writes, “described the (filthy, small) cells as (infested with bedbugs), windowless and the air thick, moist and disgusting. Prisoners…are not allowed outside (and) many have developed rashes…” The prison dates back at least to the regime of military dictator Siad Barre, who ruled from 1969 to 1991, and was even then referred to as “The Hole.”

One prisoner snatched in Kenya and rendered to Somalia said, “I have been here for one year, seven months. I have been interrogated so many times…by Somali men and white men. Every day new faces show up (but) they have nothing on me. I have never seen a lawyer…here there is no court or tribunal.” The white men are believed to be U.S. and French intelligence agents.

Human Rights Watch and Reprieve have documented that Kenyan security forces “facilitated scores of renditions for the U.S. and other governments, including 85 people rendered to Somalia in 2007 alone,” Scahil writes.

Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a leader of Al Qaeda in East Africa and Kenyan citizen, was slain in the first known targeted killing operation in Somalia authorized by President Obama, The Nation article said, several months after a man thought to be one of Nabhan’s aides was rendered to Mogadishu.

In an interview with the magazine in Mogadishu, Abdulkadir Moallin Noor, the minister of state for the presidency, confirmed that US agents “are working without intelligence” and “giving them training.” He called for more U.S. counter-terrorism efforts lest “the terrorists will take over the country.”

During his confirmation hearings to become head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Vice Admiral William McRaven said the U.S. is “looking very hard” at Somalia and that it would have to “increase its use of drones as well as on-the-ground intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations.” U.S. actions appear to circumvent the president, who is not fully kept in the loop, the magazine reported.

A week after a June 23rd drone strike against alleged Shabab members near Kismayo, 300 miles from the capital, John Brennan, Mr. Obama’s top counter-terrorism adviser, said, “From the territory it controls in Somalia, Al Shabab continues to call for strikes against the United States. We cannot and we will not let down our guard. We will continue to pummel Al Qaeda and its ilk.”

Author Scahill reports the Pentagon is increasing its support for, and arming of, the counter-terrorism operations of non-Somali African military forces. A new defense spending bill would authorize more than $75 million in U.S. aid aimed at fighting the Shabab and Al Qaeda in Somalia. The package would “dramatically” increase US arming and financing of AMISOM’s (African Union) forces, particularly from Uganda and Burundi, as well as the armies of Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia.

The AMISOM forces, however, “are not conducting their mission with anything resembling surgical precision,” Scahill writes. Instead, in recent months they “have waged a merciless campaign of indiscriminate shelling of Shabab areas, some of which are heavily populated by civilians.”

According to a senior Somali intelligence official who works directly with U.S. agents, the CIA-led program in Mogadishu has yielded few tangible gains. Neither the U.S. nor Somali forces “have been able to conduct a single successful targeted mission in the Shabab’s areas in the capital,” Scahill reports.

Francis Boyle, distinguished authority on international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign, says the US. is “just using Shabab as an excuse to steal Somalia’s gas. Just before President Bush Senior’s Gulf War I, Somalia was already carved up among four or so U.S. oil companies. Then Bush Sr. invaded under the pretext of feeding poor starving Somalis…(but) the Somalis fought back and expelled us… So now we are just trying to get back in there. Notice they are escalating the propaganda again about poor starving Black People in Somalia, as if we ever cared diddly-squat about them. All we care about is stealing their oil. Shabab and famine are just covers and pretexts.”

The expanding war in Somalia, largely unreported in America, marks the sixth country in the Middle East—-after Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, and Yemen—in which the regime of Nobel Peace Prize-winner Obama is engaged. One wonders how many additional countries does Mr. Obama, (the former secret CIA payroller,) have to invade to win another Peace Prize?

By Sherwood Ross

31 August 2011

Countercurrents.org

Sherwood Ross directs the Anti-War News Service.

 

 

Obama At The UN: The Arrogant Voice Of Imperialism

Obama At The UN: The Arrogant Voice Of Imperialism

President Obama delivered an empty and arrogant sermon to the United Nations Wednesday, laced with platitudes about “peace” that were designed to mask Washington’s predatory policies.

The American president received a tepid response from the assembled heads of state, foreign ministers and UN delegates. Not a single line in his speech evoked applause. The novelty of two years ago, when Obama made his first appearance before the body posing as the champion of multilateral-ism in contrast to Bush, has long since worn off. As the world quickly learned, changing the occupant of the White House did little to shift the direction of American foreign policy or curb the spread of American militarism.

The immediate purpose of Obama’s 47-minute address was to supplement a behind-the-scenes campaign of bullying and intimidation aimed at forcing the Palestinian Authority to drop its plan to seek a UN Security Council vote on recognition of Palestine as a sovereign member state.

Washington has vowed to veto any bid for Palestinian statehood if it comes to the Security Council, a move that would only underscore the real character of US imperialist policy in the Middle East and the hypocrisy of its claims to identify with the revolutionary upheavals of the Arab masses.

The speech and Obama’s defense of the veto threat served to accomplish the same purpose, further diminishing the US president’s popularity in the Arab world. According to a recent poll, his favorable rating in the region has fallen from roughly 50 percent when he took office to barely 10 percent, even lower than George W. Bush in his second term.

Obama rushed from the podium at the General Assembly hall to a meeting and joint appearance with Benyamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister praised Obama’s remarks and made it clear that the two are working on a joint strategy to muscle Palestine Authority head Mahmoud Abbas into dropping the statehood bid. It was reported Thursday that there were efforts to get the Palestinian delegation to make an entirely symbolic plea for recognition, while agreeing to postpone any vote until after the resumption of US-brokered negotiations with Israel.

There have been two decades of such talks, which have achieved nothing, while Israel has relentlessly expanded Zionist settlements in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. Since the onset of negotiations in 1991, the number of settlers has more than doubled, while the West Bank has been internally divided by settlements, security roads and checkpoints as well as the apartheid security wall separating it from Israel.

Obama’s remarks in the UN speech represented an even further accommodation to Israel compared to his proposal in May for a resumption of talks, which he then said should be based upon pre-1967 borders with “mutually agreed swaps.” That statement, which implicitly supported Israel’s demand to retain existing settlements, merely reiterated the official policy of the US government since the Clinton administration. Nonetheless, the mere reference to borders provoked a storm of criticism from Netanyahu, the Israeli right, and the Republican Party.

In his speech to the UN, Obama mentioned neither the 1967 borders nor any proposal to halt the expansion of settlements on the West Bank. Instead, he presented the basis for proposed negotiations as: “Israelis must know that any agreement provides assurances for their security. Palestinians deserve to know the territorial basis of their state.” As the rest of the US president’s remarks made clear, both those conditions are to be dictated by Israel.

While behind the scenes US officials are reportedly threatening the Palestinian Authority with cutting off all US aid if it goes ahead with the request for recognition, in his speech Obama described a turn to the UN as a “short cut” that would accomplish nothing.

Dismissing the role of the institution that he had rhetorically praised at the outset of his remarks, Obama said, “Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN—if it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now.” Indeed, scores of UN resolutions on the plight of the Palestinians have been repudiated and ignored by both Israel and Washington. The US has used its veto in the Security Council to kill scores more.

Evidently responding to the right-wing criticism of Republican presidential hopefuls, who have denounced him for “throwing Israel under the bus” with his 1967 borders remark last May, Obama went out of his way to dismiss the historical grievances of the Palestinian people, while identifying unconditionally with Israel.

Of the Palestinians, he said only that they deserved a “sovereign state of their own” and they “have seen that vision delayed for too long.”

This was followed by a declaration that “America’s commitment to Israel’s security is unshakable, and our friendship with Israel is deep and enduring.” He continued by describing Israel as a country “surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it,” whose “citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses.” He referred to Israel as a “small country” in a world “where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map.” And he wound up by invoking the Holocaust.

“These facts cannot be denied,” he said. One would never guess from this selection of “facts” that some 4 million Palestinians live under the oppression and constant violence of Israeli occupation, and that another 5 million are refugees, driven from their homeland.

Nor for that matter, would one have any inkling of the constant wars that “little Israel,” with its elastic borders, has waged against its neighbors. Among the more recent are the 2006 war against Lebanon, which left 1,200 civilians dead and much of the country’s infrastructure in ruins, and the 2008 “Operation Cast Lead,” against Gaza, which claimed the lives of nearly 1,500 Palestinians, compared to 13 Israelis.

With a tone of exasperation, Obama acknowledged that “for many in this hall,” the Palestinian question was the issue that “stands as a test” for Washington’s claims to champion human rights and democracy.

In reality, however, the rest of the speech proved just as revealing in terms of the hypocrisy and imperialist interests that pervade Washington’s policies all over the world.

The pretense laid out at the beginning of Obama’s speech was that the US government is engaged in “the pursuit of peace in an imperfect world.” The address included a trite refrain, repeated three times: “peace is hard.”

Fleshing out this theme, Obama pointed to the partial troop withdrawals from the eight-and-a-half-year-old war and occupation in Iraq and the decade-old war in Afghanistan. He bragged that by the end of the year, only 90,000 US troops will be deployed in these wars.

Washington’s aim, he said, was to forge an “equal partnership” with Iraq “strengthened by our support for Iraq—for its government and its security forces,” and an “enduring partnership” with “the people of Afghanistan.” He claimed that these changes proved that “the tide of war is receding.”

The rhetoric about “partnership”, however, refers to the plans being pursued by the White House and the Pentagon to keep US troops, CIA operatives and American bases in both countries, long past the dates set for US withdrawal. US imperialism is determined to continue pursuing the goals that underlay the wars from the outset: hegemonic control over the strategic energy reserves of the Caspian Basin and the Persian Gulf.

Obama then preceded to extol the “Arab Spring,” declaring: “One year ago, the hopes of the people of Tunisia were suppressed…One year ago, Egypt had known one president for nearly thirty years.”

Needless to say, the American president made no reference as to whose support had kept the dictators Ben Ali and Mubarak in power for so long, nor to the current attempts by Washington to salvage the regimes they headed and suppress the mass popular movements that forced their ouster.

From there, he proceeded to praise the NATO war in Libya, declaring that, by authorizing this imperialist intervention, “the United Nations lived up to its charter.”

In reality, the war represented a fundamental violation of the tenets of this charter, which proclaimed the “sovereign equality” of all member states, demanded that all disputes be settled peacefully and insisted that member states “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”

In the case of Libya, the US and its NATO allies, proclaiming the threat of an imminent massacre in Benghazi, procured a resolution authorizing “all necessary measures” to protect civilians. It utilized this resolution as a cover for a war of regime change. The NATO powers carried out thousands of air strikes and sent in special forces troops to organize, train and arm a “rebel” force for a war that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Libyans. The aim of this war, like those in Afghanistan and Iraq before it, is domination of strategic energy reserves—as well as inserting Western military power in the midst of a region facing revolutionary turmoil.

“This is how the international community is supposed to work,” Obama declared in relation to the Libyan operation, calling to mind Lenin’s description of the League of Nations, the UN’s predecessor, as a “thieves’ kitchen.”

Turning to uncompleted business and potential imperialist interventions yet to come, Obama condemned Iran for failing “to recognize the rights of its own people” and calling for the UN impose new sanctions against Syria. “Will we stand with the Syrian people, or with their oppressors?” he demanded.

Given the bloody events in Yemen, where over 100 civilians have been massacred over the past three days, Obama could not completely ignore the upheavals against US-backed regimes in the region. In Yemen, however, there was no invocation to stand against oppressors, merely a call to “seek a path that allows for a peaceful transition.”

Even more tepid was his reference to Bahrain, the headquarters of the US 5th Fleet. “America is a close friend of Bahrain,” he declared. Here, where thousands have been killed, tortured, imprisoned, beaten and fired from their jobs for demanding democratic rights, he proposed merely a “meaningful dialogue,” while justifying the repression by suggesting that Bahrainis were confronting “sectarian forces that would tear them apart.”

The rest of the speech consisted of a hollow and unconvincing recitation of the usual platitudes. These included the elimination of nuclear weapons—with Washington, sitting on the greatest nuclear arsenal in the world and the only state ever to use such weapons lecturing North Korea and Iran. He inveighed against poverty and disease and insisted on the need “not to put off action that a changing climate demands.” Thrown in were calls for the rights of women as well as gays and lesbians.

On the decisive issue facing millions of working people in the US and across the globe, Obama acknowledged that economic “recovery is fragile”, that “too many people are out of work” and that “too many are struggling to get by.” Referring to the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of the banks, he boasted, “We acted together to avert a depression in 2009” and insisted that “We must take urgent and coordinated action once more.”

But as with all the other issues raised in the speech, the American president had no “coordinated action,” no program, and no policy to propose. In the final analysis, Obama’s empty rhetoric is a direct expression of the profound crisis gripping American capitalism and its ruling financial elite as it confronts economic collapse and the threat of revolutionary upheaval.

By Bill Van Auken

22 September 2011

@ WSWS.org

 

 

 

Notes From Tripoli

Tripoli Journal in Which Franklin Lamb Shields a Nigerian from Rebel Racists and Dreams of Chadian Ladies

Tripoli: My roommate left our hotel and hopefully Libya last night for his village near Arlit, Niger thanks to the assistance of one of Tripoli’s Christian Churches. I shall miss him a lot.

It was a recently formed human rights group from the Coptic Orthodox (Egyptian) Church in Tripoli, working to protect blacks from the still lawless Tripoli streets that enabled my roommate to depart this hotel. The Coptic Church, according to their Prelate here, has the largest Christian communion in Libya with normally 60,000 parishioners and has roots in Libya going back hundreds of years before the Arabs spread westward from Egypt.

Mohammad departed none too soon since “security personnel” arrived at the Corinthia Hotel close to 1 p.m. Sunday afternoon, with gunmen and two “Generals” in fine new uniforms complete with epaulets. Their surprise visit was to check the hotel rooms for Gaddafi supporters. They claimed they had received “reports.”

The Copts did a good job in getting Mohammad to safety. Most observers here agree that for the immediate future there will be a whirlwind of wild speculation, accusations and even some serious examination of Moammar Gaddafi’s leadership of Libya these past four decades. One fact however is incontrovertible to this observer and it is that under Gaddafi, Christians, whether Roman Catholic, Anglican Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox — the main Christian sects here — have been well treated and allowed virtually complete freedom to practice their beliefs and to celebrate their traditions with some restrictions placed on campaigns to proselytize Muslims of which they have not been any since the Mormons and the “Way of the Cross” evangelicals left some years back.

Most of the churches here currently have volunteers working to help their Muslim sisters and brothers during this cataclysmic period. My friend Mohammad is one whose life they may have saved.

Mohammad and I have been secretly sharing my room for more than a week since I accidently discovered him hiding and trembling in the hotel’s garden bushes shortly after the rebel entrance into Tripoli. It was easy to calm Mohammad down and I brought him a shirt from my room, as his was filthy.

Mohammad is a black African, devout Muslim, and one fine man. When I saw him looking up at me and trembling my thoughts instantly turned to a 21-year-old black Mississippian, James Chaney, and the date could have been June 21, 1964. That was when Neshoba County’s law enforcement and the Ku Klux Klan hunted blacks to kill and did kill James and his white companions Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner

The reason Mohammad was hiding outside the Corinthia hotel is that he feared for his life as so many, if not most, black Africans and black Libyans (roughly one third of Libya’s population) do these days. Bands of young rebel “freedom fighters” are still roaming some of Tripoli’s streets, itching it seems, to kill some “African mercenaries”, meaning, it appears, any black man they can find. Although the apparently politically contrived rumors of African mercenaries raping Libyan women which helped NATO get the UN Security Council to green light its bombing and regime change campaign, have been debunked as fake by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and a UN fact finding group, some of the macho young rebels in Libya still insist the smear campaign is true.

Mohammad explained to me that he was never a fighter for anyone in Libya but rather that his employment background, like his father, uncles and brothers, was in Niger’s uranium mines which only the past few years have begun to recover from the late 1980’s collapse. Mohammad’s brother Said was killed in the Tuareg Rebellion of the 1990’s and his father sent Mohammad to Libya to work in construction.

I agreed with Mohammad that he could stay secretly with me until we could get him into safe hands. The hotel has never been the wiser to my knowledge although my friend Ismail, who works behind the front desk when he is not doing a dozen other jobs during his frequent 16 hour shifts, probably suspected something was going on because he would give me knowing glances as I disappeared toward the elevator with a table cloth covering a big plate of food and contrary to hotel rules of no hotel kitchen food in the rooms. Luckily Ismail is a black Libyan and, if he knew, he did not rat us out.

With no security at our hotel until the day before yesterday and now packed with journalists, Mohammad took extra precautions and never left room # 1185 except for one night when someone from the Coptic Church came to meet with him in another room and I gave his floor spot to a French activist from Beirut whose boat to Alexandria was delayed again.

Housekeeping, no longer exists at this hotel, and so no one has entered my room for almost two weeks since the staff fled. In any case Mohammad and I had a good cover story ready in case events demanded one. Mohammad, we would explain if caught, was a driver for the Italian Embassy before the Italians temporarily pulled up stakes back in March.

I got pretty good at fixing plates of food for Mohammad from the nightly “Iftar buffet.” Because we are both fasting for Ramadan, smuggling Mohammad food only once a day was easy enough, especially as some of the new hotel guests, being journalists from the Rixos Hotel or rushing here to cover the “Fall of Tripoli”, are now in the habit of fixing their dinner plates and sitting around the abandoned hotel restaurants. This way they have more space and privacy from the cramped conditions in the rapidly deteriorating “dining room” or their working area.

Personally, this Ramadan, the Iftar feast no longer has appeal for me because we have the very same food every Iftar which now comes almost entirely from cans. At noon today, the Hotel Front Desk posted the most recent Dear Guest Notice. It reads: “Dear Guests: Please be advised that there will be no lunch today due to absence of water supply in the Hotel. We hope for a water delivery this afternoon and hope to serve dinner tonight at 18:30. Thank you. The Corinthia Hotel Management.” No water arrived and when I and an American lady who works for the Sunday Times returned from driving thru Tripoli’s center, at 7:50 p.m. just in time for Iftar, mine consisted of walking through the dining area picking leftover food bits from plates where diners had eaten and left.

Before Mohammad left, he helped me with my infected leg and told me about a nearby Dr. which made me happy since no others have been available this past week. But as dear readers may come to understand, I soon became reluctant to seek treatment from the doctor who Mohammad recommended although by very great coincidence I have known her wonderful granddaughter, an Arabic-English language interpreter named Aya, for several weeks.

My most recent best bet for immediate medical assistance was my new friend Dr. XX, “Consultant Urological Surgeon” from the British Medical Center here in Tripoli (formerly the Swiss Medical Center until Hannibal Gaddafi had that unfortunate problem with Swiss authorities last winter and his Dad wanted to abolish Switzerland and all things Swiss), hence the fast name change on the Clinic building. Dr. XX is from New Delhi but studied in England and now normally resides in Sheffield, England. He spent the past year working here in Libya, loves the people and the country and was most willing to help me. The problem was that he had to rush to catch the boat out of here for Malta yesterday. Anyhow, he said I had a couple of days left before I would possibly have major leg problems and he gave me the phone numbers of two of his colleagues, one an Indian dentist. So far the phones still don’t work well in Tripoli.

Just a word of background about Dr. Fatima, recommended by Mohammad now that I am resigned to get treatment late today, come what may, following my brief meeting with the good Dr. this morning.

Dr. Fatima is very thin, quite tall, has an unusually large head and a red scarf covers part of her face which is stained blue. Aya explained that while Dr. Fatima is by background Muslim, her Saharan tribe retains some pre-Islamic rites and customs and is genealogically connected with the Delvar Nar. Yet Aya also told me that Fatma’s tribe claims that they are linked with the Angels mentioned in Luke 24:4 where Christ’s apostle describes the scene at Jesus’s tomb when two angels appeared to Mary. Anyhow….

Aya says Dr. Fatima is capable of teleportation, telekinesis and ESP and while I don’t need any of that stuff just now, but could later, Dr. Fatima fortunately is also expert in Saharan medicine including leg infections. So the good news is that I am very soon to be in experienced medical hands. I have no doubt about that and I shall always be grateful to my friend Mohammad for the referral.

The down side may be what Aya told me about what her grandmother must do to make me well. This may be the tough part for someone who nearly collapses if some nurse even hints that she wants to stick a needle in me. Aspirin is about the only medicine I have ever taken because my half German sainted Mother did not believe in her large brood getting sick and we all minded her over the years.

Dr. Fatima’s “clinic” is in the Medina not far from my Hotel and the area is coming back to life as some citizens are beginning to peek out and emerge from their homes. Hundreds of shops and outdoor tables with all kinds of new and used goods have been closed for more than a week. Even the lovely Chadian hospitality ladies who I have good reason to believe rent themselves from dirt floor rooms off the ancient streets of the medina for ten Libyan dinars an hour (about $8) or 16 dinar ($ 12.80) for two hostesses, (three additional dinars per hour for air conditioning in the room ) have vanished. This fact alone, according to one of the guys from the UN delegation that ten days ago got permission from NATO to fly from Tripoli airport to Tunis for R & R and to assess their “findings,” is reason enough for the UNSC to immediately end NATO’s carnage in Libya.

I admit to being a little apprehensive because Aya told me one of the Chadian ladies, who recently returned and works as a nurse for Dr. Fatima, must first slice my wound in narrow lines and then rub and wash it thoroughly with Saharan sand and some nasty looking green paste of Sarahan vegetation and insect fluids.

While I sat thinking how that is going to feel, Aya seems to have read my expression and assures me that everything will be ok because her granny also makes a strong alcoholic drink out of Saharan cactus and I will drink some and feel fine.

“Well, why not we just use that drink rather than sand to cleanse the wound”? I ask. Aya gave me one of her, “You stupid American!” glances that communicates, “Please don’t bother to question we who know what’s best for you!”

Aya also promises me that after my “treatment” the now returning Chadian ladies will take care of me for the expected three-day recovery period. I immediately feel better.

If fate rules that these next few days in fact comprise my last chapter, and never having had much interest in being with virgins, the company of these angels will certainly be as close to Heaven as this hayseed from rural Oregon will likely get

By Franklin Lamb

30 August, 2011

Countercurrents.org

Franklin Lamb is in Libya.

 

 

Negotiations: A Disaster For Palestinians

Negotiations: A  Disaster For Palestinians

The issue of a Palestinian state is back on the radar due to Palestinians taking their cause to the UN next week. Israel and the U.S. strongly oppose the Palestinian effort. In fact, on September 8 th , the U.S. confirmed it would veto the Palestinian effort in the UN Security Council. Israel claims that the Palestinians can achieve statehood only through negotiations, not through the UN. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. dutifully supports Israel.

Perhaps Palestinians finally concluded that they could not achieve a just settlement with the Israelis through a U.S. brokered peace process, hence the move to the UN. Support for this belief about the futility of negotiations is found in the Palestinian papers that were released this January by al-Jazeera and the British Guardian newspaper. The Palestinian papers, obtained by al-Jazeera, contained over 1600 documents about the peace process from September 1999 through late 2010. According to the Guardian : ” But as became clear even under the earlier, less hardline Israeli government of Ehud Olmert, the scale of concessions offered by Erekat and other Palestinian Authority negotiators — far beyond what the majority of the Palestinian public would be likely to accept — was insufficient for Israeli leaders. “

Negotiations before 1999 showed Israel often used delaying tactics to avoid reaching a resolution. For example, re the 1991 Madrid negotiations, former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said: “I would have conducted negotiations on autonomy for 10 years and in the meantime we would have reached half a million people” in the West Bank. Successive Israeli governments have essentially carried out Shamir ‘ s policy.

The 1993 Oslo Accords led to a huge increase in Israeli settlers. In 2001 then former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu claimed he stopped the accords . He recalled how he conditioned his signing of the 1997 Hebron agreement on American consent that there be no withdrawals from “specified military locations,” and insisted he choose those same locations, such as the whole of the Jordan Valley, for example.

Casting doubt on the U.S.’s role as an honest broker , Aaron David Miller, one of the U.S. team at the 2000 Camp David debacle, wrote about negotiations: “The “no surprises” policy, under which we had to run everything by Israel first, stripped our policy of the independence and flexibility required for serious peacemaking.” Re the negotiations themselves, Shlomo Ben-Ami, then Israeli Foreign Minister and one of the Israeli negotiators added : “that Camp David was not the missed opportunity for the Palestinians, and if I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David, as well.”

It was not only the Netanyahu government that put up barriers to a Palestinian state. For example, according to the Guardian, the Palestinian papers covered a November 2007 meeting that included Tzipi Livni, then Israeli Foreign Minister and Ahmed Qureia, a Palestinian negotiator. Livni told Qureia that she believed Palestinians saw settlement building as meaning “Israel takes more land [so] that the Palestinian state will be impossible “; that “the Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we’ll say that is impossible, we already have the land and we cannot create the state”. She conceded that it had been “the policy of the government for a really long time”.

Netanyahu is again the Israeli Prime Minister. He now rejects another short-term freeze on Israel’s illegal building of settlements. Since the Palestinians require a freeze before continuing negotiations, Netanyahu is content with the current impasse. He doesn’t even have to raise Hamas as a reason for avoiding negotiations. Stalling continues unimpeded.

Considering Hamas, according to a 2007 article in Forward , hawkish Israelis such as retired Major General Shlomo Gazit, a former chief of military intelligence, and Ephraim Halevy, a former Mossad chief, support negotiating with Hamas. Gazit called the three conditions laid down by Israel and its Western allies for negotiating with Hamas “ridiculous, or an excuse not to negotiate.” Halevy believes Israel should take up Hamas’s offer of a long-term truce and try negotiating, because the Islamic movement is respected by Palestinians and generally keeps its word.

Palestinian civil society has seen the continuation of the brutal Israeli occupation and Israel’s construction of more illegal settlements despite, or maybe as a result of, the negotiations. Palestinians also see the hypocrisy of the international community that has failed in its responsibility to support human rights and international law. Therefore Palestinian society has moved on from a flawed U.S. brokered negotiating process and turned to a nonviolent boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign that is already having an impact.

By Ron Forthofer

14 September 2011

Countercurrents.org

Ron Forthofer, Ph.D.is a retired professor and activist for peace and social justice