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Netanyahu And The One-State Solution

 

 

25 May, 2011

Countercurrents.org

Israel’s unwillingness to compromise on key issues might annul a two-state solution, making only power-sharing viable.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address US legislators on Tuesday. He will, no doubt, tell members of Congress that he supports a two-state solution, but his support will be predicated on four negative principles: no to Israel’s full withdrawal to the 1967 borders; no to the division of Jerusalem; no to the right of return for Palestinian refugees; and no to a Palestinian military presence in the new state.

The problem with Netanyahu’s approach is not so much that it is informed by a rejectionist worldview. The problem is not even Netanyahu’s distorted conception of Palestine’s future sovereignty, which Meron Benvenisti aptly described as “scattered, lacking any cohesive physical infrastructure, with no direct connection to the outside world, and limited to the height of its residential buildings and the depth of its graves. The airspace and the water resources will remain under Israeli control…”

Rather, the real problem is that Netanyahu’s outlook is totally detached from current political developments, particularly the changing power relations both in the Middle East and around the world. Indeed, his approach is totally anachronistic.

Netanyahu’s not-so-implicit threat that Israel will continue its colonial project if the Palestinians do not accept some kind of “Bantustan solution” no longer carries any weight. The two peoples have already passed this juncture.

The Palestinians have clearly declared that they will not bow down to such intimidations, and it is now clear that the conflict has reached an entirely new intersection.

At this new intersection, there are two signs. The first points towards the west and reads “viable and just two-state solution”, while the second one points eastward and reads “power sharing”.

The first sign is informed by years of political negotiations (from the Madrid conference in 1991, through Oslo, Camp David, Taba, and Annapolis) alongside the publication of different initiatives (from the Geneva Initiative and the Saudi Plan to the Nussaiba and Ayalon Plan), all of which have clarified what it would take to reach a peace settlement based on the two-state solution. It entails three central components:

1. Israel’s full withdrawal to the 1967 border, with possible one-for-one land swaps so that ultimately the total amount of land that was occupied will be returned.

2. Jerusalem’s division according to the 1967 borders, with certain land swaps to guarantee that each side has control over its own religious sites and large neighbourhoods. Both these clauses entail the dismantlement of Israeli settlements and the return of the Jewish settlers to Israel.

3. The acknowledgement of the right of return of all Palestinians, but with the following stipulation: while all Palestinians will be able to return to the fledgling Palestinian state, only a limited number agreed upon by the two sides will be allowed to return to Israel; those who cannot exercise this right or, alternatively, choose not to, will receive full compensation.

Israel’s continued unwillingness to fully support these three components is rapidly leading to the annulment of the two-state option and, as a result, is leaving open only one possible future direction: power sharing.

The notion of power sharing would entail the preservation of the existing borders, from the Jordan valley to the Mediterranean Sea, and an agreed upon form of a power sharing government led by Israeli Jews and Palestinians, and based on the liberal democracy model of the separation of powers. It also entails a parity of esteem – namely, the idea that each side respects the other side’s identity and ethos, including language, culture and religion. This, to put it simply, is the bi-national one-state solution.

Many Palestinians have come to realise that even though they are currently under occupation, Israel’s rejectionist stance will unwittingly lead to the bi-national solution. And while Netanyahu is still miles behind the current juncture, it is high time for a Jewish Israeli and Jewish American Awakening, one that will force their respective leaders to support a viable democratic future for the Jews and Palestinians living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. One that will bring an end to the violent conflict.

Neve Gordon is the author of Israel’s Occupation and can be reached through his website .

This article first appeared in Al Jazeera

Prof. Neve Gordon

Department of Politics and Government

Ben-Gurion University

Beer-Sheva 84105

Thank You Cornel West

 

 

25 May, 2011

Countercurrents.org

The outspoken scholar and Princeton University professor Cornel West has been viciously attacked by many on the political left, especially supporters of President Obama. Why? Because he had the courage to call Obama a “black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.” For more of West’s views see this article.

Most of the attention has been on the use of the word “black,” as if the black Cornel West had made a racist comment. In fact, West got it right because he and some other true progressives have condemned Obama for not being an authentic progressive. Right again, Obama has never shown himself to be a true leftist progressive, even though many on the conservative right may think he is one. West thinks Obama “has no backbone.”

It is not that Obama is not black enough, as some think West was saying. It is about the dishonesty, deceit and corruptness of Obama.

What everyone should be praising West for is that he correctly made the point that Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats have stolen the US government by using vast sums of money to corrupt both Democrat and Republican politicians.

West just told the truth about Obama who got elected because as a candidate for president he received a huge sum from the most awful Wall Street company, Goldman Sachs.

What West has explained is that “poor and working people have low priority in US government policy including the Obama Administration.” No surprise because West is definitely a true liberal progressive who has been making this kind of criticism very openly for a long time. Indeed, if poor and working people, as well as all African Americans, would wake up to reality they would abandon Obama, even as the lesser evil. Obama has told too many lies and done too many wrong things to deserve their support.

Nearly all members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, are nothing more than mascots of Wall Street oligarchs and puppets of corporate plutocrats, something that all intelligent Americans, including those in the Tea Party movement, should totally agree with.

Here is something else West said: “The tea party folk are right when they say the government is corrupt. It is corrupt. Big business and banks have taken over government and corrupted it in deep ways….we’ve got to think seriously of third-party candidates, third formations, third parties.”

Over at FutureofCapitalism.com this point was made: Obama “has basically enshrined the too-big-to-fail banks while also propping up GE and the firms that will benefit from ObamaCare.” True enough.

We need many more people that get mass media attention to say the kind of things that West has said. Americans need to be reminded incessantly that their government has been hijacked by rich and powerful elites.

With a corrupt two-party plutocracy elections no longer offer the promise of much needed reforms. Odds are that Tea Party people will realize that their favored Republicans will also not deliver a rehabilitated, honest government serving the interests or ordinary Americans.

[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through delusionaldemocracy.com.]

 

 

Bibi and the Yo-Yos

 

May 28, 2011

 

 

 

 

IT WAS all rather disgusting.

 

There they were, the members of the highest legislative bodies of the world’s only superpower, flying up and down like so many yo-yos, applauding wildly, every few minutes or seconds, the most outrageous lies and distortions of Binyamin Netanyahu.

 

It was worse than the Syrian parliament during a speech by Bashar Assad, where anyone not applauding could find himself in prison. Or Stalin’s Supreme Soviet, when showing less than sufficient respect could have meant death.

 

What the American Senators and Congressmen feared was a fate worse than death. Anyone remaining seated or not applauding wildly enough could have been caught on camera – and that amounts to political suicide. It was enough for one single congressman to rise and applaud, and all the others had to follow suit. Who would dare not to?

 

The sight of these hundreds of parliamentarians jumping up and clapping their hands, again and again and again and again, with the Leader graciously acknowledging with a movement of his hand, was reminiscent of other regimes. Only this time it was not the local dictator who compelled this adulation, but a foreign one.

 

The most depressing part of it was that there was not a single lawmaker – Republican or Democrat – who dared to resist. When I was a 9 year old boy in Germany, I dared to leave my right arm hanging by my side when all my schoolmates raised theirs in the Nazi salute and sang Hitler’s anthem. Is there no one in Washington DC who has that simple courage? Is it really Washington IOT – Israel Occupied Territory – as the anti-Semites assert?

 

Many years ago I visited the Senate hall and was introduced to the leading Senators of the time. I was profoundly shocked. After being brought up in deep respect for the Senate of the United States, the country of Jefferson and Lincoln, I was faced with a bunch of pompous asses, many of them nincompoops who had not the slightest idea what they were talking about. I was told that it was their assistants who really understood matters.

 

 

SO WHAT did the great man say to this august body?

 

It was a finely crafted speech, using all the standard tricks of the trade – the dramatic pause, the raised finger, the little witticisms, the sentences repeated for effect. Not a great orator, by any means, no Winston Churchill, but good enough for this audience and this occasion.

 

But the message could be summed up in one word: No.

 

After their disastrous debacle in 1967, the leaders of the Arab world met in Khartoum and adopted the famous Three No’s: NO recognition of Israel, No [] negotiation with Israel, NO peace with Israel. It was just what the Israeli leadership wanted. They could go happily about their business of entrenching the occupation and building settlements.

Now Netanyahu is having his Khartoum. NO return to the 1967 borders. NO Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. NO to even a symbolic return of some refugees. NO military withdrawal from the Jordan River – meaning that the future Palestinian state would be completely surrounded  by the Israeli armed forces. NO negotiation with a Palestinian government “supported” by Hamas, even if there are no Hamas members in the government itself. And so on – NO. NO. NO.

The aim is clearly to make sure that no Palestinian leader could even dream of entering negotiations, even in the unlikely event that he were ready to meet yet another condition: to recognize Israel as “the nation-state of the Jewish people” – which includes the dozens of Jewish Senators and Congressmen who were the first to jump up and down, up and down, like so many marionettes.

Netanyahu, along with his associates and political bedfellows, is determined to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state by all and any means. That did not start with the present government – it is an aim deeply embedded in Zionist ideology and practice. The founders of the movement set the course, David Ben-Gurion acted to implement it in 1948, in collusion with King Abdallah of Jordan. Netanyahu is just adding his bit.

“No Palestinian state” means: no peace, not now, not ever. Everything else is, as the Americans say, baloney. All the pious phrases about happiness for our children, prosperity for the Palestinians, peace with the entire Arab world, a bright future for all, are just that – pure baloney. At least some in the audience must have noticed that, even with all that jumping.

 

NETANYAHU SPAT in Obama’s eye. The Republicans in the audience must have enjoyed that. Perhaps some Democrats too.

It can be assumed that Obama did not. So what will he do now?

There is a Jewish joke about a hungry pauper who entered an inn and demanded food. Otherwise, he threatened, he would do what his father did. The frightened innkeeper fed him, and in the end asked timidly: “But what did your father do?” Swallowing the last morsel, the man answered: “He went to sleep hungry.”

There is a good chance that Obama will do the same. He will pretend that the spittle on his cheek is rainwater. His promise to prevent a UN General Assembly recognition of the State of Palestine deprived him of his main leverage over Netanyahu.

Somebody in Washington seems to be floating the idea of Obama coming to Jerusalem and addressing the Knesset. It would be direct retaliation – Obama talking with the Israeli public over the head of the Prime Minister, as Netanyahu has just addressed the American public over the head of the President.

It would be an exciting event. As a former Member of the Knesset, I would be invited. But I would not advise it. I proposed it a year ago. Today I would not.

The obvious precedent is Anwar Sadat’s historic speech in the Knesset. But there is really no comparison. Egypt and Israel were still officially at war. Going to the capital of the enemy was without precedent, the more so only four years after a bloody battle. It was an act that shook Israel, eliminating in one stroke a whole set of mental patterns and opening the mind for new ones. Not one of us will ever forget the moment when the door of the airplane swung open and there he was, handsome and serene, the leader of the enemy.

Later, when I interviewed Sadat at his home, I told him: “I live on the main street of Tel Aviv. When you came out of that plane, I looked out of the window. Nothing moved in the street, except one cat – and it was probably looking for a television set.”

A visit by Obama will be quite different. He will, of course, be received politely – without the obsessive jumping and clapping – though probably heckled by Knesset Members of the extreme Right. But that will be all.

Sadat’s visit was a deed in itself. Not so a visit by Obama. He will not shake Israeli public opinion, unless he comes with a concrete plan of action – a detailed peace plan, with a detailed timetable, backed by a clear determination to see it through, whatever the political cost.

Another nice speech, however beautifully phrased, just will not do. After this week’s deluge of speeches, we have had enough. Speeches can be important if they accompany actions, but they are no substitute for action. Churchill’s speeches helped to shape history – but only because they reflected historic deeds. Without the Battle of Britain, without Normandy, without El Alamein, those speeches would have sounded ridiculous.

Now, with all the roads blocked, there remains only one path remains open: the recognition of the State of Palestine by the United Nations coupled with nonviolent mass action by the Palestinian people against the occupation. The Israeli peace forces will also play their part, because the fate of Israel depends on peace as much as the fate of Palestine.

Sure, the US will try to obstruct, and Congress will jump up and down, But the Israeli-Palestinian spring is on its way.

 

 

 

Welcome To Gaza: Revolution And Change At The Rafah Border

 

 

28 May, 2011

Countercurrents.org

The Palestinian security officer at the Rafah border was overly polite. He wore a black uniform and walked around self-assuredly, as he instructed weary travelers on their next moves before being allowed back into Gaza. On the other side of the border, in Egypt, there was much anxiety, fear and anticipation.

‘Things will get better,’ said a Palestinian engineer from Gaza, who once studied and now works in a Swedish town south of Stockholm. What he meant was that things will get better at the border crossing, in terms of the relationship between Gaza and Egypt. Without a decisive Egyptian decision to reopen the crossing – completely – Gaza will continue to reel under the Israeli siege. Others agree, but Gazans have learned not to become too confident about political statements promising positive changes.

However, the Egypt of today belongs to an entirely different political category to the Egypt of Hosni Mubarak’s leadership. Palestinians, especially those trapped behind the shut borders in Gaza, are well aware of this. Still they are cautious. ‘Inshallah’ – God willing, they say, ‘May Allah bring good things.’

For now, things remain difficult at the border. When Egyptian border officials collect passports for examination, and return a few hours later to read aloud the names of those allowed in, a large crowd gathers around them. Tensions soon escalate to yelling, and occasional tears.

‘Go back or I will not give any his passport back,’ shouted a large Egyptian officer with some disdain. The veins on the side of his face suddenly bulked up. The crowd disbanded, only to return seconds later. The officer looked exhausted and clearly fed up. The Gaza travelers had already moved beyond the point of humiliation. They simply wanted to get from here to there, and back.

A young woman with a contorted back trotted behind her mother. Her pain was apparent on her face. ‘Yallah yamma,’ – hurry, daughter – urged the mother. ‘They might close the gate any minute.’ The girl, in her twenties, paused, closed her eyes tight, as if summoning whatever strength remained in her frail body to carry on for a few seconds longer.

The gate of the Egyptian border point was very wide, but only a small gap of a few feet was open. When it opened, early Thursday, May 19, hundreds tried to rush in at once. Large bags were tossed over people’s heads, children cried in panic, officers yelled, and a few dared to yell back. ‘Just open the gate, the big one,’ someone said. A white-haired little man, in an oversize, ancient suit, stood back and shock his head. ‘It’s a tragedy,’ he said. Soon, he too was forced to lose his civility and push against the mass of desperate humanity. Later, I saw him inside the border point, circling around nervously and intently puffing on a cigarette.

Here at the border, everyone is nervous, even those who have no reason to be. The Egyptian officers are edgy, as if their fate too is being determined somehow. Both sides know that the Gaza-Egypt border is undergoing an important transition. Egypt’s new foreign minister, Nabil al-Arabi, had already promised a breakup with the past, thus an opening of the border between his country and Gaza. There is much trust among Palestinians that the new Egypt is genuine, but also a fear that a politically vulnerable Egypt might be forced to compromise on its early stances.

But the Egyptian people seem determined to keep their government in check. Palestine is a major theme now in large protests. Hundreds of Egyptian activists were arrested, and many were wounded as they rallied near the Israeli embassy in Cairo, which was closed for few days before re-opening again. An Egyptian call to march to Gaza, in commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba of 1948 – the Day of Catastrophe – was aborted after the Egyptian army sealed much of Sinai. Tanks still dot the highway leading from Cairo to Gaza via the Sinai desert. The soldiers are very polite, though. The Egyptian driver who took me to Rafah in a very late hour seemed happiest with the revolution in his country, simply because he is now treated with respect by men in uniform. ‘Officers used to treat us with so much disrespect,’ he said with a retrospective sense of grief. ‘Now, we are like brothers.’ The driver extended his hand for an unnecessary handshake with a noticeably short solider, wearing a pair of slippers.

The sense of joy, however, hasn’t made it to the Gaza border yet. The hope and anticipation that Gazans feel towards the changes underway in Egypt can only be understood after a degree of investigation. The distance between Cairo and Rafah is long and arduous. It will be no easy task to translate political will in the former into meaningful policy in the latter. Still, the Egyptian people are keeping up the pressure, and Palestinians in Gaza remain hopeful.

At the end, no one was turned back. Everyone made it into Gaza. The man with the very old suit was still smoking and cursing for no apparent reason. The girl with the hurt back was still in terrible pain, but also happy to be home. The Gaza-Swedish engineer had a crowd of young cousins waiting for him. In Rafah, I found myself invited to a lunch followed by Arabic coffee with many men I didn’t know, most of whom were called Mohammed. They all seemed happy.

‘So, Egypt has changed, right?’ asked one Mohammed with a knowing smile and a nod. Everyone seemed to agree, although they didn’t pinpoint exactly how that change has affected Gaza so far. Palestinians in Gaza survive largely because of the 500 or so tunnels that connect the impoverished, besieged Strip to Egypt. Now, they feed on hope and cheap cigarettes, much of it also coming from Egypt.

‘Ramzy Baroud,’ called out an older officer loudly. ‘Welcome home, son,’ he said, as he handed me my passport and waved me in. No words could possibly have been sweeter at that moment.

After seventeen years of constant attempts to visit Gaza again, I am finally here.

I am in Gaza. I am home.

– Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), available on Amazon.com.

 

 

Who Cares in the Middle East What Obama Says?

 

 

May 30, 2011 “The Independent” — This month, in the Middle East, has seen the unmaking of the President of the United States. More than that, it has witnessed the lowest prestige of America in the region since Roosevelt met King Abdul Aziz on the USS Quincy in the Great Bitter Lake in 1945.

While Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu played out their farce in Washington – Obama grovelling as usual – the Arabs got on with the serious business of changing their world, demonstrating and fighting and dying for freedoms they have never possessed. Obama waffled on about change in the Middle East – and about America’s new role in the region. It was pathetic. “What is this ‘role’ thing?” an Egyptian friend asked me at the weekend. “Do they still believe we care about what they think?”

And it is true. Obama’s failure to support the Arab revolutions until they were all but over lost the US most of its surviving credit in the region. Obama was silent on the overthrow of Ben Ali, only joined in the chorus of contempt for Mubarak two days before his flight, condemned the Syrian regime – which has killed more of its people than any other dynasty in this Arab “spring”, save for the frightful Gaddafi – but makes it clear that he would be happy to see Assad survive, waves his puny fist at puny Bahrain’s cruelty and remains absolutely, stunningly silent over Saudi Arabia. And he goes on his knees before Israel. Is it any wonder, then, that Arabs are turning their backs on America, not out of fury or anger, nor with threats or violence, but with contempt? It is the Arabs and their fellow Muslims of the Middle East who are themselves now making the decisions.

Turkey is furious with Assad because he twice promised to speak of reform and democratic elections – and then failed to honour his word. The Turkish government has twice flown delegations to Damascus and, according to the Turks, Assad lied to the foreign minister on the second visit, baldly insisting that he would recall his brother Maher’s legions from the streets of Syrian cities. He failed to do so. The torturers continue their work.

Watching the hundreds of refugees pouring from Syria across the northern border of Lebanon, the Turkish government is now so fearful of a repeat of the great mass Iraqi Kurdish refugee tide that overwhelmed their border in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf war that it has drawn up its own secret plans to prevent the Kurds of Syria moving in their thousands into the Kurdish areas of south-eastern Turkey. Turkish generals have thus prepared an operation that would send several battalions of Turkish troops into Syria itself to carve out a “safe area” for Syrian refugees inside Assad’s caliphate. The Turks are prepared to advance well beyond the Syrian border town of Al Qamishli – perhaps half way to Deir el-Zour (the old desert killing fields of the 1915 Armenian Holocaust, though speak it not) – to provide a “safe haven” for those fleeing the slaughter in Syria’s cities.

The Qataris are meanwhile trying to prevent Algeria from resupplying Gaddafi with tanks and armoured vehicles – this was one of the reasons why the Emir of Qatar, the wisest bird in the Arabian Gulf, visited the Algerian president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, last week. Qatar is committed to the Libyan rebels in Benghazi; its planes are flying over Libya from Crete and – undisclosed until now – it has Qatari officers advising the rebels inside the city of Misrata in western Libya; but if Algerian armour is indeed being handed over to Gaddafi to replace the material that has been destroyed in air strikes, it would account for the ridiculously slow progress which the Nato campaign is making against Gaddafi.

Of course, it all depends on whether Bouteflika really controls his army – or whether the Algerian “pouvoir”, which includes plenty of secretive and corrupt generals, are doing the deals. Algerian equipment is superior to Gaddafi’s and thus for every tank he loses, Ghaddafi might be getting an improved model to replace it. Below Tunisia, Algeria and Libya share a 750-mile desert frontier, an easy access route for weapons to pass across the border.

But the Qataris are also attracting Assad’s venom. Al Jazeera’s concentration on the Syrian uprising – its graphic images of the dead and wounded far more devastating than anything our soft western television news shows would dare broadcast – has Syrian state television nightly spitting at the Emir and at the state of Qatar. The Syrian government has now suspended up to £4 billion of Qatari investment projects, including one belonging to the Qatar Electricity and Water Company.

Amid all these vast and epic events – Yemen itself may yet prove to be the biggest bloodbath of all, while the number of Syria’s “martyrs” have now exceeded the victims of Mubarak’s death squads five months ago – is it any surprise that the frolics of Messrs Netanyahu and Obama appear so irrelevant? Indeed, Obama’s policy towards the Middle East – whatever it is – sometimes appears so muddled that it is scarcely worthy of study. He supports, of course, democracy – then admits that this may conflict with America’s interests. In that wonderful democracy called Saudi Arabia, the US is now pushing ahead with a £40 billion arms deal and helping the Saudis to develop a new “elite” force to protect the kingdom’s oil and future nuclear sites. Hence Obama’s fear of upsetting Saudi Arabia, two of whose three leading brothers are now so incapacitated that they can no longer make sane decisions – unfortunately, one of these two happens to be King Abdullah – and his willingness to allow the Assad family’s atrocity-prone regime to survive. Of course, the Israelis would far prefer the “stability” of the Syrian dictatorship to continue; better the dark caliphate you know than the hateful Islamists who might emerge from the ruins. But is this argument really good enough for Obama to support when the people of Syria are dying in the streets for the kind of democracy that the US president says he wants to see in the region?

One of the vainest elements of American foreign policy towards the Middle East is the foundational idea that the Arabs are somehow more stupid than the rest of us, certainly than the Israelis, more out of touch with reality than the West, that they don’t understand their own history. Thus they have to be preached at, lectured, and cajoled by La Clinton and her ilk – much as their dictators did and do, father figures guiding their children through life. But Arabs are far more literate than they were a generation ago; millions speak perfect English and can understand all too well the political weakness and irrelevance in the president’s words. Listening to Obama’s 45-minute speech this month – the “kick off’ to four whole days of weasel words and puffery by the man who tried to reach out to the Muslim world in Cairo two years ago, and then did nothing – one might have thought that the American President had initiated the Arab revolts, rather than sat on the sidelines in fear.

There was an interesting linguistic collapse in the president’s language over those critical four days. On Thursday 19 May, he referred to the continuation of Israeli “settlements”. A day later, Netanyahu was lecturing him on “certain demographic changes that have taken place on the ground”. Then when Obama addressed the American Aipac lobby group (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) on the Sunday, he had cravenly adopted Netanyahu’s own preposterous expression. Now he, too, spoke of “new demographic realities on the ground.” Who would believe that he was talking about internationally illegal Jewish colonies built on land stolen from Arabs in one of the biggest property heists in the history of “Palestine”? Delay in peace-making will undermine Israeli security, Obama announced – apparently unaware that Netanyahu’s project is to go on delaying and delaying and delaying until there is no land left for the “viable” Palestinian state which the United States and the European Union supposedly wish to see.

Then we had the endless waffle about the 1967 borders. Netanyahu called them “defenceless” (though they seemed to have been pretty defendable for the 18 years prior to the Six Day War) and Obama – oblivious to the fact that Israel must be the only country in the world to have an eastern land frontier but doesn’t know where it is – then says he was misunderstood when he talked about 1967. It doesn’t matter what he says. George W Bush caved in years ago when he gave Ariel Sharon a letter which stated America’s acceptance of “already existing major Israeli population centres” beyond the 1967 lines. To those Arabs prepared to listen to Obama’s spineless oration, this was a grovel too far. They simply could not understand the reaction of Netanyahu’s address to Congress. How could American politicians rise and applaud Netanyahu 55 times – 55 times – with more enthusiasm than one of the rubber parliaments of Assad, Saleh and the rest?

And what on earth did the Great Speechifier mean when he said that “every country has the right to self-defence” but that Palestine would be “demilitarised”? What he meant was that Israel could go on attacking the Palestinians (as in 2009, for example, when Obama was treacherously silent) while the Palestinians would have to take what was coming to them if they did not behave according to the rules – because they would have no weapons to defend themselves. As for Netanyahu, the Palestinians must choose between unity with Hamas or peace with Israel. All of which was very odd. When there was no unity, Netanyahu told us all that he had no Palestinian interlocutor because the Palestinians were disunited. Yet when they unite, they are disqualified from peace talks.

Of course, cynicism grows the longer you live in the Middle East. I recall, for example, travelling to Gaza in the early 1980s when Yasser Arafat was running his PLO statelet in Beirut. Anxious to destroy Arafat’s prestige in the occupied territories, the Israeli government decided to give its support to an Islamist group in Gaza called Hamas. In fact, I actually saw with my own eyes the head of the Israeli army’s Southern Command negotiating with bearded Hamas officials, giving them permission to build more mosques. It’s only fair to say, of course, that we were also busy at the time, encouraging a certain Osama bin Laden to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan. But the Israelis did not give up on Hamas. They later held another meeting with the organisation in the West Bank; the story was on the front page of the Jerusalem Post the next day. But there wasn’t a whimper from the Americans.

Then another moment that I can recall over the long years. Hamas and Islamic Jihad members – all Palestinians – were, in the early 1990s, thrown across the Israeli border into southern Lebanon where they spent more than a year camping on a freezing mountainside. I would visit them from time to time and on one occasion mentioned that I would be travelling to Israel next day. Immediately, one of the Hamas men ran to his tent and returned with a notebook. He then proceeded to give me the home telephone numbers of three senior Israeli politicians – two of whom are still prominent today – and, when I reached Jerusalem and called the numbers, they all turned out to be correct. In other words, the Israeli government had been in personal and direct contact with Hamas.

But now the narrative has been twisted out of all recognition. Hamas are the super-terrorists, the “al-Qa’ida” representatives in the unified Palestinian leadership, the men of evil who will ensure that no peace ever takes place between Palestinians and Israeli. If only this were true, the real al-Qa’ida would be more than happy to take responsibility. But it is not true. In the same context, Obama stated that the Palestinians would have to answer questions about Hamas. But why should they? What Obama and Netanyahu think about Hamas is now irrelevant to them. Obama warns the Palestinians not to ask for statehood at the United Nations in September. But why on earth not? If the people of Egypt and Tunisia and Yemen and Libya and Syria – we are all waiting for the next revolution (Jordan? Bahrain again? Morocco?) – can fight for freedom and dignity, why shouldn’t the Palestinians? Lectured for decades on the need for non-violent protest, the Palestinians elect to go to the UN with their cry for legitimacy – only to be slapped down by Obama.

Having read all of the “Palestine Papers” which Al-Jazeera revealed, there is no doubt that “Palestine’s” official negotiators will go to any lengths to produce some kind of statelet. Mahmoud Abbas, who managed to write a 600-page book on the “peace process” without once mentioning the word “occupation”, could even cave in over the UN project, fearful of Obama’s warning that it would be an attempt to “isolate” Israel and thus de-legitimise the Israeli state – or “the Jewish state” as the US president now calls it. But Netanyahu is doing more than anyone to delegitimise his own state; indeed, he is looking more and more like the Arab buffoons who have hitherto littered the Middle East. Mubarak saw a “foreign hand” in the Egyptian revolution (Iran, of course). So did the Crown Prince of Bahrain (Iran again). So did Gaddafi (al-Qa’ida, western imperialism, you name it), So did Saleh of Yemen (al-Qa’ida, Mossad and America). So did Assad of Syria (Islamism, probably Mossad, etc). And so does Netanyahu (Iran, naturally enough, Syria, Lebanon, just about anyone you can think of except for Israel itself).

But as this nonsense continues, so the tectonic plates shudder. I doubt very much if the Palestinians will remain silent. If there’s an “intifada” in Syria, why not a Third Intifada in “Palestine”? Not a struggle of suicide bombers but of mass, million-strong protests. If the Israelis have to shoot down a mere few hundred demonstrators who tried – and in some cases succeeded – in crossing the Israeli border almost two weeks ago, what will they do if confronted by thousands or a million. Obama says no Palestinian state must be declared at the UN. But why not? Who cares in the Middle East what Obama says? Not even, it seems, the Israelis. The Arab spring will soon become a hot summer and there will be an Arab autumn, too. By then, the Middle East may have changed forever. What America says will matter nothing.

Army, Muslim Brotherhood Vs. Tahrir Square

 

| May 27, 2011

Things don’t look good in Egypt.

The emerging alliance between the Egyptian army and the right-wing Muslim Brotherhood seems to be in control, and it’s likely that the elections for parliament will produce an assembly dominated by the Brotherhood and the (military-linked) National Democratic Party, the remade party that controlled the country during the Mubarak era.

Today, in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, many of those who organized the revolt that toppled Mubarak were back in the square, protesting the slowness of Egypt’s democratic evolution. They were calling, they said, for a “second revolution.” But according to reports from Cairo [1], only “several thousand” appeared. Noticeably absent was the Brotherhood, which denounced the rally. (In a statement today, the Muslim Brotherhood asked[1]: “Who are the people angry with now?”) In the square itself, one the slogans chanted was: “Where is the Muslim Brotherhood?”

On its Facebook page—isn’t it perverse that the ruling Egyptian military council communicates its positions via Facebook?—the military warned[1] that the Tahrir Square rally was organized by “suspicious elements who will try to pit the military against the people.” Not far away, a rally of several hundred people held a counter-rally of sorts. Their slogan [2]? “For the sake of our country, we want to be ruled by the army.

On CNN, Fareed Zakaria had it about right [3]:

“We think of Egypt as having gone through a regime change. But it really didn’t go through a regime change. Egypt has been run since 1952 by a military dictatorship. It is still run by a military dictatorship. Mubarak resigned. A few people around him resigned. But at the end of the day the military still holds power. They have a huge vested interest in maintaining the current system politically, financially and socially. They aren’t going to go quietly into the night.”

According to Al Ahram, the semi-official Egyptian daily, which has undergone a regime change of its own, there were reports that the “youth wing” of the Muslim Brotherhood has planned to take part in the Second Day of Rage events today, but it isn’t clear that they did so. The younger members of the Brotherhood are far less dogmatic than the older ones, but they’re also not part of the group’s leadership, and it isn’t clear what clout they have. Reports Al Ahram [4]:

“Many of the leading activist groups, including the 6 April Youth movement, the Coalition of Revolutionary Youth, Al-Masry Al-Hurr, ElBaradei Campaign, the Egyptian Movement for Change, the Maspero Copts movement, the Muslim Brotherhood Youth wing and expected presidential candidate Bothaina Kamel have all announced their intention to take part.”

And the military, through the so-called Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, is arresting people—including leaders of the April 6 Youth Movement—who were organizing today’s events, and taking other measures to curtail it, reports Al Ahram [4]:

“The SCAF used several tactics to prevent people from joining the protest, from sending ousted president Mubarak and his two sons to criminal court, releasing statements on Facebook saying suspicious elements were asking people to protest and playing on the relationship between the people and the army, and finally on Thursday arresting activists leafleting about the 27 May protests.”

Like this blog post? Read it on The Nation’s free iPhone App, NationNow. [5]

——————————————————————————–

Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/blog/161002/army-muslim-brotherhood-vs-tahrir-square

Links:

[1] http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jdMC9guuuB94fKrfsxgWIrOJUbdQ?docId=CNG.0206d44090e532472f61a2b49b0b4a9c.31

[2] http://af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews/idAFLDE74Q1J620110527?sp=true

[3] http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/26/zakaria-egypt-is-still-run-by-a-military-dictatorship/

[4] http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/12998/Egypt/Politics-/Everything-seems-possible-in-“Second-Day-of-Rage”-.aspx

[5] http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nationnow/id399704758?mt=8

 

Netanyahu’s War On Gaza

 

 

01 June, 2011

Countercurrents.org

Governing lawlessly by any standard, Netanyahu waged war on Gaza since becoming Israel’s prime minister for the second time on March 31, 2009.

Under his leadership, May 31 marked the anniversary of Israel’s barbaric slaughter of nine Freedom Flotilla activists in international waters, injuring dozens more trying to deliver thousands of tons of vital aid to besieged Gazans, suffocating illegally since June 2007.

At the time, Defense Minister Ehud Barak blamed Flotilla organizers for inciting the attack, while his deputy, Danny Alalon, said they were connected to international terrorist organizations, trying to smuggle in arms. In fact, none were on board nor on other aid ships trying to breach Israel’s lawless blockade.

Caught red-handed in a bald-faced lie, Haaretz writer Gideon Levy said:

“The Israeli propaganda machine has reached new highs (distributing) false information. It embarrassed itself by entering a futile public relations battle….There is nothing to explain, certainly not to a world that will never buy (its) web of explanations, lies and tactics.”

Video footage on board the Mavi Marmara mother ship showed Israeli commandos opened fire during the assault, activists saying it began when they stormed on board.

Al Zazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal, aboard the ship, said “a white surrender flag was raised (and) there was no live fire coming from the passengers.”

What happened was clear. IDF commandos planned and executed a premeditated attack against unarmed, nonviolent activists, trying to break Israel’s illegal blockade to deliver essential aid. Cold-blooded murder resulted.

An independent UN Human Rights Council (HRC) fact-finding mission held Israel entirely culpable, calling its assault brutal and disproportionate. Based on eye witness testimonies, forensic evidence, video footage, and other photographic material, it:

“concluded that a series of violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, were committed by the Israeli forces during the interception of the flotilla and during the detention of passengers in Israel prior to deportation….The preponderance of evidence from impeccable sources is far too overwhelming to come to a contrary opinion.”

Israel’s justification on “security grounds” was called entirely baseless. Moreover, prosecuting Israeli criminals is warranted and essential under Fourth Geneva’s Article 147, covering:

— willful killing;

— torture or inhuman treatment; and

— deliberately causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health.

In emergency session ahead of its investigation, the HRC criticized Israel’s “outrageous attack on aid ships attempting to breach a blockade on the Gaza Strip,” calling it “piracy, (an) act of aggression, (a) brutal massacre, (an) act of terrorism, (a) war crime, (a) crime against humanity – unprovoked, unwarranted, atrocious, (and) brutal.”

It described activists onboard as “peaceful, innocent, noble, unarmed, (and) defenseless,” setting the record straight on what happened.

Following its own investigation, Turkey also held Israel responsible, accurately explaining the facts, not Israel’s web of lies and coverup, its speciality.

High Seas Barbarism and Piracy

Israel violated the 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas and 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Under UNCLOS’ Article 101, maritime piracy includes “any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation….against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State (and) any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating (such) an act.”

Usually it refers to robbery or criminal violence committed by private parties. Broadly interpreted, it can apply to states committing lawless acts. UNCLOS lets them interdict at sea to prevent illegal arms and drug smuggling, the slave trade or terrorist activities – not applicable to Flotilla activists despite Israel’s accusations.

Its mission was humanitarian. Inspected before departure, its cargo included food, medicines, educational, construction, and other materials, not weapons, munitions or anything threatening Israel. Under UNCLOS, its commandos had no right to interdict or attack activists on board, especially in international waters.

Under customary maritime law, ships have “innocent passage” rights through all international and coastal area waters, subject to certain restrictions.

UNCLOS defines “innocent passage” as expeditious, continuous passage through waters in ways not “prejudicial to the peace, good order or the security” of a coastal state.

America’s Defense Department defines it as:

“The right of all ships to engage in continuous and expeditious surface passage through the territorial sea and archipelagic water of foreign coastal states in a manner not prejudicial to its peace, good order, or security. Passage includes stopping and anchoring, but only if incidental to ordinary navigation or necessary for force majeure (a natural or unavoidable catastrophe) or distress, or for the purpose of rendering assistance to persons, ships, or aircraft in danger of distress.”

Israel’s brazen slaughter was lawless, punishable under international law. Claiming it was self-defense was spurious, reprehensible and laughable on its face.

Law Professor and international law expert Francis Boyle said Israel also “violated the SUA (Suppression of Unlawful Acts) Convention, to which Israel, Turkey and the USA are all parties.” SUA followed “in reaction to the (1985) Achille Lauro Hijacking and the murder of Leon Klinghoffer.”

It’s “one of the Conventions adopted by the UN and its affiliated organizations to deal with the phenomenon of international terrorism,” what Israel stands guilty of repeatedly, yet remains free from accountability, ready to do it again.

It’s Coming: Freedom Flotilla Two (FF 2)

On May 31, 2011, Haaretz writer Amos Harel headlined, “Israel prepping to block next Gaza flotilla,” saying:

On the massacre anniversary date, “Netanyahu said Israel prefers (diplomacy, but will) exercise force against anyone (trying) to disobey the navy’s orders….” to thwart an expected late June arrival.

Called “Freedom Flotilla Two (FF 2),” 15 ships with over 1,500 activists from about 100 countries are sailing on June 20 from various Mediterranean ports, calling on UN member states to support their humanitarian mission to deliver medical equipment, educational supplies, construction materials, (including 700 tons of cement), and other vital aid to besieged Gazans awaiting them.

In readiness, Israel held drills, involving ships and mobilized reserve combatants, including surveillance, “based mainly on open communications and Internet sites.” Focusing on riot-control measures, brute force will be used “as a last resort.”

In fact, it’s Israel’s method of choice, showing contempt for rule of law standards. Former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, in fact, admitted that activists resisting interdiction will be shot, knowing after action whitewashes will absolve Israel’s worst crimes, calling them self-defense, the last refuge of lawless scoundrels.

Knowing the risks, 1,500 courageous activists are still coming, determined to breach Gaza’s blockade no matter what Israel intends. From what’s known, expect force, including “surprises” from the same commando unit that murdered activists last May.

They’re preparing, undergoing “extensive training in hand-to-hand combat taught by experts from Israel’s Shin Bet security service.” More still involving “mock raids aboard a vessel that simulates events aboard the Mavi Marmara.”

Israel calls cold-blooded murder self-defense and international water interdiction “legal.” Others call them barbarism and piracy.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Osama Episode Reinvigorates China-Pakistan Ties

 

 

29 May, 2011

Countercurrents.org

Pakistan’s Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar announced on May 22 that China had “acceded to Pakistan’s request to take over operations” of the Gwadar port while Islamabad also requested Beijing to build a naval base at the same port. This is perhaps the biggest shift in Pakistan’s policy in the aftermath of Osama episode.

Following the completion of Phase I of Gwadar, General Musharraf’s government refused to let a Chinese company run the strategic port of Gwadar that China helped build. In Feb 2007 Pakistan signed an agreement with pro-US Singapore for 25 years, and gave it the status of a Tax Free Port for the following 40 years.

Almost three years after President Musharraf’s escape from Pakistan, the Zardari government and the Pakistani army under the stewardship of General Ashfaq Kayani remained reluctant to cancel the contract with Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) and revive work at Gwadar, largely for fear of upsetting Washington.

The Planning Commission’s task force on maritime industry had proposed that the operational agreement be cancelled because the PSA failed to fulfill its pledge to spend $525 million in five years, but nothing was spent during the last three years. The task force also observed that a penalty of $8-10 million would have to be paid to the PSA if the contract was cancelled.

Gwadar Port

Located close to the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf through which over 13 million barrels of oil pass every day, Gwadar is situated at the intersection of oil-rich Middle East, South Asia where one-fifth of the world’s population lives and Central Asian Republics (CARs) having vast reserves of oil and minerals, is also likely to emerge as the country’s most strategically-located deep-sea port.

Pakistan was interested in the project to seek strategic depth further to the southwest from its major naval base in Karachi that has long been vulnerable to the dominant Indian Navy. In the past, it endured prolonged economic and naval blockades imposed by the Indian Navy. To diversify the site of its naval and commercial assets, Pakistan has already built a naval base at Ormara, the Jinnah Naval Base, which has been in operation since June 2000. It can berth about a dozen ships, submarines and similar harbor craft.

Although the total cost of the project is estimated at $1.16 billion USD, China pitched in $198 million and Pakistan $50 million to finance the first phase. China also has invested another $200 million into building a coastal highway that will connect the Gwadar port with Karachi. The second phase, which will cost $526 million, will feature the construction of 9 more berths and terminals and will also be financed by China.

The Gwadar port project, however, is billed to crown the Pakistan Navy into a force that can rival regional navies. The government of Pakistan has designated the port area as a “sensitive defense zone.” Once completed, the Gwadar port will rank among the world’s largest deep-sea ports. The port will have global ramifications.

Countries like Russia and China will find this port of great importance to their futuristic needs as both have so far been unsuccessful in establishing ports in hot waters.

China’s decision to finance the construction of the Gwadar port and the coastal highway linking the port to Karachi will help its plans to develop western China. The distance from Kashgar to the Chinese east coast ports is 3,500 km, whereas the distance from Kashgar to Gwadar is only 1,500 km. The cost benefits to China of using Gwadar as the port for western China’s imports and exports are evident.

China has no blue water navy and feels defenseless in the Persian Gulf against any hostile action to choke off its energy supplies. To cope with the new challenges, the Chinese leadership envisaged a new plan that was called by the US as “assembling a string of pearls.”

Besides Gwadar, this string includes Chittagong of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal and Myanmar in the Indian Ocean. China has helped build the Chittagong port in Bangladesh where it is seeking an extensive naval and commercial access. In the case of Myanwar, Beijing has showered billions of dollars in military aid.

It has provided support for building several ports, road and rail links from the Chinese province of Yunnan to the Bay of Bengal, and a monitoring post on Myanmar’s Coco Islands for sea traffic.

The new Chinese plans have rung alarm bells in India and the US too. India feels that it is encircled by China from three sides – Myanmar, Tibet and Pakistan. To counter Sino-Pak collaboration, India has brought Afghanistan and Iran into an economic and strategic alliance.

Following the Chinese ambitions in the region, India has pursued closer military ties with the US and issued a new naval doctrine stressing the need of protecting energy routes and responding to Beijing’s inroads into the Arabian Sea.

To counter the Gwadar port that is also called the Chinese Gibraltar by Washington, India has built Chabahar port in Sistan-Balochistan province of Iran – just adjacent to Gwadar. India is also helping Iran in building a 200km road that will connect Chabahar with Afghanistan. It will provide access via land to the port for their imports and exports to and from Central Asia. Presently, India is in urgent need of a shorter transit route to quickly ship its trade goods to Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Defense ties

Defense Minister, who accompanied Prime Minister Yusuf Ali Gilani during his recent visit to Beijing also revealed that China has agreed to expedite the delivery of 50 J-17F Thunder fighter jets to Pakistan. The Thunder jets are expected to be delivered within weeks to help bolster the Pakistan Air Force’s defense and tactical capabilities.

According to Mr Mukhtar, the prime minister also asked his counterpart, Wen Jiabao, to consider inducting the JF-17 Thunder aircraft into the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) fleet as it would enable Pakistan to sell a large number of the planes to other countries. Pakistan has also requested for 4,400-tonne frigates on credit basis.

China will also launch a satellite for Pakistan in August this year. The purpose of this satellite has been described as ‘multifarious’.

Not surprisingly, India has expressed “serious concern” on the growing defense ties between China and Pakistan. Indian Defence Minister AK Antony told reporters on Friday: “It is a matter of serious concern for us. The main thing is we have to increase our capability – that is the only answer.”

China has been a steady source of military equipment to the Pakistani Army and also has helped Pakistan to set up mass weapons production factories and also have given technology assistance and modernized facilities.

In the last 20 years, the countries are involved in the joint venture of several projects to enhance military and weaponry systems. China transferred equipment and technology and provided scientific expertise to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs throughout the 1980s and 1990s, enhancing Pakistan’s strength in the South Asian strategic balance.

The most significant development in China-Pakistan military cooperation occurred in 1992 when China supplied Pakistan with 34 short-range ballistic M-11 missiles. Recent sales of conventional weapons to Pakistan include JF-17 aircraft, JF-17 production facilities, F-22P frigates with helicopters, K-8 jet trainers, T-85 tanks, F-7 aircraft, small arms, and ammunition. Beijing also built a turnkey ballistic-missile manufacturing facility near the city of Rawalpindi and helped Pakistan develop the 750-km-range, solid-fueled Shaheen-1 ballistic missile.

While the U.S. has sanctioned Pakistan in the past–in 1965 and again in 1990–China has consistently supported Pakistan’s military modernization effort. The terms on which the Chinese provided weapons and equipment was not aimed at perpetuating Pakistan’s dependence on Beijing but on encouraging self-reliance and indigenisation. This included supply of spare parts, setting up local overhauling facilities, license production and joint ventures.

However, New Delhi alleges that the main anchor of the now 60-year old Sino-Pakistani relationship is the Indian threat, and China needs Pakistan to be a destabilizing force to check its Indian rival. That is why Beijing has lavished Islamabad with weapons to use against New Delhi and Beijing is quite happy with a Pakistan that is stable enough to allow Chinese investment and domestic stability but unstable enough to check India.

Tale End

Since the US announced its special forces had killed Osama bin Laden in the town of Abbottabad on May 2, Pakistan’s relationship with America has come under intense strain amid accusations that its special forces knowingly harbored and assisted the world’s most wanted terrorist. China, by contrast, has remained steadfast in its support.

China fully acknowledges Pakistan’s contribution and the sacrifices it has made in the fight against terror. Pakistan has at least a hundred thousand troops deployed on the border with Afghanistan, in the tribal areas of its northwest. Many of its soldiers have died.

As China Daily pointed out: “Pakistan’s sincerity in the anti-terror crusade should not be questioned as the country has borne and continues to bear the brunt of international terrorism. In addition to the huge cost in human lives, direct and indirect Pakistani losses engendered from the fight against terrorism over the past 10 years have reached $100 billion.”

Interestingly, China has declined to confirm Pakistan Defense Minister’s statement about Gwadar and expedite delivery of 50 J-17F Thunder fighter jets to Pakistan.

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Executive Editor of the online magazine American Muslim Perspective: www.amperspective.com email: asghazali2011(@)gmail.com

Encircling Russia With US Bases

 

 

29 May, 2011

Countercurrents.org

In 1991, after the Soviet Union dissolved, everything changed but stayed the same. As a result, today’s stakes are far greater, presenting much larger threats to world peace.

In America, neocons are still dominant. Obama is more belligerent than Bush, waging four wars and various proxy ones. The Israeli Lobby, Christian Right, and other extremist elements drive them. Conflict is preferred over diplomacy.

Congressional majorities support Washington’s imperial agenda, including global militarization against potential challengers and America’s main rivals – China and Russia, encircling them belligerently with bases and strategic weapons. It’s a policy fraught with danger.

NATO has 28 member states, including 10 former Soviet Republics and Warsaw Pact countries. Prospective new candidates include Georgia, Ukraine, and potentially others later to more tightly encircle Russia and China.

At the same time, the Middle East and parts of Eurasia have been increasingly militarized with a network of US bases from Qatar to Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond – a clear breach of GHW Bush’s promise to Mikhail Gorbachev that paved the way for unifying Germany in 1990 and dissolving the Soviet Union.

Washington’s promises, of course, aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, a hard lesson many nations later learn painfully.

Moreover, the Pentagon has an expanding network of 1,000 or more global bases, including secret and shared ones for greater control. In fact, at a time no nation threatens America, trillions of dollars are spent anyway for what military planners call “full spectrum dominance” over all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic spectrum and information systems with enough overwhelming power to fight and win global wars against any adversary, including with nuclear weapons preemptively.

Encroaching Belligerently Near Russia’s Borders

In late summer 2009, Obama suspended Bush administration plans for interceptor missiles in Poland and advanced tracking radar in the Czech Republic, both NATO members. Purportedly targeting Iran and other “rogue states,” they, in fact, very much aimed at Russia, what new ones will do when installed.

At issue is assuring first strike capability, preventing or diminishing retaliation if America attacks Russia or China, a potentially catastrophic possibility under any scenario, but especially if nuclear war erupts.

For now, according to Obama, Washington will pursue “stronger, smarter, and swifter defenses of American forces and America’s allies,” including Poland and the Czech Republic. Tactics alone may change, not hardline imperial policies.

Last September, Defense Secretary Gates explained a four-phase missile shield plan, including deploying Aegis class warships in the Eastern Mediterranean equipped with SM-3 anti-ballistic missiles and anti-satellite interceptors, followed by upgraded land and sea versions when available.

Moreover, stationing SM-3s in Bulgaria, Romania, and Poland were announced. Last summer, in fact, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptors and about 100 US troops were sent to eastern Poland, close to Russia’s Kaliningrad region, 200 miles from its border.

This same capability was installed in the Persian Gulf, including supplying regional allies with longer range Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile systems, the strategy being to have in place impenetrable interceptors from the Baltic to the Arabian, Black and Red Seas.

In addition, a warning system is planned for the Czech Republic and other countries as well as centrally controlled missile interceptors – from Southern and Eastern Europe through the Middle East to close to Russia’s borders, too close perhaps for comfort.

Instead of abandoning Bush’s scheme, Obama’s plans a far more extensive, sophisticated, flexible, mobile system to be developed through 2020. Included is nearly doubling the number of Aegis class warships to 38 by 2015, equipped with state-of-the-art missile interceptors.

As a result, America’s front line capability will shift from Eastern Germany through the Middle East to the Black Sea and other strategic waterways to the Caucasus and Russia proper, encroaching on Moscow with new Eastern European bases in Bulgaria, Romania and Poland.

It represents the most significant US presence there since WW II. Currently, only limited troop numbers are involved up to 150 or so permanently, but expect an expanded presence ahead.

Last March, in fact, Secretary of State Clinton said Washington will deploy missile interceptor elements and F-16s in Poland. Russia expressed concern, Dmitry Rogozin, its permanent NATO representative, saying US plans complicate dialogue regarding creating a joint European anti-ballistic missile system, adding:

“Mrs. Clinton’s statement contradicts the foundational relationship (between the) Russian Federation and NATO signed in 1997, (stipulating) that NATO must not strengthen the military structure close to the borders of Russia.”

A Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement also expressed concern, saying:

“We have known about plans regarding (an) anti-ballistic missiles system long ago and we plan to (react in response) in the network of the EuroABM project. As for the idea of (US) Air Force base deployment, it requires an additional explanation.”

In late April, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin reacted as well, saying:

“The expansion of NATO infrastructure towards our borders is causing us concern. NATO is not simply a political bloc. It is a military bloc. No one cancelled the agreements on how the bloc reacts to external threats. It is a defense structure,” but it’s acting aggressively.

In a post-G-8 Summit press conference, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said:

“I am not satisfied with the American side’s reaction to my proposals and with NATO’s reaction in general. Why? Because we are wasting time. Even though I spoke about the year 2020 yesterday as a deadline, (the) year when the construction of a four-stage system of the so-called adaptive approach ends. After 2020, if we do not come to terms, a real arms race will begin.”

Perhaps much sooner as he’s gotten no assurances that Russia isn’t being targeted. As a result, he added:

“When we ask for the name of the countries that the shield is aimed at, we get silence. When we ask if the country has missiles (able to strike Europe), the answer is no.”

So “who has those type of missiles” interceptors wish to deter? “We do. So we can only think that this system is being aimed against us.”

He and other Russian officials worry about it expanding to Ukraine and Georgia with missile interceptors, attack aircraft, and US troops on its borders, threatening its security.

Obama in Poland

On May 28, Obama met with Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk, discussing, among other issues, reaffirming a US military presence with “American boots on the ground,” including a permanent aerial detachment of F-16s and C-130 transport planes.

White House national security official Liz Sherwood-Randall said:

“What we will be doing is rotating trainers and aircraft to Poland so they can become more inter-operable with NATO. It will be a small permanent presence on the ground and then a rotational presence that will be more substantial.”

On May 28, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said:

“To the east of the Oder River (dividing Germany and Poland), American forces will appear, and this at a time when America is reducing its overall military presence in Europe.”

In fact, redeployment with interceptor missiles, other offensive weapons, and boots on the ground close to Russia’s borders, not reduction, is planned, what clearly has Moscow officials alarmed.

On May 29, however, Obama disingenuously downplayed those concerns, reaffirming mutual defense and inviting Russia to participate in European missile defense plans, saying:

“I am very proud of (America’s) reset process (with Russia). We believe missile defense is something where we can cooperate with Russia….This will not be a threat to the strategic balance.”

Concerned Russian officials very much disagree, Vladimir Putin’s earlier sentiment likely again being discussed.

In February 2007, in response to US planned missile defense then, he said:

“NATO has put its frontline forces on our borders. (It) does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represent a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have a right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact?”

At the time, his comments drew a storm of US media Russia bashing, as well as an article by this writer titled, “Reinventing the Evil Empire,” saying:

Russia is back, proud and re-assertive, not about to roll over for America, especially in Eurasia. For Washington, it’s back to the future with a new Cold War, but this time for greater stakes and much larger threats to world peace.

It’s especially true during economic hard times, especially with austerity policies addressing them when social stimulus is needed, provoking spreading discontent for change.

As a result, Western powers may invent threats to distract people, waging greater war for imperial dominance, Russia and China perhaps directly threatened this time.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/

 

 

Exposure Of Western Mainstream Media Censorship And Lying

 

 

29 May, 2011

Countercurrents.org

There is  horrendous Mainstream media (MSM) censorship in the pro-US, pro-Zionist, democratic fascist Western Murdochracies and Lobbyocracies. But how can one begin to expose the nature and extent of this egregious censorship that variously threatens democracy as well as public health and safety in a world beset with Anglo-American and NATO wars and a worsening Climate Genocide predicted to kill 10 billion non-Europeans this century.

Murdochracy describes democracy perverted by Big Money media empires such as that of media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Lobbyocracy describes democracy perverted by Big Money corporate or other Lobbies (most notoriously, in relation to man-made climate change, by the effective climate change denialist  fossil fuel corporations).

We know that the Western MSM censor out huge realities such as the horrendous Western-imposed deaths in the US Alliance Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide  (post-1990, 1.7 million violent deaths, 2.9 million avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation, 2.0 million under-5 infant deaths, 90% avoidable and due to US Alliance war crimes, and 5-6 million refugees; post-2003, 1.5 million violent deaths, 1.2 million avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation, and 0.8 million under-5 infant deaths) (see “Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ ).

Similarly,  in a continuing process of genocide ignoring, holocaust ignoring, genocide denial and holocaust denial, Western MSM censor out huge realities such as the Western-imposed deaths in the US Alliance Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide  (post-2003 in Occupied Afghanistan, 1.5 million violent deaths, 1.2 million avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation, and 0.8 million under-5 infant deaths) (see “Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/ ).

However the above examples of egregious, holocaust  denying  MSM censorship is just part of the problem (noting that censorship negates rational risk management and hence endangers public health and safety). What about MSM censorship of untold numbers of Letters to the Editor and comments submitted on  On-line MSM articles? While censorship of Letters to the Editor can be justified by the cost of newsprint paper and the limited  dimensions  of each newspaper or magazine edition, the same cannot be said for censorship of comments submitted in response to On-line MSM articles.

The Age newspaper, Melbourne (arguably Australia’s most progressive Mainstream medium) has an on-line version with a section called “National Times” incorporating letters to the Editor, editorials and op-ed pieces by in-house Age writers or other writers (academics, eminent Australians, writers from overseas newspapers). The Age invites comments from readers and publishes up to several hundred comments on these National Times articles. Such comments are overwhelmingly anonymous and accordingly uncredentialled.

I am a 5 decade career scientist and teach at a major Australian university. I regularly make informed, researched, referenced, credentialled comments to The Age National Times section under my name “Dr Gideon Polya” and do so in the public interest (there is a huge gulf between reality as perceived by scientists and reality as perceived by the MSM-brainwashed public). However  I am frequently completely or partially censored by The Age. This egregious censorship can reasonably be taken as indicative of what The Age does not want its readers to read and to know. However , except in those instances in which censorship has been partial, readers of The Age don’t even know that censorship has occurred.

Accordingly I have created a web site to quickly record instances of censorship by The Age (see “Censorship by The Age”: http://agecensors.blogspot.com/2011/05/censorship-by-quality-australian.html ) , this providing a unique record (most recent items on top) of censorship by a major newspaper and of what a major Australian newspaper does not want its readers to read or to know (see also “Mainstream media censorship”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/home and “Mainstream media lying”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/home ).

An  example of this egregious Mainstream media censorship is given below.

26 May 2011 . The Age repeatedly and completely censored 2 sets of comments I made in response to a sensible, humane article by Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young about proposed Australian “trading” of Muslim refugees with Malaysia  that grossly violates human rights conventions (for details of the article and the censorship see: http://gpolya.newsvine.com/_news/2011/05/25/6719290-greens-senator-on-australian-malaysia-solution-children-in-detention ). This is what The Age evidently did not want its readers to read or to know (note that Australia has a Liberal-National Party Coalition Opposition and a Labor Government, these parties with about 85% of the vote being collectively described as the Lib-Labs):

Censored comment #1.

“Excellent , humane article. What other countries in addition to Australia indefinitely imprison children behind razor wire without charge or trial? The most obvious example is Lib-Lab Australia’s great friend Apartheid Israel in which 800,000 children are highly abusively imprisoned in what UK PM Cameron and outstanding Jewish American scholar Professor Noam Chomsky have described as the Gaza Prison and what US conservative politician Pat Buchanan and the Catholic Church have described as the Gaza Concentration Camp.

Not mentioned in public in look-the-other-way, politically correct racist (PC racist) Australia is Australia ‘s involvement in all post-1950 US Asian wars, wars that have been associated so far with violent deaths plus non-violent deaths from war-imposed deprivation totalling 26 million and about 20 million Muslim refugees.

The UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay, currently visiting Australia , has stated: “I come from South Africa and lived under this, and am every way attuned to seeing racial discrimination. There is a racial discriminatory element here [in Australia ] which I see as rather inhumane treatment of people, judged by their differences, racial, colour or religions.”

Lib-Lab Australia is not just grossly violating the human rights of asylum seekers, Occupied Iraqis (post-invasion war-linked excess deaths 2.7 million) , Occupied Afghans, (post-invasion war-linked deaths 5.0 million), Occupied Palestinians (up to life imprisonment for giving money to a Gaza orphanage, tax deductibility for Australian donations to racist Zionists) and Indigenous Australians (9,000 avoidable deaths annually), it is trashing the reputation of decent, anti-racist Australians and decent, anti-racist, anti-Zionist Jews around the world.”

Censored Comment #2.

“Humane article. Below a second comment, the first having evidently been found unit for readers of The Age.

Acutely relevant is politically correct racist (PC racist) Australia ‘s involvement in all post-1950 US Asian wars that have been associated so far with violent deaths plus non-violent deaths from war-imposed deprivation totalling 26 million. Muslim refugees alone in post-1950 US wars total about 20 million.

Lib-Lab Australia endlessly declares that it is not racist and so one supposes that it would also abusively and indefinitely imprison Jewish children fleeing genocidal persecutors – this illustrating the anti-Jewish anti-Semitism as well as anti-Arab anti-Semitism of Lib-Lab Australia.

Indeed between 1933 and 1939 Australia absorbed only 7000-8000 Jewish refugees (including 2 of my family), noting that the racist Zionists were evilly opposed to Jewish refugees going anywhere except Palestine and that 5-6 million Jews died in the WW2 Holocaust (including all but a dozen of my Continental relatives).

Understand therefore why Australia ‘s most eminent Jew, Sir Isaac Isaacs, Australia ‘s first Australia-born Governor -General, stated of the racist Zionists (RZs) in 1946: “The honour of Jews throughout the world demands the renunciation of political Zionism.”

With post-invasion, US Alliance-imposed, war-linked avoidable deaths of Indigenous people in Somalia, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan now totalling 12 million and Muslim refugees totalling 20 million, Sir Isaac Isaacs’ dictum should be re-stated thus for 2011: “The honour of Australians demands the renunciation of genocidal, Lib-Lab-backed, racist Zionist and US Alliance violence and Lib-Lab maltreatment of refugees”.”

Conclusion.

Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. We are obliged to try to penetrate the Mainstream media Wall of Silence and to inform everyone we can about the egregious lying by commission, lying by omission and egregious censorship to which we are subjected by pro-US, pro-Zionist Western Mainstream media.

Dr Gideon Polya currently teaches science students at a major Australian university. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has recently published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has just published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/ bengalfamine_programme.html ). When words fail one can say it in pictures – for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .