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The Context

As Sri Lanka makes its way from a phase of post-war to post-conflict, the potential, the challenges and the successes are worthy of reflection. The time is fitting not only because it is exactly three years since the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) but also because considerable events, circumstances and eventualities of significance have transpired for this nation in transition.

The aim of this article is to highlight key progress that has been made within the country, irrespective of the actors involved, but rather from the perspective of the hope that has dawned for the future of both the nation and its peoples. The challenges that remain to be addressed, the lacunae that beg to be filled and more importantly the sustainability and consolidation of the dividends that come with the ending of a three-decade conflict are highlighted constructively, with the objective of fostering both national and international discourse on Sri Lanka, to inform processes of governance, provide direction and inspire action for rebuilding the country – a country that yearns for a stable future with the full realization of potential for all its peoples.

I. CONSOLIDATING PEACE AND ENSURING SUSTAINABILITY OF ITS DIVIDENDS

The engagement of the Government of Sri Lanka and the Tamil National Alliance, the main Tamil political party, in talks at arriving at a political settlement commenced with considerable interest on both sides, while awakening hope in the citizenry of a new era of peace to be beckoned. However, the talks have reached a stalemate. There is a need at present requiring the casting aside of political rivalries on both sides, to ensure that a framework of peace and understanding for both the majority Sinhalese community and the Tamil and Muslim minorities are guaranteed, through the speedy resumption of talks.

The Government of Sri Lanka appointed a Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) following the conclusion of the war, which has completed its term issuing recommendations for a peaceful and sustainable era to be ushered into the country. The LLRC report calls upon the Government of Sri Lanka to, among others, arrive at a political solution. The home grown mechanism, that was developed to reflect upon and recommend action, drew on solicited and unsolicited submissions from the public in all areas of the country and hence has been hailed for its credibility and transparency. The final report has been tabled in Parliament and remains to be implemented.

Pursuant to its pledges at the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review, the Government of Sri Lanka embarked on drafting a National Human Rights Action Plan in 2009. The Action Plan has sought to address the objective of improving the human rights protection and promotion in all aspects, with targets to be achieved in five years. The Action Plan has subsequently been adopted by the Cabinet. The time for implementing the Action Plan has arrived, with repeated calls for same by all concerned for the future of the country. The role of human rights protection and promotion in both peace-building and nation-building cannot be overstated. While upholding civil and political rights help to create in the citizenry a sense of security and belonging to the nation, the fulfilment of economic, social and cultural rights ensures that opportunities are generated through which a connection is felt towards the newly rebuilt state. Such an endeavour is not only beneficial for the citizenry but also for the state as it improves the relationship between the two, strengthening the social contract, and hence contributes to a new culture, structure and system of governance.

Furthermore, a draft National Reconciliation Policy has been prepared by the Office of the Presidential Advisor on Reconciliation which clearly addresses the aspect of consolidating peace in the interests of genuine healing and reconciliation, both comprehensively and convincingly. The Draft Policy has currently been circulated amongst all political parties and Members of Parliament following which consultation with civil society and the public is envisaged before being taken through the adoption process in Parliament.

The three landmark initiatives discussed above, while being key to the nation building enterprise in terms of consolidating peace, have not been the only such of its kind. The following sections discuss other aspects that have been engaged. Before proceeding, however, it is critical to mention, that one of the key challenges to the successful realization of such national mechanisms has been the lack of subsequent implementation, both in terms of machinery and administrative and political will. The lack of implementation has not been due to a lack of local expertise or experience by nationals and interested parties. Rather, what is required is the need to garner the required will and corporate ambition for implementation of such measures, whilst strengthening the machinery of implementation, if national mechanisms are to reach fruition.

Since the end of the armed struggle in May 2009, both organized and natural processes of reconciliation are taking place in Sri Lanka. Experts have opined that that the path to moderation, tolerance and coexistence must be paved as prerequisites for any endeavour to usher in a new chapter for the country based on reconciliation amongst all communities.

In particular, it must be emphasized that there exists the need for an organized process of reconciliation so as to prevent a relapse or resurgence of past animosities that initially led to hostilities. Accordingly, a four pronged strategy can be proposed: The first, second and third has already been completed with the rehabilitation of 11,500 LTTE-rs, the reintegration of 280,000 displaced and the reconstruction of the north and east particularly the Wanni. It is now time for the various sectors to actively initiate programmes on reconciliation highlighting its role in realizing the fourth aspect, namely, the building of relationships between and within communities.

It must be highlighted that the nature of the conflict in Sri Lanka has been one where the Tamil community sought to restructure the State with a view to removing features discriminatory of the minorities as opposed to what has been usually described as a struggle between the Sinhala majority community and Tamil minority community per se. While the Government of Sri Lanka’s efforts in the Northern and Eastern rehabilitation and resettlement processes have been commendable, it is imperative that the important next step is taken, namely, reaching out to the Tamil community to address their concerns and grievances. The Muslim community has oft been caught in the cross-fires and hence need to be taken seriously and made stakeholders in any endeavour to move the country forward to lasting peace and stability. Accordingly, the minority communities too must be urged to reposition themselves – by not only demanding equality but also conducting themselves as equals. One way of doing this is for the minority communities not to speak on issues affecting their respective communities only but also to participate in national issues and lead national campaigns.

II. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BASED ON EQUITABLE PRINCIPLES AND CONFLICT

SENSITIVITY

Since the end of the war much has been done in terms of infrastructure development, restoring commerce and re-establishing administrative structures. While progress has been remarkable, the sustaining of such initiatives as meaningful have not always been evident, what with a lack of proper planning and administrative efficiency. There has begun a national momentum in Sri Lanka to raise awareness on the development of the social conscience of the private sector, following the conclusion of the three-decade war.

It is possible to identify four key aspects for engagement of the business community in the processes of national reconciliation and peace-building. First, livelihood and income generation activities; second, infrastructure development in the North and other conflict-affected areas; thirdly a need for the business community to engage directly with individuals and communities in war-affected regions of the country and finally, to ensure that all endeavours undertaken embrace the vision of preventing economic stagnation which has been at the root of most political conflicts.

There needs to be awareness raised of the existing investment opportunities present in former conflict zones such as Jaffna, where there is an availability of rich natural resources in the region such as limestone, land, groundwater, sea salt, fisheries and agriculture that could be tapped into in order to create industries, income generation and livelihood opportunities. Additionally, the market demand for produce and jobs is increasing with the return of formerly displaced persons to their original habitats. Thirdly, there exists potential for the development of tourism-related infrastructure as Jaffna is gaining increasing currency as a tourist destination, both by locals and foreigners.

The conflict between the north and south of Sri Lanka has been largely due to the lack of economic opportunities. Furthermore, there are considerations that need to be made when decision to invest in the north and the east are taken, namely, that income generation activities must be undertaken in a conflict-sensitive manner ensuring that all communities are given opportunities to participate in the planning of and benefit from the projects. The business community is well placed for developing capacity of potential entrepreneurs by playing a major role in skill building.

Recognition of such a role for the private sector and business community is beginning to emerge in the country. Such recognition needs to be developed further and translated into concrete strategies and action plans by the business community for contributing to the enterprise of nation building.

Although engagement of the business community has been acknowledged as essential for peacebuilding by both the World Bank and the United Nations, a system of rewards to lure early private sector entry has yet to be devised, at the international and national levels. Further, it is recommended that involving the private sector in the larger work of formulating the post-war recovery strategy in Sri Lanka will help generate ownership of the process, and in turn sustainability of outcomes. This would require innovative thinking by both the public and private sectors. The challenge therefore lies in finding new means to make such engagement attractive by establishing appropriate economic and non-economic incentives for investment. Despite their having been private sector investment since the ending of the war in May 2009, it has been with much hesitation and furthermore, chiefly by the large and successful blue-chip companies operating in the country.

The identification of the benefits of early involvement for private businesses in post-war, uncertain and fragile contexts need to be brought to the forefront in any discourse on the role of the business community in reconciliation and peace-building. First, it is a test of the resilience of the sector’s ability to navigate adverse conditions and establish suitable conditions for economic proclivity. Second, it can play a crucial self-serving role in shaping of the market for decades to come by securing preferential rights for early entrants and contributing to developing the legal and regulatory framework in which they will have to operate. Such need to be highlighted to the private sector in Sri Lanka who are still weary of potential fallouts associated with investing in the war-affected regions of the country; and are only now being sensitized to the critical role that they can play in re-building the nation and fostering durable peace.

Sri Lanka’s strategy of building and strengthening a public-private sector partnership to create economic growth in north and east is visionary. That said, much remains to be done in the north and east of the country. At present, the approach has been one of a charitable orientation. There is an urgent need to integrate such investments into the paradigm of the agenda, goal and vision of the private sector and business community, so that they begin to see themselves as one of the stakeholders in bringing the country to economic prosperity and sustainable peace. Although a growing number of companies throughout the world are involved at the early stage of war-topeace transitions, few will be able to sustain their involvement, absent extraordinary profits, unless initiation of the rule of law and institutions practicing good governance soon follow. For this reason there is a business interest in promotion of the rule of law and the development of open markets as a means for creating an environment conducive to doing business.

The challenge now is to promote awareness on how the notions of social justice and peace could in fact be profitable which would in turn lead to it becoming a priority in the business agenda. This would involve minimizing the risk associated with entry of businesses in war-torn areas with uncertain futures. Under these circumstances, there appears a proclivity today to venture forth where a decade ago business would have feared to tread.

A potential nexus that needs to be highlighted as crucial to the development of sustainable peace and reconciliation is the need for economic prosperity in post-war contexts and the role of the businesses in such a national endeavour. In Sri Lanka, the need for economic prosperity or at least movement away from abject poverty and economic hopelessness is pivotal to moving towards reconciliation and peace building if the spirit of peace is to not falter and be extinguished. It is the private sector that can provide in the long-term for economic growth opportunities, jobs and wealth creation.

The second challenge then is how to induce the entry of the business sector at the early years following the end of terrorism in Sri Lanka, being only three years since the armed combat ended. Possible ways of stimulating such an inducement would be to develop commitment within the international private sector to envision that investment abroad would also be an investment in social change. Closely related to this is the need to cultivate a positive attitude towards state structures, administrative structures, public service and international institutions. Hence, these two considerations ought to be integral to Sri Lanka’s foreign policy strategy, which would necessarily involve both direct bilateral and multi-lateral engagement with relevant foreign powers and world bodies.

III. THE RULE OF LAW, HEALING AND RECONCILIATION

The key purpose of reconciliation is to address the underlying suspicion, mistrust and discrimination that has been a manifest and symptomatic of the three-decade conflict that existed in Sri Lanka. Creating a sense of inter-dependence between all communities is crucial if minority communities are to feel a connection to the newly rebuilt nation. In this connection, two positive developments in the current political context are worthy of note – increasing acceptance that the conflict requires a political settlement as opposed to the view that it is only a terrorist problem; and rather than operating through a top-down approach of political patronage and proxies there is now a recognition of the need to engage elected representatives of the Tamil community in the nation building endeavour.

The recognition of a need for reconciliation in post-war Sri Lanka has been reflected by the appointment of a Presidential Advisor on Reconciliation. Prof Rajiva Wijesinha assumed duties last year and, inter alia, has been involved in setting up District Reconciliation Committees in the former conflict regions of the country while leading the formulation of a Draft National Policy on Reconciliation which has been released in March 2012, and is set to be taken through a process of consultation with political parties and civil society, with the aim of leading up to a formal national adoption process.

Acknowledgement of the need for a collaborative effort for successful and genuine reconciliation has been reflected in the inauguration of a series of national conferences on reconciliation convened by the Lakshman Kadirgamar Centre for International and Strategic Studies, Sri Lanka’s national think tank. The series of specialist seminars on the various aspects of reconciliation engages the several stakeholders to the process, creating awareness, sensitization and space for networking and future collaborative efforts on reconciliation. Furthermore, there have been a range of civil society initiatives and dialogue forums on reconciliation engaging the various dimensions, including, accountability, justice, peace, the spiritual perspectives, the military perspectives, the political perspectives, the economic perspectives and the devising of national historical narratives of the conflict as a tool for conflict resolution.

While both natural and organized reconciliation are underway, it must be remembered that reconciliation is both a process and a goal. Hence, it will necessarily require time and space to bear fruit. Reconciliation cannot be imposed or forced on a nation as an event. It requires both a strategy and a systematized response mechanism by the state and other stakeholders to deal with the likely obstacles that will emerge along the way.

Another aspect of nation-building that requires immediate attention in Sri Lanka is the promotion and protection of the rule of law. The rule of law should be considered as the the bedrock for achieving a democratic and economically developed society.

Where States are viewed as having open transparent laws and economic markets, the likelihood of receiving outside investment and increased economic growth is high. This, in turn, boosts investment and sustainable development. That said, more than having the laws in place is needed. The political will has to be garnered or else the efforts will be hindered.

The rule of law ought to be promoted as the method by which development, democratisation and good governance is to be achieved due to the links which institutions and advocates bring into its definitional scope. By addressing the mechanisms and infrastructure which prevents equality and civilian participation in the political and economic process, Sri Lanka could potentially become both democratic and developed.

CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS

Sri Lanka has undoubtedly been through a difficult and devastating period in its history. That said, the need to cultivate and capitalize on the crucial aspect that unites all its peoples – the common identity of being Sri Lankan, is imperative in the ultimate analysis of moving the nation forward to a sustainable and durable peace and prosperity. It is time to celebrate similarities and preserve the differences that in turn contribute to strengthening the national identity of being Sri Lankan. It makes one realize that it is in fact the different cultures, religions and ethnicities that converge into a ‘melting pot’ and is what indeed makes for a Sri Lankan.

The notion of Sri Lankan is then not an identity separate from each of the differences. Rather, it is an identity that has resulted from the combination and cohabitation of the various identities. If each citizen sees that being Sri Lankan does not necessitate the need to give up their own identity or multiple identities but rather that the notion of being Sri Lankan subsumes all such identities, we will then reconcile our differences more easily. For what affects the individual and separate identities will in turn affect the common identity of all.

The approach to healing and reconciliation as echoed by scholars such as Martha Minow has been that of adopting a path of moderation. As such she declares the wisdom in adopting an approach that is ‘Between Vengeance and Forgiveness…’ as the path to achieving lasting healing and reconciliation. As any model for healing and reconciliation based on revenge would only foster more evil and hatred descending into a spiral of further divisiveness, any model purely based on a blank check of forgiveness is believed to promote further impunity coupled with invalidating feelings of loss and suffering and having the reverse of restoring dignity on victims. While justice, accountability, and political solutions are imperative for the nation building strategy, they must be Lankan-led to ensure local ownership and buy-in to the process which will contribute significantly to sustainability of outcomes.

Any country recovering from decades of conflict must put a strategy in place to prevent the relapse into violence. No country should take peace and security for granted. The stabilization strategy should seek to influence the general population where the very conflict emerged.

Moreover, it is important for all sectors of society – and, in particular, minority groups –to be able to feel a connection to the newly rebuilt nation. In the absence of such a sense of belonging, it is inevitable that civil unrest will return. If human rights are able to help citizens and other peoples within the nation to feel safe and secure in their environment, then civil unrest is much less likely to occur. For this reason, human rights should be considered to be an important part of the nation-building process and imperative to sustaining the dividends of peace.

Ultimately, it is a home gown political process addressing the economic social and political grievances and aspirations, acceptable to all sections of society, that will address the critical aspects of nation building – a nation that yearns to metamorphoses into one that sees its strength in multiculturalism and diversity.

By Salma Yusuf

Comments to salmayusuf@gmail.com

Dedicated to Palestinians who still holding the dream to return back home.

Anyway, Zionist occupied Palestine that is true, but to keep Palestine a racist state for Jews is a goal I doubt Zionist will ever achieve.

By Dr Salim Nazzal

Dr. Salim Nazzal, a Palestinian-Norwegian historian on the Middle East, He has written extensively on social and political issues in the region.

A quarter-century ago I barnstormed around the United States encouraging Americans, particularly students, to press for divestment from South Africa. Today, regrettably, the time has come for similar action to force an end to Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestinian territory and refusal to extend equal rights to Palestinian citizens who suffer from some 35 discriminatory laws.

I have reached this conclusion slowly and painfully. I am aware that many of our Jewish brothers and sisters who were so instrumental in the fight against South African apartheid are not yet ready to reckon with the apartheid nature of Israel and its current government. And I am enormously concerned that raising this issue will cause heartache to some in the Jewish community with whom I have worked closely and successfully for decades. But I cannot ignore the Palestinian suffering I have witnessed, nor the voices of those courageous Jews troubled by Israel’s discriminatory course.

Within the past few days, some 1,200 American rabbis signed a letter — timed to coincide with resolutions considered by the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA) — urging Christians not “to selectively divest from certain companies whose products are used by Israel.” They argue that a “one-sided approach” on divestment resolutions, even the selective divestment from companies profiting from the occupation proposed by the Methodists and Presbyterians, “damages the relationship between Jews and Christians that has been nurtured for decades.”

While they are no doubt well-meaning, I believe that the rabbis and other opponents of divestment are sadly misguided. My voice will always be raised in support of Christian-Jewish ties and against the anti-Semitism that all sensible people fear and detest. But this cannot be an excuse for doing nothing and for standing aside as successive Israeli governments colonize the West Bank and advance racist laws.

I recall well the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail in which he confesses to his “Christian and Jewish brothers” that he has been “gravely disappointed with the white moderate … who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action;’ who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom. …”

King’s words describe almost precisely the shortcomings of the 1,200 rabbis who are not joining the brave Palestinians, Jews and internationals in isolated West Bank communities to protest nonviolently against Israel’s theft of Palestinian land to build illegal, Jewish-only settlements and the separation wall. We cannot afford to stick our heads in the sand as relentless settlement activity forecloses on the possibility of the two-state solution.

If we do not achieve two states in the near future, then the day will certainly arrive when Palestinians move away from seeking a separate state of their own and insist on the right to vote for the government that controls their lives, the Israeli government, in a single, democratic state. Israel finds this option unacceptable and yet is seemingly doing everything in its power to see that it happens.

Many black South Africans have traveled to the occupied West Bank and have been appalled by Israeli roads built for Jewish settlers that West Bank Palestinians are denied access to, and by Jewish-only colonies built on Palestinian land in violation of international law.

Black South Africans and others around the world have seen the 2010 Human Rights Watch report which “describes the two-tier system of laws, rules, and services that Israel operates for the two populations in areas in the West Bank under its exclusive control, which provide preferential services, development, and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians.” This, in my book, is apartheid. It is untenable. And we are in desperate need of more rabbis joining the brave rabbis of Jewish Voice for Peace in speaking forthrightly about the corrupting decadeslong Israeli domination over Palestinians.

These are among the hardest words I have ever written. But they are vitally important. Not only is Israel harming Palestinians, but it is harming itself. The 1,200 rabbis may not like what I have to say, but it is long past time for them to remove the blinders from their eyes and grapple with the reality that Israel becoming an apartheid state or like South Africa in its denial of equal rights is not a future danger, as three former Israeli prime ministers — Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and David Ben Gurion — have warned, but a present-day reality. This harsh reality endured by millions of Palestinians requires people and organizations of conscience to divest from those companies — in this instance, from Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions and Hewlett Packard — profiting from the occupation and subjugation of Palestinians.

Such action made an enormous difference in apartheid South Africa. It can make an enormous difference in creating a future of justice and equality for Palestinians and Jews in the Holy Land.

By Desmond Tutu

2 May 2012

@ The Tampa Times

Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, is archbishop-emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa.

South Sudan’s leaders have stolen at least $10 billion in oil revenues shared with them by Sudan in the past 7 years. With somewhere between $12 to $17 billion turned over to South Sudan, Africa’s newest “government”, during this time frame some say estimates of only $10 billion stolen is to conservative.

South Sudan has about 8 million people so the oil revenues amount to somewhere between $1,500 to $2000 per man, woman and child in a country where everyday hundreds if not thousands die from hunger and disease.

Where has the $10 billion gone? In some cases directly into London City bank accounts, never having made it into South Sudan’s official treasury. In one instance the South Sudanese Minister of Finance managed to have $300 million “disappear” at one time.

And what has South Sudan to show for its $12 billion+ share of the oil revenues? Almost no infrastructure, few schools, fewer medical facilities and millions suffering from malnutrition and sickness.

The South Sudanese leadership can’t even claim to have spent the money on their military for they have little in the way of modern armament, never mind all the claims of Israeli arms sales to them.

The Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), if you can call it that, for years was revolting over unpaid salaries, resulting in the USA stepping in and providing over $100 million a year to pay its salaries since the last major mutiny in 2009.

The SPLA itself is an ethnic or tribal based military force with little centralized control. Ethnic minorities make up the companies, brigades or even divisions that are based in their own tribal territories. When tribal conflicts over land and water rights break out the local militias quickly call in their “big brothers” in the SPLA and local conflicts become inter-SPLA warfare.

Many times the local commanders are at odds with the largest, ethnically Nok based units and do not coordinate their actions with them.

In other words there are serious doubts whether South Sudan’s President Salva Kir actually controls South Sudan’s army. The latest attack on Heglig, recognized internationally as part of Sudan may not have been initiated by Salva Kir but by the local SPLA commander.

Since convincing South Sudan to stop all oil production in late January 2012 (see “US Plan To Destabilize Sudan”) the USA has continued its history of broken promises and blackmail against both parties and failed to deliver the aid it was secretly promising to South Sudan if it implemented the USA’s plan to evict China from Sudan’s oil fields and, in killing two birds with one stone, destablizing or even bringing down the Bashir government in Sudan by depriving it of it main source of income.

After three months without any oil income at all South Sudan President Salva Kir had to take an emergency trip to China hat in hand to try and keep his government afloat, returning with a Chinese promise of some $8 billion in aid. Hopefully he has learned not to trust the USA, though one should not hold ones breath in this regard.

The World Bank has also signed a several hundred million dollar “loan” agreement with a very smug looking South Sudanese robber baron a.k.a. Finance Minister though no one has bothered asking how with their oil fields shut down, their only source of income, South Sudan will be able to repay the World Bank.

With Hollyweirdo’s such as George Clooney and Angelina Jolie accusing Sudan’s government of everything from food aid blockades to genocide coupled with the Phony Kony/Silent Children 2012 pr blitz that has the CIA’s fingerprints all over it via the Enough Project (the people of north Uganda, the region the program claimed to be portraying, threw stones at the screen when it was shown there) western attention has been diverted from the real reason for the suffering in South Sudan due to the massive theft of almost all of the countries income.

While the USA certainly has a hidden hand behind the recent fighting between South Sudan and Sudan, hunger, disease and the missing $10 billion may very well be behind South Sudan’s recent military offensive against Sudan. As the saying goes “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels”, what better way to distract your people from hunger, disease and Grand Theft International than starting a war with your erstwhile partner.

One thing is for sure and that is that South Sudan has more than its share of scoundrels and that the USA has more dirty tricks up its sleeve for the people of the region.

By Thomas C. Mountain

3 May 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Thomas C. Mountain is the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached at thomascmountain at yahoo dot com.

 What must be said

Why have I kept silent, held back so long,

on something openly practised in

war games, at the end of which those of us

who survive will at best be footnotes?

It’s the alleged right to a first strike

that could destroy an Iranian people

subjugated by a loudmouth

and gathered in organized rallies,

because an atom bomb may be being

developed within his arc of power.

Yet why do I hesitate to name

that other land in which

for years – although kept secret –

a growing nuclear power has existed

beyond supervision or verification,

subject to no inspection of any kind?

This general silence on the facts,

before which my own silence has bowed,

seems to me a troubling, enforced lie,

leading to a likely punishment

the moment it’s broken:

the verdict “Anti-semitism” falls easily.

But now that my own country,

brought in time after time

for questioning about its own crimes,

profound and beyond compare,

has delivered yet another submarine to Israel,

(in what is purely a business transaction,

though glibly declared an act of reparation)

whose speciality consists in its ability

to direct nuclear warheads toward

an area in which not a single atom bomb

has yet been proved to exist, its feared

existence proof enough, I’ll say what must be said.

But why have I kept silent till now?

Because I thought my own origins,

tarnished by a stain that can never be removed,

meant I could not expect Israel, a land

to which I am, and always will be, attached,

to accept this open declaration of the truth.

Why only now, grown old,

and with what ink remains, do I say:

Israel’s atomic power endangers

an already fragile world peace?

Because what must be said

may be too late tomorrow;

and because – burdened enough as Germans –

we may be providing material for a crime

that is foreseeable, so that our complicity

will not be expunged by any

of the usual excuses.

And granted: I’ve broken my silence

because I’m sick of the West’s hypocrisy;

and I hope too that many may be freed

from their silence, may demand

that those responsible for the open danger

we face renounce the use of force,

may insist that the governments of

both Iran and Israel allow an international authority

free and open inspection of

the nuclear potential and capability of both.

No other course offers help

to Israelis and Palestinians alike,

to all those living side by side in enmity

in this region occupied by illusions,

and ultimately, to all of us.

By Günter Grass

5 April 2012

@ Suddeutsche Zeitung

Translated by Breon Mitchell. You can read the poem in the original German here.

• This poem was amended on 10 and 11 April 2012 after it was revised by the translator. This was further amended on 13 April 2012 to include a link to the original poem in German.

© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

On 01 April 2012, the so-called “Friends of Syria” met in Istanbul to plan their agenda of fomenting civil war in Syria to destroy the country and oust the Syrian Government, using “human rights” as a pretext. They have agreed to provide finance and arms to outlawed groups attacking the Syrian state and the people of Syrian people.

For a start, the anti-government violence in Syria has nothing to do with popular civilian uprising. It is a Western-sponsored armed insurrection that is condemned and rejected by the overwhelming majority of the Syrian population. Even Syrian civilians who opposed the current Government have rejected the armed insurrection. The U.S. and its allies (vassals) will never support an anti-imperialism popular uprising.

From the outset, the armed insurrection has been instigated and financed by the U.S. and its allies not only to destroy the country (Iraq and Libya are good examples) but also to oust the legitimate Syrian Government and replace it with a U.S.-controlled despotic regime. Hence, Syria is a sovereign nation and has the right to take a sovereign decision to defend the Syrian nation from foreign-sponsored armed insurrection.

According to the Lebanese newspaper Al-Manar (05 March 2012), the armed insurrection is led by a collection of Western-sponsored criminals, C.I.A. assets, Israeli terrorists, blackwater mercenaries and bribed army deserters. In short, they are C.I.A.-Mossad led paramilitary militias (a.k.a. terrorists). They are well armed and well paid by foreign powers. The U.S., Israel, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are providing arms and cash. France and Britain are actively providing military training and advice. The terrorists are committing heinous crimes against the Syrian population, including torture, rape, and mass executions of young men.

The terrorists have been instructed by their Western handlers to engage in violence and acts of terrorism to terrorise the population and tarnish the image of the Syrian Government. They have rejected peaceful negotiations and are demanding U.S./NATO military intervention based on the Libyan model to oust the legitimate Syrian Government. To enhance their image, the terrorists have been glorified by Western media and promoted as, the “Free Syrian Army”, the “Syrian National Council” and “Opposition activists”. They have powerful “friends” no other anti-government protesters have.

The major players of the “Friends of Syria” are: the U.S., Britain, France, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain and other U.S. vassals. Almost all of them are repressive states and violators of human rights. Many of these states are tyrannical dictators. The U.S., Israel, Britain and France (under Nicolas Sarkozy) are police states that espoused a fascist ideology under a veneer of fake democracy. The U.S. and its allies have supported and continue to support the most repressive and murderous regimes on the planet. The U.S., Britain, Israel, France and Turkey are vicious enemies of the Arab people. In fact, the prevalent attitudes of U.S.-NATO states toward the Arabs (and Muslims in general) are reminiscent of the Nazis’ attitudes toward Russians, Roma people, and Jews.

In addition to powerful friends, the terrorists can counts on the support of the leading capitalist media. The main Zionist propaganda organs, the BBC, New York Times and Al-Jazeera have formed a second front in the war against Syria. Specialised in distortion of facts and fabrication of false stories, the media are guilty of war crimes. And with dishonest journalists and pundits, such as Robert Fisk, Andrew Cockburn and Gilbert Achcar, the people of Syria are facing a criminal conspiracy.

It is important to remember that, “Friends of Syria” are the same friends who colluded with George Bush to invade and destroy Iraq. The barbaric invasion and murderous Occupation caused the death of more than 1.5 million innocent Iraqi men, women and children. More than 5 million Iraqis have become displaced refugees. After nine years of murderous Occupation, Iraq and the Iraqi society are in ruins mired in U.S.-sowed violence.

After Iraq, Libya suffered the same criminal destruction as Iraq. The barbaric destruction of Libyan and the on-going destabilisation of Syria are part of a much larger Zionists agenda designed to: (1) undermine the democratic aspirations of the Arab people (e.g., Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia, Yemen and Saudi Arabia) and their struggle for social change and liberation (de-democratisation); (2) spread chaos throughout the region, using the people as the “walk-ons”; (3) remove Israel as the enemy of the Arab people by co-opting Arab dictators to act as financiers of U.S. wars and as proxy foot soldiers for U.S. and Israel; and (4) deflect attention away from Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians, including the Judaization of Palestine.

Now, you wonder why “Friends of Syria” are not “Friends of Palestine”. We all know that the Palestinians have been at the receiving end of Israeli violence and Nazi-like occupation for more than six decades. If “Friends of Syria are concern about “human rights” abuses, they should call themselves “Friends of Bahrain”. The majority of the people in Bahrain deserve all the support to end state repression and violence against peaceful protesters. Where were “Friends of Syria” when hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians were murdered by U.S.-led invading forces? One wonders where were Amnesty International (AI), the United Nations (UN), Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) when thousands of Iraqi men, women and children were tortured, raped and brutally murdered by U.S.-British occupying forces. This classic Western hypocrisy doesn’t end there.

In March 2012, Navi Pillay, the United Nations’ Human Rights chief, accused the Syrian Government of orchestrating the violence and targeting children. She said: “ Because President al-Assad could simply issue an order to stop the killings and the killings would stop.” She added: “ Hundreds [of children have been] detained and tortured … it’s just horrendous,” Her information, as always, was second-hand, and she has no basic knowledge of Syria, but she proved to be a useful propagandist.

Can you imagine Navi Pillay telling the BBC that, she is “deeply concerned about the fate of thousands, not hundreds of Palestinian children being held in detention by the Israeli regime in cruel and inhumane conditions”? My guess is, if she does, she will have no job at the UN and she will be sent back to South Africa. Since 2000, the Israeli army has killed 1,471 Palestinian children in the Ghettoes of Occupied Palestinian Territories, the majority of whom were aged between 13 and 17 years. Nearly a quarter of all children arrested are held in solitary confinement. Children are forcefully taken from their families, during night raids, imprisoned, beaten and tortured, intimidated and often subjected to electric shocks. Their “crime” is throwing stones at soldiers armed with M16 rifles and tear gas. What Navi Pillay has to say about the 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned and terrorise (on a daily basis) by the Israeli fascist army in the world’s biggest open-air Concentration Camp, Gaza. Israel is not Syria, and the Israeli fascist regime is the U.S. most financed and armed regime on the planet.

Despite the violence and economic hardships (caused by U.S. economic warfare) imposed on Syria, President Bashar al-Assad remains the most popular president not only in Syria, but in the region. Syria is not a repressive regime like most of the U.S.-endorsed regimes in the region; it is a one-party state with on reform path. Indeed, al-Assad commitment to democratic reform is unique in the region and he doesn’t need the US to tell him about democracy. In fact, the U.S. has a shameful and well-documented history of undermining democracy around the world, including Syria in 1849.

Furthermore, as the leader of a small nation, President al-Assad is not an American stooge and has shown great courage in the face of imminent threats by the U.S. and Israel. The U.S. real agenda in Syria is the destruction of the Syrian Government and the ruling Ba’ath Party. It is a Zionist agenda designed to protect Israel and advances Israel’s Zionist expansion.

If the war on Syria continues, it will destroy the third and last most progressive, educated and secular nation in the region. It will leave the Middle East backwards and ruled by repressive and weak monarchies subservient to U.S.-Israel Zionist diktats.

As efforts to find a peaceful resolution continues, “Friends of Syria” are fighting tooth and nail to discredit an undermine Kofi Annan’s so-called “peace plan”. If Annan’s plan fails to oust the current Syrian Government – most likely – it will be used as a pretext to justify U.S.-NATO military intervention. As a former UN Secretary-General, Annan served U.S. imperialism with distinction. His current task is to plan a war against the Syrian people, and he shows no pretence which side he is on. Annan’s “peace plan” makes the case for war against Syria much stronger.

Annan’s successor, Ban Ki-Moon, a complicit in U.S.-NATO war crimes against Libya in flagrant violation of the UN Charter, has now turned against Syria, blaming the Syrian Government for the violence. Ban, of course, has no courage to condemn the supply of arms and cash to the terrorists.

If the U.S. and is allies attack Syria, the UN Secretary-General should tell the world what will happen to the million Iraqi refugees who fled to Syria to escape the U.S. murderous Occupation? Ban should tell the world what will happen to the 500,000 Palestinian refugees living in Syria? Will they be massacred in their refugee camps like the Palestinian refugees that were massacred in Sabre and Shatila refugee camp during Israel’s fascist occupation of Lebanon?

“Friends of Syria” have already said that they will take “measures”, including unprovoked aggression to oust President al-Assad. On 25 April 2012, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said recently, if the “peace plan” fails; “we would have to move to a new stage with a Chapter Seven resolution (which allows for action that could be backed by force) to stop this tragedy”. One wonders why Minister Juppe has no concern to stop the six decades-long tragedy in Palestine and the decade-long tragedy in Afghanistan. And where was Mr Juppe during Iraq’s decades-long tragedy? If Mr Juppe is really concern about human rights, he needs to look no further than in his own backyard. France is the most anti-Muslim racist country in Europe, and second only to the Netherlands. Mr Juppe knows very well that France does not give a damn about human rights. Strategic interests override any criminal violation of human rights. Adolf Hitler used “humanitarian” military invasions (“to protect human rights”) as a pretext to justify Nazi’s aggression and war crimes. Today, the U.S. and its allies use the camouflage of “human rights” to manipulate the public to justify aggression and war crimes against small defenceless nations.

Instead of promoting peaceful resolution “Friends of Syria” are engaging in a campaign of mischaracterisation the Syrian Government and the violence. It is obvious why “Friends of Syria” have set conditions for the Syrian Government to fulfil, while leaving the terrorists free to terrorise the Syrian population, including supplying them with bombs, ammunitions and cash at the expense of dialogue and peace. As Russian foreign ministry spokesman, Alexander Lukashevich rightly said that, the terrorists are waging a reign of terror to terrorise the Syrian civilian population and they are not interested in peace. Furthermore, the Israeli website, DEBKA file reported Monday (30 April2012) that: “The suicide bombings hitting Damascus and Idlib in the last 24 hours were the work of al-Qaeda in Iraq – AQI, whose operatives have been pouring into Syria [from Turkey and Jordan] in the last two weeks.” With allies like al-Qaeda, “Friend of Syria” cannot claim to be friends of the Syrian people.

The meeting of “Friends of Syria” in Istanbul was not a meeting for peace. Rather it was a prelude to instigate more violence and destruction in Syria. Whatever the outcome, “Friends of Syria” will be held to account for their complicity in crimes against the Syrian people.

By Ghali Hassan

3 May 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Ghali Hassan is an independent political analyst living in Australia.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — About two in three adults worldwide believe corruption is widespread in the businesses in their countries. This belief is relatively commonplace everywhere in the world — ranging from 60% in the U.S. and Canada to a high of 76% in sub-Saharan Africa — but it tends to be higher in lower income regions.

Gallup’s data, collected in 2011, demonstrate that corruption in business is an issue for developed and developing countries. However, developing nations may suffer more because corruption can stymie financial development and foreign investments and foster income inequality. This is apparent in many developing countries’ lower rankings on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index — which gauges how conducive a country’s business environment is to starting and operating a local firm — and higher levels of perceived corruption.

In several regions, results vary widely across countries — particularly countries at different stages of development. In Asia, for example, a relatively low 13% of residents in highly developed Singapore perceive corruption as widespread, and the city-state ranks first on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index. In contrast, nearly nine in 10 adults in neighboring Indonesia perceive corruption as widespread in their businesses, and Indonesia’s Ease of Doing Business Index ranking is 129.

Perceptions of business corruption also vary widely in former Soviet countries, ranging from a low of 28% in Georgia to a high of 87% in Moldova. Georgians’ perceived corruption in business has dropped precipitously since 2006, when more than half the population (52%) viewed the problem as widespread. This decline, and Georgia’s Ease of Doing Business Index ranking of 16 worldwide, likely reflect some dividends from the country’s efforts to eradicate corruption with a zero-tolerance anti-corruption campaign.

But it is also important to note that high perceived corruption does not always translate into lower Ease of Doing Business Index rankings — particularly in developed countries with higher GDPs. Paradoxically, higher perceptions of corruption in some wealthier countries may reflect greater transparency and therefore greater awareness among the population of corrupt practices. For example, 85% of Israelis say corruption is widespread in their country’s businesses, and their Ease of Doing Business Index ranking is 34.

Implications

According to the World Bank, corruption is “one of the single largest obstacles to economic and social development.” Corruption in business is an important global concern that involves developing and developed countries. It can be difficult to accurately monitor corruption in business, particularly in countries with little or nonexistent transparency, making tracking their residents’ perceptions even more relevant.

Strong leadership, policies, laws, and greater transparency are necessary to fight corruption, which in turn may actually promote job creation and economic development. Business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs rely on a stable environment, but widespread corruption makes it difficult to estimate the risks involved in starting new enterprises.

For complete data sets or custom research from the more than 150 countries Gallup continually surveys, please contact SocialandEconomicAnalysis@gallup.com or call 202.715.3030.

Friday, May 18, 2012 Updated 03:00 PM ET

May 10, 2012

Mitchell Ogisi

Survey Methods

Results are based on face-to-face and telephone interviews with approximately 1,000 adults per country, aged 15 and older, conducted in 2011 in 140 countries. For results based on the total samples, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error ranges from ±2 percentage points to ±5.1 percentage points.

For more complete methodology and specific survey dates, please review Gallup’s Country Data Set details.

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US civilian and military employees regularly target and fire lethal unmanned drone guided missiles at people across the world. Thousands of people have been assassinated. Hundreds of those killed were civilians. Some of those killed were rescuers and mourners.

These killings would be criminal acts if they occurred inside the US. Does it make legal sense that these killings would be legal outside the US?

Some Facts about Drone Assassinations

The US has used drones to kill thousands of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. But the government routinely refuses to provide any official information on local reports of civilian deaths or the identities of most of those killed.

In Pakistan alone, the New America Foundation reports US forces have launched 297 drone strikes killing at least 1800 people, three to four hundred of whom were not even combatants. Other investigative journalists report four to eight hundred civilians killed by US drone strikes in Pakistan.

Very few of these drone strikes kill high level leaders of terror groups. A recent article in Foreign Affairs estimated “only one out of every seven drone attacks in Pakistan kills a militant leader. The majority of those killed in such strikes are not important insurgent commanders but rather low level fighters, together with a small number of civilians.”

An investigation by the Wall Street Journal in November 2011 revealed that most of the time the US did not even know the identities of the people being killed by drones in Pakistan. The WSJ reported there are two types of drone strikes. Personality strikes target known terrorist leaders. Signature strikes target groups of men believed to be militants but are people whose identities are not known. Most of the drone strikes are signature strikes.

In Yemen, there have been at least 34 drone assassination attacks so far in 2012 alone, according to the London based Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Using drones against people in Yemen, who are thought to be militants but whose names are not even known, was authorized by the Obama administration in April 2012, according to the Washington Post. Somalia has been the site of ten drone attacks with a growing number in recent months.

Civilian deaths in drone strikes are regularly reported but more chilling is the practice of firing a second set of drone strikes at the scene once people have come to find out what happened or to give aid. Glenn Greenwald of Salon, a leading critic of the increasing use of drones, recently pointed out that drones routinely kill civilians who are in the vicinity of people thought to be “militants” and are thus “incidental” killings. But also the US also frequently fires drones again at people who show up at the scene of an attack, thus deliberately targeting rescuers and mourners.

Here are five reasons why these drone assassinations are illegal.

One. Assassination by the US government has been illegal since 1976

Drone killings are acts of premeditated murder. Premeditated murder is a crime in all fifty states and under federal criminal law. These murders are also the textbook definition of assassination, which is murder by sudden or secret attack for political reasons.

In 1976 U.S. President Gerald Ford issued Executive Order 11905, Section 5(g), which states “No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.” President Reagan followed up to make the ban clearer in Executive Order 12333. Section 2.11 of that Order states “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.” Section 2.12 further says “Indirect participation. No agency of the Intelligence Community shall participate in or request any person to undertake activities forbidden by this Order.” This ban on assassination still stands.

The reason for the ban on assassinations was that the CIA was involved in attempts to assassinate national leaders opposed by the US. Among others, US forces sought to kill Fidel Castro of Cuba, Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, and Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam.

Two. United Nations report directly questions the legality of US drone killings

The UN directly questioned the legality of US drone killings in a May 2010 report by NYU law professor Philip Alston. Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, said drone killings may be lawful in the context of authorized armed conflict (eg Afghanistan where the US sought and received international approval to invade and wage war on another country). However, the use of drones “far from the battle zone” is highly questionable legally. “Outside the context of armed conflict, the use of drones for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal.” Can drone killings be justified as anticipatory self-defense? “Applying such a scenario to targeted killings threatens to eviscerate the human rights law prohibition against arbitrary deprivation of life.” Likewise, countries which engage in such killings must provide transparency and accountability, which no country has done. “The refusal by States who conduct targeted killings to provide transparency about their policies violates the international law framework that limits the unlawful use of lethal force against individuals.”

Three. International law experts condemn US drone killings

Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international affairs and politics at Princeton University thinks the widespread killing of civilians in drone strikes may well constitute war crimes. “There are two fundamental concerns. One is embarking on this sort of automated warfare in ways that further dehumanize the process of armed conflict in ways that I think have disturbing implications for the future,” Falk said. “Related to that are the concerns I’ve had recently with my preoccupation with the occupation of Gaza of a one-sided warfare where the high-tech side decides how to inflict pain and suffering on the other side that is, essentially, helpless.”

Human rights groups in Pakistan challenge the legality of US drone strikes there and assert that Pakistan can prosecute military and civilians involved for murder.

While stopping short of direct condemnation, international law expert Notre Dame Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell seriously questions the legality of drone attacks in Pakistan. In powerful testimony before Congress and in an article in America magazine she points out that under the charter of the United Nations, international law authorizes nations to kill people in other countries only in self-defense to an armed attack, if authorized by the UN, or is assisting another country in their lawful use of force. Outside of war, she writes, the full body of human rights applies, including the prohibition on killing without warning. Because the US is not at war with Pakistan, using the justification of war to authorize the killings is “to violate fundamental human rights principles.”

Four. Military law of war does not authorize widespread drone killing of civilians

According to the current US Military Law of War Deskbook, the law of war allows killing only when consistent with four key principles: military necessity, distinction, proportionality, and humanity. These principles preclude both direct targeting of civilians and medical personnel but also set out how much “incidental” loss of civilian life is allowed. Some argue precision-guided weapons like drones can be used only when there is no probable cause of civilian deaths. But the US military disputes that burden and instead directs “all practicable precautions” be taken to weigh the anticipated loss of civilian life against the advantages expected to be gained by the strike.

Even using the more lenient standard, there is little legal justification of deliberately allowing the killing of civilians who are “incidental” to the killings of people whose identities are unknown.

Five. Retired high-ranking military and CIA veterans challenge the legality and efficacy of drone killings

Retired US Army Colonel Ann Wright squarely denies the legality of drone warfare, telling Democracy Now: “These drones, you might as well just call them assassination machines. That is what these drones are used for: targeted assassination, extrajudicial ultimate death for people who have not been convicted of anything.”

Drone strikes are also counterproductive. Robert Grenier, recently retired Director of the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center, wrote, “One wonders how many Yemenis may be moved in the future to violent extremism in reaction to carelessly targeted missile strikes, and how many Yemeni militants with strictly local agendas will become dedicated enemies of the West in response to US military actions against them.”

Recent polls of the Pakistan people show high levels of anger in Pakistan at US military attacks there. This anger in turn leads to high support for suicide attacks against US military targets.

US Defense of Drone Assassinations

US officials claim these drone killings are not assassinations because the US has the legal right to kill anyone considered a terrorist, anywhere, if they can argue it is in self-defense. Attorney General Holder and White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan recently defended the legality of drone strikes and argued they are not assassinations because the killings are in response to the 9/11 attacks and are carried out in self-defense even when not in Afghanistan or Iraq. This argument is based on the highly criticized claim of anticipatory self-defense which justifies killings in a global war on terror when traditional self-defense would clearly not. The government refuses to provide copies of the legal opinions relied upon by the government.

Growing Resistance to Drone Assassinations

In signs of hope, people in the US are resisting the increasing use of drones.

CODEPINK, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the London-based human rights group Reprieve co-sponsored an International Drone Summit in Washington DC to challenge drone assassinations. Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill noted that Congress only managed to scrape up six votes to oppose the assassination of US citizens abroad. “What is happening to this country? We have become a nation of assassins. We have become a nation that is somehow silent in the face of the idea that assassination should be one of the centerpieces of US policy.”

The American Society of International Law issued a report “Targeting Operations with Drone Technology: Humanitarian Law Implications” in March 2011. Concerned that drones may be the future of warfare, scholars examined three questions in the US use of drone technology: the scope of armed conflict (what is the battlefield upon which deadly force of drone killing is authorized); who may be targeted; and the legal implications of who conducts the targeting (since it is often not military but clandestine CIA agents who decide who dies). Concluding that the US may soon find itself “on the other end of the drone” as this technology expands, they criticize official US silence on these key legal questions.

Others are taking direct action. Select examples include: fourteen people arrested in April 2009 outside Creech Air Force base in Nevada in connection with a protest against drones by the Nevada Desert Experience; in January 2010 people protested drones outside the CIA headquarters in Langley Virginia; in April 2011, thirty-seven were arrested at Hancock Air Force base in upstate New York as part of a four hundred person protest against the use of drones; in October 2011, as part of the International Week of Protest to Stop the Militarization of Space there were protests outside of Raytheon Missile Systems plant in Tucson; in April 2012, twenty-eight people were pre-emptively arrested on their way to protest drones at Hancock Air Force Base.

There is a brilliant new book, Drone Warfare authored by global activist Medea Benjamin which documents the nuts and bolts of the drone industry and the money involved in their production and operation. She collects many global media reports of innocent civilian deaths, investigations into these deaths, and gives voice to international opposition groups like her own CODEPINK, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Fellowship of Reconciliation, War Resisters International, Human Rights Watch, the Catholic Worker movement, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and others working against the drones.

As National Public Radio and The New Republic jointly editorialized, there is good reason to doubt the veracity of US claims that drone killings are even effective. Drone use has escalated and expanded the US global war on terror and thus should be subject to higher levels of scrutiny than it is now. As the use of drones escalates so too does the risk of killing innocents which produces “legitimate anti-American anger that terrorist recruiters can exploit….Such a steady escalation of the drone war, and the inevitable increase in civilian casualties that will accompany it, could easily tip the delicate balance that assures we kill more terrorists than we produce.”

There is incredible danger in allowing US military and civilians to murder people anywhere in the world with no public or Congressional or judicial oversight. This authorizes the President and the executive branch, according to the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, to be prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner.

The use of drones to assassinate people violates US and international law in multiple ways. US military and civilian employees, who plan, target and execute people in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia are violating the law and, ultimately, risk prosecution. As the technology for drone attacks spreads, protests by the US that drone attacks by others are illegal will sound quite hollow. Continuation of flagrantly illegal drone attacks by the US also risks justifying the exact same actions, taken by others, against us.

By Bill Quigley

Bill Quigley is Associate Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He is a Katrina survivor and has been active in human rights in Haiti for years. He volunteers with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) and the Bureau de Avocats Internationaux (BAI) in Port au Prince. Contact Bill at quigley77@gmail.com

Dear friends,

In this issue of Palestine Update, we bring you an insightful interview on European policy vis-à-vis Israel. Dan Freeman-Maloy interviews David Cronin, a leading critic of European policies on Palestine. Cronin is author of Europe’s Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occupation (2011) a book which should be essential reading for all who care about justice and the rule of law’. It is available from Pluto Press. To order go to: http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745330655& from Pluto Press.

Normally, European journalists avoid the Palestinian question. It is hard and often seen as repetitive. But that is largely because the media itself is chained to stereo-types and to notions of European guilt. There is also the difficult to lay blame on Europe itself for being complicit in Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land. Cronin is one of few journalists to admit this. He is tough on EU policy makers calling them to question on their double speak. He shows how the EU all but treats Israel as part of the region in policy and practice. The hypocrisy, he points out, is in the way Israel can escape reproach, boycott, and sanctions despite its multi-faceted blatant crimes, including ethnic cleansing and genocidal acts, in occupied Palestine.

Europeans often point out how they are the largest donors of aid to the Palestinians. But the Palestinian problem is not economic or humanitarian; it is a national issue and, as the former head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), David Shearer, pointed out, “pouring an immense amount of aid into a conflict without either the structure of a peace agreement or a solid analysis of its impact is comparable to speeding along a road at night without headlights”.

He asks: Does the European Union have the means to put pressure on Israel? He asserts that it does. If the political will existed the EU could use trade sanctions or the threat thereof to pressure the Israelis. Instead, EU officials pass the buck on to consumers; the British government, for example, says that Israeli goods should be labelled so the consumers can make informed choices about what they buy

This book is an indispensable pioneering work essential for students, tax-payers, policy- and decision-makers and, most of all, those who aspire to rid our world of the last vestiges of colonial domination and states builton supposed racial superiority.

European Politics on Palestine:

Interview with David Croninby Dan Freeman-Maloy

In your book, you describe the determination of Israeli planners to develop closer ties with the European Union. Has Israel’s traditional policy of trying to limit European diplomatic involvement in the Middle East changed?

Yes and no.

In recent years, there has been quite a bit of strategic thinking undertaken by the Israeli foreign ministry. This was particularly the case when Tzipi Livni was in charge of that ministry.

One of the conclusions of that thinking was that Israel should not rely entirely on the US to defend its indefensible actions. There was a realization that while the US remains the only superpower at the moment, other powers are emerging. The decision to “reach out” more to the EU was taken in that context. Israel is similarly seeking to engage more with China, India and Brazil, particularly with regard to sales of weaponry and surveillance technology.

There is a perception in some circles that European diplomats are hostile to Israel. In the first few months of this year, a series of leaked reports from EU representatives in East Jerusalem and Ramallah expressed frustration with the expansion of Israeli settlements. Yet it’s significant that these reports were drawn up by people who witness the results of Israel’s activities “on the ground”. The EU also has representatives in Tel Aviv and Brussels, who see things very differently and have been beavering away to increase cooperation between Israel and the Union.

We occasionally see newspaper articles in which Israeli ministers accuse the EU of meddling in Israel’s affairs or suggesting that the EU is biased towards the Palestinians. Yet if you dig even a tiny bit beneath the surface, you will see that this apparent tension is at odds with the real picture. The real picture is one where the EU has become so close to Israel that, I would argue, it has become complicit in Israel’s crimes against humanity.

Not long after Operation Cast Lead, then NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer made a cordial visit to Israel (where his hosts drew a parallel between Israeli operations in Gaza and NATO operations in Afghanistan). You report that NATO-Israel relations may be set to deepen.

We should never forget that in 2010, Israel killed eight Turkish citizens and one Turkish-American in international waters, while these activists were taking part in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. I’m not an expert on these matters but my understanding is that this attack was tantamount to an act of war against Turkey, a member of NATO.

I think it’s fair to say that if Iran had done something comparable, NATO would have reacted forcefully. Yet Israel has a so-called “individual cooperation programme” with NATO since 2006, under which both sides share sensitive information; the scope of the program was extended in 2008. Israel’s relationship with NATO has remained strong despite how the alliance condemned the flotilla attack. Shortly before Gabi Ashkenazi stepped down as head of the Israeli military last year, he was treated to a farewell dinner by senior NATO officers in Brussels. He also was called in to give NATO advice on how to fight the war in Afghanistan.

And Israel is taking part in a NATO operation in the Mediterranean called Active Endeavour. Originally, this was supposed to be an “anti-terrorism” initiative in response to the 11 September 2001 atrocities. But it has subsequently been broadened to cover immigration. What this means is that Israel is helping Western governments, especially Greece, to prevent vulnerable people fleeing poverty and persecution from reaching Europe’s shores. It’s quite disgusting.

Turning back to the EU specifically, where does the recent Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products (ACAA) agreement fit in the broader struggle around Europe’s preferential trade ties with Israel?

ACAA sounds dull and technical. But it is deeply political.

This is an agreement reached between the EU and Israel, whereby quality checks carried out by the Israeli authorities on manufactured goods would have the same status as similar checks carried out by authorities within the EU. At the moment, it’s limited to pharmaceutical products but it could easily be extended to other goods.

This agreement is a top priority for the Israelis because once it enters into force, Israel would take an important step towards being integrated into the EU’s single market.

To their credit, some members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have been asking difficult questions about ACAA for a few years. And this has meant that the Parliament has not yet approved the agreement. It’s not clear when the Parliament will make a final decision about the matter. There was a discussion at the Parliament’s foreign affairs committee in the past couple of weeks, where it was decided to delay holding a vote on the dossier until legal assurances are provided on the question of whether or not the agreement would apply to Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

It’s significant that the Israelis have hired a top public relations firm, Kreab Gavin Anderson, to help with their efforts to break the deadlock on ACAA. Kreab’s Brussels office is headed by a guy who used to be the chief adviser to MEPs with the Swedish Conservative Party. It cannot be a coincidence that one of the MEPs most vocal in supporting ACAA, Christoffer Fjellner, belongs to that party. He is arguing that if the agreement is not approved, Europeans will have less access to medicines. This is scaremongering, in my view, and is hypocritical because Fjellner is very supportive of the big players in the global pharmaceutical industry, who are actively seeking to use intellectual property issues to prevent the poor in Africa, Asia and Latin America from having access to affordable medicines.

Even people writing for quasi-official EU publications have felt compelled to question ‘the sincerity of repeated declarations encouraging Palestinian unity’ from official spokespeople. How have EU donor and diplomatic policies contributed to fragmenting Palestinian politics?

Those declarations have zero credibility.

The EU always claims that it wishes to promote democracy around the world. In 2006, an election took place in Palestine. The EU’s own observation team found the election to be free and fair and something of a model for the Arab world. And then the EU decided to ignore that election because in its eyes the “wrong” party – namely Hamas – won.

I’m personally not a fan of either Hamas nor Fatah but if Hamas won a democratic mandate, that should be respected.

It’s a classical colonial attitude for an imperial power to show preference for one side in an occupied territory over another. Divide and rule. That’s exactly what’s been happening in recent years. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, and Salam Fayyad, the so-called prime minister, lack any democratic mandate. Yet they are treated as real darlings by the EU and US. Why? Because rather than resisting the occupation, they accommodate it.

In particular, they are also happy to pursue the kind of neo-liberal economic policies that are treated as sacrosanct in Brussels and Washington. Salam Fayyad used to work for the International Monetary Fund and has clearly been inculcated with its ideology.

Can you describe the EUPOL COPPS programme and its relationship to the US training of PA forces in the West Bank?

This is another “divide and rule” case.

The EU’s police mission for Palestine (COPPS) was originally supposed to apply to both the West Bank and Gaza. But in practice it only applies to the West Bank because the Union refuses to deal with the Hamas administration in Gaza.

What has happened is that the EU is in charge of training civil police and the US has been charged of training more militarised police units in areas under control of the Palestinian Authority. We are told that this is helping the Palestinian Authority get ready to assume the responsibilities of statehood. This is nonsense. One of the key aims of the these training missions is to boost cooperation between the PA police and Israeli forces. So the EU is really helping Palestinians to police their own occupation.

Worse again, it has been documented that police loyal to Fatah have used brutal methods – including torture – against their political rivals. Even though these police are trained by the EU, the Union says nothing about these human rights abuses. This silence is shameful.

Germanyis reportedly in the process of selling Israel a sixth partially subsidized ‘Dolphin’ submarine. What’s the significance of these sales?

I’d put these sales in the context of wider military cooperation between the EU and Israel.

As well as helping to arm Israel, Europe is helping Israel to sell its weaponry abroad. The British Army has been using Israeli unmanned warplanes, or drones as they are generally called, in Afghanistan, for example. The ethical question of using weapons that have been “battle-tested” in an obscene manner isn’t even broached in “polite society”. Drones were used extensively to kill and maim innocent civilians during Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2008 and 2009.

What’s also significant is that Israeli arms companies are receiving scientific research grants from the Union. These include Elbit and Israel Aerospace Industries, the two suppliers of drones used in Cast Lead. At the moment, Israel is taking part in 800 EU-financed research projects, which have a total value of 4 billion euros. This means that my tax is helping to subsidise Israel’s war industry.

Historically, France has been seen as the European power most likely to challenge the US monopoly on diplomatic initiative in the Middle East. Is this reputation still deserved?Definitely not.

Jacques Chirac demonstrated occasionally that he could be independent of the US when he was president. But Nicolas Sarkozy has been much more of an “Atlanticist” – for example, he decided that France should participate more fully in NATO than it has for a number of decades.

I’m answering this question a few days before the second round of voting in France’s presidential election. If Francois Hollande wins, then I don’t predict any major changes in terms of France’s policy on Israel-Palestine. I hope, however, that I am proved wrong.

Hollande has been quite happy to pander to the Zionist lobby in France. Both he and Sarkozy turned up at the annual dinner of CRIF, the biggest pro-Israel lobby group in Paris, earlier this year. It was clear that Hollande wasn’t there to denounce Israel’s crimes.

The Greek government brazenly cooperated with Israel in blocking the ‘Freedom Flotilla II’ from challenging the Gaza blockade last summer. You’ve suggested that specific US-Israeli pressure (‘possibly even financial blackmail’) was at work, but that the incident was also a ‘logical consequence of a process that was already underway’.

Yeah. This is quite closely connected to the question you asked about NATO. Greece and Israel have been working together in NATO operations a lot recently.

George Papandreou, the former Greek prime minister, was quite happy to court Israel. When it became clear that relations between Israel and Turkey had soured, Papandreou sniffed an opportunity for Greece to replace Turkey as Israel’s key ally in the Mediterranean.

Even though Greece has been going through an economic nightmare, the Athens authorities have decided to take part in a series of military operations with Israel over the past few years. Let’s not forget that Greece has been spending more on the military as a proportion of national income than most countries in Europe. You can see why the Israeli arms industry would be interested in cultivating stronger links with Greece because, even though Greece is in the doldrums financially, it’s still spending much more than it should be on weapons, while cutting back drastically on essential services like healthcare.

One of your recent articles notes that many of the British officers deployed in post-WWI Palestine were veterans of the Black and Tans, the colonial force infamous for its brutality in Ireland. How has the Irish anti-colonial experience affected Irish politics on the Palestine question?

Among the Irish public, there is a huge amount of sympathy for the Palestinians. The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign has been described by some Zionist watchdogs as the best organised Palestine solidarity group in the world. That’s very interesting because the IPSC relies almost entirely on volunteers.

The Dublin government is a different story. In the current Irish government, there are at least three strong supporters of Israel. These include the ministers for defence and education.

Last year, a number of Irish activists were abducted by Israel as they tried to sail to Gaza. The response of the Dublin government was extremely weak. The Irish foreign minister, Eamon Gilmore, even attended a ceremony film festival sponsored by the Israeli government soon after that incident. He appears to regard avoiding or minimising tension with Israel as a priority.

Furthermore, it should be borne in mind that it’s Ireland’s representative at the European Commission, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, who is administering the research grants to Israeli arms companies I mentioned earlier. She won’t even acknowledge that giving money to firms profiting from human rights abuses is problematic.

In 2010, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights issued a report criticizing EU maintenance of ‘anti-terrorist’ blacklists that effectively function ‘as ideological and political tools for undermining the right to popular resistance and self-determination.’ How do these lists constrain European politics on Palestine, and are there active campaigns to get them overturned?

This is an important issue.

Israel has lobbied successfully over the past decade to have both the political and military wings of Hamas placed on the EU’s “anti-terrorist” blacklist. EU officials and governments have, as a result, been able to say “we don’t talk to terrorists”, even when the “terrorists” have a democratic mandate. I note, however, that there have been press reports lately indicating that Hamas has had some contacts with European governments. So perhaps this is changing a little bit. But in general, there is an enormous double standard, when the EU is happy to embrace Israel, a state that uses violence and intimidation against civilians on a daily basis, yet brands those who resist Israeli oppression as “terrorists”.

Finally, in recent years the gap between European government support for Israel and public opinion has sometimes been so wide that the EU leadership has issued official apologies to Israel for polling results. What opportunities does this gap provide for strategic Palestine solidarity?

The European public is way more critical of Israel than our governments are. This offers real hope.

The Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel was only launched in 2005. And it has made enormous progress. Veolia, the major French corporation, has ignominiously lost a number of major contracts around the world, for example. Why? Because of public outrage at how Veolia is involved in constructing a tramway that would effectively be reserved for Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem. This illustrates how supporting Israeli apartheid can prove bad for business if ordinary people monitor what corporations get up to and protest.

The BDS campaign is often compared to the one undertaken against South Africa. As it happens, the call for boycott was originally made by South African political activists in the 1950s. But it wasn’t until the 1980s that it had a major impact internationally. So the Palestinian BDS campaign has achieved in seven years what it took the South African campaign three decades to achieve.

The challenge now is to maintain the momentum – and intensify the pressure on Israel and its “corporate sponsors”.

(David Cronin’s book Europe’s Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occupation – Pluto Press, 2011 – is available for order here. Cronin maintains a blog at dvcronin.blogspot.co.uk.)

Europe’s alliance with Israel- the problems and pitfalls

By Dan Freeman- Maloy

@ Palestine Update, Edition 2 No. 24

Dear friends,

In this issue of Palestine Update, we bring you an insightful interview on European policy vis-à-vis Israel. Dan Freeman-Maloy interviews David Cronin, a leading critic of European policies on Palestine. Cronin is author of Europe’s Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occupation (2011) a book which should be essential reading for all who care about justice and the rule of law’. It is available from Pluto Press. To order go to: http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745330655& from Pluto Press.

Normally, European journalists avoid the Palestinian question. It is hard and often seen as repetitive. But that is largely because the media itself is chained to stereo-types and to notions of European guilt. There is also the difficult to lay blame on Europe itself for being complicit in Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land. Cronin is one of few journalists to admit this. He is tough on EU policy makers calling them to question on their double speak. He shows how the EU all but treats Israel as part of the region in policy and practice. The hypocrisy, he points out, is in the way Israel can escape reproach, boycott, and sanctions despite its multi-faceted blatant crimes, including ethnic cleansing and genocidal acts, in occupied Palestine.

Europeans often point out how they are the largest donors of aid to the Palestinians. But the Palestinian problem is not economic or humanitarian; it is a national issue and, as the former head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), David Shearer, pointed out, “pouring an immense amount of aid into a conflict without either the structure of a peace agreement or a solid analysis of its impact is comparable to speeding along a road at night without headlights”.

He asks: Does the European Union have the means to put pressure on Israel? He asserts that it does. If the political will existed the EU could use trade sanctions or the threat thereof to pressure the Israelis. Instead, EU officials pass the buck on to consumers; the British government, for example, says that Israeli goods should be labelled so the consumers can make informed choices about what they buy

This book is an indispensable pioneering work essential for students, tax-payers, policy- and decision-makers and, most of all, those who aspire to rid our world of the last vestiges of colonial domination and states builton supposed racial superiority.

European Politics on Palestine:

Interview with David Croninby Dan Freeman-Maloy

In your book, you describe the determination of Israeli planners to develop closer ties with the European Union. Has Israel’s traditional policy of trying to limit European diplomatic involvement in the Middle East changed?

Yes and no.

In recent years, there has been quite a bit of strategic thinking undertaken by the Israeli foreign ministry. This was particularly the case when Tzipi Livni was in charge of that ministry.

One of the conclusions of that thinking was that Israel should not rely entirely on the US to defend its indefensible actions. There was a realization that while the US remains the only superpower at the moment, other powers are emerging. The decision to “reach out” more to the EU was taken in that context. Israel is similarly seeking to engage more with China, India and Brazil, particularly with regard to sales of weaponry and surveillance technology.

There is a perception in some circles that European diplomats are hostile to Israel. In the first few months of this year, a series of leaked reports from EU representatives in East Jerusalem and Ramallah expressed frustration with the expansion of Israeli settlements. Yet it’s significant that these reports were drawn up by people who witness the results of Israel’s activities “on the ground”. The EU also has representatives in Tel Aviv and Brussels, who see things very differently and have been beavering away to increase cooperation between Israel and the Union.

We occasionally see newspaper articles in which Israeli ministers accuse the EU of meddling in Israel’s affairs or suggesting that the EU is biased towards the Palestinians. Yet if you dig even a tiny bit beneath the surface, you will see that this apparent tension is at odds with the real picture. The real picture is one where the EU has become so close to Israel that, I would argue, it has become complicit in Israel’s crimes against humanity.

Not long after Operation Cast Lead, then NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer made a cordial visit to Israel (where his hosts drew a parallel between Israeli operations in Gaza and NATO operations in Afghanistan). You report that NATO-Israel relations may be set to deepen.

We should never forget that in 2010, Israel killed eight Turkish citizens and one Turkish-American in international waters, while these activists were taking part in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. I’m not an expert on these matters but my understanding is that this attack was tantamount to an act of war against Turkey, a member of NATO.

I think it’s fair to say that if Iran had done something comparable, NATO would have reacted forcefully. Yet Israel has a so-called “individual cooperation programme” with NATO since 2006, under which both sides share sensitive information; the scope of the program was extended in 2008. Israel’s relationship with NATO has remained strong despite how the alliance condemned the flotilla attack. Shortly before Gabi Ashkenazi stepped down as head of the Israeli military last year, he was treated to a farewell dinner by senior NATO officers in Brussels. He also was called in to give NATO advice on how to fight the war in Afghanistan.

And Israel is taking part in a NATO operation in the Mediterranean called Active Endeavour. Originally, this was supposed to be an “anti-terrorism” initiative in response to the 11 September 2001 atrocities. But it has subsequently been broadened to cover immigration. What this means is that Israel is helping Western governments, especially Greece, to prevent vulnerable people fleeing poverty and persecution from reaching Europe’s shores. It’s quite disgusting.

Turning back to the EU specifically, where does the recent Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products (ACAA) agreement fit in the broader struggle around Europe’s preferential trade ties with Israel?

ACAA sounds dull and technical. But it is deeply political.

This is an agreement reached between the EU and Israel, whereby quality checks carried out by the Israeli authorities on manufactured goods would have the same status as similar checks carried out by authorities within the EU. At the moment, it’s limited to pharmaceutical products but it could easily be extended to other goods.

This agreement is a top priority for the Israelis because once it enters into force, Israel would take an important step towards being integrated into the EU’s single market.

To their credit, some members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have been asking difficult questions about ACAA for a few years. And this has meant that the Parliament has not yet approved the agreement. It’s not clear when the Parliament will make a final decision about the matter. There was a discussion at the Parliament’s foreign affairs committee in the past couple of weeks, where it was decided to delay holding a vote on the dossier until legal assurances are provided on the question of whether or not the agreement would apply to Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

It’s significant that the Israelis have hired a top public relations firm, Kreab Gavin Anderson, to help with their efforts to break the deadlock on ACAA. Kreab’s Brussels office is headed by a guy who used to be the chief adviser to MEPs with the Swedish Conservative Party. It cannot be a coincidence that one of the MEPs most vocal in supporting ACAA, Christoffer Fjellner, belongs to that party. He is arguing that if the agreement is not approved, Europeans will have less access to medicines. This is scaremongering, in my view, and is hypocritical because Fjellner is very supportive of the big players in the global pharmaceutical industry, who are actively seeking to use intellectual property issues to prevent the poor in Africa, Asia and Latin America from having access to affordable medicines.

Even people writing for quasi-official EU publications have felt compelled to question ‘the sincerity of repeated declarations encouraging Palestinian unity’ from official spokespeople. How have EU donor and diplomatic policies contributed to fragmenting Palestinian politics?

Those declarations have zero credibility.

The EU always claims that it wishes to promote democracy around the world. In 2006, an election took place in Palestine. The EU’s own observation team found the election to be free and fair and something of a model for the Arab world. And then the EU decided to ignore that election because in its eyes the “wrong” party – namely Hamas – won.

I’m personally not a fan of either Hamas nor Fatah but if Hamas won a democratic mandate, that should be respected.

It’s a classical colonial attitude for an imperial power to show preference for one side in an occupied territory over another. Divide and rule. That’s exactly what’s been happening in recent years. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, and Salam Fayyad, the so-called prime minister, lack any democratic mandate. Yet they are treated as real darlings by the EU and US. Why? Because rather than resisting the occupation, they accommodate it.

In particular, they are also happy to pursue the kind of neo-liberal economic policies that are treated as sacrosanct in Brussels and Washington. Salam Fayyad used to work for the International Monetary Fund and has clearly been inculcated with its ideology.

Can you describe the EUPOL COPPS programme and its relationship to the US training of PA forces in the West Bank?

This is another “divide and rule” case.

The EU’s police mission for Palestine (COPPS) was originally supposed to apply to both the West Bank and Gaza. But in practice it only applies to the West Bank because the Union refuses to deal with the Hamas administration in Gaza.

What has happened is that the EU is in charge of training civil police and the US has been charged of training more militarised police units in areas under control of the Palestinian Authority. We are told that this is helping the Palestinian Authority get ready to assume the responsibilities of statehood. This is nonsense. One of the key aims of the these training missions is to boost cooperation between the PA police and Israeli forces. So the EU is really helping Palestinians to police their own occupation.

Worse again, it has been documented that police loyal to Fatah have used brutal methods – including torture – against their political rivals. Even though these police are trained by the EU, the Union says nothing about these human rights abuses. This silence is shameful.

Germanyis reportedly in the process of selling Israel a sixth partially subsidized ‘Dolphin’ submarine. What’s the significance of these sales?

I’d put these sales in the context of wider military cooperation between the EU and Israel.

As well as helping to arm Israel, Europe is helping Israel to sell its weaponry abroad. The British Army has been using Israeli unmanned warplanes, or drones as they are generally called, in Afghanistan, for example. The ethical question of using weapons that have been “battle-tested” in an obscene manner isn’t even broached in “polite society”. Drones were used extensively to kill and maim innocent civilians during Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2008 and 2009.

What’s also significant is that Israeli arms companies are receiving scientific research grants from the Union. These include Elbit and Israel Aerospace Industries, the two suppliers of drones used in Cast Lead. At the moment, Israel is taking part in 800 EU-financed research projects, which have a total value of 4 billion euros. This means that my tax is helping to subsidise Israel’s war industry.

Historically, France has been seen as the European power most likely to challenge the US monopoly on diplomatic initiative in the Middle East. Is this reputation still deserved?Definitely not.

Jacques Chirac demonstrated occasionally that he could be independent of the US when he was president. But Nicolas Sarkozy has been much more of an “Atlanticist” – for example, he decided that France should participate more fully in NATO than it has for a number of decades.

I’m answering this question a few days before the second round of voting in France’s presidential election. If Francois Hollande wins, then I don’t predict any major changes in terms of France’s policy on Israel-Palestine. I hope, however, that I am proved wrong.

Hollande has been quite happy to pander to the Zionist lobby in France. Both he and Sarkozy turned up at the annual dinner of CRIF, the biggest pro-Israel lobby group in Paris, earlier this year. It was clear that Hollande wasn’t there to denounce Israel’s crimes.

The Greek government brazenly cooperated with Israel in blocking the ‘Freedom Flotilla II’ from challenging the Gaza blockade last summer. You’ve suggested that specific US-Israeli pressure (‘possibly even financial blackmail’) was at work, but that the incident was also a ‘logical consequence of a process that was already underway’.

Yeah. This is quite closely connected to the question you asked about NATO. Greece and Israel have been working together in NATO operations a lot recently.

George Papandreou, the former Greek prime minister, was quite happy to court Israel. When it became clear that relations between Israel and Turkey had soured, Papandreou sniffed an opportunity for Greece to replace Turkey as Israel’s key ally in the Mediterranean.

Even though Greece has been going through an economic nightmare, the Athens authorities have decided to take part in a series of military operations with Israel over the past few years. Let’s not forget that Greece has been spending more on the military as a proportion of national income than most countries in Europe. You can see why the Israeli arms industry would be interested in cultivating stronger links with Greece because, even though Greece is in the doldrums financially, it’s still spending much more than it should be on weapons, while cutting back drastically on essential services like healthcare.

One of your recent articles notes that many of the British officers deployed in post-WWI Palestine were veterans of the Black and Tans, the colonial force infamous for its brutality in Ireland. How has the Irish anti-colonial experience affected Irish politics on the Palestine question?

Among the Irish public, there is a huge amount of sympathy for the Palestinians. The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign has been described by some Zionist watchdogs as the best organised Palestine solidarity group in the world. That’s very interesting because the IPSC relies almost entirely on volunteers.

The Dublin government is a different story. In the current Irish government, there are at least three strong supporters of Israel. These include the ministers for defence and education.

Last year, a number of Irish activists were abducted by Israel as they tried to sail to Gaza. The response of the Dublin government was extremely weak. The Irish foreign minister, Eamon Gilmore, even attended a ceremony film festival sponsored by the Israeli government soon after that incident. He appears to regard avoiding or minimising tension with Israel as a priority.

Furthermore, it should be borne in mind that it’s Ireland’s representative at the European Commission, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, who is administering the research grants to Israeli arms companies I mentioned earlier. She won’t even acknowledge that giving money to firms profiting from human rights abuses is problematic.

In 2010, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights issued a report criticizing EU maintenance of ‘anti-terrorist’ blacklists that effectively function ‘as ideological and political tools for undermining the right to popular resistance and self-determination.’ How do these lists constrain European politics on Palestine, and are there active campaigns to get them overturned?

This is an important issue.

Israel has lobbied successfully over the past decade to have both the political and military wings of Hamas placed on the EU’s “anti-terrorist” blacklist. EU officials and governments have, as a result, been able to say “we don’t talk to terrorists”, even when the “terrorists” have a democratic mandate. I note, however, that there have been press reports lately indicating that Hamas has had some contacts with European governments. So perhaps this is changing a little bit. But in general, there is an enormous double standard, when the EU is happy to embrace Israel, a state that uses violence and intimidation against civilians on a daily basis, yet brands those who resist Israeli oppression as “terrorists”.

Finally, in recent years the gap between European government support for Israel and public opinion has sometimes been so wide that the EU leadership has issued official apologies to Israel for polling results. What opportunities does this gap provide for strategic Palestine solidarity?

The European public is way more critical of Israel than our governments are. This offers real hope.

The Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel was only launched in 2005. And it has made enormous progress. Veolia, the major French corporation, has ignominiously lost a number of major contracts around the world, for example. Why? Because of public outrage at how Veolia is involved in constructing a tramway that would effectively be reserved for Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem. This illustrates how supporting Israeli apartheid can prove bad for business if ordinary people monitor what corporations get up to and protest.

The BDS campaign is often compared to the one undertaken against South Africa. As it happens, the call for boycott was originally made by South African political activists in the 1950s. But it wasn’t until the 1980s that it had a major impact internationally. So the Palestinian BDS campaign has achieved in seven years what it took the South African campaign three decades to achieve.

The challenge now is to maintain the momentum – and intensify the pressure on Israel and its “corporate sponsors”.

(David Cronin’s book Europe’s Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occupation – Pluto Press, 2011 – is available for order here. Cronin maintains a blog at dvcronin.blogspot.co.uk.)

By Dan Freeman- Maloy

@ Palestine Update, Edition 2 No. 24

– Dan Freeman-Maloy is a research student at the European Centre for Palestine Studies, Exeter. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

In the recent past, ambassadors from countries in the European Union especially Germany and France have been complaining over their lack of access to President Kibaki, and also the growing influence of China in Kenya and Africa at large. Also unhappy is the US envoy.

Some of these countries colonised Africa and largely benefited immensely from the continent’s natural and human resources during the pre-colonial and post-independence periods.

They are, therefore, not comfortable with the growing independence of many modern African governments.

Worse, they are facing great economic challenges. Some are even broke and thus unhappy with the gravitation of African governments towards the Far East, especially China.

Today, the influence of the Chinese Government can be felt in almost all parts of Kenya through robust infrastructure construction, and both direct and indirect trade with China.

According to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, Sino-African trade reached $126.9 billion in 2010, while the trade volume between China and Africa rose by 30 per cent year-on-year during the first three-quarter of 2011.

China’s top five trading partners in Africa are Angola, South Africa, Sudan, Nigeria and Egypt.

In contrast, the trade volume between Africa and EU countries has significantly dropped, which is one of the reasons why diplomats are unhappy with the Kibaki administration.

Their accrediting states lack vital consumers of their expensive and inefficient products, which has caused a shrinkage of profits in their home factories.

In a way, these diplomats are under pressure from their metropolitan states to restore the lost glory of cosy African relations as the Chinese have clearly found favour with the Kibaki administration.

The US is also unhappy with the economic resurgence of China, especially about the benefits accrued from the Sino-Africa trade.

China’s growing economic strength has come with a growing geopolitical influence in Africa and the world at large, and even ordinary American folks are unhappy with the reality.

In a recent poll by the US-based Gallup Research Company, ordinary American and opinion leaders say a strong relationship between China and the US is a good thing, but a majority of both groups also say China’s growing influence in the world is bad for the US.

The Kenyan education sector has felt this influence as institutions such as the University of Nairobi are offering studies in Chinese, and has, in fact, opened a Confucius Centre to facilitate this.

The traditional craving by Kenyans to study French and German is declining.

These EU countries have not addressed the reasons why African countries are continually leaning to the East.

Many of them have erected unnecessary trade barriers, which inhibits any substantial partnerships.

Others like the US have preferred to pump money into workshops and conferences in the name of democratisation at the expense of development.

By Central Kenya

26 April 2012

@ Central Kenya