The Hard Bigotry of the New York Times

Mon, 2007-05-07

By David Swanson

A New York Times editorial on May 7th is titled "The Soft Bigotry of Iraq," and begins:

"Whether out of blind loyalty or blind denial, most Congressional Republicans are prepared to back up President Bush's veto of the Iraq spending bill."

Whether out of blind loyalty or blind denial or corrupt corporate interests, the New York Times pretends to be writing only about Republicans, while building into its editorial the assumption that the Democrats, too, must retreat in the face of a veto. The Democrats, as we all need to be constantly reminded, are in the majority, yet the Times' editorial arrives at this as its penultimate sentence:

"The final version of the spending bill should include explicit benchmarks and timetables for the Iraqis, even if Mr. Bush won't let Congress back them up with a clear timetable for America's withdrawal."

"Mr. Bush" won't LET Congress pass a bill demanded by the vast majority of Americans? Why, because he might veto it again? If he vetoes enough of these war spending bills, Americans will get what they wanted anyway: he'll have to end the war.

The New York Times clearly believes that Americans' attention spans have been reduced to zero, and that we can now forget things even while they are still happening. Bush just vetoed a bill because it included a meaningless non-binding request to end the war while leaving a huge military presence behind and stealing most of the oil. The bill was miles behind the public's demand for peace, but Bush vetoed it, and demanded a bill free of even the nonbinding request to end the war. Immediately, the chant arose from the media: Stand Up to Bush! Don't back down! Send him a bill with no request to end the war!

The criteria for "standing up" were instantly redefined to include "benchmarks", such as oil theft, but no "timeline" to end the war, only "timelines" that might be imposed on those insufferable Iraqis who are handling the occupation of their own country so poorly.

That's right, the way to stand up to Bush, and not back down, and be tough, and stand strong, is to impose demands on Bush's victims. Only in America…

The New York Times' editorial continues: "It is now essential that the revised version not back away from demanding that Iraq's prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, finally deliver on the crucial national reconciliation measures he has spent the last year dodging. And it must make clear that American support for his failures - and Mr. Bush's - is fast waning."

So, now, over four years into a criminal war supported by fewer that a quarter of Americans, Congress should pass LEGISLATION in order to communicate that Americans may soon cease supporting the failures of Nuri Kamal al-Maliki? I'd like to see a poll on what percentage of Americans even know who Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is. Then I'd like to see a poll on whether Americans would prefer for Congress to

A.-pass a bill to make clear that their support for Maliki's and Bush's failures is waning;
or
B.-pass a bill to cut off the money and end the war.

The New York Times goes on to claim that some even unlikelier beliefs are commonly held: "What Mr. Maliki needs to do to slow Iraq's bloodletting is no mystery. Iraq's security forces must stop siding with the Shiite militias. Iraq's oil revenue must be apportioned fairly. Anti-Baathist laws now used to deny Sunni Arabs employment and political opportunities must be rewritten to target only those responsible for the crimes of the Saddam Hussein era."

The bloodletting is generated first and foremost by the occupation of Maliki's country by a foreign army. Therefore, the first thing he needs to do is to demand that the occupiers leave. Rewriting the laws of a puppet government at this point is not going to restore order. And "oil revenue apportioned fairly" is code for giving Exxon Mobil and other U.S. and British corporations control over most of the oil. This has been explained in an op-ed printed by the New York Times in March: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/19606

It's explained well here as well: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/22108

But this recent article by the New York Times buried the lead at the bottom of the story: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/22103

The May 7th editorial then takes a turn into irony:

"Without these steps, Mr. Maliki and his allies cannot even minimally claim to be a real national government. With them, there is at least a chance that Iraqis can muster the strength to contain the chaos when, as is inevitable, American forces begin to leave."

A puppet government in an occupied land can only be legitimate if it obeys its master. True enough. But why must the New York Times agree so wholeheartedly with Fox News that Americans should only reduce the occupation after Iraqis have shown they can contain the insurgency? The Americans can't contain it. It's going from bad to worse. And were the occupation to go away, so would most of the insurgency. There must be some grim humor intended and secret laughter resulting from this policy of telling the Iraqi people that we will occupy them until their government has shown that it can contain the resistance to our occupation after the occupation is gone.

Then the New York Times goes after Bush for not demanding more of his victims:

"Mr. Bush acknowledges that these benchmarks are important. Yet he refuses to insist, or let Congress insist, that Baghdad achieve them or face real consequences. Each time Baghdad fails a test, Mr. Bush lowers his requirements and postpones his target dates - the kind of destructive denial Mr. Bush called, in another context, the soft bigotry of low expectations. Consider the Baghdad security drive. Last week, The Washington Post reported that Mr. Maliki's office had helped instigate the firing of senior Iraqi security officers who moved aggressively against a powerful Shiite militia. After betting so many American lives, the combat readiness of the United States Army and his own remaining credibility on this bloody push to secure the capital, it is a mystery why Mr. Bush would allow the Iraqi leader to undermine it."

So, even while we pretend that the Iraqis have their own government, Bush is understood to be responsible for what that government does or does not do. Thus we can stand up to Bush by criticizing dark-skinned Arab-speaking Muslims, and avoid the whole unpleasantness of ending the war.

"Then," the New York Times continues, "there is the endless soap opera that is one day supposed to produce a fair share-out of Iraqi oil revenues. The Bush administration prematurely popped champagne corks in February when Mr. Maliki's cabinet agreed on a preliminary draft. Now, in May, there is no share-out, no legislation and even the preliminary agreement is starting to unravel. The leading Sunni Arab party in Mr. Maliki's cabinet is now threatening to withdraw its ministers, declaring that it has 'lost hope' that the Iraqi leader will deal seriously with Sunni concerns."

"Share-out" is a stock market term meaning "hand over the damn oil." The adjective "fair" in this instance is used to mean "handed over primarily to white English-speaking Christians."

There is nothing "soft" about the bigotry that allows the belief that Iraqis cannot best run their own country and manage their own resources.

The Times' editorial concludes: "Mr. Bush, by contrast, sees 'signs of hope' in the Baghdad security situation, urges Americans to give his failed policies more time and seems offended that Congress wants to impose accountability on Baghdad and the White House. The final version of the spending bill should include explicit benchmarks and timetables for the Iraqis, even if Mr. Bush won't let Congress back them up with a clear timetable for America's withdrawal. If Mr. Maliki and Mr. Bush still don't get it, Congress will have to enact new means of enforcement, and back that up with a veto-proof majority."

Again, this is not true. If Congress passes only bills to end the war, and no bills providing new money to extend it, the war will eventually end (following the illegal use of other funds, impeachment, and removal from office) whether the bill is signed or not.

US Wanted Visas Based On Skin Color, Ethnicity

US 'wants British Pakistanis to have entry visas'

Matt Weaver
Wednesday May 2, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

The American government wants to impose travel restrictions on British citizens of Pakistani origin because of concerns about terrorism, according to a report today.

In talks with the British government, the US homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, called for British Pakistanis to apply for a visa before travelling to the US, according to the New York Times.

The newspaper claimed that US officials were concerned about the number of terrorist plots in Britain involving citizens with ties to Pakistan.

But today the Foreign Office made it clear would resist the idea. It said it would oppose any attempt to exclude particular ethnic groups from the US visa waiver scheme that allows citizens from 27 countries, including the UK, to travel to the US without a visa for up to 90 days.

A spokesman said: "We are in close touch with the US about entry clearance, and they are aware of our view that changes to the visa waiver programme could cause economic damage to both our countries without materially enhancing the security controls over immigration."

He added: "The Muslim community in the UK, including those of Pakistani origin, are an important part of our society and we would oppose strongly any proposal to single them out in response to the actions of terrorists. Furthermore, we will oppose any measure based on broad categories of religious, ethnic or other criteria, and will continue to emphasise the importance of the current risk-based approach."

Mohammad Sarwar, the Labour MP for Glasgow Central, described the proposal as "unbelievable and shocking. Every British citizen must have the same rights. I don't think America has any right to interfere in this way."

Mr Sarwar, who was born in Pakistan and became Britain's first Muslim MP in 1997, urged ministers to reject the idea.

Ahmed Versi, the editor of Muslim News, agreed. He said: "They [the Americans] are trying to paint the whole Muslim community with the same brush. It's racist. There would be a huge outcry from all Muslims whether they are Pakistani or not."

He pointed out that many British Muslims were already put off from the travelling to the US for fear of the unwelcome reception they would receive.

The report of America's concerns follows the conviction earlier this week of five British men for planning a series of attacks across the UK. Four of them were of Pakistani origin. But according to the New York Times, talks on travel restrictions for British Pakistanis have been taking place for some "months".

Last month, Mr Chertoff held talks with the home secretary, John Reid. It is believed they discussed the visa waiver scheme that allows citizens from 27 countries, including the UK, to travel to the US without a visa for up to 90 days.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph on the eve of the talks, Mr Chertoff said: "We need to build layers of protection, and I don't think we totally want to rely upon the fact that a foreign government is going to know that one of their citizens is suspicious and is going to be coming here."

At the time he did not mentioned restrictions on British Pakistani, but he expressed concern that the terrorist such as the July 7 bombers, three of whom were of Pakistani origin, could have used the visa waiver scheme to enter America.

Don't call it discrimination

Arab citizens of Israel have an inferior status and face a separate and unequal reality.

April 30, 2007 10:30 AM

Nimer Sultany

Imagine the following situation in the United States:

The US amends the constitution to define itself as a "White Evangelical and democratic state" and leaves "equal protection of the laws" outside the constitution; a federal organ called the White Evangelical National Fund promotes settlement and allocation of land for White Evangelicals only; a federal organ called White Evangelical Agency encourages and helps White Evangelicals all over the world to immigrate to the US since it is the Promised Land for Whites; a federally-funded Center for Demography working to increase the birthrates of White Evangelicals to ensure their status as a majority and discusses ways to "persuade" non-white citizens to have less children; a federal Immigration and Absorption Department dedicated exclusively for White Evangelicals; a law prohibiting mixed marriages inside the US between American citizens and non-White-Evangelical foreigners (the Supreme Court upholds the law since Earl Warren is no longer on the bench); an immigration law providing automatic citizenship and financial government benefits for White Evangelicals only; the administration declares most of the private lands as public domain owned collectively by white people, and non-whites are denied any rights in these lands; the president appoints a Chief Evangelical Priest for the US, the administration funds his office as well as dozens of White Evangelical religious schools and institutions, and the Congress starts its session after the elections by reading Biblical verses; the head of the FBI publicly states that non-white citizens are "strategic threat" and "demographic threat" to the White Evangelical character of the country; some members of the Congress publicly and routinely demand the expulsion of the non-white citizens; 65% of the white majority regularly expresses in public opinion polls its demand from the administration to encourage the emigration of non-whites outside the country; and 60 years of constant official state of emergency with Emergency Regulations invoked occasionally to prevent non-white leaders from leaving the country and to close their newspapers and NGOs.

Unfortunately this is the daily reality of the Palestinian-Arab citizens in Israel (18% of the total population). All the above-mentioned elements, and more, exist in the Israeli law and political culture: Jewish National Fund, Jewish Agency, etc. Yet, many pro-Israelis defy the facts and still argue that Israel is a democracy where Jews and Arabs have equal rights.

Conversely, Israeli NGOs, international human rights organisations and UN committees regularly expose and protest about the situation of the Palestinian citizens in Israel. The UN committee on economic, social and cultural rights, to mention one example, expressed in 1998 and 2003 its concern that the "excessive emphasis upon the state as a 'Jewish State' encourages discrimination and accords a second-class status to its non-Jewish citizens".

A recent study has revealed that the Human Development Index (a measure for standard of living, poverty, and progress) of the Arab minority in Israel ranks in the 66th place out of 177 countries - very similar to Libya, and 43 slots below the general ranking of Israel, which is 23rd. The GDP per capita for the Arab minority is a third of the GDP per capita of the Jewish majority, and is identical to the GDP per capita of Romania and Iran. The level of health amongst the Arab population is lower than countries like Costa Rica and Cuba.

Various studies have shown that: 60% of the Arab families in Israel are poor; 60% of the poor children in Israel are Arab; 90% of the Arab citizens live in communities ranked in the bottom three clusters of local communities in economic terms; 92% live in separate Arab communities; dozens of Arab villages lack any basic services (water, electricity, sewage, health care, education system, etc), and their homes are constantly threatened by demolition and frequently demolished. These villages are unrecognised by Israeli law in spite of the fact that they had existed long before the law was enacted, or even before the state existed.

Six hundred Jewish communities have been established since 1948, but not a single Arab community; 85% of the Arab citizens' lands have been confiscated since 1948; 96% of the land in Israel is owned by the Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Agency. Arab citizens are virtually prohibited from buying, leasing or using these lands.

Sometimes people think that separation walls exist only in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. However, separation walls exist also inside Israel separating between Arab and Jewish citizens. Here are three examples:

In the city of Led between the Arab neighborhood Pardes Shnir and the Jewish Nir Zvi, Sharon's government and Led's local municipality built a wall more than four metres (13 ft) high and 1.5 km long.

In the city of Ramleh between the Arab Jawarish and the Jewish Ganei Dan, there is a wall 4 meters high and 2 km long.

Between the wealthy Jewish city of Caesarea and the poor Arab village of Jisr Az-zarka a dirt mount six metres (20 ft) high and one kilometre long was built by the Jewish city.

Moreover, routinely in places like Ashkelon, Ashdod, Jerusalem, Led, Migdal, Safed, Ramleh, Karmiel, Yerocham, and Rakefet organised groups call for expelling Arab students, workers or residents or blocking them from residing in Jewish cities. Sometimes this is done with the help of the local municipality or the government. The "arguments" are familiar: they corrupt our women, they contaminate our spiritual life, they bring crime and noise, they are unpleasant, and they lower the value of our apartments.

Sometimes it is argued that the analogy to South African apartheid in false since Arab citizens have the right to vote as well as to be elected to the parliament. However, Coloureds and Indians were able to vote in South Africa after the constitutional reforms in 1983, and nobody claimed that this stopped the apartheid from being apartheid. The same goes for Israel.

In sum, the Palestinian-Arab citizens are granted an inferior citizenship and face a separate and unequal reality. Hence the false argument that "Arabs and Jews are equal citizens" amounts to either ignorance or ideological blindness (or both). The fact that most of the Jewish citizens perceive Israel as a democratic state is unsurprising. In fact, this is another similarity between Israel and South Africa under apartheid: the privileged whites argued all the time - until the collapse of the regime - that it was a "democratic" system.

Nimer Sultany is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and currently a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School.

He has worked as a human rights lawyer in the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and as the head of the political monitoring project
at Mada al-Carmel (the Arab centre for applied social research).

Borders Spell Trouble for Arab-American

April 29, 2007

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

Abe Dabdoub calls the day he was sworn in as an American citizen last year the proudest moment of his life, little suspecting that his new identity would set off a bureaucratic nightmare at the hands of the Department of Homeland Security.

Most of his family members live in Canada, and on each of Mr. Dabdoub’s 14 trips to visit them since last August, on his way back across the Ambassador Bridge into Michigan, the Customs and Border Patrol agents have sent him through a security gantlet, he says.

He has been fingerprinted 14 times, his body searched 9 times, been handcuffed 4 times and isolated in a separate detention room 13 times. On the fourth trip, the border patrol agents started subjecting his wife to similar scrutiny.

--MORE--

Echoes of Terror Case Haunt California Pakistanis

April 27, 2007

LODI, Calif., April 24 — Khalid Farooq has shunned the low-slung yellow bungalow that serves as the Pakistani community’s mosque here for nearly two years, ever since a father and son who worshiped there were arrested on suspicion of being foot soldiers for Al Qaeda.

If he runs an errand at someplace like Wal-Mart, away from the neat, tree-lined streets that constitute the heart of Lodi’s Pakistani neighborhood, Mr. Farooq trades his traditional baggy clothes for standard American attire, he said, as often as four times in one day.

“Something has changed in the air; it’s a scary time,” said Mr. Farooq, who first arrived to work in the flat, black fields that surround this town 25 years ago. “We don’t want to talk; we’re all afraid.”

The tide of fear rolled in and has never quite receded after an informant incriminated two Lodi men, Umer Hayat, an ice cream truck driver, and his son Hamid, who were arrested in June 2005. Their trial ended a year ago with the younger Mr. Hayat, 24, convicted of providing material support for terrorism by attending a training camp in Pakistan. His lawyers recently began seeking a new trial based on arguments that the jury was tainted.

Members of the Pakistani community here distrust one another almost as much as they do outsiders. Even now, residents with evidence of sudden wealth, like a new car, are immediately rumored to be on the F.B.I.’s payroll. Anything connected to the government is inherently suspect.

By NEIL MACFARQUHAR

--MORE--

The Heart of Whiteness

Racism, Wealth and IQ

By MANUEL GARCIA, Jr.

Three items, then a response:

(1) A photo-journalist friend returns from trips to Jordan, Israel and the West Bank, and describes his experiences being graciously received in Arab homes, and his shock at seeing the "separation wall" -- really a separation corral with machine-gun towers surrounding Bethlehem and other towns -- and choke-point checkpoints for Palestinians only (Israeli "settlers" getting four-lane highways), which keep Palestinian family members only 2 miles apart, near Jerusalem, from being able to visit each other for YEARS.

(2) I just finished re-reading "The Heart of Darkness," by Joseph Conrad. This is a story of European colonialism and the ivory trade in Africa, published in 1903. It describes the personal corruption of a careerist tradesman-class European whose ambition reaches its apogee in the "Belgian" Congo (presumably), where he elevates himself to a local god who can exact human sacrifices, in addition to receiving a tribute of ivory; all by the magic of pure violence. The horror Kurtz, our ephemeral white god, recognizes is that to achieve his ambition he has utterly destroyed his own humanity by the very process used for his elevation: the degradation of the Africans he exploits. The "heart of darkness" is the illusion that an emptiness of soul can be released in the bush without hazard to its owner.

(3) "Jewish Genius," an article by Charles Murray, is published by the magazine Commentary. In this essay, Murray, the author of the book "The Bell Curve," on the racial basis of intelligence, "mulls the roots of Jewish brainpower" (1)

* * *

I.Q. is a measure of wealth. The children of gangsters and war criminals (i.e., national politicians, corporate executives, race-favored Americans, Europeans, and others from outposts of Pan-Whiteness, e.g., Israel, Australia, New Zealand) will have higher I.Q. because they have been brought up in material comfort, physical security, and they have experienced the best educational systems in existence. There is no genetic basis for this, but there is certainly a racist one.

Since the days of Columbus, Pan-Whiteness has used technology (primarily explosives) and piracy (now called finance) to steal world resources, and enslave and exterminate "colored" people. "High" I.Q. is merely a developmental indicator of race-based physical plundering by their elders and ancestors in the children of the Race Warriors of the White Supremacy Crusade.

The religious core of capitalism is white supremacy, which is why the nations mentioned are bonded so tightly, and why the U.S. Government will often pursue policies vis-a-vis Israel that logically seem to be at odds with "U.S. interests" (e.g., the pursuit, with U.S. casualties, of war with Iraq and Iran, not just for oil but in Israel's interest). It may be objectively true that a particular policy (e.g., bankrolling Israel's theft of Palestine -- "settlements" -- backing Israel's stonewalling and aggression (e.g., Lebanon) and blocking U.N. and international efforts to settle the Palestinian issue) seems more to Israel's benefit than to "us." But, when viewed through the emotive religious-mythical lens of white supremacy, the apparent inconsistency dissolves.

"We" are defending our brother and sister "white" settlers in "Injun country." Israel, like our military bases and corporate installations around the world, is one of our many Fort Apaches in wild territory, filled with "colored" natives hostile to our manifest destiny to clear them off and "develop" the land. At best, they could work as sub-human machines in our agricultural and mechanized plantations, while being slowly ground down to dust and thence to disappearance behind "Separation Walls" (which actually encircle isolated populations, and so are corrals with machine gun towers -- slow motion Buchenwalds), and Border Fences and Free Trade Agreements.

The core basis of U.S. Government and capitalist policy is the protection of White Supremacy Nationalism and White Supremacy Super-Nationalism, or Empire. This is what we are fighting for. "We", the United States, are the 7th Cavalry, the Crusaders riding to the rescue of Pan-Whiteness around the world. The nature of your life and the degree of your prosperity is determined by the degree of your complicity in this cult. People like Bush and Rove and Cheney, Olmert, Sharon, the Israeli Zionist militarists, and, yes, Hitler was and are not simply motivated by elementary greed, because theft is an act of convenience, a short-cut, a matter of avoiding work. These zealots are tireless, working furiously even to the point of death, because they are motivated by a greed of religiously-inspired magnitude, and this is the compelling vision -- the cult -- of white supremacy.

This is racism at the level of the central nervous system, subconscious and unconscious, a bond that expresses itself in a tribal level of identification, similar to but of deeper power than the Mafia's Sicilian identification and code of 'omerta.' This is what I imagine C. G. Jung would have called the archetype of empire, which "we" -- the high I.Q. children nourished on the legacy of race plunder -- inherited, and which enables us to "feel" the cause and put our adult efforts to its benefit (a transition that can be seamless in its unconsciousness), or to "recognize" (to awaken, to become aware, to experience 'satori') and to choose to fight against. "Whiteness" is not a skin color, it is a frame of mind and a moral choice.

With this understanding, it is easy to see the basis of much Black commentary since Frederick Douglass, and most pointedly from Malcolm X. The argument presented here is no news to readers of Black Agenda Report and similar outlets. It is easy to see Texas and Southern California as Israel USA and Apartheid South Africa; and a city like San Diego as a sizzling Xanadu of triumphalist colonial pleasure, continuing the Whiteness fantasy of Apartheid Johannesburg or Tel Aviv.

There is good money to be made by apologists for White Supremacy Nationalism, by authoring "scholarly" books on the supposed genetic superiority, and hence "god-given" nature of the status quo; and by "colored" commentators singing the praises of their "white" overlords, the overlord ideology and the naturally ordained baseness of their own genetic pools. I, personally, know the costs in career and "earnings potential" that can result from a rejection of work "assignments" ("opportunities") in furtherance of the fundamental cause (the "Prime Directive," if you will). Fortunately for me, self respect is only expensive financially, in every other way it is most bountiful.

It is possible that an expanding awareness of self respect -- even a popular trans-national solidarity based on compassion (Fidel?, Chavez?, Mandela?) -- may ultimately topple the mighty military and financial powers of the White Supremacy Tribe. Until then, we will have to consider civilization an idea as yet unrealized.

Note

[1] http://www.forward.com/articles/bell-curve-scribe-mulls-roots-of-jews-br/

Manuel Garcia, Jr. is a physicist, a native of New York, and perhaps a Tralfamadorian. E-mail received at mango@idiom.com.

The unsung hero of the Virginia Tech massacre

Why haven't you heard about this brave person, but get endless coverage of the American professor who left Israel 20 years ago? Simple. He's a Muslim.
---
Waleed Shaalan

muslimmatters.org

Waleed Shaalan, a 32-year-old graduate student, came to the United States from northern Egypt last year to study engineering. He lived among other Egyptian students in Blacksburg, Va., and was planning on bringing his wife and one-and-a-half-year-old son to America in May to live with him.

He was gunned down on Monday while he was studying in Norris Hall, but witnesses say he died a hero.

According to Randy Dymond, a civil engineering professor at Virginia Tech, Mr. Shaalan was in a classroom with another student when the gunman entered and opened fire.

Mr. Shaalan was badly wounded and lay beside the other student, who was not shot but played dead, as the gunman returned two times searching for signs of life. Just as the gunman noticed the student, Mr. Shaalan made a move to distract him, at which point he was shot a second time and died. The student believed that Mr. Shaalan purposefully distracted the shooter to save him, Mr. Dymond said.

"Waleed was bright, energetic and caring," Mr. Dymond said. "The reason we are in higher education is because there are students who are the bright light to the future. Waleed was one of them."

Equally social and studious, Mr. Shaalan was active in the Muslim Student Association at Virginia Tech, and he especially enjoyed participating in the group's community activities.

The Egyptian Consul has notified Mr.Shalaan's wife and parents, all of who live in Egypt. Mr. Shaalan's body will be flown back to his country in the near future, the vice consul, Mohamed Elghazawy, said.

"This is a very emotional time for his entire family, but especially his mother and father," Mr. Elghazawy said.

Racist army video airs on German TV

Racial army video airs on German TV

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER, Associated Press WriterSat Apr 14, 9:55 AM ET

A video showing a German army instructor telling one of his soldiers to envision African-Americans in the Bronx while firing his machine gun was broadcast Saturday on national television.

The video, coming after scandals involving photos of German soldiers posing with skulls in Afghanistan and the abuse of recruits by instructors, seemed likely to raise more questions about training practices in Germany's conscript army.

"We can no longer talk about an isolated case," said Lt. Juergen Rose of the Darmstaedter Signal, a group of current and former army officers and sergeants who independently review military procedures.

"Things like this don't happen in the army on an everyday basis, but unfortunately in recent years there have been a number of comparable incidents."

The Defense Ministry said the video was shot in July 2006 at barracks in the northern town of Rendsburg and that the army has been aware of it since January.

"We are currently investigating the incident," said Florian Naggies, a spokesman for the army and Defense Ministry.

He did not identify the instructor or the soldier, who are shown in camouflage uniforms in a forest.

The instructor tells the soldier, "You are in the Bronx. A black van is stopping in front of you. Three African-Americans are getting out and they are insulting your mother in the worst ways ... Act."

The soldier fires his machine gun several times and yells an obscenity several times in English. The instructor then tells the soldier to curse even louder.

The existence of the video was first reported on the home page of the German news magazine Stern on Friday and excerpts of the video were aired on the news television channel n-tv on Saturday.

According to Stern, the 90-second video had been posted on a Web site used by soldiers to exchange private videos. A soldier who used the site alerted his superiors, the magazine reported.

The video is the latest embarrassment for the German army. Eighteen army instructors are currently on trial for allegedly abusing and humiliating 163 recruits in 2004. Last year, newspapers published photos of German soldiers in Afghanistan posing with a skulls — including one who exposed himself while holding a skull.

Arrested

April 11, 2007

By Dr. June Scorza Terpstra

On Thursday evening, March 8, International Women’s Day, I was arrested by Evanston police. This occurrence came on the heels of a controversial article I wrote for which I received hate mail and death threats. I was made to step out of my car; my hands were cuffed behind my back as I stood in the dark street with three young, piggish male officers. I was asked if I had one hundred dollars cash. Cars with people stopped at the nearest cross light were staring at me. My person, my car and my purse were searched. I was asked if I had anything up my crotch. I was placed in the suffocating back seat of a squad car and taken to the Evanston police station. As I was commandeered into a holding area, my hands cuffed behind my back, I remembered this police station. Twenty years ago I was the founder of a women’s shelter and a women’s university program in Evanston and had occasion to work with police in that building who knew little to nothing and cared less about victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

I was questioned as to whether I take drugs. I consciously kept my dignity and said, no, do you? I was told I thought I was "above the law" by a boy given deadly toys to protect his master’s money and rules playing king of the traffic violations hill. For further intimidation I was threatened with a strip search and a jail cell. My husband bailed me out.

What was my crime? I had failed to pay a speeding ticket in Kansas about a year ago and unknown to me my license was suspended. There I was, a woman who had founded programs for women and children in Evanston and has been teaching social justice at universities and colleges for over 20 years in the USA, with three uniformed robo-boys bereft of minds and hearts as they rummaged through my car stocked with baby seats for grandkids and kid's toys for my weekend birthday party with my grandchildren. They put me in the back of the police car, my wrists burning from the handcuffs, with my blood pressure soaring, unable to breathe for the first minutes, struck down powerless against boys with guns and handcuffs who said that they were only "following procedure". I was instantly criminalized because I had lost a ticket a year ago and had never received notice in my move from one state to another. If I had been arrested for practicing my constitutional right to dissolve this present government, I could have understood the situation, but this arrest was for the capitalist crime of not paying $150.00 for driving my car too fast across this infernal country. Debtor’s prisons are now one of the features of a police state in which 2.5 million people are presently in the prison system of the USA with over 60% of the people imprisoned for non-violent offenses.

In this instant what I teach became very real. My understanding of how each and every one of us is criminalized in the USA increased ten fold. I hear my Black, Arab, Muslim, Red and Brown students tell me they are stopped, harassed, shoved up and searched against cars by the police on a routine basis in their neighborhoods. I remember the battered woman and rape victim victimized by the police. I see the political prisoners such as Dr. Sami al-Arian, Leonard Peltier and Jose Padilla, tortured and tormented by their captors. I see the Arab men with brown bags over their heads that are forced out of their homes, disappeared and sexually humiliated as I remember the boy cop looking me in the eyes and sneeringly say, "Do you have anything up your crotch?"

The image of the Mexican woman struggling across the border violently caught and marched off and then raped in holding pens is in my mind as this arresting "officer of the law" threatens to have me strip-searched and put in a cell. I recall the three Arab women sitting in an Iraqi cell waiting to be killed by men trained by US mercenaries and militaries, the people from New Orleans still held captive in FEMA camps for the crime of being homeless after a flood, the Canadian student arrested and strip-searched and held in a US prison just this week for the crime of failing to stop at a stop sign, the Palestinian teen waiting to cross an Israeli checkpoint and winds up rotting in an Israeli jail.

I recall all of these and more as I recall the empty eyes of the police as they tell me I am under arrest. I realize yet again that I am the arrested and the imprisoned and that they are me. I always have been them and they have always been me.

In Solidarity for the Liberation of the Oppressed,

Dr. June Scorza Terpstra


June Scorza Terpstra, Ph.D. is an activist educator and university lecturer in Justice Studies and Criminal Justice. She is presently teaching courses on Law and Terrorism, Social Justice and Resistance. She was the founding director of the Evanston Northshore YWCA Shelter for Battered Women and the Northwestern University Women’s Center. She is a former Community Research Fellow and graduate of Loyola University Chicago.

Blair blames crime on 'black culture'

Mystery solved. Black culture killed over 600,000 Iraqis.
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Blair blames spate of murders on black culture

· Political correctness not helping, says PM
· Community leaders react angrily to comments

Patrick Wintour and Vikram Dodd
Thursday April 12, 2007
The Guardian

Tony Blair yesterday claimed the spate of knife and gun murders in London was not being caused by poverty, but a distinctive black culture. His remarks angered community leaders, who accused him of ignorance and failing to provide support for black-led efforts to tackle the problem.

One accused him of misunderstanding the advice he had been given on the issue at a Downing Street summit.

Black community leaders reacted after Mr Blair said the recent violence should not be treated as part of a general crime wave, but as specific to black youth. He said people had to drop their political correctness and recognise that the violence would not be stopped "by pretending it is not young black kids doing it".

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It needed to be addressed by a tailored counter-attack in the same way as football hooliganism was reined in by producing measures aimed at the specific problem, rather than general lawlessness.

Mr Blair's remarks are at odds with those of the Home Office minister Lady Scotland, who told the home affairs select committee last month that the disproportionate number of black youths in the criminal justice system was a function of their disproportionate poverty, and not to do with a distinctive black culture.

Giving the Callaghan lecture in Cardiff, the prime minister admitted he had been "lurching into total frankness" in the final weeks of his premiership. He called on black people to lead the fight against knife crime. He said that "the black community - the vast majority of whom in these communities are decent, law abiding people horrified at what is happening - need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids".

Mr Blair said he had been moved to make his controversial remarks after speaking to a black pastor of a London church at a Downing Street knife crime summit, who said: "When are we going to start saying this is a problem amongst a section of the black community and not, for reasons of political correctness, pretend that this is nothing to do with it?" Mr Blair said there needed to be an "intense police focus" on the minority of young black Britons behind the gun and knife attacks. The laws on knife and gun gangs needed to be toughened and the ringleaders "taken out of circulation".

Last night, British African-Caribbean figures leading the fight against gang culture condemned Mr Blair's speech. The Rev Nims Obunge, chief executive of the Peace Alliance, one of the main organisations working against gang crime, denounced the prime minister.

Mr Obunge, who attended the Downing Street summit chaired by Mr Blair in February, said he had been cited by the prime minister: "He makes it look like I said it's the black community doing it. What I said is it's making the black community more vulnerable and they need more support and funding for the work they're doing. ... He has taken what I said out of context. We came for support and he has failed and has come back with more police powers to use against our black children."

Keith Jarrett, chair of the National Black Police Association, whose members work with vulnerable youngsters, said: "Social deprivation and delinquency go hand in hand and we need to tackle both. It is curious that the prime minister does not mention deprivation in his speech."

Lee Jasper, adviser on policing to London's mayor, said: "For years we have said this is an issue the black community has to deal with. The PM is spectacularly ill-informed if he thinks otherwise.

"Every home secretary from [David] Blunkett onwards has been pressed on tackling the growing phenomenon of gun and gang crime in deprived black communities, and government has failed to respond to what has been a clear demand for additional resources to tackle youth alienation and disaffection".

The Home Office has already announced it is looking at the possibility of banning membership of gangs, tougher enforcement of the supposed mandatory five-year sentences for possession of illegal firearms, and lowering the age from 21 to 18 for this mandatory sentence.

Answering questions later Mr Blair said: "Economic inequality is a factor and we should deal with that, but I don't think it's the thing that is producing the most violent expression of this social alienation.

"I think that is to do with the fact that particular youngsters are being brought up in a setting that has no rules, no discipline, no proper framework around them."

Some people working with children knew at the age of five whether they were going to be in "real trouble" later, he said.

Mr Blair is known to believe the tendency for many black boys to be raised in families without a father leads to a lack of appropriate role models.

He said: "We need to stop thinking of this as a society that has gone wrong - it has not - but of specific groups that for specific reasons have gone outside of the proper lines of respect and good conduct towards others and need by specific measures to be brought back into the fold."

The Commission for Racial Equality broadly backed Mr Blair, saying people "shouldn't be afraid to talk about this issue for fear of sounding prejudiced".

Mr Blair spoke out as a second teenager was due to appear in court charged with the murder of 14-year-old Paul Erhahon, stabbed to death in east London on Friday. He was the seventh Londoner under 16 to be murdered since the end of January, and his 15-year-old friend, who was also stabbed, remains in hospital.

Why Zionism Is Racism

Zionism is a racist and irredeemable movement, like Bolshevism, Nazism, and Apartheid.

By Rabee' Sahyoun
Posted: 11 Rabi-u-Thani 1422, 3 July 2001

(Note: This article is a direct response, using the same format, on a line by line basis, to an editorial that appeared in the Montreal Gazette on April 26, 2001, written by Gil Troy, a Professor of History at McGill University.)

On this, the 53rd anniversary of the Nakbe' (the Catastrophe of the Palestinian people), it is all too tempting for friend and foe alike to define Israel, and zionism, solely by the Americans' proclamations of its enlightened democracy. To do so is to miss the normal atrocities that occur in Israel daily, the millions who are under curfew and blockade, starving and brutalized, in the Middle East's only colonized state. To do so is to feign the reality of zionism, a racist and irredeemable movement, that survived the twentieth centuries' other genocidal and seemingly passing revolutions such as Bolshevism, Nazism, and Apartheid.

A century ago, zionism extended Western colonialism to Palestine.

The sad truth is that over a century after its founding, zionism seems to be grander and more honorable than its reality. Arabs have suffered from Zionism's belligerence and exclusivity, and many have blamed the United States, and the West, for this because of their unshakeable support of zionism. Israeli aggression over the past seven months has finally renewed international recognition that zionism is racism.

On this anniversary of the Nabke', it is now up to all Jews to follow in the footsteps of the brave few, and denounce the racist and separatist nature of zionism, while the world should encourage them to do so. The world should not allow the torchbearers of zionism to silence and quell the idealism of these few. No nationalism is pure, no movement is perfect, no state is ideal, but today, Zionism persists as a menace, a militaristic and dictatory movement to me and to most Palestinians. A century ago, zionism extended Western colonialism to Palestine; today, as in the rest of the world, colonialism must be ideologically purged from Palestine.

I believe that zionism is racism, because 53 years after being exiled from their homeland, in defiance of the four Geneva Conventions, UN Resolutions 181, 194, 242, 338, and others, and other multilateral and international human rights conventions, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the disinherited refugees of Palestine, continue to endure merciless punishment from the Zionist entity, most recently in the bulldozing of makeshift homes in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza.

I believe that zionism is racism, because I am a Palestinian, and without recognizing the colonialist component in zionism, I cannot explain its racist character, a western movement uprooting the native peoples of Palestine, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Samaritan alike, a people bound to their land, through centuries of raising orange groves, and herding sheep, lending grace to the Hills of God, historically, religiously and culturally.

I believe that zionism is racism, because it fails to appreciate or acknowledge the Palestinians' ties to their homeland, their love for their historical capital, Jerusalem, and the 53-yar plight they have endured as refugees worldwide, in Europe, in North America, in camps Dheishe, Shatila, Wehdaat and others, never giving up hope or struggle in yearning to return home.

I believe that zionism is racism, because it fails to admit the reality that the minority indigenous Jewish community in Palestine, that lived there for the last two thousand years, was an undistinguishable people from its Christian and Muslim Palestinian brethren, and that the leader of the Jewish community of the Jewish quarter of Old Jerusalem, Rabbi Lamram Blau, stood on the side of his Palestinian brothers and sisters being exiled in 1948.

I believe that zionism is racism because in modern times, the promise of liberal democracy and justice is a double-edged sword, preached by the Western powers, yet only paid lip-service to in the case of Israel, where Palestinian are continuously expelled, ethnically cleansed, and subjugated, and in the cases where they are assimilated, they are granted, limited, if any, civil rights.

I believe that zionism is racism, because in establishing the racially exclusive state of Israel, in 1948, and expelling the indigenous Palestinians from the land, the zionists severed a relationship that people had to the land for over 4,000 years, uninterrupted, since before Abraham.

I believe that zionism is racism, because in building Israel, the zionists were revising history, embracing the notion of racial superiority, an ideology that has empowered them to discriminate, with all of its associated social ills, injustices, and moral bankruptcy.

I believe that zionism is racism because it fails to distinguish between the nationalism of the American, based on multi-cultural harmony, and the racial exclusivity, separatism, ethnic cleansing, and brutality of zionism, that stands in clear violation of the most basic elements of international law and human rights practices, as most recently highlighted by reports issued by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

I believe that zionism is racism because in our world of post-modern identities, I know that we do not have to be "either-ors", we can be "ands and buts" – a zionist and a settler, an American citizen of Polish heritage but a soldier in the Israeli army.

I believe that zionism is racism because it self-propagates itself as a democratic movement. However, a democracy, cannot, by definition, only be representative of one community in a bi-national and tri-religious contiguous geographic area. A democracy cannot exist for one people and not for another. This as called Apartheid in South Africa, and is now called zionism in Palestine.

I believe that zionism is racism, because it espouses an independent and sovereign Jewish state, in a land where there is no Jewish majority. It espouses that such a sovereign state be at peace and harmony with its neighbors without allowing the Palestinian refugees dwelling within their borders, who were expelled from their homes in Palestine by zionist militias, as is clearly documented by numerous sources including the memoirs of David-Ben Gurion himself, to return to their homes, which is a basic human right guaranteed by Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I believe that zionism is racism because it is presented by its champions, from Gil Troy to Elie Wiesel, as a romantic movement, which allowed zionists to reclaim the desert and build a model nation-state. This is racism at its most acute, since there was no desert in Palestine, other than the Negev in the South. This is simply a myth that has been propagated by racists who have supported Israel for the last 53 years, and economic data on agricultural exports to Europe from Palestine dating to medieval times easily rejects and exposes this as a blasphemous claim.

Yes, it sounds far-fetched today. But as Vladamir Jabotinsky, father of revisionist zionism said in a racist boast in 1923, "There can be no discussion of a voluntary reconciliation between us and the Arabs… Any native people…view their country as their national home… They will not voluntarily allow, not only a new master, but even a new partner… Colonization can have only one goal. For the Palestinian Arabs this goal is inadmissible. This is in the nature of things. To change that nature is impossible… colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population - an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy."

And thus, Gil Troy and zionists abound are exposed as nothing more than unabashed racists.

[Mr. Rabee' Sahyoun is a economic development policy researcher, human rights activist, and columnist residing in Beirut, Lebanon. He is affiliated with the global grassroots Palestine Right To Return Coalition.]

Racist Mob Goes After UK Star

Racist Mob Goes After UK Star Amir Khan

Posted by: Mark Vester on 04-02-2007.

By Mark Vester

The Daily Record reports that 19-year-old Olympic silver medallist Amir Khan was forced to flee an amateur tournament after being racially abused and threatened with violence by a mob of fans. He was present at the event to watch his brother Haroon in the North West Amateur Boxing Association finals in Liverpool.

Khan's manager Asif Vali told the paper that the ordeal began after Haroon controversially lost his bout with local fighter James Deakin. Soon after, a mob of around 20 fans began to taunt Khan, some with racial slurs, and intimidate him.

"It was horrible and in my mind somewhat racist. Apart from the horrible insults, they were goading him saying things like, 'Come on, have a go with us' and 'Come on if you fancy yourself'. It was very intimidating. I had specifically decided that we shouldn't take any security with us because, after all, it was an amateur event," Vali said. "Thankfully, we escaped without being hurt. Who knows what could have happened if they had attacked us?"

The Ongoing Bigotry of Thomas Friedman

March 29, 2007

Wake Up, You Live in America!

The Ongoing Insults of Thomas Friedman

By MAHMOUD EL-YOUSSEPH, TSGT / USAF [Ret.]

Bigotry has once again reared its ugly face in a piece by columnist Thomas Friedman, published in the New York Times on March 2,2007. Part of his piece was based on a poem he retrieved from the Middle East Media and Research Institute [MEMRI] web site. It read in part:

"When you find that the large majority of people oppose freedom and find joy in slavery -- do not be too distressed, you are in an Arab country."

First of all, MEMRI is an organization that is well known for its anti- Arab and anti- Muslim reporting. It is founded and operated by a former Israeli military intelligence officer. According to a recent article published in the British Guardian newspaper, MEMRI reporting is slanted toward Israel and it disseminates information that defames Arabs and Muslims. Citing MEMRI as a reference on Arab/Muslim issues is like consulting Hugo Chavez of Venezuela about a documentary on the U.S.A.

Secondly, the last time an Arab nation had a genuine and free election on January, 2006, the United States , along with Israel led the Western nations in a boycott of the election results by imposing a collective punishment on the Palestinian people. Simply put, cutting off the food supply line and the millions a month in collected tax revenue that Israeli owes the Palestinian Authority.

When the Palestinians were asked to choose their own representative, the majority choose Hamas. Immediately, Secretary of State Rice has the audacity to demand the return of the 50 million dollars given as an economic aide to the Palestinians. A true lesson in promoting a democracy!

By contrast, when Israel elected its 11th prime minister in March 2001, it chose Ariel Sharon for the position. He was an indicted war-criminal by his own government for war crimes committed in Lebanon . America 's official reaction was, we do not interfere in the "internal affair" of other nations. So, the U.S. president rolled out red carpet for him at the White House and even called him a "man of peace".

Thomas Friedman's insulting of an ancient and rich culture is cheap shot. Perhaps Friedman should take heed from the popular saying, "If you live in a house of glass, don't throw stones..." If I were to add to the above poem, for Friedman's reading pleasure, and others like him who frequently degrade and bash Arabs and Muslims, I would propose the following:

When the leader of a foreign nation, like the King of Jordan could speak better English than your own president--don't feel ashamed, you live in America .

When a married female school teacher has sex with five of her own middle school students--don't call them the lucky 5, you live in America .

When you perform a DNA test on a 5 month old baby to determine which one out of 5 men is the biological father-- what a way to go, you live in America.

When 7 out of 10 adults surveyed could pick out a photograph of Yassir Arafat, but not those of their own Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense-- it's time to wake up, you live in America .

When a mother pays for her daughter's breast enlargement on her 16th birthday, so she would look more appealing to the opposite sex-- get out of town, you live in America .

When you elect a president who was arrested 3 times-- don't ask, don't tell, you live in America .

When your president's name is reduced to one letter, "W" so he could spell it-- that's silly, you live in America .

When you are able to sue the weatherman--what will they do next, you live in America .

When what was once called the "People's House" suddenly turns into a 'whore house'-- just ask Slick Willy, you live in America .

When you have more jails and more criminals that any other country on earth"I rest my case, you live in America .

When more people in Western European nations consider you to pose the most threat to world peace -- the truth is a bitter pill to swallow, you live in America .

When 34 of your sailors are killed, 172 injured, and a 23-year old brave peace activist is run over by a military bulldozer by the same foreign nation, and you are not allowed to publicly express outrage, retaliation, or initiate an investigation without the fear of retribution-- don't be a wimp, you live in America !

Mahmoud El-Yousseph (TSGT / USAF [Ret.]) lives in Ohio.
He can be reached at: el-yousseph6@yahoo.com

Must read UN Committee message to Israel

ADALAH'S NEWSLETTER
Volume 34, March 2007

UN Committee Urges Israel to Revoke the Citizenship Law, Dismantle the Wall, Bind
the Jewish National Fund to Anti-Discrimination Principles, and
Recognize the Unrecognized Villages

Adalah: “The UN Committee, which is composed of legal experts, reached these concluding observations based on the principles of anti-discrimination. Therefore the concluding observations constitute an official statement that institutionalized discrimination exists in Israel.”

On 9 March 2007, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (“the Committee”) issued its Concluding Observations, following its review last month of Israel’s implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (“ICERD” or “the Convention”). In its Concluding Observations, the Committee emphasized 25 areas of concern and recommendations regarding Israel’s compliance with the Convention concerning the rights of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Representatives of Adalah, Attorney Sawsan Zaher and Rina Rosenberg, Esq., and other Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations participated in the UN sessions held on 22-23 February 2007 in Geneva.

The Concluding Observations reflected numerous issues highlighted by Adalah in its reports to the Committee noting Israel’s violations of the ICERD.

A high-level delegation of 13 state representatives, headed by Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Yitzhak Levanon, also participated in the Committee’s sessions. Nevertheless, many of the questions sent in advance to Israel remained unanswered, as the Committee noted at the outset.

The main concerns and recommendations adopted by the Committee, which is composed of eighteen independent experts including law professors, lawyers and former judges, included:

1) The right to equality and a prohibition on racial discrimination should be explicitly included in the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.

2) Israel should ensure that the definition of the state as a Jewish state does not result in any systemic distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin in the enjoyment of human rights.

3) Israel should ensure “equality in the right to return to one’s country and in the possession of property”.

4) Israel should ensure that the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund, which manage land, housing and services exclusively for the Jewish population, are “bound by the principle of non-discrimination in the exercise of their functions.”

5) Israel should revoke the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) – 2003, and “ensure that restrictions on family reunification are strictly necessary and limited in scope, and are not applied on the basis of nationality, residency or membership of a particular community.”

6) Israel’s policy of affording highly advantageous benefits, particularly for housing and education, to those who perform military service is incompatible with the Convention, bearing in mind that most Arab citizens do not perform national service.

7) Israel should assess the significance and impact of Israel Land Administration’s “social suitability” admission criterion to small communities, as it may allow in practice for the exclusion of Arab citizens from some State-controlled land. The Committee recommended that Israel take all measures to ensure that State land is allocated without discrimination, direct or indirect, based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.

8) Israel should assess the extent to which discriminatory attitudes by employers against Arabs, scarcity of jobs near Arab communities, and lack of daycare centers in Arab villages are a cause of high unemployment rates, particularly for Arab women.

9) Israel should enquire into possible alternatives to the relocation of inhabitants of unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev/Naqab to planned towns, in particular through the recognition of these villages and the recognition of the rights of the Bedouin to own, develop, control and use their communal lands, territories and resources traditionally owned or otherwise inhabited or used by them.

10) Israel should address concerns that the psychometric examinations used to test aptitudes, ability and personality indirectly discriminates against Arab citizens in accessing higher education.

11) Israel should ensure that laws and programmes be equally devoted to the promotion of cultural institutions and the protection of holy sites of both Jewish and other religious communities.

12) Israel should increase its efforts to prevent racially motivated offences and hate speech, and ensure that relevant criminal law provisions are effectively implemented by prosecuting politicians, government officials and other public figures for hate speech against the Arab minority.

13) “A high number of complaints filed by Arab citizens against law enforcement officers are not properly and effectively investigated and that the Ministry of Justice’s Police Investigations Unit (Mahash) lacks independence.” The Committee regretted that Israel provided no comments in this regard as requested or information as to whether the persons responsible for the October 2000 killings have been prosecuted and sentenced.

14) Israel’s position that the ICERD does not apply in the OPT “cannot be sustained under the letter and spirit of the Convention, or under international law as also affirmed by the International Court of Justice.” Moreover “the Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.”

15) Israel should cease the construction of the Wall in the OPT, including in and around East Jerusalem, dismantle the structure, and make reparation for all damage. Israel should also “give full effect” to the 2004 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice.

16) Severe restrictions on the freedom of movement in the OPT targeting a particular national or ethnic group, especially through the wall, checkpoints, restricted roads and permit system, have created hardship and have had a highly detrimental impact on the enjoyment of human rights by Palestinians, in particular their rights to freedom of movement, family life, work, education and health.

17) Different laws and practices apply to Palestinians and to Israelis in the OPT, in particular the unequal distribution of water resources to the detriment of Palestinians, the disproportionate targeting of Palestinians in house demolitions, and different criminal laws leading to prolonged detention and harsher punishments for Palestinians for the same offences.

18) While stressing that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is an important cultural and religious site for people living in the OPT, the Committee urged Israel to ensure that the excavations in no way endanger the Mosque and impede access to it.

19) Israel should increase its efforts to protect Palestinians against violence perpetuated by Jewish settlers, particularly in Hebron, and ensure that such incidents are investigated in a prompt, transparent and independent manner, are prosecuted and sentenced, and that avenues for redress are offered to the victims.

The Committee also recommended that Israel make its reports and the Committee’s concluding observations readily available to the public in both Hebrew and Arabic.

Israel should submit answers to questions not provided in its submission and representations within one year, together with information on any first steps taken towards implementing the Committee’s recommendations. Israel should submit its next periodic reports and address all points raised in the concluding observations in February 2010.

For more information, see Adalah’s Special Report on UN CERD available at: http://www.adalah.org/eng/cerd.php

URL

Zionism, Israeli Media and Rationalising Racist Consciousness

February 13, 2007

Construction of Double Standard Humanity through Cultural Representation

By Eyal Sivan


This is a video recording of a talk given during Israeli Apartheid Week 2007, in the Khalili Lecture Theatre at SOAS in London.

VIDEO

Israeli MP refuses to sing national anthem

He's Arab, one among millions in Israel. Here's the national anthem:

"As long as the Jewish spirit is yearning deep in the heart,

With eyes turned toward the East, looking toward Zion,

Then our hope - the two-thousand-year-old hope - will not be lost:

To be a free people in our land,

The land of Zion and Jerusalem."

Imagine the US national anthem, "... home of the brave, land of the free white people..."

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Majadele refuses to sing national anthem

Rightist MKs slam Israel's first Arab minister, who said in newspaper interview he would not sing anthem, because song was written 'only for Jews'

Amnon Meranda Published: 03.17.07, 23:37 / Israel News

Rightist Knesset members strongly criticized Minister Raleb Majadele Saturday, after he said in an interview to Yedioth Ahronoth this weekend that he refuses to sing Israel's national anthem, Hatikva.

In the interview, Majadele said, "Of course I would not sing the anthem in its current form. But before we talk about symbols, I wantמודעto talk about equal education for my children. It's more important that my son would be able to buy a house, live with dignity… the Arabs are not in a mood to sing right now."

Majadele told Ynet following interview that, "As a government minister, I swore allegiance to the laws of the State of Israel, and I intend to honor them." Majadele noted that he expresses his respect to the national anthem by standing up whenever the song is being sung.

"To the best of my knowledge, the law does not require me to sing the anthem, but to honor it. I fail to understand how an enlightened, sane Jew allows himself to ask a Muslim person with a different language and culture, to sing an anthem that was written for Jews only," he added.

'Majadele must apologize'

Majadele's statements prompted harsh responses among right-wing MKs. MK Arieh Eldad (National Union-National Religious Party) said that a man who refuses to sing the national anthem should not be a minister.

"I don't want to force Minister Majadele to sing the anthem, but I don't want to see as a minister a man who does not identify with Israel's character, and who declares he does not identify with the national anthem," he stated.

MK Zevulun Orlev (National Union-NRP) was also furious with Majadele's words and said that the prime minister should order the minister to apologize.

"Majadele's statements should raise deep concern. They represent a clear violation of his ministerial oath to be loyal to the State of Israel and its laws. I call on the prime minister to demand that he make it clear he is loyal to the State of Israel as a Jewish state," he declared.

Tibi: Attacks are hypocritical

Meanwhile, MK Ahmed Tibi voiced his support for Majadele, and said that he too never sings the anthem.

"The attacks on him from the Right are hypocritical, self-righteous and ridiculous. Hatikva's words cannot be sung by any Arab citizen," Tibi said, adding that any reasonable Jew should sympathize with this sentiment, "Including honest rightists who have already accepted the fact that the words are aimed at the Jewish, not the Arab, soul."

"Lately we have witnessed a torrent of anti-Arab statements, and this should be understood in this context," he concluded.

From Guilt to Responsibility

Speech given in Stockholm 18 March 2007

By Gilad Atzmon

The impossible condition of being an ex-Israeli as well as an ethically orientated human being necessary leads towards a serious guilt complex. I am referring here to the obvious case of one feeling guilty for the crimes committed on one’s behalf by one’s brethren. Yet, I have to confess that while guilt can be charming, at least for a while, it is far from being a productive state of mind in the long term. Guilt is a self-centred endeavour, it doesn’t aim towards a change. In guilt alone, there is not much hope for better future. In fact, the only way to translate guilt into productivity is to transform remorse into responsibility.

At least in my case, responsibility is primarily grounded on the deep acknowledgment that, though totally against my will, as things are set by the Jewish State, every atrocity committed by Israel is actually committed in my name and on my behalf. In other words, my commitment to the Palestinian issue is evoked by my acceptance of my responsibility. Though shouting ‘not in my name’ would have helped to vindicate me as an individual person, it won’t change the grave sinister fact that every Israeli war crime is actually done in the name of the Jewish people. Thus, I have never been an advocate of the ‘not in my name’ call. Clearly, I am not searching for my own self-redemption but rather for a metaphysical shift of awareness. Consequently, responsibility is for me a form of intervention that bridges the necessary gap between silent acceptance and ethical commitment. My responsibility is my pledge to do whatever I can to bring the suffering of the Palestinians to an immediate halt.

I obviously set myself a very serious challenge here. Bearing in mind that my weapons are my saxophone and my pen, it may even sound slightly pathetic. One may wonder whether it is possible to knock down a nuclear regional superpower with a soprano saxophone or even with a pencil. Though I don’t have a definite answer yet, I am willing to admit that in the last seven years I have given it a go.

For me, being responsible means looking into the Israeli atrocities while regarding myself at the crux of the issue. While in the past I somehow tended to remove myself from the conflict, positioning myself as a detached scout, I now happen to search for the answers inside myself, in my own soul, in my esoteric experience. Following Otto Weininger, I’m inclined to believe that artists’ revelations about the world are the direct outcome of some sincere self-searching. However, while looking into myself I clearly found out that whereas I may be able to say some things about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I probably cannot really say much about its political aspects.

Generally speaking, discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is far from being an easy job. Furthermore, lately, the task is becoming more and more difficult. Due to some intensive pressure imposed on the Palestinians by Israel (with the full support of the willing and obedient West), the Palestinians are pushed into a state of civil war. As a result, the emerging animosity within Palestinian society (both in Palestine and in the Diaspora) makes it very difficult to suggest any intellectual or ideological contribution that may refer to a conflict resolution. Palestinian society is now officially divided about almost everything. Moreover, Palestinians may even find it difficult to agree upon the notion of the Palestinian cause. As it seems, many of us in the West happen to claim to support the Palestinian cause without really being able to suggest what this cause is anymore. Rather often we happen to classify activists based on their vision of the conflict resolution. We would say, “he is OK, he is for ‘one State’, but leave her alone, she is a Zionist ‘two States’ supporter”. In other words, we identify political affiliations with what seems to us as the ‘true’ Palestinian cause. But in fact, our image of the Palestinian cause is in itself dependent upon our own political culture, personal political struggles, personal affiliations and lifestyle. It has very little to do with Palestine, the Palestinians and their current or future needs.

Such a realisation may challenge the notion of solidarity and it implies some possible criticism over the entire issue of responsibility. Consequently, I have been recently coming to terms with the idea that I must be very careful with any rhetoric having to do with Palestine. Consequently, I avoid talking in the name of the Palestinians. Moreover, being an ex-Israeli, I do not allow myself to interfere with the Palestinian discourse of resolution. I am totally convinced that the future of Palestine is an internal Palestinian affair. The future of Palestine should be determined by the Palestinian people and by themselves alone. Yet I feel more than entitled to talk about the atrocities that are committed in my name. This is where my responsibility is coming into play.

My task is far from being hard to define. I would argue that if indeed the crimes against the Palestinians are committed by the ‘Jewish State’ in the name of the ‘Jewish’ people, before any progress can be made, we first must grasp what the word ‘Jewish’ stands for. In other words, it is Jewishness which I am trying to contemplate. I try to learn its metaphysics, its historical and cultural background. I try to understand how Jewish lobbies are operating within different organisations, institutes and systems of hegemony. I argue that if it is the Jewish State that is engaged in terrorising the Palestinians, we better understand once and for all what hides behind the notion of Jewishness. Yet, I find it necessary to elaborate on the differences between the different categories having to do with the ‘J’ word.

Resolutely, I differentiate between Judaism (the religion), Jews (the people) and Jewishness (the ideology). I refrain categorically from referring to Jews and avoid criticism of Judaism. The reasons are obvious. First, though Israel regards itself as the ‘Jewish State’, it is far from being the State of the Jews. Many Jews are living outside of Israel and have nothing to do with Israel or the Israeli crimes. Second, it isn’t Judaism that inflicts so much pain on the Palestinians but rather people who follow some peculiar modern secular vision named by some as Zionism. Thus, it is the Jewishness that I am interested in, the ideological mindset and the cultural framework. I am interested in the collective bond that provides Zionism with a substantial body shield. I am interested in that which transforms Global Zionism into a leading and winning contemporary worldview.

But this is exactly where the real problem starts. Although I firmly refrain from referring to racial or ethnic categories, enormous energy is invested in stopping me and others from saying that which we feel entitled to say. Jewish political pressure groups both in the left and in the right, both Zionists and anti-Zionists, both sectarian Marxists and Fascist settlers fight to keep the differentiation between Judaism, Jewishness and the Jews as blurred as possible. May I suggest that they know what they are doing. It is this tactic that allows them to dismiss any possible criticism of Israel and its lobbies as being a racist assault. As long as the demarcation between Judaism, Jews and Jewishness is obscure, Israel is safe from criticism.

By maintaining such a tactic, Jewish groups in the left and in the right have managed to block any meaningful debate having to do with Israel, the Jewish State, Palestine, world Jewry, the Israeli Lobby in America, etc.. Every essential discussion is dismissed immediately as a form of racism or as plain anti-Semitism. My responsibility therefore is to stand up and resist. My duty is to insist that Jewishness is an Ideology, or at least a mindset. It is an idea that made the Nakba possible, it is an ideology that has maintained ethnic cleansing policies for six decades, it is an a unique intuition that lives in peace with 80% starvation in Gaza.

It is not the Jews and it is not Judaism that are to be blamed here, but it is not Zionism either. Jewishness is actually a deeper concept than mere Zionism. How do I know that it is deeper than Zionism? I know because I look into myself and into my past. I know because I grew up in Israel and I can tell that as a young lad, the word Zionism was foreign to my ears. My peers and myself were Israelis, we were the Jewish people, we were not Zionists. Zionism was a foreign abstract expression, it smelled of Galut (Diaspora). We were Jews and our enemies were the ‘others’ whoever they were at the time: the Germans, The Goyim, the anti-Semites, the Arabs in general the Palestinians in particular and so forth.

My responsibility thus is to expose the real meaning of the Jewish idea in its full extent. My mission is to get to the essence of this almighty fear that settles comfortably at the core of the Jewish collective psyche. My responsibility is to expose the carriers and protagonists of this ideology. As an artist, my duty is to look into myself and to trace its origin in my own soul.

If I am indeed correct and Jewishness is an ideology, then it cannot just position itself beyond criticism. If I am indeed on the right track, it is my duty as an intellectual and as an artist who believes in free spirit, to point out that the Palestinian discourse is viciously shaped by an absurd form of political correctness that blocks any meaningful and fruitful discourse.

I will use this unique opportunity and mention as well that I am tired of hearing people telling me “Gilad, you can say it all, you are a Jew.” I just do not accept it. There is nothing in my ethnic belonging or biological origin that should grant me with any special entitlement. I must admit as well that I have never found myself telling a Muslim or an Arab friend “you can say it, you are an Arab.” I do not remember myself ever hearing anyone suggesting to anyone else: “you can say it, you are Protestant, Irish, Black, etc.”. Noticeably, the Jewish State and its supporters have managed to position their beloved country in a very privileged precious position, far beyond criticism. My responsibility is to expose this tactic as a complete fallacy.

I believe that we cannot bring hope to Palestine unless we teach ourselves to speak freely, unless we allow ourselves to open up the discourse. I may as well suggest that I truly believe that the Zionists and the Israelis will benefit from such an initiative.

The Israelis and their supporters set themselves in an artificial detached heaven. They have surrounded themselves with security walls and have managed to block all channels of criticism. While in a complete state of blindness, the Israelis have failed to notice that they have become the embodiment of modern evil. More than anyone else, it is the Jewish State and the Israelis who need an immediate wake up call.

Bush's Book List Gets More Islamophobic

POLITICS-US:

Analysis by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Mar 16 (IPS) - Accounts of a Feb. 28 "literary luncheon" at the White House suggest that President George W. Bush's reading tastes -- until now a remarkably good predictor of his policy views -- are moving ever rightward, even apocalyptic, despite his administration's recent suggestions that it is more disposed to engage Washington's foes, even in the Middle East.

The luncheon, attended as well by Vice President Dick Cheney and a dozen hard-line neo-conservatives, was held in honour of visiting British historian Andrew Roberts whose latest work, "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900", Bush reportedly read late last year and subsequently sent to Prime Minister Tony Blair. Cheney took the book with him on his recent trip to Pakistan.

Roberts, an avowed Thatcherite who proudly declared himself "extremely right-wing" in a recent Financial Times interview, repeatedly advised the president, according to Irwin Stelzer, one of the neo-conservative attendees, to ignore rising anti-U.S. sentiment abroad and opposition at home in pursuing his war on terrorism -- or what the historian has called "the Manichean world-historical struggle" against fascism, of which "Totalitarian Islamic Terrorist Fascism" is only the latest.

A major lesson of history, Roberts told Bush, is that "will trumps wealth," according to Stelzer's account of the meeting in the Weekly Standard. He warned that "the steady drumbeat of media pessimism and television coverage are sapping the West's will" to fight and defeat the enemy which, in his view, includes Iran, as well as Sunni radicals, such as al Qaeda.

History also warned, Roberts reportedly said, against withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq according to a pre-set deadline, such as that currently being debated in Congress. He compared the risks of doing so to the slaughter of 700,000 to one million people that followed India's independence from British rule in 1947.

In his article, Stelzer, an economist at the Hudson Institute and London Sunday Times columnist, disclosed that Bush had also recommended that his staff and friends read another, even more apocalyptic, analysis of the current war on terror, "America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It", by Toronto-born neo-conservative columnist Mark Steyn.

Steyn's book, which, unlike Roberts', actually made the New York Times bestseller list, sees Europe's demographic trends and its multicultural, "post-nationalist" secularism -- of which his native Canada is also guilty -- as leading inevitably to the "Eupocalypse", the "recolonisation of Europe by Islam", the emergence of "Eurabia", and the onset of a "new Dark Ages" in which the United States will find it difficult to survive as the "lonely candle of liberty."

Steyn, who admits that he would have to drive three hours from his home in thankfully "undiverse" New Hampshire to find a Muslim, sees Islam itself -- and not just "Islamist radicals" or "jihadis", such as al Qaeda -- as a unique threat that cannot be reconciled with "free societies".

"[I]t's not merely that there's a global jihad lurking within this religion, but that the religion itself is a political project -- and, in fact, an imperial project -- in a way that modern Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are not," he writes. "Furthermore, this particular religion is historically a somewhat bloodthirsty faith in which whatever's your bag violence-wise can almost certainly be justified."

To deal with the threat, he calls for a familiar recipe of favourite neo-conservative policies, from "support women's rights in the Muslim world" and "wage ideological war", to "end the Iranian regime" and "strike militarily when the opportunity presents itself."

The two books, whose worldview and policy prescriptions are remarkably convergent, are the latest in a series read by Bush (not otherwise known as a bibliophile) and lavishly promoted by neo-conservatives and their major media outlets. These include the Wall Street Journal's editorial page and various publications owned by Rupert Murdoch, Conrad Black (before his current legal troubles), and Canada's Asper family, all of which share a deep affinity for Israel's right-wing Likud Party, a strong belief in the moral superiority of the so-called "Anglosphere" -- Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the U.S. (although Steyn thinks Britain and Canada may already be lost to the forces of darkness) -- and an undeniable nostalgia for the British Empire, particularly Winston Churchill.

In the summer of 2002, for example, Bush was seen carrying a just-published copy of "Supreme Command" by neo-conservative military historian (and recently appointed State Department counselor) Eliot Cohen. The book argued that the greatest civilian wartime leaders, notably Abraham Lincoln and Churchill, had a far better strategic sense than their generals -- a particularly timely message in the months that preceded the Iraq war when a surprising number of recently retired military brass here were voicing strong reservations about the impending invasion.

Two years later, Bush was given an early copy of right-wing Israeli politician Natan Sharansky's "The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror", which argued that peace in the Middle East could only emerge after the region's dictatorial regimes were replaced by western-style democracies. Bush was so taken with it that he summoned Sharansky for a White House tete-a-tete, made the book required reading for his senior foreign policy aides, and incorporated its ideas -- in some cases, word for word -- into his 2005 inaugural address.

During the Christmas holiday later that year, Bush read Robert Kaplan's just-released "Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground", an unapologetic paean to U.S. soldiers (who, like Bush's self-image, "hunted, drove pickups, employed profanities as a matter of dialect and yet had a literal, demonstrable belief in the Almighty") deployed across the Muslim world, from the southern Philippines to Mauritania, in what he called a contemporary planetary version of "Injun Country"; that is, those parts of the 19th century United States subdued and "civilised" thanks to the U.S. Army.

Like the British a century before, it was Washington's "righteous responsibility to advance the boundaries of free society and good government into zones of sheer chaos," argued Kaplan, who, like Roberts one year later, also warned at the time that an early U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would result in a "real bloodbath".

What is remarkable about all of these books is -- much like the cherry-picked and manipulated intelligence stovepiped to Bush in the run-up to the Iraq War -- both their extraordinary ideological narrowness and their utility in the pursuit of a neo-conservative agenda, especially in the Middle East.

In one way or another, each affirms core neo-conservative ideas: the essential beneficence of U.S. (and Anglospheric) power even if the "natives" are ungrateful; the supreme importance of both "will" and military might in wielding that power, particularly against enemies that can never be "appeased" or "contained" and that, in Roberts' words, are motivated not so much by legitimate grievances against U.S. policies, as by "loathing of the English-speaking people's traditions of democratic pluralism"; the evils of "liberalism", "secularism" and "moral relativism" of western societies that undermine their will to fight; and the catastrophic consequences of retreat or defeat.

All of these also play to Bush's own Manicheanism and self-image as a courageous, often lonely, leader in the mold of a Lincoln or Churchill, determined to pursue what he believes is right regardless of what "old Europe", "intellectuals", "elites", or even the electorate thinks about his course and confident only in the conviction that History or God will vindicate him.

It's an image that Bush's neo-conservative guests -- including the Wall Street Journal's editorial page editor, Paul Gigot; former Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz, New York Sun editor Seth Lipsky, and several like-minded columnists -- themselves have also tried hard to propagate, particularly as public confidence in Bush has fallen to the longest sustained lows for any president in more than 50 years.

"It is fair to say that the few people I spoke with as we left shared my impression," wrote the Standard's Stelzer. "Here is a man comfortable in his own skin; whose religious faith guides him in his search for the good... who worries less about his 'legacy' than about his standing with the Almighty, (and) who is quite well read..."