they call themselves the “jewish defense league,” (jdl) but this misnomer, like the “israeli defense forces” masks what they are really there to do: to murder, steal, and cover it all up. the jdl, fortunately, continues to be on the united states terrorist watch list for its history of attacks on american soil. here is one recent report by the fbi:
The two terrorist plots prevented by law enforcement in 2001 were being planned by domestic extremists. Ronald Mike Denton was planning to attack his former place of employment, the Chevron Oil Refinery at El Segundo, California, when he was arrested in March 2001. In December 2001 Irving David Rubin and Earl Leslie Krugel, members of the extremist Jewish Defense League, were arrested as they were in the final stages of planning attacks against the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, California, and the local office of U.S. Congressman Darrell Issa.
sometimes these jdl terrorists are even put in prison as reported by the new york times‘ leonard buder:
Among the incidents was a firebombing at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center on Oct. 20, 1986, the day of a scheduled performance by the Moscow State Symphony. The firebomb damaged the stage-door entrance but caused no injuries.
i grew up around this terrorism, although admittedly at the time i did not have any understanding or any context for it. but the jdl was and is active in los angeles. i’ve written about this before, but bears repeating in light of recent events. here is part of an older report by gerald neff on the if americans knew website documenting some of racist, terrorist crimes committed by the jdl:
A 1985 FBI study of terrorist acts in the United States since 1981 found 18 incidents initiated by Jews, 15 of the acts by the JDL. In a 1986 study of domestic terrorism, the Department of Energy concluded: “For more than a decade, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) has been one of the most active terrorist groups in the United States….Since 1968, JDL operations have killed 7 persons and wounded at least 22. Thirty- nine percent of the targets were connected with the Soviet Union; 9 percent were Palestinian; 8 percent were Lebanese; 6 percent, Egyptian; 4 percent, French, Iranian, and Iraqi; 1 percent, Polish and German; and 23 percent were not connected with any states. Sixty-two percent of all JDL actions are directed against property; 30 percent against businesses; 4 percent against academics and academic institutions; and 2 percent against religious targets.”
The JDL was suspected in two high-profile murders over the years. One came in 1972 when a bomb exploded in impresario Sol Hurok’s Manhattan office on Jan. 26. The explosion killed his receptionist, Iris Kones, 27, while Hurok and 12 others were injured. The JDL was suspected because Hurok was bringing Soviet performers to the United States.
The next year, Jerome Zeller, an American JDL member, was indicted on charges of planting the bomb at Hurok’s office. He had since moved to Israel and his extradition was requested. Israeli authorities arrested the American expatriate but released him on $1,200 bail. He later was wounded in the 1973 war. Afterwards, the U.S. again requested extradition, but the response was, said U.S. Attorney Joseph Jaffe, who prosecuted the case, “You can…hold your breath until you die cause you ain’t going to get him because he’s a national hero.” Zeller was later reported living in the occupied West Bank among militant settlers.
Kahane became an outspoken advocate for the “transfer” of all Palestinians.
The other high-profile murder came in 1985, on Oct. 11, when Alex Odeh, 37, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) in Santa Ana, California, was killed by a bomb planted at his office. Odeh had appeared the previous night on a television show and called Yasser Arafat a “man of peace.” The Jewish Defense League praised the bombing but denied involvement, its usual practice in such incidents.
One of the suspects was Robert Manning, 36, of Los Angeles, a JDL member. He and his wife, Rochelle, moved to Israel, where he joined the Israel Defense Forces. FBI agents said Manning and others were also suspected of being involved in a year-long series of violent incidents in 1985 including the August house-bomb slaying of Tscherim Soobzokov, of Paterson, N.J., a suspected Nazi war criminal; the Aug. 16 attempted bombing of the Boston ADC office in which two policemen were severely wounded; the September bombing at the Brentwood, Long Island home of alleged Nazi Elmars Sprogis, in which a 23-year-old passerby lost a leg, and the Oct. 29 fire at the ADC office in Washington, DC, which was called arson.
By December 1985, FBI Director William H. Webster warned that Arab Americans had entered a “zone of danger” and were targets of an unnamed group seeking to harm the “enemies of Israel.”
Manning and his wife lived in the radical Kiryat Arba settlement in Israel’s occupied West Bank until March 25, 1991 when, after two years of pressure, Israel acceded to U.S. extradition demands.
The case caused critics to charge U.S. media bias against Arabs, noting that a week earlier the killing of American Jew Leon Klinghoffer aboard the hijacked Achille Lauro received heavy media coverage. They pointed out The New York Times devoted 1,043 column inches to Klinghoffer while devoting only 14 inches to Odeh’s death.
Israeli police finally arrested the Mannings on March 24, 1991. Although strongly suspected in the Odeh murder, they were charged in a separate suit involving the 1980 letter-bomb murder of California secretary Patricia Wilkerson. Robert Manning, but not his wife, was eventually extradited to the United States on July 18, 1993, and was found guilty on Oct. 14, 1993, of complicity in the Wilkerson murder.
On Feb. 7, 1994, Manning was sentenced to life in prison. His wife died of a heart attack on March 18, 1994, in an Israeli prison while awaiting extradition.
Meanwhile, Kahane had moved to Israel in 1971 and immediately became an outspoken advocate for the “transfer” of all Palestinians. His unabashed public voicing of a subject that Israelis had spoken about only privately for so long earned him instant popularity among the most radical of Israelis. He founded the Kach Party. Kach in Hebrew means “Thus!” and Israelis understood that the party’s name referred to the use of violence to ethnically cleanse the land. By 1984 Kahane was popular enough to win a seat in the 120-seat Knesset under the Kach banner.
why do i bring this all up? because the jdl in canada, which seems to be far more active than in the u.s. of late, has issued threats on television to anyone supporting george galloway’s lecture tour, which they had a role in canceling by getting the canadian government to ban galloway from setting foot on canadian soil. live on television some terrorist from the jdl threatened such people, including churches sponsoring his speaking engagements. watch the terrorist meir weinstein of the jdl for yourself:
when you look at the list of reasons that the canadian government may have used to prevent his entry this story becomes even more outrageous as deborah summers reports for the guardian:
“A permanent resident or a foreign national is inadmissible on security grounds for:
(a) engaging in an act of espionage or an act of subversion against a democratic government, institution or process as they are understood in Canada;
(b) engaging in or instigating the subversion by force of any government;
(c) engaging in terrorism;
(d) being a danger to the security of Canada;
(e) engaging in acts of violence that would or might endanger the lives or safety of persons in Canada; or
(f) being a member of an organisation that there are reasonable grounds to believe engages, has engaged or will engage in acts referred to in paragraph (a), (b) or (c).”
it is kind of astounding what an impact an najah university has on the city of nablus. the city itself is one of the largest in palestine and yet when the students are not here so many shops and restaurants close down because there is no business. one of the board of trustees at the university died so the university was closed today and so did all the shops. one of the members of an najah university’s board of trustees died, a prominent nabulsi from the masri family, so the university shut down. and so did all the shops. it was strange being on campus and around campus today. it reminded me of when we had a strike last semester; it was like this then, too.
i have been busy working on the u.s. boycott campaign and the vigil (see below) that we are having sunday night in nablus and in many other cities around the world. hopefully more will be added soon. i hear rumors that boise, idaho is going to join our list of vigils! one of the associated activities with the vigil, aside from reading the names of the child martyrs is to read out loud some of the stories of the children who survived. here are some of those in english (sorry no translation yet):
Children’s survival stories in Gaza
Amira, 15 years old
Amira Qirm is from Tal El Hawa. She watched her father die outside their home. Right after that, she heard another shell land and kill her brother Ala’a, 14 years old, and her sister Ismat, 16 years old. Amira was injured in the attack, and spent three days semi-conscious and alone in a neighbour’s abandoned house before she was rescued. She has been flown to France for medical treatment and she faces a long recovery. She says her dream is to become a lawyer so she can “stand in court facing the Israelis for what they have done.”
* The Guardian, 23 January 2009
Essidi, 6 years old
6-year-old Essidi Sarzuhr was hit by Israeli bomb fragments when seven Israeli rockets hit the front of his house on Jan 7. The family lives in Sabra, Gaza. He was taken to Al-Shifa hospital’s Special Paediatric Department for treatment for extensive abdominal injuries and had undergone emergency lifesaving laparatomy and had a chest tube placed due to fragment injuries also of the chest.
* Account of Norwegian Doctors Mads Gilbert and Erick Fosse
Hosam, early teens
Hosam Hamdan, a boy in his early teens, still remains unconscious in Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital intensive care unit in a full body cast, after he was seriously wounded and his two sisters killed in an Israeli air strike in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip at the end of December 2008. Doctors are not sure if he will ever walk again.
* The Guardian, 31 December 2008
Sari, young child
Sari, a boy, was caught outside during the first bombing. “He trembled as he told us that he’d been on his way home from school in a taxi when there was a thundering blast. The driver stopped the car and ran for cover. The passengers scattered in all directions. Sari found himself running aimlessly. The explosions seemed to be chasing him, he said. Suddenly, he came upon people lying bleeding in the street” but it was too late to help them.
*Eyad el Sarraj, The Washington Post, January 3, 2009
Ayman, 15 years old
Ayman Najjar is trying to recover from severe burns in a hospital in Khan Younis, and his back is covered in thick dressings. His doctor says he is suffering from severe chemical burns. Ayman is from Khoza’a, a rural community east of Khan Younis. He and his sister were sitting under the stairs when a missile struck. Their grandfather, who was in the garden, was killed instantly. His sister Alaa, 16 years old, had been playing a game on her mobile phone when she was hit and died after hours of surgery.
Sitting in his empty apartment, Anas doesn’t know if he will see his wife, Mounira, and two daughters and son ever again. “It feels as though as a piece of my heart has been torn out,” he said. Mounira, a Bosnian national, had survived 4 years of war in Bosnia, and had thought she could endure life in Gaza as well. But, Anas said, “three weeks of Israeli warfare in Gaza broke her – mentally” and she left to Cairo on the first bus out after the ceasefire. “I miss her terribly,” he says, “but I don’t blame her.”
* Al-Jazeera English
Al-Daya family
Fayez and Khitam Al Daya had brought together their children and their families into their home in the neighborhood of Zeitoun, Gaza City. On January 6, at 6am, an Israeli Apache plane bombed and destroyed the 4-storey home. All 30 members of the family were killed and buried under the rubble. 18 of those killed were children.
* Al Haq
Ibrahim Shurrab, 17 years old
On 16 January, 2009, at around 1.30 in the afternoon during the three-hour Israeli-declared lull in fighting, Ibrahim, his brother Kassab, 27 years old, and their father Mohammed, 64 years old, were in their car on their home from their farm. Kassab was shot by an Israeli solider4 in the chest, and died a few hours later. Mohammed was shot in the arm, and Ibrahim’s leg was wounded. Ibrahim and his father were stranded and the ambulances were unable to reach them. Mohammed spent hours trying to call the Red Cross and human rights organizations, but they were unable to help, and Ibrahim died at dawn the next morning.
* Al Haq
“Out of all the devastation I have seen so far, there is one story in particular that I think the world needs to hear. I met a mother who was at home with her ten children when Israeli soldiers entered the house. The soldiers told her she had to choose five of her children to “give as a gift to Israel.” As she screamed in horror they repeated the demand and told her she could choose or they would choose for her. Then these soldiers murdered five of her children in front of her.”
* Account of Barbara Lubin in Gaza City
these accounts are important to share not only at vigils, but in general. we need to be reminded of the survivors too, some of whom will never recover fully, will never be the same psychologically. and yet the bbc continues to censor the public service announcement from the disaster emergency committee, which is trying to raise money for gaza in the u.k. the image above by nidal el khairy is a brilliant piece responding to the way in which bbc is complicit in–and even participating in–the deaths of palestinians in gaza. muhammad idress ahmad has a really smart analysis of the bbc censorship on electronic intifada:
If there were no occupier and occupied in the conflict; no oppressor and oppressed, no state and stateless; then clearly assisting victims on one side would compromise “impartiality.” This view posits the Palestinian population as a whole as an adversary to the Israeli war machine. The BBC’s decision not to acknowledge the victims of the conflict is a function of its biased coverage. When it spent three weeks providing a completely distorted image of the slaughter carried out by one of the world’s mightiest militaries against a defenseless civilian population, it is unsurprising that it should fear viewers questioning how such a “balanced” conflict could produce so many victims. And if the Israelis are able to look after their own, why should the Palestinians need British assistance?
When there is no mention of the violent dispossession of the Palestinians, or of the occupation; no mention of the crippling siege, or of the daily torments of the oppressed, viewers would naturally find it hard to comprehend the reality. For if these truths were to be revealed, the policy of the British government would appear even less reasonable. As a state chartered body, however, the BBC is no more likely to antagonize the government as a politician in the government is to antagonize the Israel lobby. Indeed, the BBC’s director general Mark Thompson can hardly be described as a disinterested party: in 2005 he made a trip to Jerusalem where he met with Ariel Sharon in what was seen in Israel as an attempt to “build bridges” and “a ‘softening’ to the corporation’s unofficial editorial line on the Middle East.” Thompson, “a deeply religious man,” is “a Catholic, but his wife is Jewish, and he has a far greater regard for the Israeli cause than some of his predecessors” sources at the corporation told The Independent. Shortly afterwards Orla Guerin, an exceptionally courageous and honest journalist responsible for most of the corporation’s rare probing and hard-hitting reports, was sacked as the BBC’s Middle East correspondent and transferred to Africa in response to complaints from the Israeli government.
But this decision to refuse a charity appeal has consequences that go far beyond any of the BBC’s earlier failings: as the respected British MP Tony Benn put it, “people will die because of the BBC decision.” It is so blatantly unjust that the only question the BBC management might want to mull over is just how irreparable the damage from this controversy might be to its reputation. The organization that only days earlier was reporting with glee a letter by Chinese intellectuals boycotting their state media is today itself the subject of boycotts across Britain, not just by intellectuals, but by artists, scholars, citizens and even the International Atomic Energy Agency. Much like Pravda and Izvestia during the Cold War, today it is the BBC that has emerged as the most apposite metaphor for state propaganda.
and there is censorship in the u.s. as well. the u.s. campaign to end the occupation created a public service announcement for direct tv and they refused to air it.
Thanks to a generous emergency grant from Cultures of Resistance, we produced a 30-second commercial about the U.S. role in Israel’s war on and siege of the Gaza Strip.
We thought, “What better way to bring this important information to the attention of people in the United States than to advertise nationally on DIRECTV?” the largest satellite television subscription service in the country.
After detailed discussions with DIRECTV, including agreement on rates, times, and network placements of the ad, when we gave them the final product, they abruptly decided not to do business with us.
This blatant act of censorship is preventing millions of U.S. households from learning the truth about our government’s crucial role in enabling Israel’s war on and siege of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
TAKE ACTION
1. Watch both an extended internet version and the original 30-second commercial below.
2. Contact DIRECTV to protest its act of censorship and demand that they accept our ad by clicking here.
3. Let all your friends know about this commercial and DIRECTV’s censorship of it by joining our Facebook group.
4. Make a tax-deductible contribution to the US Campaign so that we can purchase as much air time for this commercial as possible by clicking below on the icon.
5. Take action requested in the commercial and sign our open letter to President Obama calling upon him to cut of military aid to Israel by clicking here.
censorship is also prevalent in 1948 palestine as with palestinians wanting to commemorate the anniversary of george habash’s death:
Mohammed Kanana, secretary general of the movement which organized the rally, told Haaretz he had not been surprised by the police decision.
“The Israel Police is famous for its oppression of the Arab public and for its opposition to lawful democratic activity,” he said. The event was supposed to be held in a Haifa theater yesterday, marking the first anniversary of Habash’s death. Among the invited speakers were Arab public figures, clergymen, and Habash’s relatives living in Israel.
carlos latuff
and egypt is now collaborating with israeli terrorists in censoring the media by preventing them from broadcasting in gaza:
The two, Ahmad Mansour and Ghassan Bin Jido, said that the Egyptian authorities did not provide an explanation for their decision, and that employees of other media outlets were allowed to cross into the besieged territory without delay.
During Operation Cast Lead last month, the network’s coverage of the events in Gaza was critical of Egypt’s opposition to Hamas. Mansour and Bin Jido are known for their favorable attitude toward the Palestinian “resistance movement,” as Hamas is known in the Arab world. They said they’d stay put until Egypt provides a “reasonable” explanation for their detention at the border.
and egypt is collaborating with israeli terrorists by destroying tunnels and creating a system of surveillance to prevent palestinians fro accessing basic needs through the tunnels along the rafah border:
The Israeli occupation government destroyed nearly one-half of the tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border during its brutal war on Gaza last month, the sources added.
The Egyptian government also halted fuel supply to Gaza Strip, which aggravated the suffering of the Palestinian people there, especially that no fuel is being supplied to Gaza from the Israeli side.
Sensor cameras were also installed by the Egyptian security forces on top of high building to monitor the borders with help from American, German, and French experts with the aim to uncover and destroy all the tunnels.
there are other forms of censorship like when the u.s. congress tries to call the united nations relief and works agency a terrorist organization (click link below to protest this outrageous resolution):
Take action below by sending a prepared message to your representative. Eight representatives have co-sponsored this resolution and if your representative is one of them then you will be able to send them a message expressing your disagreement with the resolution. If they have not co-sponsored the resolution you will be able to send them a letter encouraging them not to support the resolution.
meanwhile barack obama–that president of hope and change for you koolaid drinkers out there–is censoring evidence of torture:
Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones said they had been told that America had threatened to stop co-operating with Britain on intelligence matters if evidence were published suggesting that Binyam Mohammed, a British resident held at the US prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, had been tortured into confessing crimes.
and one news item that i bet won’t be getting a lot of air time in the u.s. is the one about obama’s home state of illinois investing in the terrorist state of israel:
If you would like to point out to Illinois officials that, considering that Israel has just massacred over 1,300 Palestinians including over 400 children, and that Illinois should be considering divestment and boycott rather than investment, here’s some contact information.
Thanks,
-Rich
Contact Illinois Governor Pat Quinn
217-782-0244
Or 312-814-2121
Please forward widely, especially to Illinois residents
as if you needed any, jonathan cook has some great reasons why you should not only contact the legislators above and tell them to stop investing in the terrorist israeli state but also to DIVEST from it altogether:
In a process one military historian has termed the rapid “theologization” of the Israeli army, there are now entire units of religious combat soldiers, many of them based in West Bank settlements. They answer to hardline rabbis who call for the establishment of a Greater Israel that includes the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Their influence in shaping the army’s goals and methods is starting to be felt, say observers, as more and more graduates from officer courses are also drawn from Israel’s religious extremist population.
“We have reached the point where a critical mass of religious soldiers is trying to negotiate with the army about how and for what purpose military force is employed on the battlefield,” said Yigal Levy, a political sociologist at the Open University who has written several books on the Israeli army.
The new atmosphere was evident in the “excessive force” used in the recent Gaza operation, Dr Levy said. More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed, a majority of them civilians, and thousands were injured as whole neighborhoods of Gaza were leveled.
“When soldiers, including secular ones, are imbued with theological ideas, it makes them less sensitive to human rights or the suffering of the other side.”
or how about this…benjamin netanyahu, a frontrunner in the upcoming israeli terrorist election, and leader of its likud party, represents a party that, like most israeli terrorists in general, thrive on total hypocrisy. as they are always already making claims about refusing to negotiate with hamas because of its charter or what borders it agrees to (always articulated with fabrications, mind you) here is what likud’s charter says in an article by frank barat in the palestine chronicle:
Everyone (politicians and corporate media leaders) accepted this without asking a few important questions. Which Israel should Hamas recognize? Israel has not yet stated what its international borders are. Should Hamas recognize the Israel of 1948? The Israel of 1967? The Israel of 2009 with its apartheid wall, settlements (settlements building raised by 60 percent in 2008, the year of the Annapolis “Peace Process”, according to a Peace Now report), second class Arab citizens and with East Jerusalem annexed?
Any astute observer could also have objected by reminding people that Hamas (through Haniyeh and Meshal) had said many times over that it was willing to accept Israel as a political entity on the 1967 borders. You do not have to look hard for this, it was stated in the Guardian, Washington Post, amongst others, meaning that Hamas was now in line with most of the international community, accepting a two-state solution.
Another issue came back again and again. The problem is Hamas’s Charter, we would hear. Whatever Meshal or Haniyeh were ready to accept, the Charter came back to haunt them every time.
But what about the Charter of the Likud Party. With Netanyahu and his right-wing party ready to take over, it is only fair to find out a bit more about them.
In the “Peace and Security” chapter of the Likud Party platform, a recent document (1999) it says initially that:
“Peace is a primary objective of the State of Israel. The Likud will strengthen the existing peace agreements with the Arab states and strive to achieve peace agreements with all of Israel’s neighbors with the aim of reaching a comprehensive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
But then it says about settlements:
“The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting.”
Therefore annihilating the slightest chance of a two-state solution.
On Palestinian self-rule it says:
“The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river. The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state. Thus, for example, in matters of foreign affairs, security, immigration and ecology, their activity shall be limited in accordance with imperatives of Israel’s existence, security and national needs.”
Therefore annihilating any chance of seeing a Palestinian sovereign state.
On Jerusalem:
“Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel. The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem, including the plan to divide the city presented to the Knesset by the Arab factions and supported by many members of Labor and Meretz.”
Therefore annihilating any chance for future peace negotiations because east Jerusalem as capital of a future Palestinian state is non-negotiable for any Palestinian.
We have therefore established that the Likud party charter does not recognize Palestine and will not accept a sovereign Palestinian state. The soon-to-come non-recognition of Likud by the international community and an implemented blockade on Israel should therefore not come as a surprise for Israelis.
and as we speak the lebanese boat that was on its way to gaza has now been attacked by israeli terrorists at sea. my only hope is that lebanon–specifically hezbollah–sees this as an act of war and responds accordingly:
“The Brotherhood Ship was fired on by an Israeli military boat 32 kilometers off the coast of Gaza and they were asked to divert course,” said Bashour, and added that the ship remains in the water near the coast of Gaza.
i’m taking a couple of days off from blogging. for those who are looking to read, i strongly encourage you to check out the new issue of majdal, which i helped to edit. it’s got some terrific articles about israeli terrorists’ ongoing ethnic cleansing projects from the river to the sea. and, of course, there are many, many links in the sidebar for you to keep updated with.
So he did it. Rahm Israel Emanuel bowed to public pressure–or Barack Obama forced him to submit to that pressure. Either way he apologized to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). I posted a link to this ADC demand yesterday encouraging people to help build the pressure to force Emanuel to come clean on whether he shares his father’s racist remarks or not.
ADC President Mary Rose Oakar said, “We cannot allow Arabs and Muslims to be portrayed in these unacceptable terms. I welcome Rahm’s apology and his pledge to meet with our Community. I also thank our members and friends who responded who expressed concern about this matter. ”
While I’m pleased to see Emanuel submit to the ADC and to Arab Americans and apologize for his father’s racism, it is not enough. I believe in forgiveness. I do. I think it is important. Thus, I think that apologies are important. But when it comes from a politician, especially with ties to Israeli terrorist organizations, I’m skeptical. Words are powerful, but actions are even more powerful. And this apology did not go far enough, nor did ADC’s demand. There should have also been a clear demand for Emanuel’s repudiation of his father’s participation in the Israeli terrorist Irgun militia as well as his own volunteer work in the Israeli Terrorist Forces (ITF). But those apologies were not requested, nor were they delivered.
Political apologies need to come with some evidence and substance that there are attempts being made to repair the damage of the past. This is why the U.S. Congress’ apology for slavery earlier this year was equally vapid. There were no reparations made in the form of financial payments for all the suffering the U.S. forced upon African Americans and Africans for four hundred years–suffering that continues today in the form of the prison industrial complex. Without real structural changes that repair this damage, slavery will continue to haunt the U.S. in its present forms as will its corollary, racism.
So too with Emanuel. Without clearly stating that he repudiates Irgun and the ITF and delinking himself from those terrorist entities and the suffering inflicted upon Palestinians as a result these are just words. Mark my words: we will soon see Emanuel in this new role as White House Chief of Staff advising Obama on continuing the suffering of Palestinians.
But while we’re on the subject of apologies, I think it is John McCain and Barack Obama who should be making public apologies for fanning the flames of racism against Arabs and Muslims over the past few months. Bill Quigley points to McCain as the one who should begin this process:
Congressman Lewis warned them in October. “As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all. They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The American people deserve better.”
Senator McCain was “offended,” seriously offended by Rep Lewis’ comments. “Congressman John Lewis’ comments represent a character attack against Governor Sarah Palin and me that is shocking and beyond the pale. The notion that legitimate criticism of Senator Obama’s record and positions could be compared to Governor George Wallace, his segregationist policies and the violence he provoked is unacceptable and has no place in this campaign.”
Maybe this is all just a coincidence since the election. Coincidence? I think not. John McCain owes this country a real and full apology for fanning the fires of fear. And he also owes John Lewis an apology.
While I concur that we need some formal apologies for participating in fanning the flames of racism from McCain–as well as Obama for his silence and complicity in this process–we also need some tangible actions that will demonstrate this behavior is entirely inappropriate and unacceptable and will not happen again in four years.
There are still a number of important editorials coming out with critical analysis about what a President Obama will mean. As my posts over the entire election campaign make clear, I’ve never felt duped by this candidate as he never represented progressive–let alone radical points of view. He seemed like the same old sort of candidate who supports big power structures. There are a number of people, who as I’ve also commented at length, believed otherwise. They were bamboozled as it were–at least until the Rahm Israel Emanuel appointment made the news. So here are some responses from people who felt they were bamboozled as well as from people who knew along along, who tried to warn us all along, and whose words continue to remind of us why we must continue the struggle. Today Friends of Lebanon actually used the word bamboozled to describe their concerns:
Am I being an idealist in mentioning such grandiose notions as humanitarian and international law? I think not. You speak often of ideals. You even acknowledge their violation parenthetically in your “Plan to Actively Engage China.” You note that China has “failed to live up to international standards of human rights,” (a phrase many would say is a gross euphemism at best) and then you kindly chastise China: “the United States has to be frank with the Chinese about such failings and will press them to respect human rights.” You graciously offer not to “demonize China” because you “understand both the magnitude of the challenges facing a developing China and the importance of a constructive relationship to foster continued peace and prosperity.”
Compare this if you will, to the bold assertions in your “Israel Fact Sheet” (not a speech, a statement or a plan here, but an incontestable fact sheet). Well, you know what it says, don’t you, Mr Obama. Israel is always right. Lebanon, Palestine and any other country that dares support Arabs’ being of equal worth to Jews, they are always inherently wrong. You do not hesitate to demonise the Arabs/Iranians as violent extremists and terrorists. “Those who threaten Israel threaten us,” you say. Does that not recall your predecessor’s warning that “you’re either with us or against us”?
This brand of so-called diplomacy is neither new nor improved. Any vague sense of hope for change we may have still clung to—those of us who value open-minded dialogue that demands listening as well as speaking—well, that hope that you so carefully crafted during the campaign was resolutely squashed after the election when you nominated as your Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Would you expect anyone to believe that he is not the epitome of bias, a veritable Mr Preconditions?
Bamboozled indeed. It seems to me that this little game of con the consumer has seduced those who are hungry for power. For it is this dogged insistence on double standards that has these past eight years fed the distrust and scorn and despising of the US. And it is the chauvinism of adhering not to the rule of law, but to the rule of men. And it is the hypocrisy of professing to defend democracy by killing the spirit if not the body of anyone who dares to voice a different opinion.
Clearly, Friends of Lebanon was not bamboozled as it tracks Barack Obama’s language and the way he used it unevenly, for instance, to describe Israeli aggression as “self defense,” whereas Lebanese people don’t have that right.
John Pilger’s recent op-ed responds to the historic nature of Obama’s election in the context of the historical process of destruction that American will continue to unleash around the world if his early choices in those he wants by his side are any indication:
Obama’s first two crucial appointments represent a denial of the wishes of his supporters on the principal issues on which they voted. The vice-president-elect, Joe Biden, is a proud war maker and Zionist. Rahm Emanuel, who is to be the all-important White House chief of staff, is a fervent “neoliberal” devoted to the doctrine that led to the present economic collapse and impoverishment of millions. He is also an “Israel-first” Zionist who served in the Israeli army and opposes meaningful justice for the Palestinians — an injustice that is at the root of Muslim people’s loathing of the United States and the spawning of jihadism.
No serious scrutiny of this is permitted within the histrionics of Obama-mania, just as no serious scrutiny of the betrayal of the majority of black South Africans was permitted within the “Mandela moment.” This is especially marked in Britain, where America’s divine right to “lead” is important to elite British interests. The once respected Observer newspaper, which supported Bush’s war in Iraq, echoing his fabricated evidence, now announces, without evidence, that “America has restored the world’s faith in its ideals.” These “ideals”, which Obama will swear to uphold, have overseen, since 1945, the destruction of 50 governments, including democracies, and 30 popular liberation movements, causing the deaths of countless men, women and children.
Elias Akleh, also writing in Dissident Voice, describes the rhetoric of change and the celebration of it an “orgy” not the least of which because people were so hypnotized by it that they ignored the warning signs:
Obama’s victory, and more accurately Democrats’ victory, was a sure thing. Through two major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war in Haiti, their proxy wars in Africa, war in Georgia, war against Lebanon via Israel, and their violations of international laws, plus the internal wars against the freedom of American people, and the ravaging of American economy, the Republican neoconservative Bush administration had swung the pendulum to the extreme right, and now it has but to swing back to the opposite direction. Everybody knew that after eight disastrous years of Republican rule the Democrats will have their turn. This inevitable change is what brought Obama to the White House. Obama rode to the White House on the people’s wish for change….
Hypnotized by “change” and “race” people could not see the similarities Obama has with McCain/Bush/Republicans. They are all for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although initially Obama opposed the Iraqi invasion, he always voted for the surge and more war funding in Iraq. He wants to leave a residual force in military bases in Iraq, and wants to ship another military surge to Afghanistan to keep bombing Pakistani borders. He supported Israeli terror and aggression against Palestinians and the war against Lebanon. Obama is belligerent towards Iran promising to do “everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon”. He was confrontational towards Russia after the war in Georgia. He is for war against “global terrorist” and promised to bring Osama bin Laden in dead or alive. He is for drug wars (protecting drug trade, whose money goes through Wall Street). Locally, he supports the death penalty, pollutant nuclear and coal industries, and had never talked about abolishing oppressive laws such as Patriot Act, homeland security, internet control, and wiretapping and spying on American citizens.
In an article by John Craig Roberts called “Conned Again”–though I don’t believe he actually is referring to himself, but rather the American electorate, he tells us that in addition to the dangerous appointments of terrorists like Emanuel, Obama’s economic plan will not bring change: (thanks Rania)
Obama’s economic team is just as bad. Its star is Robert Rubin, the bankster who was secretary of the treasury in the Clinton administration. Rubin has responsibility for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and, thereby, responsibility for the current financial crisis. In his letter to Obama, Nader points out that Obama received unprecedented campaign contributions from corporate and Wall Street interests. “Never before has a Democratic nominee for President achieved this supremacy over his Republican counterpart.”
Obama’s victory speech was magnificent. The TV cameras scanning faces in the audience showed the hope and belief that propelled Obama into the presidency. But Obama cannot bring change to Washington. There is no one in the Washington crowd that he can appoint who is capable of bringing change. If Obama were to reach outside the usual crowd, anyone suspected of being a bringer of change could not get confirmed by the Senate. Powerful interest groups–AIPAC, the military-security complex, Wall Street–use their political influence to block unacceptable appointments.
The change that is coming to America has nothing to do with Obama. Change is coming from the financial crisis brought on by Wall Street greed and irresponsibility, from the eroding role of the US dollar as reserve currency, from countless mortgage foreclosures, from the offshoring of millions of America’s best jobs, from a deepening recession, from pillars of American manufacturing–Ford and GM–begging the government for taxpayers’ money to stay alive, and from budget and trade deficits that are too large to be closed by normal means.
And in terms of economics Emanuel is a dangerous pick for his first right-hand man as Bruce Dixon writes in the Black Agenda Report. There are many other reasons we should be outraged by this choice on Obama’s part:
The first appointments of the new regime are truly disturbing. Illinois congressman Rahm Emanuel, the new White House chief of staff is a certifiable Democratic neocon who helped strongarm NAFTA, welfare reform and the Telecom Act of 1996 though congress for Bill Clinton. He served on the board of Freddie Mac while it was busy inflating the housing bubble, and was an early and unrepentant advocate of invading Iraq and bombing Iran. As head of the DCCC, responsible for recruiting and funding 2006 Democratic congressional candidates, Emanuel used corporate contributions to try to knock more than a twenty antiwar Democrats out of primary races in favor of pro-war Democrats. Confronted with choices between pro-war Democrats and pro-war Republicans, voters rejected most of Emanuel’s picks, costing Democrats as many as ten Congressional seats.
Dixon doesn’t just critique Obama’s decisions; importantly he offers ways for us to mobilize now in relation to the economic situation in the U.S. and things we can take action on that will help the people who need it the most in the U.S.:
The biggest thing the Obama administration can do to succeed in its first month, to boost the incomes and secure the economic well-being of millions of US families is to speedily pass the Employee Free Choice Act. Under the Reagan, Clinton and Bush regimes, the right of Americans in a workplace to organize a union, even to think out loud about a union, has almost disappeared. Working people have no leverage against employers, who, according to Labor Department stats, fired someone every ten minutes in 2005 for suspected union activity. Right now, that’s illegal, but the fines are so light that employers wantonly violate the law and willingly pay the fine rather than allow workers to organize.
Swift and early passage of the Employee Free Choice Act will empower families to fight their own fights for economic parity on more equal ground than we have seen in a generation. While the productivity of American workers has nearly tripled over the last thirty years, wages have remained, when adjusted for inflation, flat. All the profits of increased productivity have flowed upward to the bosses. US executives often make 400 to 1000 times the wage of their workers, as opposed to only 40 to 100 times as much in Germany or Japan, which are still out-competing the US anyway.
If the Employee Free Choice Act is passed early, an Obama administration will create thousands of local organizing opportunities and thousands of institutional allies to help hold it on the course of peace and economic justice it was elected to take. If you want to see an Obama presidency succeed on the terms of the voters who elected it, the thing to do this week is sign the petition and join the one million others who want to lift up not just the fortunes of Wall Street, but those of ordinary families.
Visit the site of American Rights At Work and Learn more about the difference unions make in access to health care and education and democratic rights in the workplace. Forward the information, the videos and the petition to everyone on your list. Blog it and put the “one million strong” ad and the videos on your own web site, if you have one. And yes, call and email the Obama Transition Team. Organize something, or join something already organized to pressure the new administration to keep its promises. If you want change, be the change.
While it is likely that Obama might respond to pressure on these domestic issues, I wonder how well he will respond to continued outrage–from all sorts of people–about his choice of Emanuel. Ali Abunimah responds to that racism–of past and present–in the Emanuel family, which importantly has not been repudiated publicly by anyone in the new administration:
Sons are not responsible for the racism of their fathers. But they do have a responsibility to let others know that they disagree vehemently with such sentiments. This is certainly the case for individuals in public service, particularly the man President-elect Barack Obama has chosen as White House chief of staff. Yet, Rep. Rahm Emanuel has not said a word regarding the troubling statement his father made to the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv.
In a recent interview, Dr. Benjamin Emanuel asserted that his son’s appointment would be beneficial to Israel. “Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel,” the elder Emanuel said, according to the Jerusalem Post. “Why wouldn’t he be? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to clean the floors of the White House.”
The public has a right to expect Mr. Emanuel to reject such raw racism especially given the historic resonance of Mr. Obama’s victory. It’s especially important for Arab and Muslim Americans who came through the election campaign feeling they are the last group of Americans who can still be publicly denigrated.
Abunimah, like Margaret Kimberly of the Black Agenda Report, warned us all along about what to expect with Obama:
It’s not as if we at BAR didn’t warn you. Barack Obama’s first major act as president-elect was to select as his chief of staff Rep. Rahm Emanuel, whose “role as Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was to insure that anti-war and other progressive candidates stayed out of the running.” So when do the protests begin? “Progressives for Obama and other groups who promised to hold their idol accountable haven’t gotten around to doing so just yet or even announcing when the time will be right for their tongues to become untied.”
But our tongues should not be tied. We must speak. We must get up out of our chairs and do something. Or else it will be four more years of the same. Or worse.
Anyone who wonders about the influence of the Israel lobby on American media or on U.S. foreign policy needs to watch the documentary Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land. It’s an older film, but unfortunately still applies. I’m posting it here for people who want to watch it to see what happens in the world of U.S. media and mis-information:
“Twenty-three-year old Ibrahim Abu Jayyab sits by the computer in the Nusairat refugee camp (in the Gaza Strip) trying to call American citizens in order to convince them to vote for the Democratic candidate for president, Barack Obama.”
Like many Palestinians, Abu Jayyab is excited about the prospect of an Obama presidency. (By the way, the Gaza Strip is completely under the control of Hamas. Why then do they persist in speaking of “refugee camps”? But of course, we know why.) If Abu Jayyab and many others in the Palestinian areas are delighted, why are so many American Jewish voters feeling the same way? One side or the other has the wrong man. Which is it?…
Many politicians have distanced themselves from positions and associations of their youths. But in Mr. Obama’s case, he is distancing himself from positions staked out as recently as 2003. As National Review Online has reported, the Los Angeles Times is apparently sitting on a videotape showing Mr. Obama’s remarks at a farewell dinner that year for Rashid Khalidi, the one-time Palestine Liberation Organization spokesman who now heads the Middle East Studies Department at Columbia. (Columbia University’s shame is a subject for another column.) Mr. Khalidi is not distancing himself from his past.
Consistent with what you would expect from someone who justified PLO attacks on civilians in Israel and Lebanon from 1976 to 1982, Mr. Khalidi routinely refers to Israel as a “racist” and “apartheid” state, and professes to believe in a “one-state” solution to the conflict. Guess which country would have to disappear for that “one” state to come into existence?
I don’t even know where to begin. Gaza is controlled by the Zionist state of Israel. It controls its land, air, and sea borders. It controls what and who is allowed to leave and when. It assassinates leaders and civilians alike. It destroys homes, murders Palestinians with impunity. Yes, Hamas is the political party attempting to rule Gaza: but how exactly does one rule an area that is not a state, that is besieged by a state? The most offensive part of this article comes when she puts refugee camps in scare quotes to challenge their very existence. Of course, she can’t explain why she does this because it’s just plain factually inaccurate and deeply offensive as to deny the existence of Palestinian refugees is to deny the history and present Zionist project of ethnic cleansing. This is all a lead in to her attack on Obama vis-a-vis Rashid Khalidi. As with her claims about Gaza and Palestinian refugees, her claims about Khalidi are also erroneous. It usually follows that when you are deceitful about one claim you cannot be trusted with any other claims that you make.
Palin’s staff seem to be sloppy readers. Obama, we are told, did toast Khalidi at his going-away party in 2003. So far so good. Having seen the name Khalidi and Edward Said in the same sentence, the Palin team assumed they were the same person. But, it was Said, and not Khalidi, who played an active organizational role in the Palestinian struggle. Between 1977 and 1991, Said was a member of the Palestinian National Council, but not of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (the slippage is made all too often). The PNC was a general, all-party council of a people in the middle of a struggle, not like the PLO, which was an umbrella of various political parties headed by al-Fatah (whose leader in those years was Yasser Arafat, later a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace). Said broke with the PNC in 1991, just about when he was in Chicago for his talk. He would point out that the PLO, which had usurped the reins of the Palestinian struggle, lost ground during the Oslo discussions because of which it “lacked credibility and moral authority” (his voluminous writings that detail this break are collected in The Politics of Dispossession, 1994, Peace and Its Discontents, 1996, and The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After, 2000). Said also received his diagnosis about leukemia in 1991. It was a fateful year.
Khalidi, whose name Palin could not pronounce, was born in New York. He is an intellectual with a moral commitment to peace and justice in the Middle East. His main organizational commitments don’t include the PLO, which, in the period of Khalidi’s ascent into the higher altitudes of the academy, was already in impervious decline. Nothing the New Yorker could say or do would help the festering Palestinian Authority, and neither would Khalidi give his voice to being the puppet of al-Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas or Farouk Kaddoumi (if anything, the politics of Khalidi might line up with those of Marwan Barghouti of al-Mustaqbal, but Khalidi’s intellectualism might not be the disposition for the jailed leader).
Notice the Jewish terrorist woman in this clip; she is from the organization with the oxymoronic name (a pattern with various Zionist militant organizations), the Jewish Defense League (JDL). The JDL has been on the U.S. terrorist watch list for quite some time. Here are some of its terrorist activities right in the U.S. of A. (Note to Palin: these are actual terrorists if you’re looking for the home grown variety.) Here is one example of their work:
The two terrorist plots prevented by law enforcement in 2001 were being planned by domestic extremists. Ronald Mike Denton was planning to attack his former place of employment, the Chevron Oil Refinery at El Segundo, California, when he was arrested in March 2001. In December 2001 Irving David Rubin and Earl Leslie Krugel, members of the extremist Jewish Defense League, were arrested as they were in the final stages of planning attacks against the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, California, and the local office of U.S. Congressman Darrell Issa.
The other high-profile murder came in 1985, on Oct. 11, when Alex Odeh, 37, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) in Santa Ana, California, was killed by a bomb planted at his office. Odeh had appeared the previous night on a television show and called Yasser Arafat a “man of peace.” The Jewish Defense League praised the bombing but denied involvement, its usual practice in such incidents.
One of the suspects was Robert Manning, 36, of Los Angeles, a JDL member. He and his wife, Rochelle, moved to Israel, where he joined the Israel Defense Forces. FBI agents said Manning and others were also suspected of being involved in a year-long series of violent incidents in 1985 including the August house-bomb slaying of Tscherim Soobzokov, of Paterson, N.J., a suspected Nazi war criminal; the Aug. 16 attempted bombing of the Boston ADC office in which two policemen were severely wounded; the September bombing at the Brentwood, Long Island home of alleged Nazi Elmars Sprogis, in which a 23-year-old passerby lost a leg, and the Oct. 29 fire at the ADC office in Washington, DC, which was called arson.
By December 1985, FBI Director William H. Webster warned that Arab Americans had entered a “zone of danger” and were targets of an unnamed group seeking to harm the “enemies of Israel.”
Manning and his wife lived in the radical Kiryat Arba settlement in Israel’s occupied West Bank until March 25, 1991 when, after two years of pressure, Israel acceded to U.S. extradition demands.
Notice where these terrorists–the Mannings–moved to after their crime: to the most aggressively violent illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank. This settlement in Khalil is the site where the most active ethnic cleansing takes place on the part of the illegal settlers by way of murder, intimidation, and theft. This is also where New York Jew Baruch Goldstein lived when he carried out the terrorist massacre of the mosque in Khalil in 1994.
All of this got me thinking about censorship again. What stories are allowed to be told? What stories are reported in a truthful way? What stories are silenced? It reminds me of the way in which censorship always works: those doing the censoring are rarely familiar with the text or the person they wish to silence. I would bet my life that Hannity and Charen have never read a single one of Khalidi’s books. Or watched him interviewed. Or listened to him give a lecture. If they had they would see that Khalidi is the epitome of moderation. I’m actually re-reading his book The Iron Cage right now for my own research. While I like the book and find it useful it could hardly be considered radical, anti-Semitic, or anything of the sort. But it’s hard to convey this to people like Hannity who are offended by the very fact that the Arabic word for Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine is an nakba, which literally means catastrophe. This is something he objects to. But I get what is threatening about Khalidi: he’s an historian. He’s an historian who is dedicated to revealing the long silenced history of Palestine and Palestinians in various contexts. That very fact disrupts the Zionist mythology that has been allowed to reign supreme in the U.S. for far too long. But this is not the only time Khalidi has found himself under attack for these reasons, in spite of his moderate point of view. I actually published an academic article about this new McCarthyism and the way it has affected scholars like Khalidi and Joseph Massad among others. My article is here for those who would like to read it.
For those who are too lazy or busy to read Khalidi’s writing themselves I’m posting a couple of videos here that you may watch to hear him in his own words. Both are from 2007. The first one is and interview from Charlie Rose and the second one is a lecture from Portland State University. Watch and judge for yourself: does this sound like the terrorist? Personally, I think that the way Hannity is behaving is far more like a terrorist than Khalidi could ever be.
And if after all this my Zionist readers out there still think that Obama might be secretly pro-Palestinian, I’d like to remind readers he sold his sole to the Zionist devil a long time ago. See these three articles on Electronic Intifada by Ali Abu Nimah:
Israel may earn more White House representation than it bargained for, in the event that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama emerges victorious from the November 4 elections.
Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who has served in the Israel Defense Forces and even speaks a little Hebrew, could be appointed the White House’s next chief of staff.
body on the line 