Good news for Good Friday and maybe a good beginning

IT'S good news for the Easter weekend, and for the end of the Persian Spring festival Nawroz. A great power agreement with Iran has been reached, providing for limits on the country's nuclear energy development to prevent it obtaining weapon capacity. In return, the United States-led sanctions which have hit Iran's economy, and ordinary Iranians' life particularly, are to be lifted.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said a "decisive step" had been reached. The White House said its sanctions -"the toughest in history" -had brought Iran to the conference table, and negotiations had achieved a comprehensive agreement which President Obama called "a good deal".

https://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/foreign-policy/iran-deal

In Iran, there was open jubilation on the streets of Tehran as the news of the deal came on Thursday night. This morning thousands gathered at Mehrabad airport to greet chief nuclear negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif and his team as they arrived back from the talks in Lausanne, Switzerland.

"Zarif, thank you,” people chanted while waving the Islamic republic’s green, white and red flag. Others took out their mobile phones to take pictures of a man who will become a national hero if a final agreement, due in June, is reached.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/03/iran-nuclear-mohammad-javad-zarif

The news should be brightening up Passover too; but it has not been welcomed by the Israeli government, which was opposed to the negotiations with Iran, and doesn't want to lose the Iranian bogeyman and its supposed nuclear threat, as a diversion from its own aggressive policies,  and to keep its own people -and international supporters -in line.   

Here are the details of the agreement, as reported in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz:

Iran, six world powers framework agreement: The main terms
Under comprehensive agreement to be signed on June 30, Tehran will continue to operate 5,000 centrifuges at Natanz, all sanctions on Iran will be lifted.
By Barak Ravid    | Apr. 2, 2015 | 9:15 PM
          

The United States, Iran and five other world powers say they've reached an understanding that will direct them toward achieving a comprehensive nuclear agreement within three months.

Reading out a joint statement, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said a "decisive step" has been achieved. Iran's Mohammad Javad Zarif read out the same statement in Farsi.

U.S. President Barack Obama, making a statement on the breakthrough in the talks, said U.S. and allies reached a historic nuclear deal with Iran, which he called, "A good deal."

The main points of the framework agreement reached:

The agreement term: The agreement will be in effect for between 10 and 15 years during which there will be strict limitations and oversight of the Iranian nuclear program. Some of the clauses of the agreement will be in effect for 20 to 25 years.

Uranium enrichment: Iran will continue to operate 6,104 out of the 19,000 centrifuges within its territory. All of the centrifuges in operation will of the oldest generation Iran has. Iran will deliver the 1,000 advanced centrifuges in its possession to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

For 10 years, Iran will be able to operate only 5060 centrifuges at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility.

Iran pledged that for 15 years it will not enrich uranium to more than 3.5 percent – a level at which a nuclear weapon cannot be produced. Iran has pledged that for 15 years it will not build another nuclear facility besides the one at Natanz.

All additional enrichment materials – including 5,000 additional centrifuges that are at Natanz will be collected and placed for safekeeping under the oversight of the IAEA.

Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile: Iran agreed to do away with most of its stockpile of uranium enriched to the relatively low levels of 3.5, and which now stands at nearly 10 tons. This stockpile will be diluted to a level that cannot be used for making nuclear weapons, or will be taken out of the country. For 15 years, Iran will not be in possession of more than 300 kilograms of low-level enriched uranium.

The underground nuclear reactor at Fordo: This site will be converted from an enrichment facility into a nuclear physics research facility. Iran pledged that for 15 years it will not enrich uranium at Fordo and will not carry out research and development in the realm of uranium enrichment there. Iran pledged that for 15 years it will not store fissile nuclear material at the Fordo site. Out of 3,000 centrifuges currently installed at Fordo, 1,000 will remain operational there, though not for enriching uranium. The remaining 2,000 centrifuges will be conveyed for safekeeping to the IAEA.

The Arak heavy water reactor: Iran agreed to replan the reactor, in conjunction with the six world powers, so that it cannot produce material that could be used for nuclear weapons. The current reactor core, from which a large quantity of plutonium can already be produced, will be destroyed or removed from Iran. As long as the reactor is operational, Iran will remove from the country all the nuclear fuel it used at the reactor. Iran has pledged not to build another heavy water reactor for 15 years.

Research and development: For 10 years, Iran will not make use for uranium enrichment of the advanced centrifuges it is developing. Iran can continue limited research and development of advanced centrifuges in accordance with agreements it will reach with the world powers.

Oversight: The IAEA will receive free and regular access to all of Iran’s nuclear facilities and will be able to use advanced technology to monitor Iranian activity. The IAEA will follow up raw materials and parts that have been used in the nuclear program to ascertain that they are not being used for a covert nuclear program. The IAEA will monitor uranium mines in Iran for 25 years. The IAEA will monitor storage and assembly facilities for centrifuges in Iran for 20 years.

Iran will sign and ratify the additional protocol of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which stipulates that IAEA inspectors can conduct unrestricted random searches at any suspicious facility in Iran.

Iran will implement its agreement with the IAEA to clarify suspicions of the existence of military aspects to Iran’s nuclear program.

Sanctions: After implementation of the agreement by Iran, all sanctions that applied on Iran by the United States and the EU on banking, insurance, and oil will be lifted immediately. The UN Security Council will make a resolution that will replace six earlier resolutions that leveled sanctions on Iran, and will decide which of the sanctions will remain in place. If Iran breaks the agreement, the sanctions related to its nuclear program will be reinstated immediately. The American sanctions on Iran in the realm of terror, human rights violations and Iran’s missile program will remain in place.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/.premium-1.650335

Netanyahu has now tried to pull back the goal posts by demanding that sanctions should not be lifted on Iran until its leaders recognise the Israeli state's "right to exist". Coming after the Israeli leader's claim that Israel represents all Jewish people wherever they live, and his pledge during election to never accept a Palestinian state, this is a return to the lie that any questioning of the state's legitimacy or future is equivalent to an existential, even genocidal threat.

This used to make great play with former President Ahmedinejad's demagogy, quoting him as threatening to "wipe Israel off the map", although other accounts had him promising that the Zionist state would be erased from the history books - not quite the same. In any case it is the Israeli state that has done everything to wipe Palestine from the map, literally and through settlements and land-grabbing.

Iranian leaders have repeatedly denied the intention of developing nuclear weapons, and Ayatollah Khamenei says these are against Islam. As I have pointed out more than once, if Iran wants to help the Palestinians it would be crazy to use nuclear weapons against Israel, which would most probably destroy Al Aksa and inevitably kill huge numbers of Palestinians and devastate their country. Palestinians want to regain their homeland, not inherit radio-active ruins.

One Israeli who says he is not afraid of the big, bad Iranian bomb is veteran fighter and peace campaigner Uri Avnery.  He says if Israel really wants acceptance by Iranians it must stop repressing the Palestinians, and make peace with Palestine.     

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1428073739/

 Whether the Netanyahu government wants peace is another question.

It has been revealed that in 2011 Netanyahu pulled support from negotiations with the Palestinian leadership when they were near agreement, even though it would have been far from satisfactory for the Palestinians. He did not want any deal at all.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-pulled-out-of-deal-for-demilitarized-palestine-shared-jerusalem-in-2011/

This week, while the Iranians were negotiating in Iran, it was reported that the Israeli air force was operating alongside the Saudis against Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are linked with Iran. Although the Saudis and their allies say they want to avoid civilian targets they have so far hit at least one factory, and a refugee camp. The Houthis, of course, do not have an airforce, and from what I have seen so far they are neither as well-armed nor as murderous as the ISIL barbarians. They are after all fighting in their own country.  Whether or not Israel has anything to gain from joining a Sunni-Shia war, this is no way of pursuing peace with Iran.

One argument some people have made for Iran's right to develop nuclear weapons is that they are a deterrent. I don't go along with deterrent theory myself. But it is a fact that if Iran relinquishes the production of nuclear weapons, that leaves one existing nuclear power in the Middle East, and that of course is Israel.

As a reward perhaps for Netanyahu's trip to Washington and attempt to stop the nuclear talks, the US State Department released previously classified documents about Israel's nuclear weapons. One of Israel's supporters - a UKIP candidate in Hendon - was so outraged he said Mossad should kidnap Obama for the crime of "revealing state secrets".  How a UK patriot claims the right to tell a US government its duty to guard Israeli government secrets, we won't ask. Vorwarts putz gefahren, as they say in Yiddish. And now he's an ex-UKIP candidate. Too much even for Hendon.

I'm one of the generation for whom mention of nuclear weapons at Easter time brings memories of the road from Aldermaston to London. It must be about 56 years since, together with a contingent of blueshirted Habonimniks who'd been attending an activity near Reading, I joined a section of the march, even managing to steer our lot behind some 'Keep Left' Young Socialists. Though some of us kept up our interest in CND, Habonim did not. Possibly the news that Israel, with then Defence Minister Shimon Peres, was acquiring nuclear weapons with help from France, might have dissuaded enthusiasm.

Not till 1986 did Mordechai Vanunu reveal the extent of Israel's nuclear weapons production, and for this he was kidnapped by Mossad and spent eighteen years in jail, 11 of them in solitary. Today Vanunu is not allowed out of Israel, nor supposed to speak to journalists, but he did manage to inspire an Israeli Committee for a Nuclear-Free Middle East, which argues for nukes and other weapons of mass destruction to be removed from this volatile region as a step towards world disarmament.

This would not of course be popular with Netanyahu, still less with some of the fanatical Christian Zionists in America for whom a nuclear armageddon in the Middle East is seen as one way of speeding the Rapture and Second Coming.

But success in the nuclear limitation talks with Iran must raise the issue of the next step. Opening Israel's nuclear industry to international inspection, and removing the Zionist state's nuclear weapons, and with them any temptation for other states to follow that road to disaster. 

America has the power to bring this about, if it wills, and even talk of sanctions could be persuasive.                  




https://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/foreign-policy/iran-deal

International campaign for Palestinian MP's freedom

KHALIDA JARRAR campaigns for rights by democratic means - so banned by occupiers.

WHILE keeping fingers crossed that the cease fire over Gaza lasts, enabling people there to rebuild and bringing an end to the siege, we must not lose sight of the wider ongoing struggle for Palestinian rights and freedom, without which there cannot be true peace with justice for either Israelis or Palestinians.

It was on the occupied Palestinian West Bank that Israeli forces used the disappearence of three teenagers as pretext to launch a pre-planned campaign of arrests and raids on homes, before they turned on Gaza, and the repression there continues. Now an international campaign has been launched focussing on the case of one particular Palestinian political leader, Khalida Jarrar, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, who has been served with an expulsion order: 

"On August 20 at 1:30 AM, Ms. Jarrar’s Ramallah home was raided by 50 Israeli occupation soldiers who presented her with a “special supervision order,” written in Hebrew and read aloud in Arabic. This military order, signed off by an Israeli military court on the basis of unspecified and secret evidence, orders Jarrar expelled from her Ramallah home and forcibly transferred and confined within the city limits of Jericho for an initial period of six months; it was deemed effective within 24 hours.

"This order is a blatant injustice and is part and parcel of the ongoing Israeli occupation attempt to silence the voices of Palestinian political leaders and to confine and expel Palestinians. From the expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland in 1948 – including members of Khalida Jarrar’s family – and the denial of their right to return for over 66 years; to the attempted deportation of Palestinian mayors outside Palestine; to the stripping of the Jerusalem ID’s of elected PLC members Mohammad Abu Tir, Ahmad Atoun, Mohammed Totah and Khaled Abu Arafah; to this expulsion order, there is a long line of Israeli attempts to threaten Palestinian life through displacement and expulsion.

"Khalida Jarrar has refused to sign the expulsion order, saying 'you, the occupation, are killing our Palestinian people. You practice mass arests, demolish homes, kidnap people from their homes and deport them. It is you who must leave our home.'

"She has moved to stay in a “protest tent” outside the legislative council building in Ramallah. She announced that she is going to stay and continue her work from there until the decision is revoked."

Khalida Jarrar is a political  leader in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has evolved as a campaigning left-wing party from its past as a guerrilla factions in the Palestinian national movements. Besides being an elected MP she frequently takes part in popular demonstrations, and is a former executive director of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association and member of its board. She chairs the Prisoners’ Committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Khalida Jarrar has been active recently in public protests on the West Bank against the Israeli onslaught on her people in Gaza, protests which have been forcibly repressed by the Israeli occupation forces.  

Unlike Hamas, the secular PFLP has always been noted for supporting women's rights and place in the struggle, and Khalida's supporters say she has been active in the Palestinian women’s movement since her student days.  "A feminist and prominent voice for the defense and expansion of women’s rights, she is a leading organizer of International Women’s Day events in Palestine".

 “Palestinian women are full partners in the Palestinian struggle,” she emphasizes.

Since 1998, she has been forbidden to travel outside occupied Palestine. When she needed medical treatment in Jordan in 2010, she struggled for months in a public campaign before finally receiving her treatment.

Pending the restoration of  Palestinian rights to East Jerusalem, Ramallah serves as the seat of Palestinian institutions including the Legislative Assembly. Telling an elected member they cannot reside there is like banning a British MP from Westminster.

Along with the detention of many MPs and restrictions on travel it is one more way in which "the only democracy in the Middle East", as Israel likes to boast itself, makes sure Palestinian democracy cannot function, and makes a mockery of its supposed agreement towards "two states". 

On the legal aspect, campaigners say : "The forced transfer of Khalida Jarrar violates international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits so-called 'assigned residence' unless it is “absolutely necessary” and forbids forced collective or individual transfer of protected persons from one area of occupied territory to another. The military order for Jarrar’s forced expulsion contains only vaguely worded references to 'intelligence information' and 'protecting the security of the region.'"

They also note: "The invasion of Jarrar’s home and the delivery of the expulsion “special supervision order” took place within so-called “Area A,” allegedly under the complete security control of the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Agreements. Despite this, Israeli occupying forces were allowed to enter Ramallah and invade Jarrar’s home; as Addameer notes, “the so-called ‘security co-ordination’ between Palestinian Authority security forces and Israeli occupying forces allowed for the expulsion of an elected representative of the Palestinian people, an elected representative who has continuously called for an end to such ‘coordination.’”

Launched by the North American-based Samidoun network for Palestinian political prisoners, the campaign in solidarity with Khalida Jarrar claims support from over 1,000 organisations worldwide, and is winning a wide range of supporters.

http://samidoun.ca/2014/08/over-1000-organizations-and-individuals-support-khalida-jarrar-demand-overturn-of-expulsion-order/

If Netanyahu fails to rally his troops, can Christian Right step into the breach?

 

 AS Israeli prime minister Netanyahu renewed efforts to rally his troops around Capitol Hill this month, a US politician accused American Jews of selling out Israel by supporting President Obama and not backing additional sanctions against Iran.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a Republican from Minnesota, said "The Jewish community gave [Obama] their votes, their support, their financial support and, as recently as last week, 48 Jewish donors who are big contributors to the president wrote a letter to the Democrat senators in the U.S. Senate to tell them to not advance sanctions against Iran."

Interviewed by Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, a self-described "American conservative Christian group and lobbying organization,"  Bachman said this was against  Israel’s interests. "What has been shocking has been seeing and observing Jewish organizations who it appears have made it their priority to support the political priority and the political ambitions of the president over the best interests of Israel. They sold out Israel."

According to Right Wing Watch. which monitors right-wing movements and politics in the United States, Bachman last month claimed that  “President Obama and John Kerry have preferred Iran" over Israel. Interviewed by Perkins she said  "At the same time while the United States is giving a free pass to Iran, our secretary of state is rattling a saber and effectively calling for an economic war against our greatest ally Israe," Bachmann said. "It doesn’t make any sense.”
 U.S. Rep. Bachmann: American Jews sold out Israel Minnesota congresswoman says U.S. Jews have prioritized Obama's ambitions over the best interests of Israel.  Haaretz | Mar. 5, 2014 http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.578140

Allowing for the over the top exaggeration that we expect from the Republican Right and particularly its god-bothering wing, the congresswoman was raising real concerns that Binyamin Netanyahu must share. He and his government have staked so much on being able to drag America towards launching or at least supporting a war on Iran, so much on cementing an alliance with the American Right, and so much on continuing to enjoy unquestioning Jewish support. .

On February 17 , addressing a 40 member delegation from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations,on their annual shindig in Israel, Netanyahu said Israeli -Palestinian peace prospects were poor, U.S.-led nuclear negotiations with Iran were wrong, and advocates of boycotting Israel were just “classical anti-Semites in modern garb.”

In the past anti-Semites boycotted Jewish businesses,” he said, “and today they call for the boycott of the Jewish state.”  The comparison is more than a bit incongruous when Israel is not some poor persecuted tailor or shopkeeper but a strong military power and occupier, and Netanyahu's own ministers boast that its high tech export-led economy - including military equipment sold around the world - can withstand any boycott.

It is Palestinians in Hebron whose shops and stalls are turned over by armed mobs, Palestinian villagers whose olive trees are uprooted and burned. Israel's blockade on Gaza is more effective bullying than any boycott pickets. All that Secretary of State John Kerry has asked the Israeli government to do is restrain its thugs, and make minor concessions to the Palestinians, so as to avoid further boycott calls and make his job of keeping Arab states quiet easier. 

But having suspended the tough macho Likud stance ("Everybody hates us and we don't care!" in Milwall parlance) to appeal to Jewish solidarity, calling on the delegates  to “fight back” against boycott advocates, “to delegitimize the delegitimizers,”  Netanyahu went on to urge them to renew the battle against President Obama's policy on Iran.

" This could be dynamite", wrote J.J.Goldberg, in the Jewish daily Forward. "All  49 members of the Conference of Presidents have seats on AIPAC’s executive committee, so a call to the conference is a call to AIPAC. (America israel Public Affairs Committee, the main Zionist lobby) The last confrontation centered on the interim agreement signed November 24 in Geneva, which set terms for formal negotiations. Iran agreed for the first time to freeze or reduce most nuclear activity during talks. In return the West lifted about 10% of sanctions. Netanyahu called it a “historic mistake.”

AIPAC tried already, in alliance with hawkish US senators to get fresh sanctions against Iran, and Obama's relaxation reversed. Others said Israel was dragging the United States into war, and Jewish peace activists petitioned that AIPAC was not speaking for them. Netanyahu's case was not helped by reports that Israeli intelligence chiefs said the Iranian agreement was a step in the right direction.

AIPAC and Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Alderson, a major backer for Netanyahu,  had also failed in calling for action against Syria.  It  seems strange that Israel lobbyists might side with jihadis, some linked with  al Qaida, against Assad whose father once col
laborated secretly with Ariel Sharon.. Well it's complicated. As some people might say "This is the Middle East".  Or, looked at from a different angle, some Americans would not care overmuch which Arabs they were bombing - that is the Wild West.

Anyway, AIPAC admitted defeat.  But Netanyahu wanted them to try again. Or as J.J.Goldberg saw it, "to put their head back in the noose". Because while many people in US politics were complaining at the way these "Jewish leaders" were attempting to steer foreign policy, many American Jews were asking who these "leaders" were, whom often they'd never heard of let alone voted for.

Netanyahu and his rich uncle Sheldon should have known. A couple of years ago the Israeli prime minister was assuring people that President Obama would soon be gone. While lumpen Zionists like Pamela Geller were having fun with the Tea Party, billionaire Adelson donated $10 million to Republican Mitt Romney's election chest,  and said he was willing to spend $100 million or more to make sure Obama was not re-elected.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/06/14/sheldon-adelson-willing-to-spend-100-million-to-beat-obama

"In 2012, Mitt Romney slammed Obama for not supporting tougher sanctions against Iran and for not more explicitly pledging that, if sanctions fail to curb Tehran’s nuclear program, the U.S. will attack.  In so doing, Romney road-tested the critique leveled by Benjamin Netanyahu and many American Jewish 'leaders'.

"The result? Obama won 69 percent of the Jewish vote. According to an exit poll by J Street (the only organization to ask such a question), Jewish voters preferred Obama to Romney on Iran by a margin of 58 to 26 percent.More recent surveys reveal basically the same thing. A Pew Research Center poll last October found that 52 percent of American Jews approve of Obama’s Iran policy while 35 percent disapprove."

The only 'leader’ who speaks for American Jews on Iran is Barack Obama
Most American Jews support Obama’s policies on Iran - so in whose name are their so-called 'leaders’ sabotaging his nuclear diplomacy?
By Peter Beinart    | Jan. 22, 2014 
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.569957

Of course there was more to US Jewish voting than arguments about Israel or Iranian policy. Many will have preferred Obama's social policies, or those he is accused of, to the hard-line weakest to the wall attitude of which the conservatives are so proud. Many, listening to conservative anti-immigrant and anti-minority rhetoric  will have been reminded, if they were honest, that these were the kind of people who kept Jews out of their clubs and wanted to keep them out of America.

As for the vociferous Christian Right, many Jews value US tolerance and liberal ideas, not to mention taking umbrage when a Pastor Jack Hagee says Hitler was sent by God, or hearing the hair-raising ideas some preachers have for a nuclear Armageddon starting in the Middle East.

Especially now that Ahmadinejad has gone, Iranian mullahs don't seem half so scary.

So that if even Senator John McCain's AIPAC speech, linking the issues of Iran and Ukraine. was not so gung ho as he might have pretended, and Netanyahu avoided criticising Obama, trying instead to deliver his speechwriters' jokes and wax eloquent about peace prospects, there were two reasons.

One may be that their talking tough about Iran is overshadowed by the uncertainty about what to do or even say about Ukraine. The other is that the usual ovations from the loyal crowd at AIPAC echo emptily outside, where its main constituency was meant to be. AIPAC still has big bucks and plenty of politicians in its pockets for now. But as American Jews move away from unquestioning support for Netanyahu and his right-wing policies, more Israelis too may wonder about relying on the US Christian Right.

 


  

Brent council urged to "Bin Veolia!"

OUTSIDE Brent's new Civic Centre, campaigners gather to make their point. But will councillors listen?

WHO takes decisions in the local council? If it is the elected councillors, why would they be shy about talking with the public on some issues, and leave it to full-time officers?

Brent's Labour-led council, in North-West London, has taken some unpopular decisions in the past couple of years, such as closing six local libraries, as it tried like others to conform to the government's austerity drive. The case of the Counihan-Sanchez family, made homeless by the callous interpretation of council rules above human duty, is only the tip of the iceberg of housing failure.

To be fair, unlike his predecessor, council leader Mohammed Butt has been prepared to talk to local trades unionists, and listen to what they had to say, and he was persuaded to add his voice to concern over NHS cuts in the area. But whether this has meant any real change in council policy is another matter. Long gone are the days when Brent and its Labour Party were associated with outspokenly left-wing policies.

Indeed, on some issues the councillors don't seem to be very outspoken at all, preferring to leave it to full-time officers employed by the council to lay down the law.

Yesterday evening a group of protestors gathered outside the new Brent Civic Centre, overlooked by Wembley stadium, to back a delegation presenting a petition signed by hundreds of local residents, calling on the council to exclude the French-based company Veolia from the Public Realm contract procurement process. The contract worth up to £250m over 16 years will be awarded by the Brent Executive at their October 14th meeting. Already strongly criticised over its performance in previous council contracts, Veolia wants to expand its reach from waste disposal to parks and open spaces, and other amenities. It has been short listed along with Enterprise and Serco.

Veolia has been the subject of an international campaign because of its operations in occupied Palestine, including the use of controversial landfill sites as well as the Jerusalem Light Railway (JLR) and 'bus services linking illegal Jewish settlements. Palestinians say the continued expansion of these settlements is an obstacle to peace. The bloc around Arab East Jerusalem separating it from its hinterland reinforces Israel's unilateral annexation, which British and other governments have not recognised, and accompanies the ethnic cleansing of the capital.

Addressing Brent council's planning executive last night, Liz Lindsay from the 'Bin Veolia' campaign and Brent and Harrow Palestine Solidarity, said "Just as pension funds are concerned about ethical investment we believe the council should be concerned about ethical procurement".

Outlining the company's involvement in the West Bank, Liz cited the Jerusalem Light railway, bus routes using the "Apartheid road" 443 lining settlements, and the Tovlan landfill site. "Veolia therefore profits by actively supporting Israel’s continued violation of international humanitarian law", she said.

"Under Public Contracts Regulations, a public body may exclude a bidder or reject a bid where it is found the organisation has ‘committed grave misconduct in the course of their business’
In 2009, the UN General Assembly called on Israel to cease the dumping of waste  in occupied Palestinian land.

"In 2010, UK was one of countries that voted in support of the UNHR Council resolution that stated JLR operated by Veolia is in clear violation of International Law and relevant UN resolutions.
In 2012, Richard Falk UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the OPT concludes that
– Veolia’s grave breaches of the UN Global Compact make it an inappropriate partner for any public institution, especially as a provider of public services. Also, Veolia was forced to withdraw JLR recruitment advertisements because they discriminated against Palestinians.

"Locally,  West London Waste Authority, Ealing, Harrow, Richmond did not select Veolia as the preferred bidder and all had been involved in discussions with anti-Veolia campaigners. Veolia withdrew after 2 years from the final stages of the £4.5bn North London Waste Authority  procurement when they were one of only two bidders left.

"As Veolia has become the target of worldwide campaigns, Veolia  has tried to waive responsibility, claiming in 2011 for example that it had sold Tovlan. However,  on the 17th Jan 2013, the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection –in response to FOI by a Women's Peace Group in Tel Aviv confirmed that Veolia is the sole owner and operator of Tovlan. We informed Brent Council of this on the 14th March but Veolia repeated its claim on 21st May 2013. The Council does not appear to have challenged this misrepresentation.

"In June 2013, an Israeli Court fined Veolia 1.5 million shekels for burying mixed waste to avoid higher fees and for keeping inconsistent records. Brent Council should seriously question any information that Veolia provides in its defence in its bid to win the contract".

Rejecting claims that Veolia UK and Veolia in Israel were separate companies, Liz Lindsay reminded Brent Council of its pride in representing a very diverse population, and stated commitment to equality and opposing racism. The council had shown this by its stand against the Home Office's racist poster van touring the borough, and UK Border Agency raids at some local stations.

"Human rights issues are at the core of the Council's values.

"Our campaign has been supported by members from many religions and non-religious residents, by members of the Labour, Lib Dem and Green parties, by Brent TUC, trade unions,  GCs of Brent Central,  and Hampstead and Kilburn Labour Parties and local members of Jews for Justice for Palestinians.

"We call on the Executive to take a principled stand on the issue of Veolia's collusion in the abuse of the human rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories and to take action by excluding Veolia from the £260m Public Realm contract."

After this appeal, which was warmly applauded from the public gallery, the chair announced that the executive would be referring the petition to Fiona Ledden, head of procurement, for consideration, and she would then reply to the campaigners. With this assurance, the Bin Veolia delegation left.

According to the official handbook,
Fiona Ledden is the Director of Legal and Procurement and also the Borough Solicitor.
She joined Brent in March 2010.Fiona has the overall responsibility for the procurement strategy and policy across the council. The procurement team ensures that the council achieves the best possible service at the best possible cost from the suppliers that it works with across all services within the council.


Nothing there about the political and moral questions that might be involved, nor even conditions of staff. But then Ms.Ledden, however well qualified and efficient, is not an elected councillor, but a professional there to give expert advice, rather than take decisions.  Is that not so, councillors? 
      

VEOLIA campaign has wide support in a very diverse borough.

Veolia Withdraws

(From North London bid, not yet from West Bank)

IT was like a surprise Xmas present - a piece of Yuletide cheer delivered in an official announcement from the North London Waste Authority, and dated December 21, 2012:      

"The North London Waste Authority has received notification from Veolia Environmental Services that they will not be submitting final tenders for either NLWA’s waste services or fuel use contracts. Veolia had been shortlisted for both contracts and, in withdrawing, Veolia has confirmed that the decision has no bearing on the quality and integrity of the projects".

The statement went on to say more about the £4.5 billion contracts, but that first par was enough to bring joy to campaigners who wanted Veolia kept out, because of the French-based company's involvment in running a transport service linking Israeli settlements encircling East Jerusalem, and more recent reports on its use of toxic landfill sites in the occupied Jordan valley.

The issue of landfill sites and toxic waste was raised by B'Tselem, the civil rights group in Israel,in a report in 2009, and by Camden-Abu Dis Friendship Association (CADFA) in north London.  .  

In September 2011 the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace weote directly to London local councillors urging that Veolia be excluded from the bidding. The peace women warned that Veolia's profitable activties in the Occupied West Bank were contributing to a violation of human rights by strengthening illegal settlements, and thereby helping to obstruct any real peace process.

More recently Professor Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories produced a report in which Veolia was singled out for critiism.

Members of organisations like the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the No To Veolia Action Group (No2VAG) have been campaigning against Veolia’s bid, speaking to trades union and other bodies and doing their best to make sure councillors could not claim ignorance when making their decision.

Yael Kahn, chair of No2VAG said, “Our strategy to force councillors to seriously consider and publicly debate the issues at stake and the further actions planned No2VAG played a critical role in achieving our aim of eliminating Veolia from the NLWA procurement process.”

Not content with making the moral case against Veolia, No2VAG went into the technical critique, as Yael explains:

Part of our strategy to block Veolia's bids was to expose the financial & technical failings of its proposals, such as that it wasn't cost effective and worse for the environment: our engineer and No2VAG secretary, Rob Langlands, showed Veolia's solution wasn't actually CHP [Combine Heat and Power], in spite of misleading claims by Veolia and the NLWA. Similarly, we also informed the media, councillors and Council Leaders of the shortfalls of the NLWA project itself. We raised issues such as that the cost per tonne was to triple for a solution not a lot different than the existing one and that the total wast arisings [tonnage of waste] was over inflated. Indeed the secrecy shrouding the project has recently started to be questioned and more importantly the actual premise of the project.
http://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/waste-management/veolia-withdraws-from-nlwa-procurement

The response from councils varied.

In Hackney, a Labour councillor had wanted to introduce a deputation on Veolia, and the council's lawyers said this was acceptable. Caroline Day of the No2 Veolia campaign had been due to address the councillors. But on November 21, Hackney council voted not to receive the deputation. The blocking motion was poposed by Linda Kelly, a former Labour councillor who defected to the Tories.  It received support from Mayor Jules Pipe who said "Hackney Council does not have a foreign policy."

But reports in the Hackney Gazette and the Jewish Chronicle say Hackney councillor Luke Akehurst, director of campaigns at "We Believe in Israel", an offshoot of the professional lobby group BICOM, was "instrumental" in getting the deputation blocked, and that David Lewis, secretary and treasurer of UK Lawyers for Israel, helped Cllr.Kelly draft her blocking motion.

“We didn’t want the deputation to be heard by the council if we could find a way of preventing it,” David Lewis said. “We are there to defend Israel against demonisation and consider the No2Veolia campaign as part of the demonisation exercise.”

Cllr.Kelly's motion was supported by Tories, Lib Dems and most Labour councillors. The party whips were on, and only two Labour councillors abstained.

It was a different story in Waltham Forest on December 13, where Irfan Akhtar of Waltham Forest Council of Mosques and the No to Veolia campaign was allowed to address the council meeting and make the case against hiring Veolia. Although Irfan only had three minutes to speak, he was also able to present a petition signed by 4,000 residents.

The North London Waste Authority covers the boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Waltham Forest.

Veolia's withdrawal was announced a year to the day after it failed to make the shortlist for the West London Waste Authority 25 years residual waste management contract covering the boroughs of Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Ealing, Richmond and Brent. It cannot be said with certainty that Veolia's operations in the West Bank influenced that decision, as the company was under criticism in some of these boroughs on other grounds.

Nevertheless we learned that more than 600 residents had written to the West London Waste Authority expressing concern at Veolia and human rights, and I'm pleased to say Brent trades union council lent its support to the campaign.

This year I joined a picket on Camden town hall on December 10, Human Rights Day, at the invitation of No2VAG and the Camden-Abu Dis Friendship Association, to oppose expanding settlements and occupation. We distributed leaflets against Veolia's waste bid and collected signatures from passers by, and I also sold a few Jewish Socialist magazines while I was there. An aggressive young Zionist gentleman who came along to accuse us of being "antisemites" and supporters of Hamas eventually got frustrated and started shouting that we were "terrorists" before being escorted away by police while we completed our work.

Just thought I'd mention my part in thwarting the French multinational, for those of you who think I only sit at my keyboard sounding off these days, and for a Mr.Scott Rickard, whom I'm told has me listed as an "Israeli hasbaranik" (propagandist) for some reason.  I've no idea who Mr.Rickard is or where he gets his disinformation, though I see Press TV cites him as a "former US intelligence linguist". His list appears to have been removed from Facebook or rendered inaccessible, but before I heard I was on it I was told that several friends with impeccably pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist credentials were listed before me, so I would not dream of asking for my name to be removed.

Besides, I am already on the meshuggana Zionists Massada list of terrorist enemies of Israel, and I believe the US-hosted Redwatch site run by British Nazis also has me listed quite accurately as a Jewish Red and union militant, so why should I worry about making it onto another list?  It's the nearest we plebs get to being in Who's Who, and while the nutters are busy compiling their lists they are not doing anything else.     

http://no2vag.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/press-release-of-no2vag-on-victory-against-veolia/

http://hackneycitizen.co.uk/2012/11/29/hackney-mayor-backs-conservative-bid-to-block-anti-veolia-deputation/ 

http://hackneycitizen.co.uk/2012/12/21/veolia-dumps-bid-north-london-waste-contract/

http://brentpsc.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/veolia-out-of-west-london-waste.html

Three Days on a 45 year Occupation

HIS name is Muhammad Slayma, and until this week he was just another lad growing up in the West Bank city of Hebron.  A good sports player and popular with his schoolpals perhaps, but not otherwise outstanding.  Then yesterday, after celebrating his 17th birthday at school (above) Muhammad was on his way to pick up another cake for home from the bakers when he became a victim of the 45-year long occupation of his homeland.  Another martyr for the resistance.

The Israeli occupation forces say he ignored a shouted order to stop. Friends say he was hard of hearing. The soldiers said he was shot after brandishing a gun. It turned out to be a toy. He was reportedly shot six times.

Today an Israeli group called " We are all for death to terrorists". proudly posted a picture of the woman said to have shot the boy dead. The text said n Hebrew "this is Nofar Mizrahi class instructor Unit 25 Border Police Judea and Samaria, that shot a terrorist in Hebron".

On the streets of Hebron, the killing of this "terrorist" with a toy gun brought crowds of youth out on the streets  to clash with Israeli troops who fired tear gas.  At one point some soldiers who were cornered took refuge in a bitchers shop, whether from fear or to avoid shooting more teenagers. Not everyone wants to be celebrated by the death cult.
        

It was just another day in the world's longest running occupation, that has gone on for 45 years and six months. But it comes as the Netanyahu government wants to punish the Palestinians and hold up two fingers of scorn to the UN for giving what's left of Palestine some recognition.  It has already held up funds which belong to the Palestine authority.

On Tuesday, to show who is boss in areas under the nominal control of the Palestinian Authority, Israeli occupation forces ransacked the offices of Palestinian human rights organizations in Ramallah.
In a statement Palestinian prisoners’ rights group Addameer said:

    At 3 am this morning, 11 December 2012, the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights office was raided by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Four laptops, one hard disk and a video camera were taken among other materials. The IOF destroyed the office; desks, ransacked filing cabinets and files and scattered files around the office. At this moment, we are not clear as to what has been confiscated, but in the coming days we will know more about the level of destruction and damage. This is the first raid by the IOF since 2002, when the Addameer office was raided during the invasion of Ramallah.

    The offices of the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committee and the Palestinian NGO Network were also raided and ransacked last night. Addameer condemns this attack on human rights and civil society organizations, and sees it as an attempt to cripple solidarity with the prisoners movement.

NIL'IN

At 2pm on Tuesday, a group of farmers were walking towards their fields next to the apartheid wall in Ni’lin. They were spotted by two military jeeps that started hunting them as the soldiers considered the farmers to be in a “closed military area”, when really they were walking on their own land. As the farmers fled back to the village the Israeli army sent three military jeeps into the village in an attempt to surround and arrest the men. The farmers however evaded the soldiers who started chasing them through the village while shooting after them.

Many young people gathered in the streets at this point and tried to prevent the jeeps from chasing after the farmers by barricading the roads with boulders. The Israeli soldiers responded by firing live ammunition towards the youths.

This led to clashes lasting for four hours. More military jeeps charged into the village until there were 13 of them on Ni’lin land. Tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets were fired straight at homes leading to a large number of women, children and elderly people suffering from tear gas inhalation as even those staying indoors was effected. Most of the shooting taking place was however live ammunition fired straight towards the people of Ni’lin. The Red Crescent was also targeted with live bullets to prevent them from treating injured villagers during the clashes.

Three people were injured during the clashes, one from a live round entering his leg and two shot with rubber coated steel bullets in neck and head, respectively. They were taken to Ramallah hospital after the clashes and the man shot in the head was in severe condition during Wednesday.

http://www.nilin-village.org

HEBRON

Five people have been injured in clashes between Palestinian youths and Israeli soldiers in the West Bank city of Hebron, after a Palestinian teenager was shot by Israeli soldiers on Wednesday.
Dozens of Palestinian youths were reported to have thrown stones and bottles at the soldiers early on Thursday morning, while Associated Press news agency reported that the Israeli soldiers had responded by firing tear gas on the youths.

Five Palestinians were hospitalised after the clashes, reported Ma'an News Agency.
Thursday's clashes came ahead of the funeral for 17-year-old Palestinian, Muhammad Ziad Awad Salaymah, who was shot dead by an Israeli policewoman at a checkpoint in the city on Wednesday, for allegedly carrying a gun which later turned out to be "fake".

Some news agencies reported that Salaymah had been shot up to six times.
Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for Israeli police, said on Wednesday that an initial investigation indicated "[Salaymah] pulled a fake pistol. They [troops at the scene] thought it was real."

Palestinians, however, said Salaymah was unarmed, and had failed to heed orders to halt at a military checkpoint because he was hard of hearing. Protests against the shooting broke out in the Old City on Wednesday night, with Israeli forces using tear gas and live ammunition to quell the demonstrations.
"They have orders to shoot with live bullets now," a resident of Hebron told Al Jazeera on Wednesday.
(al Jazeera)


If the Israeli forces are alternately trigger happy and nervous, fearing the start of another Intifada,  the Palestinian youth are showing both confidence and anger. And as a report today in Ha'aretz notes, it is not only the Israeli military that are feeling it:

It appeared, however, that Palestinian Authority forces were unable to deal with the increasing intensity of the protests in the West Bank. The youths did not hesitate, and threw stones at the Palestinian police as well, while continuing to clash with the soldiers. A short time later, the Palestinian police left the scene, and the clashes continued.

In the past, the arrival of Palestinian police on the scene, especially in urban areas, would cause the demonstrations to disperse. Today, however, it appears that the perception of the Palestinian Authority as relatively week, has been applied to police as well. 

There was massive public support on the West Bank for the Palestinian UN recognition bid. But when the Israeli military shows  as it has in Ramallah its contempt for both the Palestine Authority and the UN, the youth show that while they support the diplomatic effort for statehood, they are not going to subordinate their struggle for justice and freedom to it.

AND A PS:
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/12/family-of-teenager-killed-in-hebron-calls-fake-gun-story-a-fabrication.html

Will Barak miss Netanyahu's Tea Party?

 NUMBER 13. Miri Regev (centre) with fan club, after she called African refugees "a cancer" and before she apologised.  Rally in south Tel Aviv turned into a pogrom.


AFTER waging an onslaught on Gaza with over 100, many of them children, dead, and massive destruction, to end up with a ceasefire that was already on  offer before the attack, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has announced he is quitting politics.

Noted for deviousness rather than diplomacy, the ex-military commander under whom prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu served may be preparing some wily comeback later, though he is gettting on, or he may have taken a look at Binyamin Netanyahu's list of Likud hopefuls, as they line up for elections.  

The right-wing party, which has made a deal with Avigdor Lieberman's even more right-wing Yisrael Beitanu, held primaries on Sunday and Monday, and it has selected what even the fiercest critics of past and present governments say is the most extreme team yet to rule if, as expected, it wins.

Netanyahu remains top of the party list, but with Lieberman as number two and a third of the seats going to Yisrael Beitanu  under the deal, only the frst 20 Likud members would be likely to enter the Knesset. Those pushed towards the back of the queue include Benny Begin, son of the former prime minister, Michael Eitan and Dan Meridor.  Though their lineage goes back to the right-wing party's founders, and before that to the Irgun Zvai Leumi terrorists who were led by Menahem Begin, these three are regarded as "moderates" within Likud,

According to Israeli commentator Noam Sheizat:

"The most vocal backbenchers – those behind attacks on the left, Arabs and human rights NGOs – won the day. The Likud looks right now like the Tea Party’s dream team.
 http://972mag.com/the-likud-presents-the-craziest-most-radical-list-ever-expected-to-win-elections/60933/

He gives examples:

#1 in the Likud primaries is Gidon Sa’ar, the current education minister and the person behind the school trips that take Israeli children to the settlement in occupied Hebron, and the effort to open a university in the settlement of Ariel. He also has a lot to do with the attempt to shut down the Department of Government and Politics at Ben-Gurion University in Be’er Sheva.

#5 Danny Danon: One of the most extreme right-wing Knesset members, who incited against asylum seekers in the rally that turned into a riot in Tel Aviv. Danon was the man who brought Glenn Beck to Israel.

#6 (Reuven Rivlin) and #12 (Tzipi Hotovely) support annexing the West Bank. To their credit, they also toy with the idea of giving full citizen rights to the Palestinian population. Hotovely once organized a Knesset hearing on “the problem” of Jewish-Arab interracial relationships.

#8 Ze’ev Elkin, the brains behind many recent anti-democratic legislative attempts – including the infamous “boycott law.”

#9 Yariv Levin: Not as high-profile as Danon, but even more active. Levin led the effort to pack the Supreme Court with conservative judges. He took part in the effort to limit the funding of human rights NGOs and in the legislation of the boycott law. Levin led the committee that drafted the law forcing a national referendum in the event of a retreat from any territory held by Israel.

#13 Miri Regev, former IDF spokesperson, who called Arab MKs “traitors” and referred to asylum seekers from Africa as a “cancer.”

#14 Moshe Feiglin, who wants the state to encourage Palestinians – he once referred to them as parasites – to leave the country. Feiglin’s claim to fame was the civil disobedience campaign he launched against the Oslo Accord. One of his latest op-eds was titled, “I am a proud homophobe.”

#18 Ofir “Joe McCarthy was right about everything” Akunis: The sponsor of the anti-NGO bill.
Here is the full list of the first 20 names (the final list will be a bit different due to affirmative action and other internal Likud procedures – and remember that we are still waiting for Lieberman’s men).

 Sheizat rightly says that this aggressive right-wing government in waiting is a product of the 45-year long Occupation, by which "the only democracy in the Middle East" has ruled over the Palestinians.

It also looks like a party readying for war, not just against external enemies, but against any opposition within Israel. 

Spare a Thought for Some of the Losers

"Hey Benjamin, wassup?

Remember how much you intervened and tried to influence the presidential elections here in the States?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Oh, no reason  :) "

How one Israeli humourist imagined the conversation.

OK, so Barack Obama is not the kind of guy we'd like to see as president  Not the sort of person his opponents claimed. He's not a socialist, he is not that great a reformer, he isn't going to curb the power of Wall Street and he may not even stop those murderous drones. 

But those people on the Left who are saying this election is meaningless are not just off the wall, they are out of touch, and maybe they are not even admitting their own feelings. Smile, your face won't crack! There are more important things than staying pure and proving how much cleverer you are than the poor deluded masses. And besides, if you see nothing to rejoice at in the winner, just take a look at those that lost.

The right-wing headbangers who denounced Obama "the Muslim", Obama "the Red", with everything from home-made posters to magazine articles and radio shows, must be asking themselves what went wrong.  The Tea Party alliance of hate preachers, tax dodgers, loud-mouthed lumpen and vulgar rich, some of whom encouraged the English Defence League thugs in Britain, have suffered a set-back whatever they say.

Tea Party movement-backed candidates lost to Democrats in Indiana and Missouri, among other states, undermining Republican chances of seizing control of the Senate. Six Tea Party caucus members were defeated at the polls, plus another seven who retired, lost a primary or sought higher office. Both tea party candidates who ran for the Senate, Reps. Denny Rehberg of Montana and Todd Akin of Missouri lost.

Tea Party congresswoman Michelle Bachman held on to her seat in Minnesota, but Allen West lost in Florida and Joe Walsh in Illinois. West, a leading member of the Tea Party Caucus had denounced a number of Democrats as 'traitorous Communists', and spent $13million to hold on to his seat - nearly four times as much as his opponent Patrick Murphy raised.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2229060/Michele-Bachmann-clings-seat-key-conservatives-beaten-Democrat-challengers.html#ixzz2BYZeNjSp

It's true the Tea Party is not dead. It is boasting of the way it took over the Republican agenda. This was shown by the way Mitt Romney vowed to repeal federal health care laws not too different from the ones he supported when he was governor of Masachusetts. But in taking the wheel in the Republican Party and steering it to more reactionary social policies they ran it on to the rocks. 


http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100188297/is-the-tea-party-over-radical-social-conservatism-might-have-brought-it-to-an-end/

Billionaire property man Donald Trump is not happy at all with the way the election has gone.Trump kept shouting the odds about Obama's not being a real American, and demanding to see his birth certificate, offering $5 million dollars to charity if the President could produce it, even as people were starting to show more interest in seeing Republican Mitt Romney's tax returns. they asked what was patriotic about stashing millions in offshore tax havens.
 
This morning as the results came in Trump took to Twitter to attack the US electoral system, the Electoral College and the whole business. "This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy! "
"Well, back to the drawing board!" Trump tweeted shortly after several networks, including Fox News, called Ohio in the president's favor, sealing the win. "We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!"

Oddly, Trump had not seen anything wrong with the system before, say back in the days of Bush and the hanging chads in Florida. If his march on Washington fails to materialise he will have to console himself with playing the laird on his golf course with his honorary degrees in Scotland.

 Abroad, one man who was assuring colleagues earlier this year that Obama did not have long to go was Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. He was confident his government could ignore US strictures not to expand settlements, and count on US backing if and when it attacked Iran. It looked as if he was right. Netanyahu had lectured Obama in the Oval office, A supposed "snub" in not inviting him to the White House after his performance at the UN was made part of the anti-Obama campaign. Romney accused the President of being prepared to "throw Israel under the bus", held his fundraiser in Jerusalem, and promised to move the US embassy there, even as the harassment and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian residents was getting worse.  

Now as one Israeli commentator tells us:

"If there is one loser in the U.S. election outside the U.S., it is Benjamin Netanyahu – and all of Israel knows it. No one is fooled by his denials that he backed Romney and opposed Obama as demonstratively as he possibly could. The widespread conviction, now that Obama has won four more years in the White House, is that Bibi has endangered Israel’s relationship with America in a way that is unprecedented in its recklessness. No Israeli prime minister ever took sides in a U.S. presidential election like Netanyahu just did, and his side lost.

If Romney had won, people here would be hailing Bibi right now as a genius, a prophet. But Obama won, which makes Bibi, in Israeli eyes, a screw-up of historic magnitude. He went and tracked mud on the Oval Office carpet right in front of the president’s eyes. The president couldn’t say anything during the campaign because of American domestic politics, but the campaign’s over and now Israelis are wondering when and how this newly-liberated president is going to take revenge on them for their prime minister’s spectacular arrogance. Conclusion: The only way to get America back on our side is to get rid of Bibi.
http://972mag.com/after-bibis-bet-on-romney-peace-camp-can-beat-him/59271/

Already before the election it was becoming evident that the Romney-Netanyahu ticket was failing to convince one important sector of the electorate - the American Jewish community. Even some of the most notoriously pro-Zionist figures like former New York mayor Ed Koch, writer Elie Wiesel and lawyer Alan Dershowitz who might have been expected to oppose Obama came out saying that he was not so bad after all, that he had not let down Israel, and what's more, his social policies were in line with Jewish values. Perhaps they were moving with the wind. It is reckoned that about 70 per cent of the Jewish voters supported Obama for a second term.    
http://972mag.com/pro-israel-figures-who-rebuked-obama-now-endorse-him-for-president/58971/

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=289859

http://forward.com/articles/165564/obama-rides-jewish-mandate-to-second-term/

That left Romney-Netanyahu with a minority including some seriously dodgy business figures and flamboyant characters even by Tea Party standards. The Republican's biggest backer, who also finances a freesheet called Israel Hayom supporting Netanyahu , was Las Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Back in August, The New York Times wondered whether his effort to put Mitt Romney in the White House had anything to do with a federal criminal investigation into his company's business practices.

The Times editorial page mused that "since Mr. Adelson's financial future is riding on the outcome of these federal investigations, it is legitimate to ask whether he has motivation for supporting the Republican ticket so lavishly, beyond his sharp disagreement with the Obama administration's position on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process."

The top reason Adelson gave for backing Romney and opposing President Barack Obama was "self defense," referencing the probe into Las Vegas Sands Corp. "Adelson said a second Obama term would bring government 'vilification of people that were against him.'

Adelson's casino empire, the bulk of which is based in Asia, is being investigated for bribery and money laundering.  "When I see what's happening to me and this company, about accusations that are unfounded -- that kind of behavior ... has to stop,"

In other words, Adelson was spending millions of dollars to curry political favor in the United States, hoping to fend off charges that he spent millions of dollars to curry political favor in Asia.
Among a number of stories in the press lately, The New York Times dove into the murky China-dominated world in which Adelson's casinos thrive:

Federal investigators began looking into the Sands's China activities after the former president of the company's Macau operations filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit in 2010. The former executive, Steven C. Jacobs, charged, among other things, that he had been pressured to exercise improper leverage against government officials in Macau, and that the company had turned a blind eye to Chinese organized crime figures operating in its casinos. (The Jacobs lawsuit raised questions about payments to another well-connected local figure -- a lawyer and legislator in Macau -- that were recently explored by ProPublica and are also part of the federal bribery investigation.) The Sands declined to respond to a detailed list of questions provided by The Times more than a week ago, saying in a statement that it was cooperating with the inquiries and was confident that once they were concluded "no current member of senior management will have been found to have been involved in wrongdoing."

Adelson said he was willing to spend $100 million or more to unseat President Obama. As it is,after first backing Newt Gingrich he spent about $30 million supporting Romney and various other Republicans who were unsuccessful. You would think a man who made his fortune from punters gambling away their money would have been smarter placing his own bets. 

http://forward.com/articles/165546/tough-night-for-sheldon-adelson/

One man freed on bail, one man still in jail. Authorities feel threatened by Freedom Theatre

NABIL AL RAEE released , but tagged and under house arrest. Seen here with daughter Mina on her first birthday.

ZAKARIA ZUBEIDI still detained without charges at Jericho prison.

First the good news. Nabil Al-Raee, the Artistic Director of The Freedom Theatre in Jenin, has been freed from Israeli military detention, after starting a hunger strike. Nabil had been held for over a month, having been taken from his home in the early hours of the morning by the Israeli military.

After putting it around that they were questioning Nabil about the murder last year of Freedom Theatre co-founder Juliano Mer-Khamis, - a subject on which he would have willingly told everything he knew without needing to be arrested - the Israeli authorities held him without charges, and without access to lawyer or family. Having failed to produce any evidence of "illegal activity" even to convince a military judge, they eventually came up with a charge of assisting a "terrorist", that is supplying food and cigarettes to Freedom Theatre co-founder Zakaria Zubeidi.

Zakaria Zubeidi is a respected figure in Jenin, as well as a colleague, and Nabil remarked that he had only helped him as any local person would. A former commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade who fought the Israeli occupiers and also criticised Palestinian leaders, Zakaria Zubeidi accepted an amnesty from the Israelis in 2005, handing over his guns to the Palestinian Authority(PA), and joining Juliano Mer-Khamis in founding the theatre, to develop cultural resistance.

“The theatre is an important project,” said Zubeidi. “ It can bring the children together under one roof, give them the possibility to dream, develop them and lighten their psychological burden.”

He did not abandon his aim of liberation, but placed no faith in the Palestinian leadership, accusing them of selfishness and corruption, and saying that a new generation would have to come forward. Nor did Israeli politicians give up their calls for Zubeidi to dealt with as a terrorist.

On December 29, 2011, Israel rescinded Zubeidi's pardon for unstated reasons. Zubeidi stated to Ma'an News Agency that he had not violated any of the conditions of his amnesty. He was advised by PA security officials to turn himself in to Palestinian custody lest he arrested by Israel's security forces. A week before Zubeidi was notified about the cancellation of his amnesty, his brother had been arrested by the PA.

Now Zakaria Zubeidi remains in Palestinian Authority custody, having been held without charge and kept in prison at Jericho since May 13.

Nabil Al Raee is not genuinely free either, despite petitions from international artists, a resolution from the European parliament, and his own hunger strike. He has only been released on bail, and must remain under house arrest wearing an electronic foot chain until his next trial at the end of the month.

http://www.greenyourope.net/2012/07/12/the-artistic-director-of-the-palestinian-freedom-theatre-was-released-after-five-weeks-in-israeli-jail/

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/13/the-bravest-theater-in-the-world/

An Escalation to Order?

IT did not take long for the Israeli military to celebrate Netanyahu's visit to Washington and Obama's obliging appearance at the conference of Zionist lobby group AIPAC. To be fair, the US president, unlike his Republican opponents, did not proclaim war on Iran, but nor did he rule it out. Netanyahu for his part did not hesitate to play on paranoia, gentile guilt feelings, and hypocrisy, by invoking "Auschwitz", as though the Israeli state was a beleagured, innocent and helpless civilian populace being led to slaughter, and not a military power with a strong air force and the only nuclear power in the Middle East.

He used the occasion to ask for more advanced and destructive weaponry, such as bunker-busting bombs (tested in Lebanon), from the United States, in return for "restraint" in using it.

On Friday the air force attacked Gaza, targeting the leader of the Palestinian Resistance Committees, and provoking a response from militant groups in the Strip who fired rockets into Israel. While some Western media as per habit reported this as though it was the Palestinians who fired rockets first, or more "neutraly" as an "exchange of fire", the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) issued their own explanation, claiming that the Popular Resistance Committees were responsible for an attack into Israel last August, and were planning further attacks.

The Jerusalem Post wrote:

When the IDF decided on Friday afternoon to assassinate the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees in the Gaza Strip, it knew what it was getting itself into.

Assessments ahead of the decision to bomb the car carrying Zuhair Qaisi predicted that around 100 rockets could be fired into Israel during each day of the round of violence expected to erupt. This was a price the government felt it was capable of paying.

Knesset member Danny Danon (Likud) was not satisfied, calling for "all of those in possession of weapons in the Gaza Strip" to be targeted because of the "million people living under fire".
As Australian-based blogger Sol Salbe points out, he means a million residents of southern Israel. "Only they live under fire. By yesterday afternoon, the bodies of 15 Palestinians were already laid out on the other side of the Gaza border. There were eight people injured on this side, and the Iron Dome antimissile system chalked up the successful interception of 25 rockets."

By today we knew the Palestinian victim toll had risen to at least 18, including a ten year old boy on his way to school. Well, you never know, he and his classmates could have been dreaming up all sorts of actions.

Still, I like that bit about the government being prepared to pay the price. Should any of those rockets from Gaza kill anyone it would more likely be ordinary members of the public, possibly even friends or relatives of mine, than members of the government. I am not sure they feel ready to pay the price for whatever their government's intentions are. But I see a religious charity is collecting for books and food, so it says, for people under fire or in shelters in the south. I'm sure this won't be necessary as the government is prepared to pay the price.

But what was this attack really about? In the past, Israelis argued that targetted assassinations were justified if they hit someone about to carry out an attack. In 2006, in his last court ruling handed down before his retirement, then Supreme Court President Aharon Barak barred such killings when they were meant to be "a deterrent or punishment."

According to the IDF, Zuhair al-Qaissi, the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza, was responsible for the attack over the Egyptian border last August - which would make his killing an act of "deterrence or punishment." But to be on the safe side, it also noted that he had "led and directed plans to carry out a terror attack within Israel, which was in its final stages of preparation."

The air strike also killed Mahmoud Hanani, described by the IDF as Al-Queisi’s ”collaborator.” The IDF Spokesman’s communique said that “the IDF is not interested in an escalation, but is ready and willing to defend the citizens of the State of Israel and respond with force and determination against any attempt to carry out terrorist activity.”

The attackers last August did not come from Gaza, but from Sinai. This did not stop the IDF from killing six members of the PRC leadership several hours after the attack, nor did it prevent Prime Minister Netanyahu from announcing that “those responsible for the attack have already been punished.” Two months after the attack, someone in the security establishment leaked to Alex Fishman of Yedioth Ahronot enough information for Fishman to write the truth: the attack did not come from Gaza but rather from Sinai. The PRC had nothing to do with it. A few weeks later, the Egyptian army arrested a resident of Sinai, charging him with planning the Eilat attack.

So it looks like the IDF, unfazed by the suggestion that its version was either a lie or based on false intelligence, has made it serve twice. As for the popular resistance committees preparing new attack, Defence Minister Ehud Barak admits the intelligence on this was hazy.

So did it really justify an attack, and the calculation that a retaliatory barrage of rockets would be worth it?

In Israel, if the people in the shelters had their doubts, they won't be much heard above the ordnance and the media din, and the government has sent a message reassuring the mayors, so that's OK. There are critics of the government and the IDF, but who listens to them?

Certainly not Israel's backers in the West.

"US officials condemned the latest round of rocket fire from Gaza. The secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said Israel had the right to defend itself, and a state department statement called on both sides to restore calm.

"We condemn in the strongest terms the rocket fire from Gaza by terrorists into southern Israel in recent days, which has dramatically and dangerously escalated in the past day," the statement said. "We call on those responsible to take immediate action to stop these cowardly acts. We regret the loss of life and injuries, and we call on both sides to make every effort to restore calm."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/11/gaza-strikes-18-palestinians-dead

The Gaza front had been quiet. Hamas has not only adhered to a ceasefire but in entering an agreement with Fatah effectively signalled its readiness to go along with Palestinian Authority negotiations with Israel. It is Netanyahu who chose to interpret this the opposite way, to reject negotiation, and in setting out with US backing to block recognition of Palestine, made nonsense of any pretended interest in a "two state solution".

The Israeli government needs a supposed threat from Iran both to foster "national unity" smothering social unrest at home, and to present itself as the brave underdog facing annihilation, rather than a brutal occupying power. At the same time it wants to be seen as the sole guard dog for Western interests.

That Hamas, viewing the bloodbath in Syria, has turned away from alliance with Hizbollah, and hence Iran, and is renewing old links with the Muslim Brotherhood and counting on help for Gaza from Egypt, does not suit the Israeli scenario. Nor does it restraining Islamic Jihad. The Israeli intelligence may have been concerned not with preventing more trouble but with ensuring it, as Zvi Bar'el suggests:
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/escalation-is-good-for-israel-1.417848

See also:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-hamas-islamic-jihad-chiefs-committed-to-gaza-cease-fire-1.417822

To make matters worse, from Netanyahu's point of view, there is the possibility that the United States and EU might feel safer trusting in their Arab allies rather than being saddled with responsibility for Israel's actions.

There is also the possibility of change in Iran. Not regime change so much as a more intelligent diplomacy offering compromise with Europe and the USA that would leave Israel looking like a liability, if not the villain that it is. Ayatollah Khamenei, who has been reasserting his authority as supreme leader, has issued a fatwa saying that posession of nuclear weapons is a sin and forbidden by Islam. He has also praised Obama for saying there could be a peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue. President Ahmadinejad, who has enjoyed playing to the gallery and been Israel's bogeyman, could be ousted next year.
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/09/analysis-is-irans-khamenei-flirting-with-the-great-satan/
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/west-of-eden/american-expert-u-s-green-light-for-israeli-attack-on-iran-depends-on-whether-it-can-get-the-job-done-1.417829

This may seem a reassuring development for anyone fearing a future nuclear holocaust in the Middle East, even though Khamenei's conservatism offers little in the way of freedom or progress for the people of Iran. But for the Israeli leaders and their increasingly fanatical backers in the United States it might be all the more incitement to hurry towards a war, before peace starts breaking out.

Another Martyr, another Mockery of Obama's "Peace Process"

10 December 2011

ANOTHER Palestinian has paid the ultimate price for trying to hold on to his land, his village, his rightful family and national heritage, his people's rights and dignity. Mustafa Tamimi (28) died after being shot in the face with a tear gas canister by an Israeli soldier, while taking part in a peaceful demonstration in his own village, Nabi Salih., north-west of Ramallah.

Linah Alsaafin, a Bir Zeit University graduate, was in Nabi Salih on Friday, and her impressions are recorded on the website Electronic Intifada.

' “Ambulance! Ambulance!”

So far, there were three people who had suffocated from the tear gas, and three people injured by rubber bullets. I saw gas, and so assumed that it was another case of suffocation. But the cries got louder, urgent, desperate — quite unlike the previous calls. Along with those around me, we began running to where the injured person lay, 50 meters away.

Screams. “Mustafa! Mustafa!”

I ran faster. I stopped. The youth I was so used to, the same ones who were always teasing and joking and smoking, were crying. One turned to me and groaned, “His head. His head is split into two!”

My stomach plummeted and I forgot to breathe. Exaggeration, I thought. Impossible. Not here. More screams of “Mustafa!”

I saw the man lying on the ground. I saw the medic with one knee on the ground, his face a mask of shock. I saw his bloodied gloved hands.

Mustafa’s sister was screaming his name. I saw Mustafa. I saw the blood, the big pool of dark red blood. I saw the blood dripping from his head to the ground as they carried him and put him in a taxi, since the ambulance was nowhere to be found. I saw other the tear-streaked faces of other activists, and all I felt was numbness.

Mustafa’s sister Ola was still screaming, so I put my arms around her as she buried her head in my chest. I was babbling, “It’s ok, he’s gonna be fine, it’s ok” but she kept on screaming. Her screams and the disturbing reactions of those around me made my legs numb. Ola then left to go to the watchtower where the taxi with her brother was, and my state of shock crumbled as I gasped out my tears in the arms of my friend.'

http://electronicintifada.net/content/no-miracle-yesterday-nabi-saleh-mustafa-tamimi-murdered/10678

Situated amid the mountains north-west of Ramallah, Nabi Salih takes its name from the prophet Salih, whom the Koran tells us was sent to prophesy to people who hewed their homes from rock, like the Nabateans. A blue-domed building on the remains of Crusader type structures is identified by locals as Salih's shrine. Byzantine ruins have been restored.

Near this historic village is a natural spring named Ein Al Qaws ("the Bow Spring") which is owned by a member of the Tamimi family.

In 2009 settlers from nearby Halamish control over the spring and it's surroundings and prevented Palestinian access to their land. Halamish, also known as Neveh Tzur, is illegal not only under international law but under Israeli law too, since at least a third of the land it is built was privately owned by Palestinians. But it has been allowed to expand with fresh outposts, and is used by the military as a training centre for religious cadets.

People from Nabi Salih and the nearby village of Dir Nizam began holding regular Friday demonstrations for their spring, and against the Israeli occupation. In February this year volunteers from the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem filmed Israel troops making night time raids on Palestinian homes, waking children over 10 years old, and photographing them.

A B'Tselem report released in September says Israeli forces do not recognize the right of Nabi Salih’s residents to demonstrate. declaring their demonstrations illegal at the outset, sometimes even before the procession begins. The Israeli military routinely issues orders declaring the entire village a closed military area, blocks the roads leading to it, thus denying people coming from outside the village their right to join in the demonstration. The army and the Border Police deploy heavy force in the village even when the demonstrators are nonviolent and pose no threat. They fire enormous quantities of tear gas inside the built-up area of the village, which is home to hundreds of persons.

As Lina Alsaafin explains, Friday, December 9 marked the second year since the tiny village began its weekly demonstrations against the confiscation of the Kaws Spring. It also marked the 24th anniversary of the first intifada. People were expecting the army would use more violence than usual, but not that anyone would be killed.

'Mustafa, 28 years old, was critically injured after Israeli soldiers fired a tear gas canister at his face, and died at a hospital after his treatment was delayed by the occupation forces who had invaded the village to repress the weekly demonstration.

One difference that distinguishes Nabi Saleh from other villages with popular resistance committees, like Nilin, Bilin, Biddu and Budrus is that no one has been killed, or martyred in the protests. Beaten up, yes. Arrested, ditto. But never a death. Until yesterday.

Just before Mustafa went into the operating room, some good news came through. He had not suffered any cognitive damages to his brain, although he suffered a brain hemorrhage. There was a chance his eye might be saved. Relief washed over us. We tweeted, “please #Pray4Mustafa.”

I had pictured myself going to Nabi Saleh the next day, not the following Friday. I had imagined sitting in a room with weeping women, after passing by the somber men sitting outside. I had envisioned a funeral and an inconsolable Ola with her mother. Thank God there was a reassuring chance he would be ok. We’d make fun of his bandaged face, just like we did to Abu Hussam when a rubber bullet hit him under the eye a few weeks ago.

Then I got the call that Mustafa had succumbed to his wounds.

The soldiers laughed. They smiled. They took pictures of us, zooming in on each of our faces, and they smirked. I screamed at them: “Nazis, terrorists, vermin, programmed killing machines.”

They laughed at us as we screamed at them to let us through to where he was, unconscious in a taxi near the watchtower. They threatened us if we didn’t go back. We waved the flag with his blood on it in front of them. One of them had the audacity to bat it away. We shouted, “His blood is on your hands!” They replied, “So?”

I thought of Mustafa’s younger brother, imprisoned all these eight months. I thought of that brother’s broken jaw and his subsequent stay in the prison hospital. I thought of Juju (Jihad Tamimi), he of the elfin face who arrested a few days ago with no rights to see a lawyer after being wanted by the army for more than a year. I shuddered to think of the reactions of these imprisoned men from the village — Uday, Bassem, Naji, Jihad, Saeed – once they received the news.

I got the call just after 11pm Friday night. I was sworn to secrecy, since his family didn’t want to make it public yet. Anger, bitterness and sorrow overwhelmed me. I cried at my kitchen table.

The images are tattooed forever inside my eyelids. A bloody pulp on one side of his face. The pool of blood rapidly increasing. (Mama, there was so much blood.) His mouth slightly open, lying supine on the cold road. His sister screaming, her face twisted in grief. The young men weeping, looking like little boys again'.

In America, politicians bidding for the presidency are competing with each other as to who can be most "pro-Israel", and in doing so, denying any rights to the Palestinian people at all. Newt Gingrich says the Palestinian nation is an "invention" and does not really exist.

In Israel, Netanyahu continues to draw the encouragement that President Obama's talk of peace and "two states" need not be taken seriously, that Israeli settlements can keep expanding on Palestinian land and taking Palestinian water, and Israeli soldiers faced with a rightfully resentful civilian population can respond with brutality.

In Nabi Salih, a family mourns a son and brother whose life was taken for defending what was theirs, and a witness asks how as a human being she can be expected to feel anything but hatred for those who did this?

The Zionist settlers talk of imposing a "price tag" on the Palestinians for claiming their rights and upon the Israeli peace camp too.

What price can we impose, not just on those who pull the trigger, but those who give the orders, and above all, on those in the United States who could call a halt to this oppression and sacrifice, but for the sake of their egos and political careers, would sooner sentence Palestinians and Israelis to permanent hatred and war?

See also:

http://972mag.com/mustafa-tamimi-a-murder-captured-on-camera/29459/