Israel as a Rogue State 93

George Mitchell hoping for a quick-fix fake peace?

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For real peace he must bang heads together at the United Nations to finish their unfinished business

By Stuart Littlewood

1 September 2010

Stuart Littlewood argues that the US-sponsored direct talks between Israel and Mahmoud Abbas are farcical, lopsided and designed to achieve “a fake, temporary peace” whose aim is temporarily “to save a few worthless political skins”.

On the eve of the silliest peace talks in history, the big question is this. What makes Obama’s envoy George Mitchell, a negotiator of high repute, say there is “no role” for Hamas?

The talks are silly because they seek to overturn what the United Nations has already decided for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict and drive a bulldozer through the building blocks of justice.

It might be music to Zionist ears, but to people of good will it’s a cruel, futile and immensely damaging ploy.

Unequal partners, partisan auspices

The talks are also silly because they bring together two people who by no stretch of the imagination could qualify as partners for peace. And they sit down under the auspices of a third party with an appalling track record in the Middle East and whom no-one trusts to act fairly.

So Mitchell has been dealt a crap hand. The former US senator, we’re told, has had an illustrious career in politics. Honours have been heaped upon him for his part in the Northern Ireland “Good Friday” agreement.

Accepting one of those awards – the Liberty Medal in 1998 – Mitchell said:

I believe there’s no such thing as a conflict that can’t be ended... No matter how ancient the conflict, no matter how hateful, no matter how hurtful, peace can prevail. But only if those who stand for peace and justice are supported and encouraged, while those who do not are opposed and condemned. Seeking an end to conflict is not for the timid or the tentative. There must be a clear and determined policy not to yield to the men of violence...

How about that? Conflict can be ended only by supporting those who stand for peace and condemning those who don’t. But does he know – has he really taken the trouble to find out – who actually stands for peace and justice in the ever-escalating obscenity of the Israeli occupation of Palestine? And is he absolutely clear who “the men of violence” are? Get it wrong and matters are made worse.

“It matters not one jot or tittle that the White House has ‘identified’ Hamas as a terrorist organization. They have legitimacy. Besides, millions outside the White House can point to Israel's much worse terror crimes.”

Mitchell is such an awesome peace-monger that he has become a visiting Professor at Britain's Leeds Metropolitan University's School of Applied Global Ethics, and the university is developing a new Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution bearing his name.

If Mitchell is so clued up you have to wonder why he took the job – a veritable poisoned chalice. And you’d think a person with his vast experience would stick to accepted rules of engagement for conflict resolution and peace-making. I'll mention just three:

• Talk directly with the people who are concerned or with whom there are concerns.
• Attack the issues, not the people with whom there is disagreement.
• No issue can be “off limits”.

There is no-one more concerned than Hamas. As the democratically elected authority they are the principle stakeholder on the Palestinian side. Obviously they must be allowed to represent the Palestinian case. It matters not one jot or tittle that the White House has "identified" Hamas as a terrorist organization. They have legitimacy. Besides, millions outside the White House can point to Israel's much worse terror crimes.

Mitchell, besides barring Hamas, bends even further to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's demands and has ruled there must be no pre-conditions. Which means that Israel’s criminal conduct such as settlement construction, dispossession, ethnic cleansing, the land and sea blockade of Gaza, the occupation, the strangulation of the economy and its taste for piracy and extra-judicial killing, and its trampling of human rights, including those of self-determination, are allowed to continue while the hapless Palestinians face the Israelis across the table.

And never mind that Netanyahu is permitted to enter these talks with his own pre-conditions, saying that the return of Palestinian refugees to the homes they were forced to flee, and the continuing occupation of East Jerusalem including the Old City, are not for discussion, and threatening to resume the (temporarily suspended) illegal settlement building.

If Mitchell is truly a person of integrity and a champion of “global ethics” how could he show such favour to one side?

Israel’s litany of ignored UN resolution

What, I wonder, will he be saying to the Israeli team about UN Resolution 181 of 1947, which declares that "the City of Jerusalem shall be established as a corpus separatum“ administered by the United Nations?

What will he say to them about Resolution 242 (1967) by the Security Council and therefore fully binding? This insists on:

1. withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
2. termination of all claims or states of belligerency, and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.

Resolution 242 also emphasizes the need for

1. letters&*guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area;
2. achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem;
3. guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every state in the area, through measures including the establishment of demilitarized zones.

Will Mitchell bang the table to demand long overdue action on Security Council Resolution 338 (1973), which called on the parties concerned to start immediate implementation of Security Council Resolution 242?

Security Council Resolution 446 (1979) leaves absolutely no wriggle room. It "determines that the policy and practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace... Calls once more upon Israel, as the occupying power, to abide scrupulously by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, to rescind its previous measures and to desist from taking any action which would result in changing the legal status and geographical nature and materially affecting the demographic composition of the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, and, in particular, not to transfer parts of its own civilian population into the occupied Arab territories."

It’s all there, Mr Mitchell, in black and white. The UN has set it out. The world is waiting for the UN to implement it.

Stand up, any suitable partners for peace and any genuine peace-brokers

Israeli foreign policy is driven by manifesto promises like:

• "The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state.”  
• “Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel.”  
• *The claim to a national and historic right to the Land of Israel “in its entirety” and the pledge to keep Jerusalem and the settlements.

Netanyahu’s belligerent coalition government probably won’t survive unless he uses all means to achieve these unlawful and hugely provocative aims and resists demands to give back Israel’s ill-gotten gains. A thief is clearly no partner for peace.

Nor is the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Mahmoud Abbas, who dances to America’s tune and whose authority is in question. Any agreement he makes will be open to challenge by his own people.

“Obama is US president courtesy of the pro-Israel lobby. He is like putty in their hands.”

Obama is US president courtesy of the pro-Israel lobby. He is like putty in their hands. And he’s so ill-informed that he told the American Irael Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) it's OK for Israel to grab the hallowed City of Jerusalem and turn it into the permanent headquarters of the Zionist regime. Jerusalem "will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided", he blurted. When it dawned on him that he’d made a monumental blunder he tried to wriggle out: "Well, obviously, it's going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations... And I think that it is smart for us to work through a system in which everybody has access to the extraordinary religious sites in Old Jerusalem, but that Israel has a legitimate claim on that city."

A legitimate claim? Who says? And negotiate what? Has the president forgotten that the UN decided long ago that Jerusalem, along with Bethlehem, was to become an international zone?

And how can it be right for weak, unarmed and impoverished Palestinians to have to negotiate with a brutal, lawless military regime for their universal rights and freedoms, which are supposed to be guaranteed by the international community but have been denied them for decades?

Obama is clearly no genuine peace-broker.

And George Mitchell, despite his awesome reputation elsewhere, has so far failed in the Holy Land. He and his boss are getting desperate. Staging farcical, lopsided talks in order to achieve a fake, temporary peace will no doubt save a few worthless political skins for the timebeing. But they benefit no-one else. And they don’t do an envoy of Mitchell’s calibre any credit. He would be better employed banging heads together at the United Nations, to finish the unfinished business there and ensure all the resolutions they have passed and all the other solemn declarations they have endorsed are implemented. No need for conflict resolution, judgment has already been handed down.

Then peace talks can begin, if genuine partners and an honest broker can be found.

It’s called justice, Mr Mitchell. There’ll be no real peace until justice is delivered.

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Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk

The Empire 645

Obama's Unpersuasive Iraq Speech

Read More: Iraq War , Obama Iraq , Obama Iraq Speech , Politics News

It's hard not to examine President Obama's speech on Iraq and the economy without experiencing a sinking feeling. Obama employed a number of nautical metaphors about sailing through turbulent seas and storms in his speech, but even he seemed a little queasy about it all. Nothing could have made clearer the extent to which he remains a hostage of the Bush era, both in domestic and foreign policy. His speech did not chart a path to the future but remained mired in the past.

Obama declared, "We have now been through nearly a decade of war. We have endured a long and painful recession. And sometimes in the midst of these storms, the future that we are trying to build for our nation -- a future of lasting peace and long-term prosperity may seem beyond our reach." But it is simply not the case that we have endured a long and painful recession. The truth is that America continues to endure it.

The same goes for Iraq. Despite the president's pretense that combat is over, or at least that the war is, or that something has ended (it's not really quite clear what), Iraq has no government. Were the remaining 50,000 American troops to exit, Iraq would almost surely be engulfed by civil war, which could happen anyway. Meanwhile, the GOP is pretending as though everything is hunky-dory in Iraq and George W. Bush should get all the credit.

Perhaps Obama will recover his footing in the coming weeks and go on the offensive. But for the moment, he remains an easy target for the GOP. A sagging economy and endless war abroad are unlikely to revive America's or his fortunes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-heilbrunn/obamas-unpersuasive-iraq_b_701383.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=090110&utm_medium=email&utm_content=FeatureTitle

The Empire 644

After Saddam, America's Next Fake Enemy: Deficits

Tuesday 31 August 2010

by: Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.

(Photo: The New York Times)

Were Americans misled into the Iraq war? Yes.

But Karl Rove, who served as senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, argued in the Wall Street Journal in July that his "biggest mistake" was not fighting back in 2004 when the story began to spread that the Bush administration had lied to Americans during the run-up to the Iraq war.

"That was wrong and my mistake: I should have insisted to the president that this was a dagger aimed at his administration's heart," he wrote. His main evidence that there was no deception? The fact that a governmental commission on the war found no wrongdoing. But that investigation took place when Mr. Bush was riding high, and intelligence officials feared retaliation if they spoke out.

So what would a real investigation look like? The government inquiry on the Iraq war currently taking place in Britain. Following months of evidence collection and interviews, the inquiry has shown that Mr. Bush and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, wanted a war, exaggerated intelligence to get it, and disregarded warnings that the war would help, not hurt, Al Qaeda.

And off we all went.

Lately, the hysteria over deficits in the United States has definitely brought back memories of that march to war. In a recent opinion piece about the current enthusiasm for fiscal austerity, Chris Hayes, Washington editor for The Nation, wrote: "From one day to the next, what was once accepted by the establishment as tolerable — Saddam Hussein — became intolerable, a crisis of such pressing urgency that 'serious people' were required to present their ideas about how to deal with it."

Let Truthout send our best stories to your inbox every day, for free.

If the Iraq parallel is any guide, and deficits become intolerable for everyone, years from now, when the American economy is mired in a deflationary trap — long after most people will have conceded that austerity was a mistake — only those who went along with the mistake will be considered "serious," while those who argued strenuously against a disastrous course of action will still be considered flaky and unreliable.

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BACKSTORY: Iraq's Uncertain Future

Seven years after the American-led invasion of Iraq, combat operations are scheduled to officially end on Aug. 31, and the bulk of responsibility for the nation's security is back in the hands of Iraqis. The test of independence will require that Iraqi leaders stabilize the economy.

The nation relies on oil production for most of its income, and is currently producing about 2.4 million barrels a day. On Aug. 23, Abdul Mahdy al-Ameedi, deputy director general at Iraq's Petroleum Contracts and Licensing Directorate, told Bloomberg News that the nation expects to increase daily crude production by about 13 percent in 2011. He also said Iraq intends to develop its natural-gas reserves next year.

These goals will be difficult to achieve since the Iraqi leadership is mired in partisan bickering and ideological divisions — five months after parliamentary elections, the different factions have yet to form a coalition government and select a prime minister. Even if leaders were to agree on how the country should be run, doing so would be no easy feat, given ongoing sectarian violence, rampant unemployment and the country's ravaged infrastructure.

But of the many problems facing government and business, most Iraqis would cite as the most crucial the rebuilding of the power grid. As it stands, Iraqis suffer through daily blackouts and are provided with barely enough power to provide for basic services, let alone new manufacturing or business ventures. Limited access to electrical power has become a decisive issue for Iraqi voters enraged by years of mismanagement and corruption.

Nevertheless, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said in an Aug. 23 speech that while combat troops from Iraq have been pulled out, the Obama administration would "continue to help strengthen its economic and political institutions, foster new ties of trade and commerce and support Iraq's return to its rightful place in the region."

© 2010 The New York Times Company

Truthout has licensed this content. It may not be reproduced by any other source and is not covered by our Creative Commons license.

Paul Krugman joined The New York Times in 1999 as a columnist on the Op-Ed page and continues as a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University. He was awarded the Nobel in economic science in 2008.

Mr Krugman is the author or editor of 20 books and more than 200 papers in professional journals and edited volumes, including "The Return of Depression Economics" (2008) and "The Conscience of a Liberal" (2007).

http://www.truth-out.org/after-saddam-americas-next-fake-enemy-deficits62818

Amnesty International

Stop supporting Amnesty International as long as they support the Israeli occupation of the Westbank.
Steun Amnesty Nederland en boek een hotel in een Israëlische nederzetting

"Van elke reservering via deze site ontvangt Amnesty International van BOOKINGS de helft van de commissie." (Amnesty Nederland)

Westelijke Jordaanoever ligt "in Israël"

U kunt bijvoorbeeld een hotel boeken in drie nederzettingen op de bezette Westelijke Jordaanoever, aan de Dode Zee, die daar eind jaren '70 gebouwd zijn. Maar dat komt u niet te weten, want Bookings stelt dat die "in Israël" liggen. B'Tselem, het Israëlische centrum voor mensenrechten in de Palestijnse gebieden, schrijft daar o.a. over:

"The Dead Sea area is known as a unique nature and vacation site. The northeastern section of the Dead Sea lies inside the West Bank . However, the Dead Sea is detached from the rest of the West Bank, including from the Jordan Valley , and the IDF prohibits Palestinians from traveling there. The Dead Sea is also an economic resource of major importance for industry and tourism, but the restrictions imposed by Israel have denied Palestinians the opportunity to utilize this resource." (B'Tselem)

De Israëlische vredesbeweging Peace Now, die gegevens over nederzettingen en outposts archiveert en actualiseert, schrijft:

"In addition, for some years now the IDF has barred all Palestinian access to the Dead Sea. A checkpoint south of Jericho (or north of the  Dead Sea) prevents any Palestinian vehicle from entering the area. According to testimonies of soldiers who served at this checkpoint, the checkpoint was established in response to pressure from Israeli settlers in the area who are trying to develop resort sites along the shore of the Dead Sea. These settlers fear that Israelis will be reluctant to come to their resorts due to the presence of Palestinians in the area. The Dead Sea has traditionally been a popular site for Palestinian visitors and vacationers from throughout the West Bank, especially since the early 1990s, when Israel began to bar Palestinian entry into Israel, thus closing off West Bankers' access to the Mediterranean. Now, some observers have concluded that in order to permit the settlers to develop resorts in the area, the entire Dead Sea has been made inaccessible to Palestinians." (Peace Now)

Natuurlijk hebben Israëli's, de bezetter, vrij toegang tot waar ze maar willen.

"Israeli policies in the area, historically and through the present day, would appear to seek to minimize the number of Palestinians in the area, while maximizing Israeli control over the land and Israeli control over the transportation routes."

Boekt u in een van deze hotels, dan steunt u de economie van de nederzettingen, de uitbreiding ervan, het Apartheidsregime, en de etnische zuivering van de regio.

Syriërs werden verdreven uit de Golanhoogten - foto's uit 1967

Zes hotels in de Golanhoogten "in Israël"

Israël heeft tijdens de verovering 131.000 inwoners verjaagd. De 5% Druzen die overbleven mochten blijven, uit angst voor kritiek van Israëlische Druzen. Israël heeft twee steden verwoest, 130 dorpen en 112 landbouwbedrijven. De Syrische bewoners werden in de loop der tijd door Israël vooral van hun water beroofd, terwijl de joodse nederzettingen ongelimiteerd toegang tot water kregen. De Syrische boeren hebben toen grote metalen watertanks neergezet, maar die werden midden jaren tachtig door de Israëli's geconfiskeerd of vernietigd. Syrische boeren die zelfs alleen maar regenwater opvingen kregen een hoge boete, en al het water in de Golan werd tot 'eigendom van Israël' uitgeroepen. Vrijwel alle 'Steun Amnesty hotels' zijn voorzien van zwembad.

De regionale hoofdstad van de Golanhoogten Quneitra werd in 1974 door Israël compleet verwoest, vlak voor hun vertrek. Momenteel ligt het in een gedemilitariseerde zone van de VN.

Na de verovering in 1967 werden in 1981 de Syrische Golanhoogten door Israël geannexeerd en gekoloniseerd. De annexatie werd meteen door de internationale gemeenschap veroordeeld met Resolutie nr. 497 van de VN Veiligheidsraad. Het veroordeelt de annexatie en eist de onmiddellijke terugtrekking van Israël. Deze resolutie werd unaniem aangenomen.

In de bezette Syrische Golanhoogten heeft u bij Amnesty Nederland een royale keuze. De zes hotellocaties/nederzettingen zijn: Moshav Ramot, Shaal, Neve Ativ, Kibbutz Afik, Nimrod, *Majdal Shams. Ook deze bestemmingen liggen volgens Bookings allemaal "in Israël".

Israël streeft ernaar om de bezetting van de Golanhoogten te normaliseren door economische stimulering van de nederzettingen. Daarom promoot het de regio als een belangrijke toeristische besteming. Amnesty Nederland helpt daarin momenteel een handje mee.

Inmiddels is het aantal Syrische vluchtelingen inclusief hun nakomelingen opgelopen tot een half miljoen displaced persons. Zij hebben nog steeds geen recht op terugkeer. En als het aan de 'Steun Amnesty hotels' ligt, zullen ze dat ook nooit en te nimmer krijgen. Elkaar bezoeken mag niet: aan de grens spelen zich taferelen die doen denken aan familieleden die door de Berlijnse Muur gescheiden werden.

De vraag is nu of we de uitspraken van Amnesty Nederland over de bezette gebieden nog wel serieus moeten nemen. Om voor zichzelf geld te genereren blijkt het respect voor de mensenrechten voor Amnesty Nederland ineens geen obstakel te zijn.

Lees ook:
» Huffington Post: Disaster Tourism at the Edge of the Golan Heights
» BBC News: Golan Druze celebrate across barbed wire
» The Disinherited: Syria’s 130,000 Golan Height Refugees

Many of the approximately 500,000 Syrians displaced from the Golan by the Israelis return on Independence Day for a bittersweet glimpse of their former home. "I thought I would be back in 10 days," said As’ad Abu Zaid, 55, a history teacher who fled his home in Majdel Shams* at the outbreak of the war in 1967 and has been unable to return ever since. "Even when my two brothers and my father died, I couldn’t go to their funerals." Now, he borrows a pair of binoculars and spots some of his surviving family members. "Just a few meters away and I haven’t met them for 40 years." [Andrew Lee Butters: Postcard from the Golan: Picnic in a Once (and Future?) War Zone]

http://deisraellobby.blogspot.com/2010/09/steun-amnesty-nederland-en-boek-een.html

The Empire 643

Federal Agents Open Inquiry Into Order Authorizing NOPD Cops to Shoot Looters

Thursday 26 August 2010

by: Robin Fields  |  ProPublica | Report

(Photo: Ammar Abd Rabbo; Edited: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

Federal agents are looking into allegations that high-ranking New Orleans police commanders gave orders after Hurricane Katrina authorizing officers to shoot looters, our partners at the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported today.

Agents have asked for information from New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Ronal Serpas and are asking to interview officers with direct knowledge of the orders, the Times-Picayune says.

The inquiry comes in response to reports by the Times-Picayune, ProPublica and PBS Frontline that described the orders as part of a broader examination of police conduct and shootings of civilians in the days after the storm.

The new inquiry adds to the troubles facing the NOPD, which is already the subject of at least nine ongoing federal investigations. Since February, federal prosecutors have charged 16 current and former cops with crimes allegedly committed after Katrina hurtled the city into chaos. So far, five have pleaded guilty.

We reported Wednesday that several current and former officers recalled a meeting several days after the hurricane at which Warren Riley, then the NOPD's second in command, instructed them and other officers to "take the city back” and “shoot looters."

Riley denied telling officers they could shoot looters. "I didn't say anything like that," he said in an interview for the Frontline documentary, “Law & Disorder," broadcast last night. "I heard rumors that someone else said that. But I certainly didn't say that, no."

The report published Wednesday also said a police captain, James Scott, was captured on videotape by another member of the force telling cops at a morning roll call, “We have authority by martial law to shoot looters.”

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Scott, now captain of the department’s special operations division, said he did not recall the incident. His lawyer said that that the entirety of the videotape places Scott’s remark in a different context, but he would not disclose what else Scott said.

It's not clear how broadly the orders concerning looters were communicated, or if they were heard by any of the officers involved inshooting 11 civilians in the days after Katrina.

Some officers told us they refused to pass them on or carry them out. Others say they saw the instructions as a fundamental change in the standards for using deadly force, which allow police to shoot only to protect themselves or others from what appears to be an imminent physical threat. 

http://www.truth-out.org/federal-agents-open-inquiry-into-order-authorizing-nopd-cops-shoot-looters62795

Jewish Peace Activists 5

NOTE TO OUR SUPPORTERS
We do not usually send out articles that are not directly focused or have an
impact on Palestine, but with the controversy raging around the proposed
Islamic community centre in New York and the hate campaign that has sprung
from it, Rabbi Bruce Warshal’s words of wisdom seemed most appropriate to
convey far and wide.  He says that right-wing Jews  “think that they are
doing Israel a favour by painting Islam as a terrorist religion” because
then Israel does not need to negotiate with the Palestinians, and he explains
that the tool they are using is the concept of collective guilt.  He is
outraged that ADL Director Abe Foxman dared to use the Holocaust to justify
prejudice when he said “Survivors of the Holocaust are entitled to feelings
that are irrational.”  And he refers to Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria response
“Does Foxman believe that bigotry is OK if people think they’re victims?
Does the anguish of Palestinians, then, entitle them to be anti-Semitic?”
Like Rabbi Warshal, we should all shudder to think where we are headed.

I’d like also to remind our supporters to please make a habit of accessing
our website for all the latest news, articles and events.  It is updated
every single day to bring you all the developments from a variety of
sources, as well as articles that have been selected to provide an
informative overview of the various issues on Israel/Palestine.  To minimise
mail outs, we are relying on you to join the hundreds of others around the
world who are finding that our website is one of only a very few that gives a
wealth of current information on one site and who are accessing it every day. 
http://www.australiansforpalestine.com
Sonja Karkar
Editor
Australians for Palestine
Shame on America, Jews and the ADL
by Rabbi Bruce Warshal
The Florida Jewish Journal
30 August 2010

To begin, the mosque controversy does not involve a mosque.  It is planned
as a 13-story community center encompassing a swimming pool, 500-seat
performing arts center, gym,  culinary school, restaurant and, yes, a prayer
space for Muslims, which already exists in the current building.  A formal
mosque would forbid eating or the playing of music on the premises. I guess
that we are now at the point in America where Jews can have our JCC’s and
Christians their YMCA’s, but Muslims are not wanted.

There is also the controversy over the proposed name, Cordoba House.  The
hate-mongers have described this as a reference to Muslim designs to attack
western culture, hearkening back to the Muslim-Christian wars of domination
in medieval Spain.  The name was chosen for precisely the opposite reason.
In the tenth century Cordoba was the center of the most liberal and
sophisticated Caliphate in the Islamic world.  All religions were not merely
tolerated but respected.

The caliph, Abd al-Rahman III, had a Jew as his foreign minister and a Greek
bishop in his diplomatic corps.  He also had a library of 400,000 volumes at
a time when the largest library in Christian Europe numbered merely 400
manuscripts.  There were also 70 other smaller libraries in Cordoba. The
very reference to Cordoba reflects the sophistication and liberality of the
Muslims behind this project.  They have changed the name of the center to
the address of the building, Park 51, to deflect criticism.  This was
unfortunate, since nothing will quiet a hate-monger.

Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam behind the proposed community center, has been
attacked as an Islamic terrorist, even though he is a practitioner of Sufi
Islam, which reaches out to all other religions as manifestations of the
Divine.  My God, the conservative Bush administration utilized Rauf as part
of an outreach to the Muslim world.  You can bet your life that he was
thoroughly vetted by our government.  He is currently being used by the
Clinton State Department as well in the same capacity.  Fareed Zakaria of
Newsweek and CNN succinctly put it, “His vision of Islam is bin Laden’s
nightmare.”

And what is Rauf’s sin?  He will build a Muslim community center two blocks
away from Ground Zero, variously described as a “hallowed battlefield,”
“holy ground,” and a “war memorial.”  Even President Obama in his defense of
religious freedom commented that, “Ground zero is, indeed, hallowed ground.”
I beg to differ.

If Ground Zero is holy ground, then the railroad station in Madrid, the
Underground in London, the federal building in Oklahoma City, the Pentagon
(where there is presently a prayer space for Muslims – yes, patriotic,
religious Muslim Americans work at the Pentagon) and every other physical
location that has been the object of terrorism is holy ground.  If Ground
Zero is holy space why plan for it to be developed with office buildings (in
which the object will be to amass money – obviously a holy pursuit), a
shopping center (in which consumer goods will be peddled to continue to
gorge the American appetite for material possessions), and with a theater
for modern dance (a project to which I personally look forward as a devotee
of the Joyce, the modern dance Mecca of New York)?  I’m sorry, but someone
has to tell America that this designation of holy space is merely part of a
mass hysteria that really scares me.

The question which must be asked is why this hysteria?  The impetus comes
from a triumvirate of right-wing Christians, Jews and politicians.
Fundamentalist Christians are still fighting the crusades, still vying to
convert the world to their truths.  Islam is the fastest growing religion in
the world, to the distress of these Christian proselytizers.  What better
way to win this battle than to brand all Muslims as terrorists?

Right-wing Jews think that they are doing Israel a favor by painting Islam
as a terrorist religion thereby proving that Israel need not negotiate with
the Palestinians.  The idea is to project the concept that we are civilized
and they are not.  This theme is picked up in the right-wing press of
Israel.  Commenting on the New York proposed “mosque,” a columnist in the
Jerusalem Post declares that “Islamism is a modern political tendency which
arose in a spirit of fraternal harmony with the fascists of Europe in the
1930’s and ‘40’s.”  Ground Zero isn’t Israel’s “holy ground.”  Why would he
be involved with this discussion?  Simply because right-wing Jews in Israel
as well as the United States believe that demonizing the religion of 1.3
billion people is good for Israel.  God help us.

Right-wing politicians join the fray.  On Fox News Newt Gingrich compares a
mosque at Ground Zero to Nazis protesting at the United States Holocaust
Memorial.   The Democrats are cowed by the American outpouring of hate and
even Harry Reid voices disapproval of the Park 51 site.  It’s a perfect
storm of hate.

Periodically we go through this in America.  The anti-Catholic No-Nothing
party ran ex-President Millard Fillmore in the presidential election of 1856
and garnered 27 percent of the votes.  We deported over 10,000 people during
the First World War because they opposed our entry into that war and we
incarcerated loyal Japanese Americans during the Second World War.  Now
during this “war on terror” I shudder to think where we are headed.

The tool used in this hate campaign is the concept of collective guilt.
Based on that, all Jews are traitors since Ethel and Julius Rosenberg sold
out this country.  All Christians are terrorists since Timothy McVeigh
attacked the federal building in Oklahoma City.  Neither are all Muslims
traitors nor terrorists.  Islam is not monolithic.  Its forms are as varied
as Judaism or Christianity.  I do not practice Judaism the same as a Satmar
Hasidic Jew.  A Catholic does not practice Christianity the same as a
Jehovah Witness.  Imam Rauf does not share the same Islamic beliefs as bin
Laden.

Of all people Jews should beware of collective guilt since we have suffered
from it for millennia.  Yet the organization that started this hysteria is
headed by a right-wing Jewish supporter of Israel by the name of Pam Geller.
She is quoted in the mainstream media (including the Jewish Journal) as if
she is a legitimate political voice.  Yet on her blog, Atlas Shrugs, she has
declared that “Obama is the illegitimate son of Malcom X.”  She has written
that we have “an American-hater for president.”  She has proposed that
devout Muslims should be prohibited from military service.  She asks, “Would
Patton have recruited Nazis into his army?”  To all of the rabbis quoted in
the Jewish Journal urging that the “mosque” be moved, know who is pulling
your strings.

Finally, to the role of the Anti-Defamation League and its director, Abe
Foxman.  The world was literally “shocked,” that’s the word used by the
Associated Press, by ADL’s call for the mosque to be moved.  Fareed Zakaria
called it a “bizarre decision.”  Foxman, a Holocaust survivor, said,
“Survivors of the Holocaust are entitled to feelings that are irrational.”
Referring to loved ones of the September 11 victims, he continued: “Their
anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as
irrational or bigoted.”

How dare Foxman use the Holocaust to justify prejudice.  He does blasphemy
to the memory of Jews and other oppressed minorities whose lives were
sacrificed on the altar of bigotry.   Zakaria responds: “Does Foxman believe
that bigotry is OK if people think they’re victims?  Does the anguish of
Palestinians, then, entitle them to be anti-Semitic?”

Five years ago the ADL honored Zakaria with the Hubert H. Humphrey First
Amendment Freedoms Prize.  Incensed over ADL’s succumbing to bigotry, he has
returned the award with the $10,000 honorarium that came with it.

The last word was recently written by Daniel Luban, a doctoral student at
the University of Chicago, in Tablet Magazine: “While activists like Pam
Geller have led the anti-mosque campaign and the broader demonization of
Muslims that has accompanied it, leaders like Abe Foxman have acquiesced in
it.  In doing so they risk providing an ugly and ironic illustration of the
extent of Jewish assimilation in 21st-century America.  We know that Jews
can grow up to be senators and Supreme Court justices.  Let’s not also
discover that they can grow up to incite a pogrom.”

Rabbi Bruce Warshal is publisher emeritus of the Jewish Journal of South Florida.
He can be contacted at brucewarshal@comcast.net

Jewish Peace Activists 4

  [1]Neturei Karta International
                           Monday, August 30, 2010
   Rabbi Weiss Condemns recent statement of former Zionist so called "chief
                             rabbi" Ovadiah Yosef
  Anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews recoiled in disgust at the latest outburst of
  hate speech from Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, a former Sephardic so called "chief
  rabbi" of the illegitimate Zionist State of "Israel", in which he called
  the Palestinians "evil," and cursed them with death.

                             [2]Rabbi Yisroel Weiss
                             Rabbi Yisroel D. Weiss

  "The Torah commands Jews to live peacefully with their non-Jewish
  neighbors in all parts of the world. This sort of rhetoric is against the
  Almightya**s Torah, repugnant to say the least and dangerous," said Rabbi
  Yisroel Dovid Weiss, of Neturei Karta International.

  "This Rabbi and others like him do not and cannot represent Judaism or the
  Torah, just as the Zionist State of "Israel", which is a rebellion against
  the Almighty, cannot represent the Torah or world Jewry true to the
  Torah".

  "This "rabbi" and his audience are Sephardic Jews, Jews from Arab
  countries. If they only knew their own history, they would realize that
  Jews can and did live peacefully with Arabs, for many centuries. When Jews
  were persecuted, killed and expelled in Europe, the Arab countries
  provided a safe haven and welcomed Jews with open arms. In Palestine as
  well, Jews enjoyed this hospitality and Palestinians and Jews co-existed
  in harmony for many centuries. It was only Zionism, with its theft and
  oppression of the Palestinian people, that put an end to this
  co-existence".

  "We are required by the Almighty, as stated in His Torah, to express our
  gratitude and reciprocate for good bestowed upon us.  How ironic, how
  tragic and evil this is, that to expressly these Arab countries and these
  Arab people, the opposite is being done and they are accused of being our
  enemies".

  "According to the Torah, Jews are in exile and are forbidden to have a
  state of their own. Likewise we are forbidden to kill, steal and oppress
  etc. another people. Therefore, as long as the Zionist state continues to
  exist, we believe that there is no way true peace can be achieved. The
  Holy Land must be returned to its rightful owners, the Palestinians".

  "We pray for the speedy and peaceful dismantlement of the Zionist State of
  Israel. At that time we will once again be able to truly co-exist in peace
  and harmony, as was our long history. And at that time we will be able to
  fulfill the Torah's "Mitzvah" commandment, of remembering and repaying the
  good done to us".

  "May we merit to see this soon in our days".

  "Ultimately, may we merit to see the revelation of the glory of the
  Almighty, when all humankind will serve the Almighty in harmony. Amen".



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