Hawks Steering Debate on How to Take On Iran
- Details
- Written by ERIC LICHTBLAU and MARK LANDLER ERIC LICHTBLAU and MARK LANDLER
- Published: 10 April 2012 10 April 2012
- Hits: 4442 4442
WASHINGTON — Even before President Obama declared this month that “I have Israel’s back” in its escalating confrontation with Iran, pro-Israel figures like the evangelical Christian leader Gary L. Bauer and the conservative commentator William Kristol were pushing for more.
In a slickly produced, 30-minute video, the group that the two men lead, the Emergency Committee for Israel, mocked Mr. Obama’s “unshakable commitment to Israel’s security” and attacked his record on Iran as weak. “I’ll be brutally honest: I don’t trust the president on Israel,” Mr. Bauer, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, said in an interview. “I think his record on Israel is abysmal.”
With Israeli leaders warning of an existential threat from Iran and openly discussing the possibility of attacking its nuclear facilities, pro-Israel groups on all sides have mobilized to make their views known to the Obama administration and to Congress. But it is the most hawkish voices, like the Emergency Committee’s, that have dominated the debate, and, in the view of some critics, pushed the United States closer to taking military action against Iran and another war in the Middle East.
“It’s not about Israel,” said Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, the House majority leader and a key Congressional ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
“It’s about the U.S.,” Mr. Cantor said in an interview. “It’s about our interests in the region. There have been a lot of conflicting messages coming out of the White House.”
Among those advocating a more aggressive approach toward Iran are prominent Republicans in Congress, like Mr. Cantor and Senator John McCain of Arizona; the party’s presidential candidates; groups like the Emergency Committee and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac; the so-called “neocons” from the George W. Bush administration who were strong proponents of the war in Iraq; pro-Israel evangelical Christians like Mr. Bauer, who is also active in the group Christians United for Israel; and many Democrats.
[Read more on the NY Times website . . .]
10 Reasons Why the Israel Lobby AIPAC is So Dangerous
- Details
- Written by Medea Benjamin Medea Benjamin
- Published: 10 April 2012 10 April 2012
- Hits: 6310 6310
10 Reasons Why the Israel Lobby AIPAC is So Dangerous
Medea Benjamin / February 28th, 2012 / Dissident Voice
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is one of the most powerful lobby organizations in the country. AIPAC’s clout helps fuel a never-ending cycle of violence in the Middle East.
Here are ten reasons why AIPAC is so dangerous.
1. AIPAC is lobbying Congress to promote a military confrontation with Iran. AIPAC – like the Israeli government – is demanding that the U.S. attack Iran militarily to prevent Iran from having the technological capacity to produce nuclear weapons, even though U.S. officials say Iran isn’t trying to build a weapon (and even though Israel has hundreds of undeclared nuclear weapons). AIPAC has successfully lobbied the U.S. government to adopt crippling economic sanctions on Iran, including trying to cut off Iran’s oil exports, despite the fact that these sanctions raise the price of gas and threaten the U.S. economy.
2. AIPAC promotes Israeli policies that are in direct opposition to international law. These include the establishment of colonies (settlements) in the Occupied West Bank and the confiscation of Palestinian land in its construction of the 26-foot high concrete “separation barrier” running through the West Bank. The support of these illegal practices makes to impossible to achieve a solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict.
Read more: 10 Reasons Why the Israel Lobby AIPAC is So Dangerous
WHO PROFITS FROM THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION?
- Details
- Written by Peter Miller Peter Miller
- Published: 08 April 2012 08 April 2012
- Hits: 5450 5450
Israeli feminist scholar and co-founder of
Who Profits from the Occupation
DALIT BAUM
Lecture and Discussion
WHO PROFITS FROM THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION?
Lessons for the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
7:00 PM, Thursday, April 12, 2012 Room 296, Smith Memorial Student Union 1825 SW Broadway, Portland, Oregon Portland State University Campus
Sponsored by:
Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights (SUPER)
Dr. Dalit Baum is a co-founder of Who Profits from the Occupation <whoprofits.org>, an activist research initiative of the Coalition of Women for Peace in Israel. In just five years since its launching, Who Profits has become a vital resource for dozens of campaigns around the world, providing information about corporate complicity in the occupation of Palestine. Her presentations in Portland are co-sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace (Portland chapter), Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights (AUPHR), Lutherans for Justice in the Holy Land, Portland Peaceful Response Coalition, and others. Please call 503-888-7455 for more information.
Why Land Day still matters
- Details
- Written by Sam Bahour and Fida Jiryis Sam Bahour and Fida Jiryis
- Published: 30 March 2012 30 March 2012
- Hits: 5844 5844
Why Land Day still matters
Today, with no resolution in sight to the historic injustices inflicted upon them, Palestinians in Israel and elsewhere use this day to remember and redouble their efforts for emancipation.
Every year since 1976, on March 30, Palestinians around the world have commemorated Land Day. Though it may sound like an environmental celebration, Land Day marks a bloody day in Israel when security forces gunned down six Palestinians, as they protested Israeli expropriation of Arab-owned land in the country’s north to build Jewish-only settlements.
The Land Day victims were not Palestinians from the occupied territories, but citizens of the state, a group that now numbers over 1.6 million people, or 20.5 percent of the population. They are inferior citizens in a state that defines itself as Jewish and democratic, but in reality is neither.
On that dreadful day 36 years ago, in response to Israel’s announcement of a plan to expropriate thousands of acres of Palestinian land for “security and settlement purposes,” a general strike and marches were organized in Palestinian towns within Israel, from the Galilee to the Negev. The night before, in a last-ditch attempt to block the planned protests, the government imposed a curfew on the Palestinian villages of Sakhnin, Arraba, Deir Hanna, Tur’an, Tamra and Kabul, in the Western Galilee. The curfew failed; citizens took to the streets. Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as those in the refugee communities across the Middle East, joined in solidarity demonstrations.
In the ensuing confrontations with the Israeli army and police, six Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed, about 100 wounded, and hundreds arrested. The day lives on, fresh in the Palestinian memory, since today, as in 1976, the conflict is not limited to Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but is ever-present in the country’s treatment of its own Palestinian Arab citizens.
The month following the killings, an internal government paper, written by senior Interior Ministry official Yisrael Koenig, was leaked to the press. The document, which became known as the Koenig Memorandum, offered recommendations intended to “ensure the [country’s] long-term Jewish national interests.” These included “the possibility of diluting existing Arab population concentrations.”
Israel has been attempting to “dilute” its Palestinian population − both Muslims and Christians − ever since.
Thirty-six years later, the situation is as dire as ever. Racism and discrimination, in their rawest forms, are rampant in Israel, and are often more insidious than physical violence. Legislation aimed at ethnically cleansing Palestinians from Israel is part of public discourse. Israeli ministers do not shy away from promoting “population transfers” of Palestinian citizens − code for forced displacement.
Israel’s adamant demand that the Palestinians recognize it as a “Jewish state” leaves them in a situation of having to inherently negate their own existence and accept the situation of inferiority in their own land. Recent efforts in the Knesset to link loyalty to citizenship threaten to target organizations and individuals who express dissent and even the revocation of citizenship, a practice unheard of in other countries.
Budgets for health and education allocated by the Israeli government to the Arab sector are, per capita, a fraction of those allocated to Jewish locales. Although hundreds of new Jewish towns and settlements have been approved and built since Israel’s creation, the state continues to prevent Arab towns and villages from expanding, suffocating their inhabitants and forcing new generations to leave in search of homes. Palestinians living in Israel are heavily discriminated against in employment and wages.
The message is clear: Israel has failed, abysmally, in realizing its oft-cried role as “the only democracy in the Middle East,” with such discriminatory policies, and a culture of antagonism and neglect vis-a-vis a fifth of its citizens. The original Land Day marked a pivotal point in terms of how Palestinians in Israel − living victims of Israel’s violent establishment − viewed their relations with the state. Today, with no resolution in sight to the historic injustices inflicted upon them, Palestinians in Israel and elsewhere use this day to remember and redouble their efforts for emancipation.
The names of the six victims of Land Day are written on the front of a monument in the cemetery of Sakhnin, accompanied by the words: “They sacrificed themselves for us to live ... thus, they are alive − The martyrs of the day of defending the land, 30 March 1976.” On the back of the monument are the names of the two sculptors who created it: one Arab, one Jewish. Maybe it is this joint recognition of the tragedy of Palestinians that is required in Israel to get us beyond the chasm of denial.
For our part, as second-generation Palestinians born and raised outside Palestine, who have decided to return to live in this troubled land, we view Land Day as an ongoing wake-up call to Israeli Jews and Jewry worldwide to understand that land, freedom and equality are an inseparable package − the only one that can deliver a lasting peace to all involved.
Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American business development consultant from the Palestinian city of El Bireh in the West Bank. He blogs at www.epalestine.com. Fida Jiryis is a Palestinian writer from the Arab village of Fassuta in the Galilee.
Portland's Jewish Voice for Peace condemns latest Israeli aggression against Gaza's population
- Details
- Written by William Seaman and Ned Rosch William Seaman and Ned Rosch
- Published: 12 March 2012 12 March 2012
- Hits: 4916 4916
For immediate release.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Contact:
William Seaman - (503) 888-7455
Ned Rosch - (503) 381-7011
Jewish Voice for Peace - Portland, Oregon
Portland's Jewish Voice for Peace condemns latest Israeli aggression against
Gaza's population.
(Portland, Oregon) -- The local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace has called
for an immediate end to Israeli attacks on Gaza, and for the US government
to end its support for the operations which have killed at least eighteen
Palestinians in the last week. "We are heartsick and outraged at this
latest rampage by the Israeli military, raining down terror upon an already
traumatized and suffering people," said William Seaman, a member of the
Jewish Voice for Peace Portland chapter. "It is especially frightening
because the entirely predictable response to this latest Israeli aggression,
the firing of rockets by Gazan militants into civilian regions of Israel,
has clearly put Israeli civilians at risk, giving the lie to the Israeli
government's justifications for their attacks." The Israeli government has
stated that its attacks on Gaza targeted militants who, they allege, were
planning an attack inside Israel.
"Instead of ending the inhumane and brutal siege on Gaza that is directly
causing needless suffering among many innocent Palestinians, current Israeli
use of crushing violence against Palestinians in Gaza further escalates a
lethal situation," explained Ned Rosch, another member of the Portland JVP
chapter.
"The only language the Netanyahu government understands is that of violence
and terror; these latest actions further demonstrate his complete contempt
for the Obama Administration," said Seaman. "As US citizens who bankroll
the Israeli aggression, we have the moral obligation to cut off the pipeline
of US weapons and diplomatic cover that allow this aggression to continue."
Along with Amnesty International and other human rights organizations,
Jewish Voice for Peace supports a suspension of arms sales and any weapons
transfers to Israel based on the illegal use of those arms against
neighboring countries and within the Palestinian occupied territories.
"We are asking our fellow Oregonians to call their representatives in
Washington, DC, to express their strong condemnation of this latest
aggression by the state of Israel, and to demand an immediate cut-off of US
support," said Seaman. "The path to peace and security for Palestinians and
Israelis alike is through a just resolution to this conflict, and that means
an end to the Israeli occupation and its illegal blockade of Gaza."
To contact the local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, please call
503-888-7455 or (503) 381-7011.