Will to Truth

The Dershowitz letters! The truth!

In Praise of Smoking Guns: The Dershowitz File

When it was announced in early 2004 that I would publish a study rebutting Professor Alan Dershowitz’s The Case for Israel and documenting that extensive passages in his book had been plagiarized, Dershowitz and his attorneys entered into a protracted correspondence with my publisher (originally New Press and subsequently University of California Press) and other interested parties such as California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Dershowitz has emphatically maintained that he did not seek to suppress publication of my study Beyond Chutzpah, yet he has refused to release his correspondence – indeed, falsely claiming that he had released it. Several months ago a resourceful young man named Shankar Ramamoorthy obtained much of this correspondence via a California Public Records Act (CPRA) request to the University of California Press. Readers can now judge for themselves whether the famed civil libertarian Alan Dershowitz sought to suppress publication of Beyond Chutzpah. It will be noticed that Dershowitz was particularly exercised by the appendix in my study that conclusively demonstrates his plagiarism. For example, a June 1, 2005 letter from his lawyer to University of California Press reads:

An appendix is a vestige of some previously needed function in the body. There is no legitimate need for it in your book. The only reason for you to have an appendix is to sell books. But your appendix — if it is not removed before publication — is going to lead to painful surgery for the Press.

[Go to the above link to see a list of all the correspondence (29 items).]

01/11/07 - normanfinkelstein.com

For excerpts see below

Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps - by Naomi Wolf - 04/24/07 - Guardian

Livni Behind Closed Doors: Iranian Nuclear Arms Pose Little Threat to Israel - by Gidi Weitz and Na’ama Lanski - 10/25/07 - Haaretz

Attack Iran and you attack Russia - by Pepe Escobar - 10/25/07 - Asia Times

Turkey is a Thorn in the Side of a Cosy Western Consensus - by Slavoj Zizek - 10/23/07 - Guardian

U.S. and Israel Confront Middle East Realities - by Rachelle Marshall - Sept/Oct 2007 - WRMEA

For Those Interested in Facts: They Hate Our Foreign Policy - by Scott Horton - 05/19/07 - antiwar.com

Ex-Fighter Pilot Explains to Military Men Why It’s Their Duty to Disobey Orders for Genocide - by Robert M. Bowman - October 2007 - American Free Press

Who Restarted the Cold War? - by Patrick J. Buchanan - 10/19/07 - ICH

Caspian Summit a Triumph for Iran - by Kaveh L. Afrasiabi - 10/18/07 - Asia Times

The IAEA Escape Route - by Mohammad Kamalli - 10/09/07 - opendemocracy.net

Ron Paul’s Reading List for the Farsighted - by Scott Horton - 06/02/07 - antiwar.com

American Fundamentalisms - by James Carroll - 09/17/07 - TomDispatch

The Iranian Conundrum - by Peter Galbraith - 09/18/07 - TomDispatch

None Dare Call It Genocide - by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. - 09/18/07 - ICH

How the Bush Administration’s Iraqi Oil Grab Went Awry - by Dilip Hiro - 09/25/07 - TomDispatch

“Amen” for Israel, say Christian Zionists - 10/02/07 - Reuters

Marching to Stop the War - This Ban Won’t Stop Us - by Brian Eno - 10/08/07 - Counter Punch

Politicians use fear to justify wars, Paul says - by Margot Sanger-Katz - 10/08/07 - Concord Monitor

Noted psychologist Beth Shinn resigns from American Psychological Association - 10/07/07 - Psyche, Science, and Society

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Yara G. Chiara is a 17 year old Jewish girl living in Brazil. Her moving, thoughtful, intelligent letters in response to Alan Dershowitz and Charles Edgbaston’s continued propaganda war against Norman G. Finkelstein, demolishes them both. But read for yourself … . Below is the correspondence from and to Edgbaston (with opening email to Finkelstein). Go here for the letter to Dershowitz.

Yara G. Chiara Speaks!

From: yaraginzburg[at]gmail.com
To: NormanGF[at]hotmail.com
Subject: sorry & answer to vicious mail
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 01:53:02 -0300

Professor Finkelstein,

I got a letter whose authors try to discredit your work and defame you, but I answered it point by point, including the remarks they do about the “content” of your book in the end of their message (I nummerated this chunk of the e-mail in order to make it more clear). There’s some irony in it, especially in the beginning where I play their game to see what’s the result; if you think it can be helpful to you and won’t harm your work, feel free to post it on the website, as well as their message, which is just below mine. The answer, sorry, is lenghty - I hope you won’t sleep as you go through it. (laughs) As a matter of fact, my mails are so boring and stupid - no one could expect anything different from an idiotic, dumb and mentally handicapped 17 year old - that I shouldn’t keep sending them to you. I just sent you this one because it concerns you in some way. It’s a message which is probably being spread throughout the web. Sorry for writing you once again. I have to learn stop doing this and respect both your time and your patience.

Best regards and I wish you good,

Yara G. Chiara.

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Yara G. Chiara is a 17 year old Jewish girl living in Brazil. Her moving, thoughtful, intelligent letters in response to Alan Dershowitz and Charles Edgbaston’s continued propaganda war against Norman G. Finkelstein, demolishes them both. But read for yourself … . Below is the letter to Dershowitz. Go here for the correspondence from and to Edgbaston.

Why my hope in humanity never wavers: A most remarkable seventeen year old writes Professor Dershowitz

From: Yara G. Chiara
To: dersh[at]law.harvard.edu
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 9:58 PM
Subject: Dear Professor Dershowitz

Dear Professor Dershowitz,

Site Map How are you? I hope you’re doing fine. :))) Let me first introduce myself: I’m a 17 years old Jewish girl and have been living in Brazil for about 10 years now. I was born to a Jewish immigrant family and from early on I had to learn to survive in a strange, sometimes scaring environment which included not only the country where I was brought to, but even my own family: at first, I couldn’t really relate to anyone in my family because they were all people who came from all sorts of different backgrounds. Having to speak German, Yiddish, Hebrew, Italian and French - and then Portuguese - from very early on was a heavy price I had to pay at that time as a result of a real, not staged, problem to craft my identity and avoid the sense of alienation, distance, strangeness and otherness which had already taken hold of me. I simply didn’t know what the hell I was, and I had to struggle from early on with very serious brain-related diseases which harm until this very day my cognitive skills most of the time despite all the dreadful surgeries and treatments I’ve been through. My family parted ways - I won’t go into the details - and I ended up living alone in a tiny apartment with my 3 years old little daughter. She’s actually daughter of my mother’s sister and her parents both died and I’ve been taking care of her since she arrived here. She takes me for her mother and calls me “mom”, not because she came out of me, but because I got inside her and she got inside me. She’s actually a pearl, not a daughter: too smart, too cute, too sweet. We live in a very poor condition, as you could expect: I work as a janitor at the local university (a job I still am able to do) and engage in various humanitarian activities when I’m not studying to make it to the University and graduate in Physics. That’s my dream.

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The Sadism of the Israeli Occupation

The Guardian reports on a building scandal in Israel over the extreme brutality of its occupation of the Palestinians in the West Bank. Excerpt:

‘ According to Yishai Karin: ‘At one point or another of their service, the majority of the interviewees enjoyed violence. They enjoyed the violence because it broke the routine and they liked the destruction and the chaos. They also enjoyed the feeling of power in the violence and the sense of danger.’ In the words of one soldier: ‘The truth? When there is chaos, I like it. That’s when I enjoy it. It’s like a drug. If I don’t go into Rafah, and if there isn’t some kind of riot once in some weeks, I go nuts.’ . . . One described beating women. ‘With women I have no problem. With women, one threw a clog at me and I kicked her here [pointing to the crotch], I broke everything there. She can’t have children. Next time she won’t throw clogs at me. When one of them [a woman] spat at me, I gave her the rifle butt in the face. She doesn’t have what to spit with any more.’ ‘

The idea that these sorts of actions derive from ‘lack of training’ is absurd. They derive from hatred and from being able to act with impunity. They are a burden of the strong who have the opportunity to abuse the weak.

The US political elite and media that conceals the brutality of the Israeli occupation for sectional political gains are accomplices to this sadism, and their silence endangers the security of the United States. When we cannot understand why Arab audiences, who are perfectly aware of what the Israeli army has been doing to Palestinians for decades, are outraged, it leads us into policy mistakes in dealing with the Middle East. No one in the US media ever talks about Zionofascism, and the campus groups who yoke the word ‘fascism’ to other religions and peoples are most often trying to divert attention from their own authoritarianism and approval of brutality.

by Juan Cole - 10/21/07

‘Failure Risks Devastating Consequences’

The following letter on the Middle East peace conference scheduled for Annapolis, Maryland, in late November, was sent by its signers on October 10 to President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The statement is a joint initiative of the US/Middle East Project, Inc. (General Brent Scowcroft, chairman, International Board, and Henry Siegman, president), the International Crisis Group (Gareth Evans, president), and the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program (Steven Clemons, director).

Volume 54, Number 17 · November 8, 2007 | The New York Review of Books
By Zbigniew Brzezinski, Lee Hamilton, Carla Hills, Nancy Kassebaum-Baker, Thomas R. Pickering, Brent Scowcroft et al.

The Israeli-Palestinian peace conference announced by President Bush and scheduled for November presents a genuine opportunity for progress toward a two-state solution. The Middle East remains mired in its worst crisis in years, and a positive outcome of the conference could play a critical role in stemming the rising tide of instability and violence. Because failure risks devastating consequences in the region and beyond, it is critically important that the conference succeed.

Bearing in mind the lessons of the last attempt at Camp David seven years ago at dealing with the fundamental political issues that divide the two sides, we believe that in order to be successful, the outcome of the conference must be substantive, inclusive, and relevant to the daily lives of Israelis and Palestinians.

The international conference should deal with the substance of a permanent peace: Because a comprehensive peace accord is unattainable by November, the conference should focus on the endgame and endorse the contours of a permanent peace, which in turn should be enshrined in a Security Council resolution. Israeli and Palestinian leaders should strive to reach such an agreement. If they cannot, the Quartet (US, EU, Russia, and UN Secretary General)—under whose aegis the conference ought to be held— should put forward its own outline, based on UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the Clinton parameters of 2000, the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, and the 2003 Road Map. It should reflect the following:

* Two states, based on the lines of June 4, 1967, with minor, reciprocal, and agreed-upon modifications as expressed in a 1:1 land swap;
* Jerusalem as home to two capitals, with Jewish neighborhoods falling under Israeli sovereignty and Arab neighborhoods under Palestinian sovereignty;
* Special arrangements for the Old City, providing each side control of its respective holy places and unimpeded access by each community to them;
* A solution to the refugee problem that is consistent with the two-state solution, addresses the Palestinian refugees’ deep sense of injustice, as well as provides them with meaningful financial compensation and resettlement assistance;
* Security mechanisms that address Israeli concerns while respecting Palestinian sovereignty.

The conference should not be a one-time affair. It should set in motion credible and sustained permanent status negotiations under international supervision and with a timetable for their completion, so that both a two-state solution and the Arab Peace Initiative’s full potential (normal, peaceful relations between Israel and all Arab states) can be realized.

The international conference should be inclusive:

* In order to enhance Israel’s confidence in the process, Arab states that currently do not enjoy diplomatic relations with Israel should attend the conference.
* We commend the administration for its decision to invite Syria to the conference; it should be followed by genuine engagement. A breakthrough on this track could profoundly alter the regional landscape. At a minimum, the conference should launch Israeli-Syrian talks under international auspices.
* As to Hamas, we believe that a genuine dialogue with the organization is far preferable to its isolation; it could be conducted, for example, by the UN and Quartet Middle East envoys. Promoting a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza would be a good starting point.

The international conference should produce results relevant to the daily lives of Israelis and Palestinians: Too often in the past, progress has been stymied by the gap between lofty political statements and dire realities on the ground. The conference therefore should also result in agreement on concrete steps to improve living conditions and security, including a mutual and comprehensive cease-fire in the West Bank and Gaza, an exchange of prisoners, prevention of weapons smuggling, cracking down on militias, greater Palestinian freedom of movement, the removal of unjustified checkpoints, dismantling of Israeli outposts, and other tangible measures to accelerate the process of ending the occupation.

It is of utmost importance, if the conference is to have any credibility, that it coincide with a freeze in Israeli settlement expansion. It is impossible to conduct a serious discussion on ending the occupation while settlement expansion proceeds apace. Efforts also should focus on alleviating the situation in Gaza and allowing the resumption of its economic life.

These three elements are closely interconnected; one cannot occur in the ab sence of the others. Unless the conference yields substantive results on permanent status, neither side will have the motivation or public support to take difficult steps on the ground. If Syria or Hamas is ostracized, prospects that they will play a spoiler role increase dramatically. This could take the shape of escalating violence from the West Bank or from Gaza, either of which would overwhelm any political achievement, increase the political cost of compromises for both sides, and negate Israel’s willingness or capacity to relax security restrictions. By the same token, a comprehensive cease-fire or prisoner exchange is not possible without Hamas’s cooperation. And unless both sides see concrete improvements in their lives, political agreements are likely to be dismissed as mere rhetoric, further undercutting support for a two-state solution.

The fact that the parties and the international community appear—after a long, costly seven-year hiatus—to be thinking of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is welcome news. Because the stakes are so important, it is crucial to get it right. That means having the ambition as well as the courage to chart new ground and take bold steps.

Zbigniew Brzezinski,
former National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter

Lee H. Hamilton,
former Congressman and Co-chair of the Iraq Study Group

Carla Hills,
former US Trade Representative under President George H.W. Bush

Nancy Kassebaum-Baker,
former Senator

Thomas R. Pickering,
former Under-Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton

Brent Scowcroft,
former National Security Adviser to President Gerald Ford and President George H.W. Bush

Theodore C. Sorensen,
former Special Counsel and Adviser to President John F. Kennedy

Paul Volcker,
former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve System

As long as we occupy Muslims’ countries, our danger is always growing,” he said. “So, I think we’re in a much more dangerous time now than we were before 9/11 because instead of wising up, what we’ve done is more of the wrong thing.

Congressman Ron Paul, October 2007

As soon as your born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,
They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool,
Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free,
But you’re still fucking peasents as far as I can see,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
There’s room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill,
A working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be.
If you want to be a hero well just follow me,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me.

John Lennon

How the war on terror made the world a more terrifying place - by Kim Sengupta and Patrick Cockburn - 02/28/07 - Independent

Americans Have Lost Their Country - by Paul Craig Roberts - 03/01/07 - ICH

The Plan to Disappear Canada - by Murray Dobbin - 2007 - August Review

‘A Coup Has Occurred’ - by Daniel Ellsberg - 09/26/07 - consortiumnews.com

Lost In Translation: Ahmadinejad And The Media - by Ali Quli Qarai - 08/28/07 - ICH

Bush, Ahmadinejad & Authoritarianism - by Nat Parry - 09/28/07 - consortiumnews.com

Jewish community in Iran slams US protest against Ahmadinejad’s visit - by Dudi Cohen - 09/26/07 - ynetnews

Pro-Democracy Means Anti-Fascism - by Cindy Sheehan - 09/28/07 - Dissident Voice

At the UN, Declaration of Rights for Indigenous First Nations Passes Despite First World Opposition - by Matthew Russell Lee - 07/13/07 - Inner City Press at the UN

US Politicians, Not Ahmadinejad, Have Blood on Their Hands - by Charley Reese - 09/29/07 - antiwar.com

“The Revolt of the Generals”: Generals opposing Iraq war break with military tradition - by Mark Sauer - 09/28/07 - Global Research.ca

The Death of Canadian Journalism - by Sean Condon - Sept/Oct 2007 - Adbusters

Ahmadinejad, the toast of the Big Apple - by Larry Chin - 09/27/07 - Global Research.ca

Why Did Israel Attack Syria? - by Jonathan Cook - Sept 27. 2007

Bush, Oil - and Moral Bankruptcy - by Ray McGovern - 09/28/07 - antiwar.com

The Mega-Lie Called the “War on Terror”: A Masterpiece of Propaganda - by Richard W. Behan - 09/29/07 - informationliberation.com

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REVIEW - The Ghosts of 9-1-1 as found in:

Before the media understood who had carried out the 9/11 attacks - never mind why - they proclaimed the attacks “unprovoked” and “senseless”. This inexplicable exhortation to innocence was within days encapsulated by Newsweek - “Why, do they hate us so much?”

Ward Churchill:

The question was and remains boggling in its temerity, so much so that after a lifetime of spelling out the reasons, one is tempted to respond with a certain weary cynicism, perhaps repeating Malcolm X’s penetrating observation about chickens coming home to roost and leaving it at that.2 Still, mindful of the hideous human costs attending the propensity of Good Americans, like Good Germans, to dodge responsibility by anchoring professions of innocence in claims of near-total ignorance concerning the crimes of their corporate state, one feels obliged to try and deny them the option of such pretense. It is thus necessary that at least a few of those whose ravaged souls settled in upon the WTC and the Pentagon be named.

If you think yourself innocent because ignorant are you ready and willing to become culpable via knowledge? (If not, would it be impertinent to suggest your innocence lacks innocence?) The question has just been put before you: knowledge with all its weight or ignorance with its pretense to innocence? “I didn’t know,” isn’t going to cut it folks.

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REVIEW

Searching through a used book store, I came across In Search of Anti-Semitism by William F. Buckley (1992). Let me offer the gist of it here with a recommendation to read it.

First, let’s be clear. William F. Buckley is one of the leaders of the U.S. conservative movement and his magazine the National Review is often described within as the leading flagship guiding Conservatism. Obviously then, I’m offering up something rather unique for this blog: A book written by a prominent conservative focusing mostly on, attributions of or views about, anti-Semitism by other conservatives and neo-conservatives.

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Remembering Raul Hilberg - 08/15/07 - by Norman G. Finkelstein

Excerpts:

Raul Hilberg passed away on August 4. A refugee from Nazi-occupied Austria, Hilberg was the founder of the field of Holocaust studies. …

Hilberg was not pleased with the first edition [of The Destruction of the European Jews] - a vital table he pored over many weeks to get just right was botched in the cramped composition - but he couldn’t do better: no major publishing house expressed interest in his groundbreaking study, and he only managed to find any publisher due to a private benefactor who agreed to defray indirectly some of the costs. (The Israeli Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem had also rejected the manuscript and initially even barred him from its archive.)

In his melancholy memoir The Politics of Memory Hilberg tells the story that when he first proposed studying the Jewish genocide to his advisor at Columbia University, the great German-Jewish sociologist Franz Neumann (author of Behemoth, a classic study of the organization of the Nazi state), he was warned that “this will be your funeral.”

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Survivors’ Protest Makes Foreign Journalists Gasp, Security Vanish - by Daniel Ben Simon - 08/07/07 - Haaretz

It’s difficult to remember when security last had been so flimsy for a demonstration outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. All the frantic nervousness characterizing the most closely guarded compound in Israel, if not the entire Middle East, disappeared Sunday during the Holocaust survivors’ protest.

Thousands of protesters marched hundreds of meters from the Wohl Rose Park to the Prime Minister’s Office unhindered, while security guards kept a very low profile. The last thing they needed was a violent clash with the Holocaust survivors.

Foreign journalists were visibly taken aback by the bizarre spectacle of a Jewish state apparently at war with Jewish Holocaust survivors, who were angrily protesting what they considered a miserable stipend offer from the government.

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See below for excerpts to articles listed.

Fatah: Hamas forced Christian professor to convert to Islam - by Khaled Abu Toameh - 08/05/07 - Jerusalem Post

Israel’s Jewish problem in Tehran: So why hasn’t Iran started by wiping its own Jews off the map? - by Jonathan Cook - 08/03/07 - ICH

Report from the Land of Apartheid - Two Weeks in the Occupied Territories - by Stanley Heller - 08/02/07 - Counter Punch

Holocaust survivors blast $20 stipend - by Laurie Copans - 07/31/07 - yahoo.com

Guillotining Gaza - by Noam Chomsky - 07/30/07 - ICH

Hamas Executive Forces condemned for “inhibiting press freedom” - 07/30/07 - maannew.net

Arms for Arab Authoritarians, As U.S. Turns Back Clock - by Jim Lobe - 07/30/07 - IPS

A Divisive Word Surfaces - by Peter Hirschberg - 07/30/07 - IPS

Settler population in West Bank tops 475,000 - 07/29/07 - maannews.net

Coalition of Evangelicals Voices Support for Palestinian State - 07/29/07 - NYT

A Blurry Line Between Propaganda and News - by Khody Akhavi - 07/27/07 - IPS

Controversial 9/11 professor fired - 07/25/07 - Al Jazeera

Wanted, for crimes against the state - Rory McCarthy - 07/24/07 - Guardian

Why Germans Supported Hitler - by Jacob G. Hornberger - 07/23/07 - ICH

Last Rites in the Holy Land? - by Rod Nordland - 07/23/07 - msnbc.msn.com

Islamic Party Wins in Landslide - by Hilmi Toros - 07/23/07 - IPS

A racist Jewish state - 07/20/07 - Haaretz

The Death of Fatah? - by Marwan Arikat - 07/17/2007 - Palestine Chronicle

Did the UN Cave to Israel?: Lebanon’s Shebaa Farms - by Franklin Lamb - 07/17/07 - Counter Punch

Caught Red-Handed: Media Backtracks on Iran’s Anti-Israel “Threat” - by Arash Norouzi - 07/17/07 - Dissident Voice

Peres: ‘We have to get rid of the territories’ - 07/16/07 - Haaretz

Iran: Violations of human rights continue unabated - 07/13/07 - Amnesty International

Fading U.S. democracy agenda evokes Arab scorn - by Alistair Lyon- 07/13/07 - Reuters

Iran’s Jews reject cash offer to move to Israel - by Robert Tait - 07/12/07 - Guardian

The rules change when dictators serve US interests - by Imran Khan - 07/11/07 - Guardian

Palestinian civilians flee Lebanon refugee camp - 07/11/07 - Guardian

Students Unfazed by Arrests, Suppression - by Kimia Sanati - 07/11/07 - IPS

Abusing Iraqi Civilians - by Bob Herbert - 07/10/07 - ICH

Dark Days for Women - by Omid Memarian - 07/09/07 - IPS

Mubarak Party Faces Fraud Allegations - by Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani - 07/07/07 - IPS

Bush Shielding of Musharraf Policy at Risk - by Gareth Porter - 07/07/07 - IPS

Hamas is a Creation of Mossad - by Hassane Zerouky - 03/23/04 - Global Research

A look ‘Inside Hamas’ - by Michael B. Farrell - 06/26/07 - csmonitor.com

Hamas: Government or Terrorist Organization? - by Adam Davidson - 12/06/06 - NPR

Hamas - updated June 8. 2007 - Council on Foreign Relations

Settlers use just 9% of state-allocated West Bank land - by Amos Harel - 07/07/07 - Haaretz

New UN map charts West Bank reality - by Sharmila Devi and Harvey Morris - 06/04/07 - normanfinkelstein.com

Cementing Israeli Apartheid: The Role of World Bank - by Jamal Juma - 11/01/05 - leftturn.mayfirst.org

Israeli High Court Permits Torture of Palestinians - by Mohammed Mar’i - 05/31/07 - Arab News

The Holocaust as Political Asset - by Amira Hass - 04/18/07 - Haaretz

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See below for excerpts to articles listed.

Overcoming the conspiracy against Palestine - by Ali Abunimah - 07/18/07 - Electronic Intifada

Oslo’s Last Gasp: The Implosion of the Palestinian Authority - Settlement Report, Vol. 17 No. 4 - fmep.org

Abbas’s popularity at its lowest ebb - 07/03/07 - palestine-info.com

Spotlight on the Dark Side: The Cracks in Cheney’s World - by Gary Leupp - 07/06/07 - Counter Punch

Johnston case ‘exposes hypocrisy’ -07/05/07 - Al Jazeera

Put Away the Flags - by Howard Zinn - 07/03/06 - commondreams.org

Occupation? What Occupation?: A Dark Summit - by Uri Avnery - June 30 / July 1, 2007 - Counter Punch

Meet the New Goliath: Israel is Bad for Jewish Ethics - by Saul Landau - June 30 / July 1, 2007 - Counter Punch

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Hamas: A Challenge to pro-Western Arab Regimes - by Alberto Cruz - 07/20/07 - Fanonite.org (found via Filasteen)

Rivers of ink have flowed on the control of Gaza by Hamas and with them analysis to suit every taste, depending on each one’s ideological viewpoint : from those who see the beginnings of an Islamic Caliphate to those who think, with much greater probability, that the Abbas government is the beginning of a Vichy Republic as in France under the Nazi occupation. However, few have noted what represents a challenge to pro-Western Arab regimes. As with an earthquake, right now the epicentre is in Gaza, but the copycat effects won’t be long turning up in other parts of the Arab world and particularly in Egypt and Jordan. It is in that light one should interpret the decision taken on July 8th by the forever inoperative and ineffective Arab League to send two representatives to Tel Aviv, precisely from these two countries, who maintain diplomatic relations with Israel, in order to “work on the peace process” with the Palestinians in the framework of the 2002 plan.

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Hamas … - by Egyptaya - 07/17/07

From the depth of suffering, from the longing for justice, from the believing hearts of some Muslims, from the firm determination to prevail, a movement by the name of “Hamas”- emerged. Group of Palestinians who are determined to get their people’s rights back even if they have to die for it. To use their weapons (including their own bodies) as their last option after decades of humiliation and despair.

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Nothing to sell the Palestinians - by Danny Rubinstein - 07/17/07 - Haaretz

Abu Mazen’s struggle against the Hamas government is mainly political-legal in nature. He established an “emergency government” in the West Bank that has now become a “transition government.” The name is not important. What counts is that from a legal point of view this government does not have to, and of course cannot, receive the approval of the parliament, whose work has been paralyzed. A large majority of the MPs are representatives of Hamas, and a large percentage of them (residents of the West Bank and East Jerusalem) are sitting in Israeli prisons - which is how Abu Mazen can attempt to transfer more powers to Palestine Liberation Organization institutions. These institutions are considered representative of all the members of the Palestinian nation, in all its diasporas, and therefore they are (at least formally) above the institutions of the PA, which represent only the residents of the West Bank and Gaza, and thus constitute about half the nation.

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Middle East Peace Process

06.27.2007 | http://www.publications.parliament.uk
by Clare Short (Birmingham, Ladywood, Independent Labour) | Hansard source

Westminster Hall debates

I tabled this debate because I visited recently the Palestinian occupied territories with a delegation organised by War on Want. It consisted of War on Want staff, myself, and Rodney Bickerstaffe, the former general secretary of Unison. I am grateful for the opportunity to report on our findings, and I hope that the Minister will take account of them.

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Hamas’ stand - by Mousa Abu Marzook - 07/10/07 - LA Times

Damascus, Syria — Hamas’ rescue of a BBC journalist from his captors in Gaza last week was surely cause for rejoicing. But I want to be clear about one thing: We did not deliver up Alan Johnston as some obsequious boon to Western powers.

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This (below) is part of an ongoing “document”. I’m not sure how to best characterize it. Perhaps bizarre, in the sense of grotesque with absurd to help round out what I’m getting at. At another level, however, it is deadly serious. Christian Zionists ought to be taken seriously. Why? In a sentence: Christian Zionist’s defile the meaning of Christ. So what? So does most of Western culture right? Yes. But most of Western culture does not defile the meaning of Christ in Christ’s name. Until I can imagine Jesus Christ acting and advocating as these Christian Zionists have acted here, their meaning for me will be decidedly anti-Christ. What they propose under the banner of a universal humanist is inhuman: They appear to advocate for nothing less than the continuance of heinous atrocities in Palestine under the ideological phatasm of a “Christian”-based defense of the Jewish right to total hegemony over all of Palestine. Take that seriously. Take Christian Zionist’s seriously. Their ideological commitment is not to love but destruction, not to humanism but racism, not to justice but injustice, not to truth but to lies.

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Nothing less than a reasoned look at what’s been happening in Palestine both over the decades in general as well as the specific details of the last 2 or so years (i.e., Hamas electoral win and the brutal, undemocratic U.S, European, Israeli response; the positive Hamas agenda and its perverse rejection; Abba’s role as Palestinian betrayer; the continuing barbaric onslaught against the people in Gaza; the refusal to accept a two-state solution and the means by which such is accomplished - - in general the Nazi-like tactics being employed against the Gazan population in the worlds largest prison.)

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The historical memory of Nazism marks the universal C, the speed of light of killing, which should not be reached. From 1945 on, the speed and efficiency of murdering the excluded must be regulated, speed bumps must be introduced in areas prone to accidents, and stern reprimands issued to representatives of the master races who kill too many too fast. The concentration camps have not been abolished; they have been universalized, grown to encompass whole cities, regions and countries. And the murder inside them hasn’t stopped, although it has significantly slowed down. But there is accountability now. Every murder is counted and investigated. No more industrial utopianism; no more frenzy. In the West we are the heirs of Nazism, but we are civilized and speed conscious. We argue whether the speed limit should be the same everywhere, or whether it should be adapted to “road conditions.” The Right wants the speed limits raised, and even a few special unrestricted highways — free fire zones. The Left wants to maintain standards, even multiply the ‘pedestrians only’ zones, especially in historical districts. The road signs are always in dispute. But all understand that killing brown people is as unavoidable and necessary to the Western lifestyle as commuting. Apropos, how’s the coffee?

The Case for Israel, by Israel - by Gabriel Ash - 08/01/06 - Dissident Voice

Winners and Losers in Palestine - by Immanuel Wallerstein - 07/01/07

It’s easy to see who are the losers. It’s harder to see if there are any winners. During June, there was a dramatic confrontation between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza. The sequence was as follows. President Abbas dissolved the Hamas-led government (of which Fatah was a part). Prime Minister Ismael Haniya said this was illegal and refused to recognize the dissolution. Each side used force against the other. Hamas won hands down in Gaza. All Fatah leaders left Gaza for the West Bank where Abbas named a new government led by Salaam Fayyad, a government without Hamas members. De facto, Hamas now controls Gaza completely. Fatah controls the West Bank, albeit a little less surely than Hamas in Gaza. In the West Bank, not only does Hamas exist, if somewhat underground for the moment, but the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, nominally affiliated to Fatah, acts autonomously and neither is really under the control of Abbas nor agrees with his current politics.

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(This by way of Speaking Truth to Power from Boston (formerly from Egypt, then Kuwait - this guy gets around)):

One of the battles at present involves the construction of Hamas. That is, there are various players, writers, scholars etc., aiming either to get Hamas right or get Hamas wrong (and everywhere in between these two poles). What seems important in some circles is that the significance of Hamas not be understood, that its relevance be dismissed and that its importance be denied, in favour of a perversely one-sided demonization and characterization of it as a terrorist organization. Obviously, given the context of Palestine’s near decimation at the hands of Israel’s state based policy of cultural destruction and land theft, the notion of blaming Hamas various responses to Israel’s countless violations and aggressions - at least to some - is laugh out loud ridiculous.

So what happens when “Ms. Roy, a senior research associate at Harvard U., who earned her Ph.D. in political economy at Harvard,” … “renowned for her meticulous, morally-informed and articulate research on the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza” … and “uniquely knowledgeable about Gaza,” is offered the task of reviewing Matthew Levitt’s book on Hamas (Title: Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad)? What happens is that she spends some time constructing a review, “commissioned by The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, the official foreign-policy journal at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.” The editor-in-chief, apparently pleased with the review even selects out key sentences to be featured in sidebars.

Then what happens?

The whole review gets censored. Killed. Why? Give it all a read at Middle East Policy Council who did publish it. Read what happened, why it was rejected, Roy’s thoughts on the matter and last but not least, read the review.