Antony Loewenstein

China, we are listening, can you hear us?

When Barack Obama told students in Shanghai last week that he had never used Twitter, there were two responses. In the west, surprise from some of his 2.6 million followers. And in China, reportedly, a surge in queries on Google China: “What’s Twitter?”

On the mainland, it is “popular only within a tiny circle of white collar workers”, observed a state-run website recently. The article failed to mention that the service had been blocked a few weeks before – two days before the 20th anniversary of the bloody suppression of protests in Tiananmen Square.

Other sites, including Facebook and YouTube, are victims of a longer running clampdown. While the tech-savvy still access them via proxies or a virtual private network (VPN), to do so is increasingly inconvenient. “If you look at the sites blocked now and those blocked five years ago, it’s gone from web 1.0 to web 2.0 – it’s social media,” says Kaiser Kuo, a Beijing-based expert on internet use in China. “The authorities are not worried about people having access to what the rest of the world is saying, but about the ability of these tools to spread rumours very, very quickly.”

Two of Twitter’s most popular local rivals – Jiwai and Fanfou – were taken offline shortly after 197 people died in clashes in Xinjiang. State media have alleged that social media “spread misinformation” and even that outsiders used them to orchestrate the violence.

Two stories from the UK Guardian providing yet more evidence that the “war on terror” has always been a war on truth and endless wars against supposed enemies.

First this:

British prosecutors failed to disclose crucial evidence to the courts in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks in a case that resulted in an innocent pilot being jailed for five months, previously unseen documents reveal.

Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian living in the UK, was the first person in the world to be arrested after the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington DC. Accused of being the “lead” instructor of the 9/11 hijackers, Raissi, 27, was held in Belmarsh high security prison awaiting extradition to the United States.

In a landmark announcement, Jack Straw, the justice secretary, is shortly expected to reveal whether the UK government will accept responsibility for the miscarriage of justice and pay Raissi compensation.

The Guardian has obtained classified documents produced by the FBI and anti-terrorist officials in the UK after the 9/11 attacks which shed new light on how the courts were misled. They include:

• A report by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) into the way its staff handled the case, revealing prosecutors made unfounded allegations about Raissi’s involvement in 9/11 on the basis of an oral briefing from two FBI agents outside court.

• A confidential letter from Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist branch to the CPS two months before Raissi was released, back-tracking on the key allegation that was being used in court to link Raissi to a senior al-Qaida suspect linked to Osama bin Laden.

• Memorandums from the FBI to anti-terrorist officials in the UK, revealing 9/11 investigators never wanted Raissi to be arrested and were informed about the unreliability of the evidence against him months before the courts were told.

And this, showing for the umpteenth time that Tony Blair is a criminal just waiting to find a court room:

Military commanders are expected to tell the inquiry into the Iraq war, which opens on Tuesday, that the invasion was ill-conceived and that preparations were sabotaged by Tony Blair‘s government’s attempts to mislead the public.

They were so shocked by the lack of preparation for the aftermath of the invasion that they believe members of the British and US governments at the time could be prosecuted for war crimes by breaching the duty outlined in the Geneva convention to safeguard civilians in a conflict, the Guardian has been told.

The lengths the Blair government took to conceal the invasion plan and the extent of military commanders’ anger at what they call the government’s “appalling” failures emerged as Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry’s chairman, promised to produce a “full and insightful” account of how Britain was drawn into the conflict.

Fresh evidence has emerged about how Blair misled MPs by claiming in 2002 that the goal was “disarmament, not regime change”. Documents show the government wanted to hide its true intentions by informing only “very small numbers” of officials.

The documents, leaked to the Sunday Telegraph, are “post-operational reports” and “lessons learned” papers compiled by the army and its field commanders. They refer to a “rushed” operation that caused “significant risk” to troops and “critical failure” in the postwar period.

Despite all the obstacles, dissent in the Islamic Republic powers on:

Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi said yesterday that the reform movement would not be cowed by the hardline government’s harsh methods as riot police prevented a demonstration by moderates taking place.

Mr Mousavi’s remarks preceded a scheduled gathering by moderates to commemorate the killing of Dariush Forouhar and his wife, who headed the illegal but tolerated Iran Nation Party. They were stabbed to death by “rogue” agents in 1998.

Iran’s security forces have warned the opposition not to take part in “street riots”, trying to avoid a revival of mass protests which erupted in June after Iran’s presidential vote; the biggest unrest in Iran since its 1979 Islamic revolution.

A witness said dozens of riot police surrounded the area where the mourning ceremony was held to prevent it turning into an opposition rally. “They are dispersing people. The police are not allowing anyone to stop in the area. The police and security forces are carrying batons,” said the witness, who asked not to be named.

Mr Mousavi said the reform movement would continue despite the government’s pressure to uproot it. “The government should not intimidate people to change their path … this movement will continue and we are ready to pay any price,” Mr Mousavi was quoted as saying by his Kaleme website.

A key figure, former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi – I met this blogger in Tehran in 2007 and he has had severe pressure since the disputed June elections – faces continued troubles:

Thousands were arrested for fomenting unrest. Most have been freed, but Iran’s judiciary has fast-tracked sentencing for dozens of reformers, including former senior officials, lawyers, students and activists still in jail. So far five have been sentenced to death and another 81 have received jail terms of up to 15 years.

The most senior of those, moderate cleric and former vice-president Mohammad Ali Abtahi was sentenced to six years in jail, then freed on a bail of $700,000 (£425,000) yesterday. He has 20 days to appeal the sentence.

“He was sentenced to jail for acting against national security and propaganda against the system. I have appealed against his sentence,” the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Mr Abtahi’s lawyer, Hossein Simai,as saying.

America’s so-called Tea Party movement now has a film made about its “patriotism”. What they’re actually asking for is a little unclear (apart from “taking back America):

(Via Crikey)

“The One Democratic State Group is committed to the struggle for Palestinian rights. These rights will never be realized outside the framework of a unitary state with equality for all its citizens. For too long this aim has been a vision. It is time to make it happen, and the ODSG is at the forefront of that effort. They deserve our full support.”~ Ghada Karmi

In this time of despair and ever-growing violence that threatens to destroy the Palestinian people, it is most refreshing to hear about a humanist and genuine initiative to find a just solution for the Palestine question. It is most amazing that it grew on the killing fields of Gaza, which bore the brunt of the Israeli criminal policies.  It carries with it a hope that despite the various Nakbas the Palestinian people have gone through, there is still a valid possibility for Jews and Palestinians to share the land on the basis of equal and human rights. This is the only way forward and it is in particular the people of Gaza who can show us the way forward.~ Ilan Pappe

“At a moment when ever more people are recognizing the futility at again attempting to partition Palestine/Israel, and the failure of the ‘two-state solution,’ there is an urgent need for a new vision to bring about decolonization, equality and justice. The One Democratic State Group is at the forefront of thinking, advocacy and action to bring about such a new vision from within Palestine. Their important and courageous work inspires real hope and deserves all our support.”~ Ali Abunimah

The ODSG, One Democratic State Group, is a Palestinian non-violent popular resistance group based in Gaza. We are Palestinian activists, from various backgrounds, who have come together to further peace with justice in the Middle East. We believe that the One State Solution is the only viable option that guarantees comprehensive peace in the Middle East. We believe that justice and peace can be achieved in the context of a single Democratic State that would include and benefit equally all current residents of historic Palestine–after the return of Palestinian refugees–irrespective of race, ethnicity or religion. We pledge to work actively towards this end.

We are also active in the Palestine-initiated campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. These measures, similar to those applied to South Africa during the apartheid era, are necessary to bring an end to Israel’s genocidal policies towards Palestinians both within Israel and throughout the Occupied Territories. We believe that these non-violent measures should be maintained until Apartheid Israel recognizes the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and the establishment of a democratic state on Mandatory Palestine; a state for all of its citizens.

As we are not an NGO, all our funding comes from our own pockets. As our movement is now rapidly growing it is becoming more difficult to financially sustain our projects and hire greatly needed staff. Due to lack of funds we have been forced to freeze some of our projects.

Our current projects include the following:

1. Organizing for the Gaza Freedom March (31 December 2009). We are represented on the March Steering Committee.
2. Collecting video testimonies of refugees who survived the 1948 Nakba for an oral history project that will be posted at Palestine Remembered.
3. Working on the “Right to Read” Campaign in partnership with the Free Gaza Movement. Challenging the siege by shipping books by sea for Gaza university students.
4. Producing a documentary, Forbidden Dreams, and copying thousands of a Palestinian-South African CD, Amandla Intifada.
5. The  promotion of the one state solution and the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli Apartheid by:

o Networking to strengthen connections among people and groups in Gaza and with solidarity activists around the world.
o Running BDS workshops across the Gaza Strip.
o Organizing video conferences with activists, intellectuals and students based in the Arab World, Canada, Europe, South Africa, and the US.
o Conducting media advocacy and writing articles in Arabic and English.

In order to keep ODSG productively running, we are in need of your generous support and donations. We invite you to visit our website and join us in our work to in an act of people to people solidarity, and anti-apartheid activism for peace with justice.

You can make a donation via paypal through our website. If you are in the United States and would like to make a tax-deductible donation, contact us here.

onedemocraticstategroup@gmail.com

Through your help we will be able to make our vision a reality and thereby ensure that our children and grandchildren may live together in more just and equal world.

The One Democratic State Group

Gaza, Palestine

My book The Blogging Revolution thoroughly examines the complicity of Western multinationals such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo in assisting online censorship in oppressive regimes.

Nicholas Kristof in his blog on the New York Times discovers how shocking this situation has become. Lesson for the day; never trust the word of corporate executives (especially when we learn today that Microsoft may help News Corporation remove its content from Google, an utterly pointless act in an age of massive, online information):

Critics have accused President Obama of kowtowing to Chinese leaders, by failing to meet dissidents, toning down his criticisms and delaying a meeting with the Dalai Lama. On balance, I think that criticism is premature: Confrontation doesn’t help with China and can hurt, and so engagement becomes a fine line to navigate. The Obama visit wasn’t a ringing success, but neither was it a craven embarrassment.

For the latest craven kowtowing, we can look somewhere else: Microsoft and its new search engine, Bing.

Western corporations have often behaved embarrassingly in China, sacrificing any principles to ingratiate themselves with the Communist Party authorities. Yahoo was the worst, handing over information about several email account holders so that they could be arrested – and then dissembling and defending its monstrous conduct. Now Microsoft is sacrificing the integrity of Bing searches so as to cozy up to State Security in Beijing. In effect, it has chosen become part of the Communist Party’s propaganda apparatus.

If you search a term on Bing that is politically sensitive in China, in English the results are legitimate. Search “Tiananmen” and you’ll find out about the army firing on pro-democracy protesters in 1989. Search Dalai Lama, Falun Gong and you also get credible results. Conduct the search in complex Chinese characters (the kind used in Taiwan and Hong Kong) and on the whole you still get authentic results.

But conduct the search with the simplified characters used in mainland China, then you get sanitized pro-Communist results. This is especially true of image searches. Magic! No Tiananmen Square massacre. The Dalai Lama becomes an oppressor. Falun Gong believers are villains, not victims.

What’s most offensive is that this is true wherever in the world the search is conducted – including in my office in New York. If Microsoft felt it had to bow to Chinese censorship within China’s borders, based on the IP address, that might be defensible. But when Microsoft skews its worldwide searches to make Hu Jintao feel better, that’s a disgrace. It becomes simply a unit of the Central Committee Propaganda Department.

Remind me why we trust the corporate press again? Over to you, David Sirota in Salon:

In the parlance of our times, the term “idiocracy” means a nation run by idiots — and the term “idiot” is defined by the dictionary as “an utterly foolish or senseless person” who exhibits “a mental age of less than 3 years old.”

There are obvious reasons to believe America is becoming an idiocracy — a series of horrendous government and business decisions strongly suggest that we’ve seen the ascension of utterly foolish, senseless people, many with the mental age of infants (yes, W., I’m looking at you). And if there remained any flicker of hope that we aren’t turning into a full-on slobbering idiocracy, that hope was snuffed out last week by two of the Washington intelligentsia’s most respected voices.

First came a now-famous column about Afghanistan by the Washington Post’s David Broder. The “dean” of the press corps attacked President Obama not for choosing any particular policy, but for simply taking time to meticulously consider his options in the Central Asian quagmire. “The urgent necessity,” Broder asserted, “is to make a decision — whether or not it is right.”

This was followed by Jackson Diehl, the Post’s foreign policy “expert.” He wrote that the White House’s assiduous Afghanistan deliberations are not a sign of reassuring prudence after the bring-it-on Bush years, but instead a “compelling cause for unease about this president.” Diehl’s rationale for such an incendiary statement? He alleged (without proof, of course) that “there is unanimity in the Pentagon and considerable agreement in Congress and among the NATO allies” that a military escalation has to happen — and therefore Obama “knows (the pro-escalation) course he must take” but “can’t bring himself to embrace it.”

Let’s set aside the nauseating spectacle of two well-heeled journalists, comfortably protected far away from the front lines, demanding a president immediately send thousands of soldiers to their potential deaths without regard for blood-and-guts consequences. Let’s just, if we can, put that grotesque immorality in a corner and pretend it’s not important — and let’s go to the deeper, even more disturbing message.

As leading opinion-makers, Broder and Diehl are paid to carefully ponder issues and then offer their considered thoughts. That’s not part of what they’re supposed to do — it’s what they are singularly employed to do. It’s how they earn their living and credibility — indeed, it’s their entire raison d’être. And yet, these leading lights of the intelligentsia are overtly preaching anti-intelligence, insisting the president must avoid taking time to think through his actions.

The Israeli film Defamation – slammed by the Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick as a work made by “leftist, anti-Israel Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir”, it is actually a fine movie that accuses Jewish groups worldwide of exaggerating anti-Semitism to insulate Israel from criticism – lands in London and makes a splash:

A series of controversial Israeli films are provoking outrage and plaudits in equal measure at the London Film Festival.

The best documentary award has gone to one of the year’s most controversial films.

Defamation is a polemic by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir. In his expose of America’s Anti-Defamation League (ADL), he claims anti-Semitism is being exaggerated for political purposes. He argues that American Jewish leaders travel around the world exploiting the memory of the Holocaust to silence criticism of Israel.

He gets inside the ADL, which claims to be the most powerful lobby group of its type anywhere in the world. With unprecedented access, he travels with them as they meet foreign leaders, and use the memory of the Holocaust to further their pro-Israeli agenda.

At one point, an ADL leader admits to Shamir that “we need to play on that guilt”.

Shamir says his film, Defamation, started out as a study of “the political games being played behind the term anti-Semitism”.

“It became more a film about perceptions and the way Jews and Israelis choose to see themselves and define themselves – a lot of the time unfortunately choosing the role of eternal victims as a way of life.”

Israel’s national psyche

He wanted to find out how this mentality has become part of Israel’s national psyche.
The film suggests that the attitude is thrust upon children from an early age. School trips to concentration camps in Poland run year-round.

From just 500 children in the 1980s, he claims around 30,000 are now flown to Europe every year.

He discovers that the trips are not designed to educate, but to provoke an emotional reaction. They fly out of Israel euphoric, and end their journey in tears, talking about their shared hatred.

They are accompanied by secret service agents who prevent them from talking to any locals – they are led to believe that most Poles are anti-Semites.

The end result is disturbing. The victim mentality is being used to justify Israel’s occupation and colonisation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza.

In the film, one Israeli Jew tells Shamir that she refuses to get upset by Israeli aggression against the Palestinians because “we” faced worse. To her, the Holocaust justifies anything the Israeli army does.

And for Shamir, that is the real danger. “We are experiencing the most right-wing government we’ve ever had, and there is very little room for discussion. Putting so much focus on hate and the negative, I don’t see it as a healthy thing.”

In Israel, the film has received a mixed response. “It’s kind of a love or hate type of response to the film,” Shamir says. “It’s very hard to get people to come and watch documentaries in the cinemas in Israel.”

Touchy subject

In the UK, too, there is anger towards Defamation.

Mark Gardiner from one of Britain’s biggest anti-Semitism campaign groups, the Community Security Trust, believes the film could put Jews at risk.

“All of a sudden some bloke appears out of nowhere, oh he’s an Israeli, oh he’s a Jew, therefore what he says must have more credence than what organisations like my own and the ADL have said for years – I think that shows a deep-seated bias.” And he is furious at the suggestion that anti-Semitism is being used for political purposes.

“This assumption that people are saying it because they’re being malicious, because they know that it’s not anti-Semitic, but hey lets use anti-Semitism in order to win the Israel case, that’s what I find really really offensive,” Gardiner says.

Shamir is not surprised by reactions like that.

“Anti-Semitism is a very touchy subject and making a film about anti-Semitism is almost like walking on thin ice, you’re going to hurt people’s feelings.”

Martial Kurtz from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) believes the film can make a difference to activists like him.

He says all too often Israel’s supporters label groups like the PSC as anti-Semitic.

It should be noted, in praise of Israel, that a film also screened in London, Eyes Wide Open, about the love between two Orthodox, Jewish men. The fact that such a work even exists is testamount to a spirit of openness in certain Israeli circles.

Bernard Avishai on Intel in Israel capitulating to Jewish fundamentalism.

Sydney University’s Jake Lynch, a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, writes in his weekly column about Sri Lanka and the need to continue pressure over its appalling treatment of the Tamils:

The news that the Government of Sri Lanka is to close the internment camps where thousands of Tamils were illegally detained, following the end of the country’s civil war against the Tamil Tiger rebels six months ago, is testimony to the effect of international pressure. The European Union backed the call by Judge Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, for an independent, international investigation of war crimes allegations. And it threatened to withdraw Sri Lanka’s coveted membership of ‘GSP-plus’: the Generalised System of Preferences scheme that gives developing countries privileged trading access to EU member states.

The US State Department produced a lengthy report, detailing attacks on civilians during the war including some 158 incidents of shelling or bombing that could only have come from the government side: a record that is, the authors noted, likely to represent only a cross-section of the full picture since many will have gone unreported to the outside world. When the International Monetary Fund voted on a package of soft loans to Sri Lanka, worth US$2 billion, earlier this year, the US took the unusual step of declaring publicly that it had abstained (voting is held in secret). The agreement is subject to quarterly review, so there are further opportunities for leverage.

In Australia, by contrast, official hand-wringing has been accompanied by a notable pusillanimity in following through with any form of action. Canberra has one of the two directorships for an Asia-Pacific group of countries on the IMF board, representing 3.4% of the vote; it kept shtum about how it was used, so we must assume it voted in favour. And Foreign Minister Stephen Smith went cap in hand to Colombo to ask for help in deterring Tamils from seeking refuge in Australia, after the arrival of a few boats had triggered the usual barrage of hysteria from right-wing politicians and media. Instead of governmental action, pressure has been applied through campaigning and lobbying from civil society, keeping a focus on so-called “push factors” that have seen asylum claims, from Tamils who have managed to reach Australia, being approved, at a rate of 95%, in recent months.

More obvious guilty parties include Cuba, which sponsored the motion at the UN Human Rights Council, congratulating the Government of Sri Lanka for its ‘victory’; a move that probably emboldened the Colombo authorities to believe they could get away with keeping the detainees for far longer than they otherwise would. The move dismayed many supporters of Cuba’s socialist government, including some in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Amarantha Visalakshi, an author and translator of books about Latin America, issued this response:

“We here in Tamil Nadu celebrated the 80th birthday of Comrade Fidel by releasing eight books on Cuba’s achievements in various fields…and are in the midst of our preparation for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution…

“We are struck dumb and rendered disheartened and disillusioned by this act [the HRC resolution] by those countries of Latin America on which we have pinned our hopes for the future – Socialism of the 21st century.

“Why do these countries wish for wiping out the Tamils from the Sri Lankan soil where they rightfully belong? What are the sources of information for these Latin American countries to decide against the Tamils and in favour of the racist Sri Lankan government in the UN Human Rights Council?”

…

The Tamil community in Sri Lanka must be allowed to elect credible leaders who can negotiate meaningfully on political arrangements for a shared future of justice and equality. So they must be allowed to speak and organise freely, with full access to International NGOs and – in the case of alleged Tamil Tigers now being arrested – to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Adam Shapiro, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and human rights activist, is currently working with the Free Gaza Movement. This is his latest article:

One year ago, I watched election results coming in for Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District, where my friend and colleague Tom Perriello was challenging incumbent Virgil Goode, Jr. CNN kept flipping the winner because the vote was close. Finally, Tom emerged with a 727-vote victory. I was elated, because I knew Tom and knew his deeply rooted principles. And daring to accept that there might be something to this overall atmosphere of change and hope espoused by the President-elect, I felt encouraged by the seemingly new direction and new leaders the country was embracing.

Two years earlier, I met Tom in Afghanistan when he arrived as a consultant with the United Nations to explore transitional justice possibilities for the country. I was already working for a human rights organization, promoting rule of law, women’s rights and transitional justice. Tom had done similar work in Liberia helping launch a truth and reconciliation commission.

We quickly saw eye to eye on the work and became friends over discussions about the role of law in achieving justice in extremely difficult conflict and post-conflict circumstances. I took Tom hiking in the hills overlooking Kabul and we strategized on how to strengthen the justice sector in Afghanistan. Of course, my work on Palestine came up and Tom usually brought the discussion to the role of international law and the need for accountability on all sides – considerations that clearly help protect civilians, particularly Palestinians living under occupation.

A year later, back in the US, Tom invited me to join a group of dynamic young social entrepreneurs for a strategy/brainstorming meeting that led to the creation of Avaaz – a kind of MoveOn.org for the international community to organize for human rights, the environment and other progressive causes. One of the first campaigns launched by Avaaz was to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza in January 2009 and for a robust international response to assure the lasting cessation of violence.

Shortly after that founding meeting of Avaaz, I received an email from Tom explaining that he was going to run for Congress in a long-shot attempt to unseat a conservative Republican. It was a surprise, but Tom was insistent he was going to retain his principles and values if he won. He was excited about the prospect of making real change if Obama became President. I shed my typical cynicism and encouraged friends to contribute to his campaign.

Fast forward one year, to the present, and I have been shocked and disappointed to learn that my friend Tom – a staunch supporter of international law, human rights and equality for all – has voted as a Congressman in favor of apartheid. On the face of it, House Resolution 867 “Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the ‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in multilateral fora” was a typical AIPAC-inspired (or even written) resolution to push the US Congress to support Israel when it got into hot water internationally. Already the White House and State Department have rejected the Goldstone Report, named for preeminent South African justice Richard Goldstone, a well-known Zionist and staunch supporter of Israel. Human rights organizations around the world support the report, and the credentials of the commission were outstanding. Judge Goldstone himself has repeatedly pointed out that the report also calls to task Hamas for violations of international law.

So why did Tom vote in favor of H.Res. 867 and how is this apartheid?

I believe Congressman Perriello’s vote resulted from the almost-obligatory fealty to AIPAC displayed by members of Congress – and perhaps his desire to get reelected.

Incumbents have learned over the years not to cross AIPAC if re-election is important to them. This is not a tangential correlation – ask former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, former Senator Charles Percy and former President George H.W. Bush what happened to them when they took stands helpful to securing Palestinian rights. So the logic behind his vote is pretty simple.

But is winning everything? Even when it means voting for apartheid? Where do accountability to self and the bedrock principles we discussed in the Kabul hills enter the equation?

If the Goldstone Report concerned any other country than Israel as the main perpetrator and any other people as victims than the Palestinians, there is no doubt that the Report would be fully endorsed in Congress and perhaps there would be House Resolutions praising the work of the commission, supporting the role of the UN in investigating war crimes, and affirming the need for the US government to take action to support implementing the findings. That this resolution was introduced against the Report because the primary victims were Palestinian is an extension of Israel’s policies of discrimination that set Palestinians apart as a people with inferior rights. Voting in favor was akin to a stamp of approval that Palestinian lives are not equal: yes, they were killed, but so what, their deaths are not worth investigating. Such blatant disregard for a specific people’s humanity and human rights in favor of another people’s superior rights and privileged standing can only be understood as apartheid. Congressman Perriello and his colleagues have turned their backs on international law and human rights. They failed to offer a word of support for Palestinian freedom and the lives of the more than 300 Palestinian children killed by Israel in the winter war.

President Obama, unlike a well-trained and increasingly sycophantic Congress, has set out to change America’s image in the world. This image is not undermined because of our relationship with Ireland, Thailand or Chile – or even by North Korea, Iran, Pakistan or Afghanistan, despite the seeming inadequacy of US policy to meet these challenges. No, the consistent lack of US credibility in the world spans Democrats and Republicans and is a consequence of our relationship with Israel and the exceptionalism applied to an occupier nation foisting apartheid on the Palestinians. Most of the world grasps immediately the hypocrisy of the Congress when it votes against the carefully documented work of Judge Goldstone, who has devoted his life to fighting racism and apartheid.

When my friend Tom told me he was trying to become a Congressman, he assured me that he would maintain who he was. The man I knew was someone who fought for justice, who worked tirelessly to promote international law and human rights, and who was aware of the reality of Congress but determined to be different. Congressman Perriello, I am afraid, has become like so many of his colleagues, a mere tool of a hard-right AIPAC agenda that has no business dictating American policy. He has become part of an American dog wagged by an Israeli and AIPAC tail.

Voters are again disengaging because they continue to see too much business as usual. Tom is just the latest manifestation of a
politician abandoning core beliefs.

What is most disappointing, perhaps, is not that my friend Tom is missing in this incarnation of Congressman Perriello – who seems willing to trade fundamental human rights for political expedience – but that in the end I was right to be cynical.

Zionist hysteria is as old as Zionism itself. But this recent example only proves the point over and over again. Zionism is an inherently insecure ideology that thrives on victimhood and aggression. This entire post from Promised Land has to be read to be believed:

Gonen Ginat is deputy editor for Israel Hayom, the free paper billionaire Sheldon Adelson has launched last year in support of Benjamin Netanyahu and that since became the second widely read paper in Israel.

(The not-so-secret admiration of Israel Hayom for the PM was demonstrated again this week, following a visit by Netanyahu to a navy base. The PM slipped on a boat, and nearly fell to the water. The day after three out of four dailies printed the pictures of Netanyahu loosing his footing, while one showed the PM in full command, standing next to the Chief of Staff. You can read more about it and see pics here.)

Back to Ginat. This weekend, Israel Hayom published its first weekend edition (what caused great concern among the other tabloids). Ginat holds the prestigious last page column of the political section, and he decided to make its debut with a brutal attack on J-Street. His entire article was dedicated to comparing the new lobbying group to a Jew named Yaakov Trachtenberg who published in April 33′ a statement in support of Nazi Germany.

It is no news that the only history lesson the Israeli Right attended was about Europe before WW2. with them it’s always 39′, everyone who doesn’t agree with them is an anti-Semite, probably a Nazi, and every Arab leader is Hitler (following this line, Netanyahu’s idol is Churchill). Egypt’s Nasser was Hitler, Arafat was Hitler, Ahmadinejad is Hitler, and only Abu-Mazen is not Hitler, just a Holocaust denier, i.e. a Nazi (That’s in Ginat’s article as well, by the way). But still, throwing the Nazi connection at the ever-so-careful people of J-Street, who open every sentence with “as Zionists and supporters of Israel”? That’s taking it a bit too far, I would say.

After quoting the Trachtenberg piece from 33′, and before quoting a similar article, written by a German “intellectual and reform Rabbi” (Ginat is Orthodox), Ginat writes:

“Soon they will be heating the ovens in Auschwitz, but the Jews of Germany didn’t let the facts reach them. Typical Jewish stubbornness, just like in J-Street (…). They published letters and made it clear that the fear of eradication is merely propaganda. With about the same words J-Street uses when Iran is discussed.”

Forget the fact that in 33′ nobody discussed eradication, not even the Nazis. Let’s listen to the deputy editor’s bottom line:

“Not that many years after (the holocaust), J-Street don’t get what’s wrong with hosting anti-Semites and cheering for holocaust deniers (…). Maybe they are right, maybe. On the other hand, when J-street find it difficult to figure who is right in the confrontation between Israel and Hamas, from the Middle East it is difficult, real difficult, to tell the difference between Trachtenberg and J-Street.”