Antony Loewenstein

With the nuclear issue once again in the news – the US has decided to start building new reactors – here’s Israeli Yael Lotan discussing the dangers of the Jewish state’s arsenal:

How sincere is the Islamic Republic towards Palestine? And what are some of the real reasons Tehran allegedly backs a resolution of the Middle East conflict?

During a campaign speech at the University of Uroomiyeh in northwestern Iran a few months before the June presidential election there, Mir Hossein Moussavi, the main reformist presidential candidate and now opposition leader, was interrupted by angry groups of basiji, the regime’s paramilitary enforcers, carrying pictures of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Palestinian flags. “I see the root of some [of our] problems in this hall,” Moussavi said when he saw the flags. “For instance some people are carrying a Palestinian flag. Though we like Palestine, we are in Iran and the province of Azerbaijan…. I stepped into the campaign exactly to confront this [kind of] radicalism.” Mousavi’s loss in what was widely believed to have been a rigged election brought hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to the streets, many of whom could be heard chanting, “No Gaza, no Lebanon, I sacrifice my life for Iran.”

Might Iran’s relationship with Israel change if the democratic opposition comes to power? Though the so-called Green Movement, the pro-democracy protesters who took to the streets after the disputed election, represents a significant development in Iran’s politics, the answer is far from clear. What is unmistakable, however, is that a large swath of Iran’s population no longer accepts at face value the statements of the Islamic Republic’s leaders, who have said the Jewish State must be “wiped off the map.”

The image of Israel on US campuses is taking a dive. And yet Zionists believe they simply need to improve their PR.

This documentary preview, Crossing the Line: The Intifada Comes to Campus, takes a familiar line. Because a handful of extremists are anti-Semitic, therefore anybody critical of Israel is a Jew-hater. It’s almost comical to see defenders of Israel being completely incapable of acknowledging that Israel even occupies Palestinian land:

Non-violent resistance is growing across the West Bank and Israel appears only able to respond with violence. Not exactly the best look for international cameras.

Take the area of Beit Shahor, currently resisting the arrival of extremist Jewish settlers.

Here’s the description of the following video:

Some 100 people gathered at Ush Ghrab in Beit Sahour to pray for peace and protest the planned military presence there.   As we were gathering in peaceful contemplation and prayer, Israeli army jeeps quickly rolled in between us and one officer barked orders in Hebrew. We explained to them in Arabic and English that we do not understand Hebrew (later we realized they also knew Arabic and English) but they immediately started throwing concussion grenades and tear gas at the elderly, women, children, the priest doing the prayer, other town people and internationals (Christians and Muslims). A translator who reviewed our video footage later in the day said that their orders meant we have one minute to disperse!  The priest’s words, delivered as the army was attacking, was to plead to God to teach us to live in dignity based on morality and speak out for what is right (then we gave the Lord’s prayer together).  But considering the unusual circumstances, we persisted and succeeded in holding our ground.  On image captured on video that sticks out in my mind is Issa, which is Arabic for Jesus, holding his child in his arms while kicking the teargas canister.  His other child had started crying with the noise of a concussion grenade.

It seems quite possible:

Hamas last night vigorously denied that a renegade from its own ranks helped set up the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room last month, a shock claim made by Dubai’s police chief, as echoes from the killing and its investigation continued to resound in the Middle East and Europe.

Gulf News and al-Khaleej newspapers in the United Arab Emirates yesterday quoted the police chief, Lieutenant-General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, as saying that a Hamas member played a significant role in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. The Dubai police believe the primary perpetrators came from Israel’s Mossad agency. General Tamim said the Hamas member leaked information on Mr Mabhouh’s whereabous to the suspected assassins.

…

as having a spy-novel ambience. The assertion came in response to a request by the Gaza-based Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, that the UAE extradite to Gaza two Palestinian suspects the Dubai police are holding in connection with the assassination. The police chief said: “I asked him to initiate an internal investigation because I am certain that there has been a security breach from their side.”

If a renegade within Hamas did help the Israelis, it would be a major setback to the group’s prestige and, in an immediate sense, would be cause for its leaders to be even more wary of their own surroundings. A statement released by Hamas headquarters in Damascus rejected the possibility that a member was involved in the assassination. It said that Mossad’s success in tracking Mr Mabhouh “doesn’t mean that there exists a [security] breach”. A member of the Damascus-based politburo, Sami Khater, said on Hamas’s Palestinian Information Centre website, “We’ve said from the beginning that the Mossad agency is responsible, and if the Mossad succeeded in enlisting some followers, whether Palestinians or from other nationalities, that doesn’t change the reality at all. The perpetration, planning and implementation is solely the responsibility of the Mossad”.

Hussam El-Nounou runs an NGO in Gaza that deals with people suffering mental problems:

These constant and long power cuts have turned everything upside-down here. We barely get ten hours of electricity per day. To compensate, a lot of Gazans have bought small generators in order to be able to turn on their lights, televisions and computers. Anything that requires a lot of electricity however, like fridges, washing machines, boilers, and motors that pump water to higher floors in a building, are lost on us. We can’t have a daily shower and don’t get to wash our clothes very often.

The cuts also affect our social lives. Friends and relatives, tired of using the stairs when the lifts don’t work, are less likely to visit if you live on the top floor. Old people rarely go out and are affected by loneliness. Children become annoyed because they can’t watch their favourite TV programmes or play video games. The worst affected are pupils and students; during exam periods they become easily tired after straining their eyes from trying to revise in the dark evenings.

On top of that, the number of car accidents has shot up since the street lights don’t work. Hospitals aren’t able to provide a constant supply of electricity for all their equipment, putting many people’s lives in danger.

Former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo continues to be verbally attacked in the US.

Imagine if this information emerged from any other country. The outrage would be utterly justified:

The chief author of the Bush administration’s “torture memo” told Justice Department investigators that the president’s war-making authority was so broad that he had the constitutional power to order a village to be “massacred,” according to a report released Friday night by the Office of Professional Responsibility.

The views of former Justice lawyer John Yoo were deemed to be so extreme and out of step with legal precedents that they prompted the Justice Department’s internal watchdog office to conclude last year that he committed “intentional professional misconduct” when he advised the CIA it could proceed with waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques against Al Qaeda suspects.

The report by OPR concludes that Yoo, now a Berkeley law professor, and his boss at the time, Jay Bybee, now a federal judge, should be referred to their state bar associations for possible disciplinary proceedings. But, as first reported by NEWSWEEK, another senior department lawyer, David Margolis, reviewed the report and last month overruled its findings on the grounds that there was no clear and “unambiguous” standard by which OPR was judging the lawyers. Instead, Margolis, who was the final decision-maker in the inquiry, found that they were guilty of only “poor judgment.”

The report, more than four years in the making, is filled with new details into how a small group of lawyers at the Justice Department, the CIA, and the White House crafted the legal arguments that gave the green light to some of the most controversial tactics in the Bush administration’s war on terror. They also describe how Bush administration officials were so worried about the prospect that CIA officers might be criminally prosecuted for torture that one senior official—Attorney General John Ashcroft—even suggested that President Bush issue “advance pardons” for those engaging in waterboarding, a proposal that he was quickly told was not possible.

At the core of the legal arguments were the views of Yoo, strongly backed by David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s legal counsel, that the president’s wartime powers were essentially unlimited and included the authority to override laws passed by Congress, such as a statute banning the use of torture. Pressed on his views in an interview with OPR investigators, Yoo was asked:

“What about ordering a village of resistants to be massacred? … Is that a power that the president could legally—”

“Yeah,” Yoo replied, according to a partial transcript included in the report. “Although, let me say this: So, certainly, that would fall within the commander-in-chief’s power over tactical decisions.”

“To order a village of civilians to be [exterminated]?” the OPR investigator asked again.

“Sure,” said Yoo.

From the National newspaper:

A very important exchange took place between a top-level official from a Gulf state and the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a recent meeting in Tehran, reported Abdul Rahman al Rashed, a columnist with the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al Awsat.

“How come you believe that we are intending to build a nuclear bomb? We are not that stupid,” the writer quoted the Iranian president as saying, citing a reliable source. “Were we to strike Israel with a nuclear weapon, more Palestinians than Israelis would likely get killed.”  

A new challenge in Palestine, largely ignored by the Western press:

In the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour, famous for its civil disobedience campaign against the Israeli occupation in the 1980s, a new struggle is taking place.

Ush al Ghrab (‘Crow’s Nest’) is a small piece of land being targeted by a group of Jewish settlers and their allies. The area had previously served as a military base, before being evacuated in 2006. Since then, local Palestinians and international NGOs have sought to make the most of the space, in a community whose natural expansion is prohibited by Israeli colonisation. In recent times, right-wing Jewish settlers have targeted the area as a site for a possible new settlement (‘Shdema’).

The Mossad murder of a Hamas man in Dubai will not simply disappear. The London Times has more details:

In early January two black Audi A6 limousines drove up to the main gate of a building on a small hill in the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv: the headquarters of Mossad, the Israeli secret intelligence agency, known as the “midrasha”.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, stepped out of his car and was greeted by Meir Dagan, the 64-year-old head of the agency. Dagan, who has walked with a stick since he was injured in action as a young man, led Netanyahu and a general to a briefing room.

According to sources with knowledge of Mossad, inside the briefing room were some members of a hit squad. As the man who gives final authorisation for such operations, Netanyahu was briefed on plans to kill Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a member of Hamas, the militant Islamic group that controls Gaza.

Mossad had received intelligence that Mabhouh was planning a trip to Dubai and they were preparing an operation to assassinate him there, off-guard in a luxury hotel. The team had already rehearsed, using a hotel in Tel Aviv as a training ground without alerting its owners.

The mission was not regarded as unduly complicated or risky, and Netanyahu gave his authorisation, in effect signing Mabhouh’s death warrant.

Typically on such occasions, the prime minister intones: “The people of Israel trust you. Good luck.”

…

Mossad is now deeply embarrassed. Its use of the identities of British, French, German and Irish nationals as cover for agents to carry out the hit has angered western governments. In the ensuing diplomatic fall-out, sources close to Mossad said yesterday that it had suspended similar operations in the Middle East, mainly because of fear that heightened security would put its agents at greater risk. Dagan’s job is also on the line.

Howver. few believe that Mossad will give up the secret war it has long waged against Israel’s enemies.

Israeli right-wing politician Michael Ben Ari (National Union) on J Street:

They want international legitimacy, but everybody knows they are an anti-Semitic lobby that acts against Israel. They are dangerous people and they use the Congress people in order to try to receive legitimacy.

One Israeli commentator, despairing at the act by Israel’s Foreign Ministry last week of snubbing a delegation of US Congressmen because they were associated with J Street and therefore “anti-Israel”, writes:

J Street is an organization that is sworn to uncompromising support for Israel and for a peace process that will secure the nation’s existence. It represents extremely powerful and important streams in American Jewry, particularly under a Democratic Administration. I have written here in the past about the foolishness of ignoring this stream, but last week saw new records of crudity and stupidity. “The Congresspeople told me that they were astonished, offended, and hurt by the attitude of the Foreign Ministry and the Israeli government toward them,” Ben-Ami told me. “My feeling is that you need to look in depth into how you cope with differences of opinion in Israel.”

The visitors were so offended that in an exceptional move they convened a press conference, demanded an official explanation, and protested at their depiction as enemies of Israel. It will be interesting to see what they have to tell their friend Rahm Emanuel when they return to Washington DC. Is there no-one in our government of midgets who can stand up and put an end to this madness?

Israel, arrogance on unprecedented levels.

The story of New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner having a son now enlisted in the IDF continues to cause angst across the world.

This Al-Jazeera report outlines the issues and provides evidence for the prosecution, namely that Bronner’s reporting is inherently more sympathetic to the Zionist line:

The Times itself has followed up the story with another comment by the Public Editor and some letters:

I believe the need for Ethan Bronner’s reassignment is clear. Could you imagine if the Jerusalem bureau chief of any major media source was the father of a Palestinian militant? It’s a nonstarter, and it’s common sense.

If a media source actually aspires to be unbiased, not just the voice of a popular liberal narrative, then the need for reassignment and a serious examination of policy are self-evident.

JERRY MAROGIL

Grand Rapids, Mich., Feb. 7, 2010

The Public Editor Clark Hoyt argues:

…There is a huge difference between being a Jewish reporter covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and being a reporter whose son has enlisted in the Israeli military. For one thing, as the letter from Ira Glunts illustrates, there is no unanimity among Jews about Israel. To suggest otherwise is to buy into stereotypes. Good reporters bring their life stories to their work and learn both to mine them for material and to correct for bias. But having a son take up arms in a foreign fight you are covering — any fight — creates intolerable pressures and appearances, in my view. I would have said the same thing if The Times had had a reporter in Northern Ireland with a son in the British military there — or fighting with the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

I tend to agree with Hoyt on this point. Bronner’s religion isn’t the issue here but his perspective. Being a Zionist is also fine but it must be fairly balanced with reports by individuals not so heavily invested in the Zionist project.