The attacks against Judge Goldstone’s report on the Gaza war fall into three categories: personal attacks against him, attacks on the accuracy and veracity of the findings and attacks against the UN body that commissioned the report. In this recent interview with Bill Moyers, Judge Goldstone responds to all these attacks and others as well. The more I hear him speak, the more impressed I am with the man’s intelligence, integrity and moral courage:
Tags: Human Rights, War Crimes
I realize its been a month since I’ve posted here, and I have restricted myself to posting articles in Twitter. I’ve been extremely busy with a move and with work, so I just haven’t had time to write more extended pieces. Just to share a bit of where I’ve moved, what folows are a copy of photos showing the view from my new apartment’s window.
As I noted in my twitter postings, Judge Goldstone’s report on the Gaza invasion condemns both Israel and Hamas for war crimes. As reported in the NY Times:
The report called Israel’s military assault on Gaza “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.”
Tags: Feature, War Crimes
In discussing my previous post with some friends, it occurred to me that the Declaration of Independence, which expresses the fervent hopes of the founders of this country, is famous for its phrase: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
While some people compare this phrase to the “liberté, égalité, fraternité” (liberty, equality, fraternity) of the French revolution, there are several important differences. “The pursuit of happiness” is really just a way to embody John Locke’s idea that government’s main role is to protect property, without saying it outright. The rights of non-property owners are really not of much concern, although the founders didn’t want to say that explicitely. While equality does show up, from the constitution we learn that for the founders, the “all men” to whom equality applies are only white freemen. One can conclude, in other words, that the “rule of law” in the US means “protecting property rights of a certain class.”
Tags: Human Rights
On more than one occassion I have expressed my outrage at the “progressive”/”liberal” mantra that the US is “a nation of laws” and the associated demand to call Bush & Co to account for their war crimes. According to this narrative, Bush & Co are to blame for the sorry state we are in: using the fear that 9/11 induced in the helpless minds of the American people, they turned us into a lawless nation – Guantanomo! Renditions! Eavesdroppings! NSA! CIA! Obama is an asshole/wimp/disappointment because he doesn’t prosecute Bush & Cheney and has not returned the “the law” into its central holy place in the American pantheon.
Tags: Human Rights
Exactly seven years ago I wrote an article about Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon and his references to the army applying “chemotherapy” to the Palestinian “cancer” in the West Bank and Gaza. As I noted then, the language he used is the language of fascism. Along with Lieberman (who also shows all signs of being a fascist) Ya’alon is now one of six key ministers in the current Israeli government. In his most recent post , Uri Avnery reaches a similar conclusion:
…Moshe (“Bogie”) Ya’alon [recently participated] in a gathering of the Jewish Leadership Faction. “Peace Now is a virus,” he said there. And not only they. “All the media” are also a virus. They influence the public discourse “in a distorted manner, a lying manner”. The virus also includes “the elite” in general. In addition, the “politicians” are to blame. “Every time the politicians bring in the dove of peace, we, the army, have to clean up after it.”
His summing up: “The Jews have a right to settle in any place throughout Eretz Israel.” And if this upsets the Americans, Ya’alon has a ready answer: “I am not afraid of the Americans!”
These tones come together in a frightening melody, a tune we know all too well. It is anthem of fascism.
Tags: Israeli Politics, Nationalism, Xenophobia
It’s hard to believe four years passed since Sharon declared a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Nehamia Shtrasler does an excellent job at summing up the disastrous consequences:
The evacuation could have been handled differently. It could have been used to enhance the status of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but Sharon didn’t agree to speak with him. He didn’t allow Abbas to gain any advantage from it and carried out the evacuation in an arrogant and unilateral manner, even though Abbas is the most moderate Palestinian leader ever.
At a meeting of the Kadima party leadership a few months after the disengagement, Sharon confidant Dov Weissglas said: “We will put the Palestinians on a diet, but not make them die of hunger.” Everyone present burst into laughter. But when the Palestinians discovered that Abbas hadn’t managed to ease the suffering and that there was no chance of a normal life on the horizon, they opted for a more extreme leadership – Hamas.
And let’s not forget Sharon’s heavy hand in helping found Hamas.
Tags: Hamas
A clear and clever presentation of how we must deal with global warming using game theory. Worth the watch:
One of the saddest aspects of Israel’s occupation and militarization has to do with the the huge role arm sales now play in the Israeli economy. It wasn’t always this way, and someday I hope to write a longer piece on the topic and my own peripheral involvement in this area. Besides the morally despicable aspect of being lords of war (cf. movie of the same name), the arms trade is the major source of corruption in Israeli government (just like drug trade or human traficking is in other countries). Not surprising that Israel’s corrupt foreign minister is going around the world pushing Israeli arm sales:
“The ugly Israeli” in the guise of the arms dealer (mostly former intelligence and military officials), who promotes weapons sales on behalf of Israeli military industries, with the backing of the defense establishment, have given Israel a bad name world-wide. Israelis have been involved in civil wars (in Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast) and in aiding dictatorial regimes such as in Equatorial Guinea and the two Congo republics….
Lieberman is planning to bring with him dozens of businessmen, most of them arms dealers, as well as security advisers and representatives of the military industries.
Tags: Arms Sales, War Racket