The mere mention of Somalia often brings up visions of great violence for many, especially Americans still reeling from the Black Hawk Down incident. And given the current state of affairs in southern Somalia (where most of the fighting occurs), this image will like remain for some time.
For some Somalis who fled, it was not from the chaos of the civil war, but from Siad Barre’s regime that had committed serious human rights abuses. In particular, Barre, in order to put down the uprising from the resistant group Somali Nation Movement (SNM), had resorted to targeting civilians from areas where they were considered popular. The SNM was largely an Isaaq (a Somali tribe) dominated movement and Barre had created a policy meant to pressure this base in hopes that they would turn on the SNM.
This pressure took the form of bombings of Isaaq dominated civilian areas in response to SNM offences against the military, kidnapping and torture of civilians by the National Security Service (NSS), mass executions of men, women and children, and other human rights abuses.
This oppression went on for a decade from 1981 to 1991 and ended only with the fall of Barre’s government. To understand the depravity of Barre’s rule, the organization Genocide Watch has labeled what occurred during the year 1988 (when the worst atrocities were committed) as extermination. Barre, at that point, sought to replace the Isaaq with his mother’s tribe, the Marehan, who inhabit the Eastern part of Ethiopia, after failing to seize the area from Ethiopia during the failed 1977 war.
Unfortunately, Barre, upon realizing that his government was collapsing, fled to Nigeria, where he remained until his death in 1995. But many of his accomplices still remain at large and have yet to face justice.
One of them is Muhammed Ali Samatar, who was a general in the Somali Armed Forces, and served as Defense Minister and Prime Minister from 1980 to 1986 and 1987 to 1990, respectively. Afterwards, Samatar fled to the United States where he was recognized by one of his victims who, along with four others living outside the U.S., filed a suit against him.
The suit was brought by the Centre for Justice and Accountability (CJA) on behalf of the torture survivors. The victims are:
Bashe Abdi Yousuf, a young business man detained, tortured, and kept in solitary confinement for over six years; Aziz Mohamed Deria, whose father and brother were abducted by officials and never seen again; John Doe I, whose two brothers were summarily executed by soldiers; Jane Doe, a university student detained by officials, raped 15 times, and put in solitary confinement for over three years; and John Doe II, who was imprisoned for his clan affiliation and was shot by a firing squad, but miraculously survived by hiding under other dead bodies. The case aims to hold former Minister of Defense and Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Samantar accountable for the egregious human rights abuses perpetrated by subordinates acting under his direct authority.
But this search for justice has worried some of the pro-Israel crowd, fearing that the case Yousuf et al. v. Samatar can set a precedent which would result in “a rash of lawsuits of this kind against Israel,” warned Alyza Lewin, an attorney with the firm of Lewin & Lewin.
While American law does not allow citizens to file criminal lawsuits against foreign officials, civil lawsuits against foreign officials are still an open option. And this is exactly what has worried pro-Israel individuals and organizations. Especially given that Tzipi Livni had to cancel a trip to Britain for fear of arrest after a warrant was issued. And it seems that other pro-Israel organizations see this case as a threat to the interests of Israel, resulting in the Lewin & Lewin firm filing a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of Samantar and against making foreign officials vulnerable to civil lawsuits on behalf of the Zionist Organization of America, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, Agudath Israel of America, and the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists. The co-executive director of American Jewish Congress, Marc Stern sided with Samatar in the briefs they have filed.
The only pro-Israel organization that differed on this issue was the Anti-Defamation League, which argued in its brief that while perpetrators of serious human rights violations overseas should be able to face justice in American courts, there is a need to “protect the ability of lower courts to dismiss meritless claims brought for political or other improper purposes.”
One should note that the pro-Israel crowd is not alone in their support of Samatar, the Saudi government, perhaps also fearing that members of their government are vulnerable given their human rights record, has filed a brief on behalf of Samatar.
In any case, all parties are waiting with bated breathe for the Supreme Courts decision. The CJA does have a strong case and given that the law is vague and does not restrict civil lawsuits, it seems that they will win. But this would not be the end for pro-Israel advocates who can lobby the government to alter the law.
Personally, the actions taken by the pro-Israel crowd have angered me. Do they really have to stoop so low to promote what they believe are the interests of Israel? Never mind that these Somalis may never find justice else where, and that the case has little to with Israel. The actions taken by these organizations cannot be justified on a moral level, especially if one considers that this is meant to block out possible lawsuits from Palestinians through human rights organizations. It’s clear that this would only serve to benefit oppressors like Samatar, and oppressive states Israel and Saudi Arabia and this is exactly why the three have joined forces.
Common propaganda from the pro-Israel crowd, hails the law and order in Israel, but often in practice little justice can be found for Palestinians. Indeed, all one needs to do is refer to Yesh Din, an Israel human rights group, findings on the success of police investigations in the West Bank. ‘Yesh Din reports that of these 205 investigations “police processing and prosecutorial review have concluded in 163 files. Out of those 163, only in 13 (8%) of the cases were indictments filed against defendants. One case file was lost and never investigated, and 149 (91%) investigation files were closed without filing any indictments against suspects”’. This is not some anomaly but just another part of the campaign to prevent Palestinians from seeking remedy in courts outside of Israel (which even when they do rule in favor of Palestinians, their rulings are often ignored).
Also, I want to make it clear that Barre did not just target the Isaaq tribe during his rule, the Marjeerteen and Hawiye clans were also harmed. I only focused on the Isaaq tribe because the victims in the court case were from that clan.
Amyro89 is Somali-Canadian and is hoping to pursue a career political science. She has always been interested in politics but was only recently pushed into the issue of Israel-Palestine.
I wish I could say I was shocked. This is part of the reason, frankly, I’m cynical when people claim that Jewish Americans were, as a majority within their group, staunch supporters of African American civil rights. I don’t doubt there were a lot of Jewish Americans — but I do doubt now that most Jewish Americans were. Not when we see the things they and their organizations support today.
The proof just isn’t in the pudding.
Jewish Americans did support the civil rights movement (as they did the 1965 Immigration Act which has literally changed the face of the nation) because at the time their concern was to take down the WASP establishment and erode the majority
white coalition. Now that blacks have real power and Latinos are going to be such a huge political force, the Jewish American orgs are having second thoughts because
the soon2B new black and brown majority coalition have no guilt about the Shoah
or Jim Crow, etc.
Next thing, we’ll see Israelis fighting the prosecution of Nazis for war crimes, and the circle will be complete.
We already see pro-Israelis supporting anti-Semites here in Europe (because they hate Muslims more than they hate Jews and therefore support Israel).
“ewish Americans were, as a majority within their group, staunch supporters of African American civil rights. I don’t doubt there were a lot of Jewish Americans — but I do doubt now that most Jewish Americans were. ”
That’s not a logical reaction. There’s nothing in this story that should make you think this, or not anything that I see.
My impression is that most self-described white liberals and moderates and even some conservatives outside the South were pro-civil-rights (Republicans were pro-civil rights back then) but as people have said, because they didn’t see it as threatening to them. If it’s not a zero-sum game (he wins, I lose), many or most people will side with human rights. If their self interest is involved, maybe not. Self interest could mean material self-interest, or it could mean their loyalty to a particular ideology that means a lot to them.
So anyway, I don’t doubt that most Jewish and most non-Jewish whites saw themselves as good non-racist people shocked by Bull Connor back in the day. And maybe the percentage of Jewish supporters of civil rights was higher than in whites as a whole. In those days the white racists who were seen beating up blacks probably reminded people of Nazis in the 30′s beating up Jews and so it would have been easy to be against them.
How is that illogical? Richard Witty keeps claiming that as his virtual birthright, doesn’t he? Well, after Israel, anyway.
It all sounds like hollow claims to me in the face of the choices and actions of today. Yes, there are people like Phil Weiss, and Medea Benjamin and Noam Chomsky. Fine examples of Jewish Americans who live up to expectations. Exceed them, really.
And they’re a marginalized majority.
Am I supposed to assume that the nature of Jewish American culture just spontaneously changed at some point between the 1960′s and today? If so, could you point me to the events that changed it?
As people pointed out a few days ago, it would not be surprising to find American Jews standing up for American blacks–that’s one persecuted minority group feeling sympathy for another (Jews were much less persecuted in America, but there was some.) Plus there’s the pleasurable sensation that most people get when they support human rights at no cost to themselves (leaving aside the tiny minority that actually put their lives at risk). Whites who opposed civil rights for blacks in those days did so for two reasons–either they thought blacks would compete with them for jobs and other material things, or their sense of self worth was tied up with their feelings of white superiority. Plus southern whites have this whole glorification of the Confederacy that twists their thinking. I don’t think that Jewish Americans had any emotional stake of this sort at play (unless there’s a Judah Benjamin fan club out there that I’m not aware of.)
The Palestinian situation is completely different. Here, recognizing just how much Zionism has done to Palestinians hits some American Jews just as hard (Richard Witty, for instance) as southern whites were hit when they were forced to recognize just how backwards their society appeared to outsiders. And if prosecuting Somalian war criminals might pose an indirect danger to Israel’s self-image (because their war criminals might be next), well, so much the worse for the Somalian victims. If there had been a perceived connection between supporting civil rights for blacks back then and supporting civil rights for Palestinians, then I suspect there’d have been fewer Jewish Americans supporting civil rights for blacks. Show me evidence where people made that link.
I also don’t think American Jews as a group are different from American gentiles–yeah, some have this fetish about Israel, but then other Americans have fetishes about other things. People like to think of themselves as good, and so we normally support human rights and feel a nice warm glow for it, and that only changes if we think there’s some conflict between Those People obtaining rights, and some bad thing that might happen to People Like Us.
Finally, this notion that we all have to sit around judging Jewish American culture in the 60′s based on events that occurred nearly 50 years later is weird to me. Why do we have to judge Jewish American culture at all? Why not criticize specific groups and people for their specific actions? Let Richard praise his group to the skies–that’s his pathology. Tribalists are always doing this. I don’t have to respond by taking the opposite viewpoint.
But that’s my point, and the point Citizen reinforced in reply to my original post. They weren’t really supporting civil rights, any more than Obama was ever really for an end to the war in Iraq or genuine health care reform. It was merely a self-serving cynical ploy to seize political power.
You know what white Catholic Americans got out of supporting the civil rights movement? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just as much as those of us who do, get from supporting Palestinian rights. But we do it anyway. Sometimes at personal cost.
Because it’s the right thing to do. And maybe that’s the point I was making about sincerity.
Neither of us has any knowledge of how many people would switch sides on a given human rights issue if circumstances change. I have no way of knowing what the percentages would be if the Palestinian/Jim Crow link had been made then.
Anyway, why single out American Jews? I’m sure any group you’d care to name would be the same–that is, if support for the civil rights of group X had worked against the perceived interests of group Y, then there would be fewer people within group Y who would have support civil rights for group X.
Why single out Jewish Americans? Because that’s exactly what the original article does.
It talks “pro-Israel groups” actually and then names them. And it’s talking about a specific action. I have no problem with this (so long as the information is accurate and it is AFAIK). I have a problem extending this criticism to “Jewish Americans” and then extending it back several decades in time to a different situation. It’s the same principle I have on Muslims. I don’t have a problem with criticism of specific Muslim individuals or groups if the criticism is accurate, but generalizing to “Muslim-Americans” is a whole other thing.
“It talks “pro-Israel groups” actually and then names them.”
Donald the title of the article is “Jewish American Organizations…” The author later writes of Zionists, but my guess is that he does understand the ethno-political angle the Jewish organizations play. I’m just surprised that the thought police haven’t rushed in to call him an anti-Semite for not differentiating between Zionists and Jews.
Ppeople often criticize Jews because many Jews constantly talk of the superior Jewish morality and Jewish gifts. Phil has often written about the role of Jews in the civil rights movement as a gift to the nation. Why ignore that? Who shies away from speaking of white racism, the part that white Southerners played in Jim Crow, or white priilege? Many Jews play the blame game very well. Why not point out the hypocrisy?
BTW, I don’t believe that any person who supported the founding of Israel, and supported what happened afterwards deserves any credit for supporting civil rights for blacks in America, when he was supporting far worse in Palestine at the SAME time. I believe that Zionism is strongly supported among American Jews today, and the support for Israel within the Jewish community was probably even stronger in the 50s and 60s. Yet Americans are still far more likely to see news reports or portrayals of white racism or the role of white Southerners during Jim Crow in our media. I wonder why?
For the time being, Barack Obama’s Middle East (Zionist Israel vs Islamic Iran) foreign policy have overshadowed the Zionists’ similar anti-Islam agenda in several African countries, especially in Sudan and Somalia. Kenyan journalist and former UN official, Salim Lone, summed up the consensus view among the African and international analysts: “Instead of engaging with the Islamists to secure peace, the United States has plunged a poor country into greater misery”.
In June 2006, The New York Times reported that CIA saw the emerging Islamic Court Union (ICU), which aimed to build Somali unity based on Islam, as a dangerous alternative even though it was a broad coalition involving moderate as well as Islamist factions – led by the US-sponsored current president Sheikh Sharif and Sheikh Hassan Aweys (now one of the anti-government leaders). The ICU quickly gained the popular support and defeated US-supported warlord alliance. For the rest of 2006, the Somali capital saw its most prolonged period of relative peace in more than 15 years.
The Zionist-controlled mainstream media has been beating drums about Somalian piracy, Al-Qaeda in Somalia, Taliban-style Islamic State in Somalia, and lawless – but no one like to mention foreigners’ fishing robery, dumping of toxic wastes, funding and training of various warlords by CIA and MOSSAD. ……
Focus on Somalia
link to rehmat1.wordpress.com
Sometimes, Rehmat, you seem to go a bit off the rails but this time you are spot on. I don’t exactly approve of what the ICU was, but they were a lot better than the results of the “bomb ‘em and leave ‘em” that American intervention has wrought upon Somalia.
As far as pirates go, I keep asking myself: why don’t Israeli pirates get the same treatment as Somali pirates? It would only be fair.
Rehmat is 100% correct about what has happened in Somalia, and elsewhere in Africa. In fact, there is even more of a powerful confluence than just Zionists and American “interest,” it is a predominant nations feast of vultures.
It seems the US still doesn’t understand the concept of blowback. The one tiny hope of Somalia becoming a normal state was extinguished by stupidity.
In fact, there are interests and shares in carnage for profit that are invested in by members of both houses in Africa, as well as former executive office holders in the US. Many are protected by the vague forms of corporate transfer of natural resources and human resources that represent wealth, some are direct investments. These are protected many times and nurtured (for a piece of the action) by Zionist interests, the sales of arms of US origin are fronted many times by Zionist agents. So, there is a lot more to the “stranglehold” of Zionism than meets the eye, both by means of monetary benefits as well as potential extortion. AFRICOM
As a single case example of Israeli (Zionist activity in Africa) see -
ISRAEL PERPETUATES THE RAPE OF AFRICA AND LATIN AMERICA
Of course the US and Israel and all of Europe understand blowback.
There are ‘stated goals’ and then the actual goals.
Oh they understand it all too well, the CIA aren’t stupid, they know that ‘valubale allies du jour’ are tomorrow’s ‘existential threat to our way of life, no this time we’re super serious.’
It’s wars all the way down.
Pingback: Jewish American organizations aid Somali human rights abusers.... - Christian Forums
An interesting site for you to explore –
AFRICA
For a real eye opener which you will not read anywhere else about Israel’s activity in Africa –
GERTLERS BLING BANG TORAH GANG