Why did we vote for Obama? Joseph Dana reports that AP reporters have now pressed PJ Crowley, ass’t sec’y of State, three times over the imprisonment of Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a leader of nonviolent protest of the unending landgrab in the West Bank. And… the State Department says jacks—. Many other countries have been monitoring this case and denouncing Abu Rahmah’s treatment. And our country? Dana:
On Friday, 10 December, AP reporter Matt Lee directly addressed Abdallah Abu Rahmah’s case during a US State Department briefing. US State department spokesman PJ Crowley responded that he was unable to provide a comment on the trial. When Matt Lee pushed, arguing that the EU and other foreign dignitaries had labeled Abu Rahmah a human rights defender, Crowley responded that he will “[find] out what we know.”…
The current US administration has made repeated statements on the need to support civil society activists, such as the one made by Secretary of State Clinton in July, 2010 the Krakow Community of Democracies meeting, in which she saluted “civil society activists around the world who have recently been harassed, censored, cut off from funding, arrested, prosecuted, even killed.” Clinton explained that when we defend civil society activists “we are defending an idea that has been and will remain essential to the success of every democracy.”..
Yesterday, 15 December 2010, the issue of Abu Rahmah was followed up by the AP. Crowley answered that the case is ‘watched closely’ by US representatives in Israel. Far from releasing a statement on Abdallah Abu Rahmah, Crowley confirmed the silent position on Palestinian non-violence that the United States has maintained in recent months.
Video links of the relevant State Department briefings can be found here (10.12.2010, minute 13:08), here (13.12.2010, minute 17:08), here (14.12.2010, minute 21:33) and here (15.12.2010, minute 22:20).