Hebron: At least 10 children arrested by Israeli military in one week
The extreme Golani Unit of the Israeli military is escalating its arrests of Palestinian children in Al Khalil (Hebron), targeting boys between the ages of 12 to15 years old with at least 10 reported cases of child arrests made just in the span of one week.
link to palsolidarity.org

Ethnic Cleansing / Destruction of Homes & Property / Apartheid 

Not behaving like Caesar's wife-- Goodman last month called for Israel to wage an international "war" for its public image. Now he's calling for war against Iran.

Notice the sloppy thinking-- that Iran is threatening America with nukes, threatening a world war.

Daniel Nolan reports for the Spectator, a Hamilton, Canada, newspaper on a speech by Goodman on Thursday night at a local synagogue, sponsored by the United Jewish Appeal:

A prominent Israeli writer is advocating his nation attack Iran’s nuclear development facilities now because the risk is too great after that country builds nuclear weapons.

Hirsh Goodman doesn’t believe sanctions being pushed by Western nations will stop Iran and said something has to be done this year before Iran moves its nuclear work underground.

He said a nuclear Iran, along with a nuclear Pakistan, would plunge the world into “a new cold war, if not a hot one.”

“The minute Iran is nuclear, it’s a whole different game,” Goodman said Thursday night at the Beth Jacob Synagogue in west Hamilton.

“Not because they are going to blow up Israel. They’ve got missiles that can reach the east cost of America, but what happens if the ayatollah (Iran’s supreme leader) wakes up one morning and destroys the Saudi fields and the Kuwaiti oilfields and the West is left with no energy.”

A new, neoconservative online outlet called the Washington Free Beacon is continuing the campaign against the Center for American Progress (CAP) in two articles that go after the organization for “downplaying” intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program. But the author, Adam Kredo, misleads readers by distorting the existing evidence on Iran. The articles represent a continuation of a campaign to discredit those who are cautious about a war on Iran, a core reason why neoconservatives are attacking CAP.

Kredo’s main contention is that CAP, along with the Huffington Post and Media Matters, has “downplayed new intelligence indicating Iran’s nuclear program is more dangerous than previously thought.” Kredo writes that liberal groups have taken to questioning the reporting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the organization tasked with monitoring nuclear energy and weapons. But it’s Kredo’s characterization of the most recent IAEA report that is wrong.

But first, Kredo is also wrong when he writes that liberal groups like CAP have questioned “the IAEA’s recent findings on Iran.” As evidence for that assertion, he links to a CAP report that approvingly cites the IAEA report “detailing Iran’s past and current nuclear weapons-related research.” So in fact, CAP does not question the veracity of the IAEA report--and neither do the other articles Kredo links to.

More important though is Kredo’s distortion of the IAEA report--which, it should be noted, has been credibly criticized by some analysts. The distortion serves up an agenda that portrays an Iranian nuclear weapons program as an “existential threat” to Israel that should be wiped out by the U.S. and/or Israel--actions that would lead to a disastrous war.

"This is the exact same pattern that we saw in Iraq, and the effort by folks to hype the threat and take things out of context and confuse the American public into thinking things that are not true," said Jamal Abdi, the policy director for the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). "Right now, a lot of Americans have been fooled into thinking that Iran has a nuclear weapon, or even that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon."

In Kredo's first article (which has a hyperlink with the title, "war on truth,") Kredo writes:

The IAEA’s most recent report reveals that Iran has been pursuing nuclear weapons since the mid-1980s with public activities peaking around 2002 before apparently moving underground.

And in his second article, which smears CAP as "prejudiced" and "anti-Semitic," he similarly states:

Liberal writers routinely question the veracity of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) November report on Iran. The report builds the case that the regime is aggressively pursuing nuclear weapons.

The IAEA report does sound the alarm on certain aspects of Iran’s nuclear work that the report says may indicate nuclear weapons work. But no where in the report can you find a definitive statement that “Iran has been pursuing nuclear weapons since the mid-1980s” or that Iran is “aggressively pursuing nuclear weapons,” which is how Kredo characterizes it.

"What [U.S.] intelligence reports found and continue to find is the same thing the IAEA report found, which is that Iran had a concerted nuclear weapons program up until 2003, and shut that program down," Abdi explained in a phone interview. "And while there still remains some activities that appear to be geared towards no other purpose than potential weapons work, it’s the finding of both the intelligence community and the IAEA that Iran has not made a decision to actually pursue a nuclear weapon. If anything, what they’re moving towards is the capability if they decide to get a nuclear weapon. And that’s much different than what this reporter is asserting."

Kredo's misleading characterizations, which frequently shows up in mainstream media, have been roundly criticized by the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). In November 2011, a FAIR “action alert” noted:

The first part of the agency's November 8 report declares--once again--that Iran is not transferring uranium for use in a military project.

The more explosive allegations that media are focusing on are contained in an annex that attempts to lay out evidence that has been circulating for years. The IAEA report stresses concern over allegations over past activities; very little of the report is dedicated to research that could be describing as ongoing. Indeed, the media is focusing primarily on the IAEA's speculation about what might be ongoing research that could be related to a military program.

The Christian Science Monitor also had a good report outlining why the IAEA report wasn’t the “game changer” it was made out to be:

In a 14-page annex to its quarterly report on Iran released yesterday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said new intelligence and other data gave it "serious concern" about the allegedly peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program. But the casus belli for military strikes that anti-Iran hawks in the US and Israel expected to gain from the IAEA report is far from clear-cut...

Prior to the report's release, speculation mounted in Israel and Washington that new revelations might prompt military strikes to prevent Iran from acquiring a weapon.

Instead, experts say, much of the information is years old, inconclusive – and perhaps not entirely real.

Most of the weapons-related work it details was shut down nearly a decade ago – in 2003 – the IAEA says, and less formal efforts that "may" continue do not bolster arguments that Iran is a nation racing to have the bomb.
Iran "doesn't seem to have the same North Korea-like obsession with developing nuclear weapons. That's nowhere to be found in the [IAEA] evidence," says Shannon Kile, head of the Nuclear Weapons Project at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
"Yes, Iran is making progress, they've covered the waterfront in terms of the main technical areas that you need to develop a nuclear weapon," says Mr. Kile. "But there is no evidence they have a dedicated program under way. It's not like they are driving toward nuclear weapons; it's like they're meandering toward capability."

And after readers, urged on by FAIR, complained to the New York Times’ ombudsman about articles claiming that the IAEA report states that Iran's nuclear program has a military objective, the ombudsman agreed with FAIR. Arthur Brisbane wrote correctly that the “agency has stopped short” of emphatically saying that Iran is building nuclear weapons. Similarly, the Washington Post's ombudsman criticized his paper's reporting for "getting ahead of the facts on Iran" after a headline in the Post read, "Iran’s quest to possess nuclear weapons." The Times and the Post are no bastions of anti-war on Iran sentiment, so it’s significant that their ombudsmen would chastise their papers for reporting what Kredo is also writing.

To bolster the case that Iran is definitively pursuing nuclear weapons, Kredo quotes Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as saying that Iran is “certainly moving on [the] path” towards weaponization. It’s true that Clapper said that; but the next sentence in his testimony was this: “We do not believe they have actually made the decision to go ahead with a nuclear weapon.” This is similar to what Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on CBS last month: “Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No. But we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability and that’s what concerns us.”

Kredo’s zeal to discredit CAP and other analysts who are speaking out against a war with Iran is clearly one more step in the attempt to marginalize critics of current U.S./Israeli policy on Iran. Predictably, the clamoring for an Iran war is appearing in an outlet whose chairman is the neoconservative writer Michael Goldfarb, who advises the Emergency Committee for Israel. Goldfarb has also advised Sarah Palin on foreign policy.

"The hyping of this type is going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy," NIAC's Abdi said. "We’re going to see a repeat of Iraq. But a war with Iran is going to make the wars of the past ten years look like a cakewalk."

Yesterday, MSNBC reported that Mossad agents trained an Iranian group on the U.S. terror list, in order to carry out assassinations of nuclear scientists. Active since the 1970s, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran are credited as responsible for five deadly attacks on scientists since 2007.

Rock Center with Brian Williams MSNBC report.

MSNBC spoke with Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide in the Iranian government whose assertion the terror organization was linked to Mossad was confirmed.  The group was "financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service."  MSNBC reports:

Moreover, [Larigani] said, the Mossad, the Israeli secret service, is training MEK [the Iranian terror group] members in Israel on the use of motorcycles and small bombs. In one case, he said, Mossad agents built a replica of the home of an Iranian nuclear scientist so that the assassins could familiarize themselves with the layout prior to the attack. [Emphasis added]

The news station’s evidence is based upon interviews with Iranian officials, and documents apprehended from a thwarted assassination attempt in 2010.

The Iranian terror organization denies allegations of a relationship with Mossad, citing the report as "absolutely false." Conversely, U.S. government officials stated to MSNBC "all your inclinations are correct," and affirm no involvement.  However, skepticism remains, Al Jazeera previously chronicled the group's strong U.S. ties:

George W. Bush's attorney general Michael Mukasey has described MEK members as 'courageous freedom fighters'. President Barack Obama's former national security advisor, General James L. Jones, gave a speech at a MEK conference dominated by non-Iranians. Their events have also been attended by former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge, former NATO supreme commander Wesley Clark and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Hat tip to Paul Mutter for catching this**
 

Khader Adnan enters the 55th day of his hungry strike in Israeli detention, he has not been charged with anything

Ethnic Cleansing / Destruction of Homes & Property / Apartheid

Palestinian family forced to destroy their home
Palestinian family in Occupied East Jerusalem have until Friday to clear the rubble from their house which they were forced to destroy with their own hands.
link to gulfnews.com 

Settlers take more land in occupied West Bank
Jewish settlers have seized a large area of the town of Yatta, south of the city of Hebron. The land grab is to expand an illegal settlement. The Yatta coordinator of the Popular Committees Against the Wall and Settlements, Rateb El-Jabour, told Quds Press that the settlers cordoned-off around 3,000 square metres in the early morning. This, he said, was a prelude to the land's confiscation for expansion of a settlement near ancient Susya. 
link to www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk

Hamas condemns Israeli attempts to wipe out Islamic, Christian shrines
Hamas strongly condemned the Israeli Judaization plans targeting Islamic and Christian holy shrines in occupied Jerusalem.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

650 students shut out of class for the second day in a row due to cuts in electricity
The administration of the mixed elementary school in Beer Ayoub, Silwan was forced to delay the start of instruction for the second day in a row due to a cut in electricity. The school’s electricity network has been damaged by rainwater that leaked into the building..This recent electricity cut deprives 650 boys and girls from attending their regular classes. Parents of children attending the school asked the Jerusalem Municipality to repair the leaks two months ago, but the scheduled repairs have been constantly delayed, one parent told Silwanic. Mousa Audeh, a member of the parents committee, said to Silwanic, ‘”How could the Jerusalem Municipality claim that it invests more money in developing education in East Jerusalem and doesn’t fix the electricity problem at one of these schools.” Silwan suffers from an extreme shortage of classrooms which forces 70% of neighborhood children, both boys and girls, to attend school outside of the neighbhorhood. Partially due to this, 61% of children in Silwan drop out before completing secondary school.
link to silwanic.net

An Ongoing Nakba: The Plight of Palestinian Refugees in Iraq
In September 2011, the month that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud ‘Abbas submitted Palestine’s statehood bid at the United Nations, Qusai Abdul-Raouf of the Lebanon-based Palestinian Human Rights Foundation was undertaking the task of documenting the increasing number of attacks against Palestinians in the Al Baladiyyat neighbourhood of Baghdad. As he toured the neighborhood three gunmen, reportedly wearing Interior Ministry uniforms, abducted him. No one has seen him since.
link to www.jadaliyya.com

Neighborhood pays price of being on wrong side of Israel's wall
Residents of Kafr Aqab are cut off from most public services, even though they live within Jerusalem's city limits. The once-upscale area is now a slum. With a fire extinguisher in his hand and a cellphone pressed to his ear, principal Sameeh abu Rameelh battled an electrical fire in his Jerusalem high school's computer lab while pleading with the fire department to come to his aid.
link to feeds.latimes.com

Violence / Aggression

Soldiers assault man in Jenin
JENIN (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces assaulted a man in Jenin on Tuesday morning, witnesses told Ma'an. The unnamed man was stopped at a flying checkpoint near the Jenin village of Yabad. Witnesses said that soldiers took the man to a nearby area of olive trees where they began to assault him. They then took him to a unknown destination.
link to www.maannews.net

Palestinian cars sprayed with unknown materials at Israeli checkpoints, Abir Kopty
Lately I’ve been going to Jenin every 2-3 weeks with family members. We usually do our vegetable shopping in the city market. Last Saturday, on our way back from Jenin to Nazareth, we were surprised to find a new technology to check the ‘suspected’ cars at the Israeli checkpoint. The checkpoint’s check usually goes like this: There are about six lines of cars going out through the checkpoint, at each there are 1-2 "security" officers that ask for IDs, and decide whether this car including its riders, do or do not consist a major threat to Israel’s "security" and "existence". If they do not, the officer gives the car a white ticket, which means they are done with the "security" check. If yes, then the car gets a green ticket. Once you get the green one, you have to go to the far right route into a special check. You are asked to open all doors, take out all your belongings and go through physical check while the car is been checked separately.
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/02/palestinian-cars-sprayed-with-unknown-materials-at-israeli-checkpoints.html

Israel 'closes investigation into tear gas shooting'
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli authorities on Sunday closed an investigation into the shooting of an Israeli activist with a tear gas canister in West Bank village Nabi Saleh, the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee reported. Ben Ronen suffered multiple fractures to his hand after being hit at close range on May 13, the committee said. He was informed by the Israeli internal affairs division that the case was closed because of insufficient evidence, the report added. The popular committee released footage of an Israeli border police officer firing the projectile towards Ronen during a weekly protest against land confiscation in the Ramallah-district.
link to www.maannews.net

 

Political Detainees

Israeli court ratifies detention order for Jihad leader
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) -- Israel's Ofer military court said Tuesday that an administrative detention order for Islamic Jihad leader Khader Adnan is in effect. The Palestinian prisoners society contacted the court on Monday to obtain a final decision regarding the order. The military court confirmed on Tuesday that the 4 month administrative detention order issued on Jan. 8 is being implemented.
link to www.maannews.net
 

Ad-Dameer Laywer Visits Hunger-Striking Detainee
Lawyer of the Ad-Dameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Samer Samaan, managed to visit the ailing hunger-striking detainee, Adnan Khader, who has been on hunger strike since 51 days despite the sharp deterioration in his health condition. Khader is currently at an Israeli Hospital in Safad.

link to www.imemc.org

Ofer jail isolates 8 Palestinian prisoners for going on solidarity hunger strike
The Israeli Ofer jail administration has isolated eight Palestinian prisoners on Monday for going on hunger strike in solidarity with Islamic Jihad leader Sheikh Khader Adnan.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Mustafa Tamimi’s brother arrested in Nabi Saleh, by Allison Deger
Clashes took place last night in Nabi Saleh between villagers and Israeli occupation forces. The Israeli army invaded the village, stormed houses, arrested two men Luai Al Tamimi 19 (brother of martyr Mustafa Tamimi)  and Ta'min Muhammad Tamimi 29. They also assaulted father of Mustafa Tamimi who suffers from renal failure and severely swollen hands. Tamimi's mother, sister and two other brothers were also assaulted.  Villagers took to the streets to protest the Israeli army. They threw stones and the Israeli army responded with live bullets, tear gas canisters and sound-bombs. The villagers cheered for resistance and condemning occupation. Israeli jeeps pulled out but news sources confirm that army vehicles are still surrounding the entrances of the village. The Committees of Popular Resistance condemned the attack and blamed the responsibility of this tension on the Israeli settlers and their continued attacks which are usually backed by the Frontiers' Guards. They also considered assaulting Mustafa Tamimi's family a new crime in the long series of Israeli crimes against humanity.
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/02/mustafa-tamimis-brother-arrested-in-nabi-saleh.html

Soldiers detain 60-year-old blocking settler tree planting
QALQILIYA (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces detained a 60-year-old man obstructing Israeli settlers from digging up land in Qalqiliya village Kafr Qaddum on Monday, witnesses and security officials said. Yaqoub Ishtawi tried to block a group of Israeli soldiers and settlers from razing village land, activist Murad Ishtewi told PA news agency Wafa. Soldiers beat Ishtawi severely before detaining him, Ishtewi added.
link to www.maannews.net

IOF soldiers arrest 15 Palestinians mostly in Nablus
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested 15 Palestinian citizens in the West Bank at dawn Tuesday mostly in Nablus province, local sources said.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Six activists arrested in Issawiya
Israeli forces, accompanied by bulldozers, arrived in the East Jerusalem village of Issawiya early this morning and reportedly arrested six Jewish Israeli activists.
link to www.alternativenews.org

IOF soldiers arrest Palestinian, 3 foreign activists in Walaja
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) detained a Palestinian activist and three foreign solidarity activists while quelling an anti wall march in Walaja village to the south west of Bethlehem.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

IOF soldiers round up five Palestinians
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) rounded up five Palestinians in various West Bank areas at dawn Sunday.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Female prisoner in Hasharon jail suffer joint pains without any help
Tadamun society for human rights said the health of Palestinian female prisoner Woroud Qasem, in Hasharon jail, has deteriorated very badly and she is suffering from severe pains in her joints.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

700 Palestinian prisoners start gradual hunger strike on Tuesday
The ministry of prisoners in Gaza has said that 700 prisoners in the Israeli Raymond jail would start a gradual hunger strike on Tuesday demanding improvement of their incarceration conditions.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

IOA sentences freed prisoner to administrative custody, arrests another
The Israeli military court in Ofer has ordered the administrative detention of freed prisoner Ayman Sharawne from Al-Khalil for six months.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Shalit committee asks court to cancel release of freed Palestinian
A specialized Israeli committee formed to look into violations of the prisoners’ exchange deal claimed that one of the freed captives in the deal had violated conditions for his release.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

 

Gaza

Gaza tomatoes banned from Israel and West Bank
Israel allowed export of three truckloads of tomatoes from Gaza to Saudi Arabia on Monday but banned the trucks from unloading in Israel and the West Bank, where their natural markets are. Despite the fact that on their way to Saudi Arabia, the trucks will pass through Israel and the West Bank, Israel continues to ban sale of goods from Gaza in these areas as part of its "Separation Policy".
link to www.alternativenews.org
 

Miles Of smiles 9 Arrives In Gaza
Palestinian sources reported Monday that the “Miles Of Smiles 9” aid and solidarity convoy made it into the coastal region through the Rafah Border Terminal, between Gaza and Egypt. 

link to www.imemc.org

 

Activism / Solidarity / Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions

 
Kafr Adik’s weekly protest in review
Photos by Dylan Collins and Lazar Simeonov. KAFR ADIK – A popular resistance demonstration took place in Kafr Adik this Friday, marking the fifth week in a row that residents have organized a protest against the occupation and the increasing...

link to www.palestinemonitor.org

Qaryut joins in the new wave of popular resistance in the West Bank
Photos by Silvia Boarini and Giorgio Algeri   Last Friday, 3 February, the Palestinian village of Qaryut united for its first mass demonstration against the permanent closure by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) of one of its main roads.

link to www.palestinemonitor.org

 

Celebrating heroes and olives: Qaryut begins to dismantle roadblock
Hundreds of peaceful demonstrators confronted heavily armed Israeli soldiers this Friday, February 3rd,  at a new protest in the village of Qaryut, planting nearly one hundred trees and partially demolishing the roadblock that has obstructed access to the highway since the First Intifada.  Although organizers were prepared for military violence, the protest remained peaceful until the end, and demonstrators marched home triumphantly with a promise from the military to remove the roadblock with a bulldozer, which they did later the same day. While the villagers celebrated this as a victory, Qaryut’s people continue to struggle for control of their lands and recognition of their rights. As of the publishing date, it is uncertain what will be the nature of future protests.

link to palsolidarity.org

Beit Ommar Demonstration Plants Hundreds of Olive Trees
On Saturday, February 4th, 2012, Palestinian villagers in Beit Ommar conducted their weekly demonstration against the settlement appropriation of their lands. The activists organized this week’s actions to plant dozens of olive trees near the Israeli settlement of Karmei Tsur. This week, the demonstrators were joined by a group of Palestinian and international runners conducting a marathon across the West Bank from Hebron to Jenin organized by Fair Trade groups and US-based community development group On the Ground.
link to palestinesolidarityproject.org

Farmers, internationals plant olive trees near Bethlehem
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Local farmers and international volunteers planted olive trees in the Bethlehem village of al-Khader on Monday as part of an ongoing advocacy initiative to protect Palestinian land. The Alternative Tourism Group and the YMCA-YWCA began the olive planting program on Feb. 4, and it will last until Feb. 13. On Monday, the group planted over 500 olive trees on agricultural lands belonging Ahmad Mousa, who owns 7,000 square meters, and Abdul-Hakim Salah, who has 15,000 square meters. Sixty international activists from 10 different countries arrived at the field at 8 a.m. to start planting 3-4 year old olive saplings.
link to www.maannews.net

Take action: Support United Methodist Church divestment campaign
United Methodist Kairos Response (UMKR) is an international movement in the United Methodist Church responding to the "Kairos Palestine Document," an urgent plea from Christians in the Holy Land for decisive action supporting a just peace in Israel/Palestine.
link to blog.endtheoccupation.org

Members of Asian People's Solidarity for Palestine Convene in Pakistan
TEHRAN (FNA)- The Palestine Foundation of Pakistan hosted a meeting in Karachi, where representatives of various Asian nations, who are part of the Asian People's Solidarity for Palestine (APSP), were present.
link to english.farsnews.com

No Valentine for Israeli blood diamonds
Members of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign joined London human rights campaigners in Hatton Garden, the centre of London’s jewellery trade, to raise awareness among shoppers and jewellers about the continuing sale of Israeli blood diamonds. Israel is one of the world’s leading manufacturers and exporters of cut & polished diamonds which generate more than US$ 1 billion (about UK£ 600 million) a year for the Apartheid State. Many jewellers falsely claim Israeli diamonds are “conflict-free” which is totally unjustified, given Israel’s blatant violation of international laws.
link to londonbds.org

David Wildman at PennBDS: Motorola and Caterpillar profited off apartheid South Africa before occupation, Alex Kane
Palestinian-American poet Remi Kanazi, who had a rocking performance at Penn's boycott, divestment and sanctions conference (BDS) Saturday night, explained the appeal of BDS in a tweet: "#BDS [is] so successful because it's a positive, ethical, rights based, anti-racist & inclusive movement to upend Apartheid. #pennbds." The conference showcased those qualities. But to add to Kanazi's list, one reason why BDS campaigns targeting Israeli apartheid is so appealing is because it has a successful precedent to look to, as David Wildman reminded conference-goers.
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/02/david-wildman-at-pennbds-motorola-and-caterpillar-profited-off-apartheid-south-africa-before-occupation.html

Abunimah highlights ‘turning point’ boycott conference, Philip Weiss
I'm just back from the boycott-divestment BDS conference at the University of Pennsylvania, and will have a lot to post on it in days to come. I must begin with Ali Abunimah's keynote speech Saturday, at which he emphasized the diversity and positive tone of the conference. He spoke to a hall jammed with over 300 people from countless different backgrounds. There was a great feeling of openness in the hall. Abunimah's report is here.
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/02/abunimah-highlights-turning-point-boycott-conference.html

Video of my Penn BDS speech and how Zionist filmmaker pretended to be from Canada's CBC, Ali Abunimah
Video and report about my Penn BDS conference keynote, and my account of how an anti-Palestinian filmmaker misrepresented himself as a CBC journalist in a dirty trick.
link to electronicintifada.net

Activists demand Cornell cut ties with Technion
Activists with Cornell Students for Justice in Palestine call on Cornell University to end its relationship with the Technion, an Israeli university that is involved in the research and development of military and arms technology. Read and sign the open petition.
link to www.alternativenews.org

Open letter in support of professor Terri Ginsburg; appealing to N. Carolina Supreme Court
Terri Ginsberg was a visiting film studies professor at North Carolina State University when she was dismissed after sharing views critical of Zionism and the state of Israel. (You can read prior coverage of her case in Muzzlewatch, the Electronic Intifada and in Ha’aretz). She filed a grievance with the university, which denied her a hearing – three times. So she took her case to the courts.
link to www.muzzlewatch.com

Madonna to launch MDNA world tour in Israel
The Queen of Pop is set to perform at Ramat Gan Stadium in May, in her fourth Israeli concert in history.
link to www.haaretz.com

Racism & Discrimination

Video report to UN details racism in Israel
During Holocaust Rememberance Day in 2011, Israeli President Shimon Peres called Israel the most "anti-racist" country in the world. But this in-depth look at the xenophobia that is rampant and growing in Israeli society--and that is common to citizens and politicians alike--tells a very different story.
link to www.alternativenews.org

Ethiopian students? Not in our school
Students of Ethiopian descent living in Netanya are sent to 'their own' school; municipality: Registration areas determined years ago.
link to www.ynetnews.com

Only rude comments made to Arabs are allowed: MK Tibi disciplined yet again
Arab lawmaker earns second suspension after he is banned from delivering speeches in Knesset for one month over rude comments made to Ethics Committee chairman.
link to www.ynetnews.com

blatant racism of the Zionist usurping entity
from The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب by As'ad AbuKhalil"Army Radio reported on Monday that a street naming committee in the Jerusalem Municipality voted against renaming Eshkol Street to Rachmo after some residents complained the change could lead authorities to think they are Arabs.  “If you name our street Rachmo, they [the authorities] will think we are Arabs and delay us at the airport,” a resident of Eshkol Street reportedly said during a heated debate at the Jerusalem Municipality. According to the report, the street was to be named Rachmo after legendary restaurant owner Rachamim Ben-Yosef, whose eponymous eatery “Rachmo,” has become a Jerusalem landmark.  According to the report, the proposed street-name change lost momentum after one resident wrote in a letter that “the name Rachmo has an Arab sound to it. It is unacceptable that a street in west Jerusalem should have an Arab name. During security checks at the airport they ask us our address, and we if we tell them ‘Rachmo Street’ we will immediately be suspected of being Arabs and suffer all the delays that result from that.”
link to angryarab.blogspot.com

Tel Aviv continues to fine store owners open on Shabbat in mostly non-Jewish areas
Judge criticizes municipality's policy, notes that the last time the issue was discussed by the city council it was addressed in a 'lethargic, non-systematic' fashion.
link to www.haaretz.com

Career officer suspected of blackmailing women online
Police arrest 24-year-old IDF career officer accused of forcing dozens of women, girls to strip in front of computer camera as he watches while threatening to destroy their computers if they refuse.
link to www.ynetnews.com

Political Developments / Diplomacy / Other News

French official: J'lem to be capital of ‘Palestine’
BERLIN – The head of the French Consulate in Jerusalem told French and Palestinian municipal officials late last month that Jerusalem will be the capital of an independent Palestinian state. “Welcome to Jerusalem, capital of the future State of Palestine,” Frédéric Desagneaux said at a conference in the city, the French-language online news outlet JSS wrote.
link to www.jpost.com

U.S. says Palestinian deal ‘internal’ matter
WASHINGTON — The United States Monday remained on the sidelines over a deal signed between Hamas and Fatah to end a long-running discord between rival Palestinian movements, saying it was an internal affair. “As we’ve said many times, questions of Palestinian reconciliation are an internal matter for Palestinians,” said US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. The accord signed in Qatar was welcomed by officials from both Palestinian movements, but Israel warned Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to choose between reconciliation with Hamas and making peace with the Jewish state.
link to www.rawstory.com

The Mainstreaming of Hamas Continues as Palestinian Unity Gains Steam (Time.com)
Time.com - Hamas vows to give Palestinian moderate leader Mahmoud Abbas the running room to see what talks can produce.
link to us.rd.yahoo.com

Doha agreement divides political opinion
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- The Doha agreement signed on Monday by President Abbas and Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal has been welcomed and criticized in equal measure by politicians and analysts. Hamas official Ismail al-Ashqar told Ma'an that the agreement "contradicted basic Palestinian law and overstepped the Palestinian Legislative Council." He urged President Abbas to take serious steps to implement the Cairo agreement as a whole, rather than being selective about which articles to implement.
link to www.maannews.net

Soldier forgets sensitive equipment in Palestinian store
IDF soldier buying cigarettes in violation of military protocol forgets case with night vision equipment in store. Owner returns equipment to local DCO.
link to www.ynetnews.com

Analysis / Op-ed

 

 

Israel to the United States: “We’ll Give You the War, You Give Us the Cannon Fodder”
The dogs of war are off the leash. In meeting rooms in London, Tel Aviv and Washington the dice have been thrown: snake eyes. Flashback, 1963: When John F. Kennedy decided not to escalate the soon-to-be disastrous Vietnam war and issued National Security Action Memorandum 263 (NSAM 263), he signed his death warrant. Scarcely six weeks after vowing to pull all American forces out of South Vietnam by 1965, Kennedy was dead, the target of an “executive action” orchestrated by the CIA, a coup d’état on behalf of America’s corporatist masters–the military-industrial cabal of hardline cold warriors who stood to lose billions if Kennedy lived. That sweet little deal to “win” the war in Southeast Asia cost some two million Vietnamese lives, 58,000 dead Americans and precipitated an economic crisis which dealt a death blow to post-World War II prosperity and launched the United States on its inexorable glide path towards becoming a failed state.
link to dissidentvoice.org

AIPAC Obtained Missile Secrets
Author Norman F. Dacey made powerful enemies. He turned the cozy estate-planning industry upside-down after publishing How to Avoid Probate in 1965. The book sold 2 million copies as Dacey barnstormed [.pdf] the country advising Americans how to structure their estates to avoid the costs, delays, and publicity of probate by setting up trusts.
link to original.antiwar.com

Ray Hanania – His own worst enemy
It’s always a dilemma. What to do, when people you admire are being attacked by the jealous and hateful? If you respond to it, it sometimes gives them the undeserved attention that they desperately seek. If you stay silent about it, you let baseless smears linger as if they contain some element of truth.  In the case of Ray Hanania attacking Palestinian surgeon and musician Doc Jazz, and Palestinian activist and publicist Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada, I have decided to respond. Hanania, an Arab-American comedian of Palestinian origin, wrote down his vile accusations in the Jerusalem Post, a Zionist outlet that he apparently regularly contributes to as a columnist. Although he didn’t mention their names specifically, the descriptions he gave of them leave no doubt that Doc Jazz and Ali Abunimah are the two people his poisonous claims are aimed at.
link to ikhras.com

Where is the Palestinian Spring?
The Egyptian Revolution recently marked its first anniversary. When is the Arab Spring coming to Palestine?
link to www.alternativenews.org

Remapping Palestine and the Politics of Injury, Aimee Shalan
The struggle over Palestine, a struggle in which ideas, representations, rhetoric, and images are all fiercely contested, has been so overexposed in mainstream media in North America and Western Europe that the actual experience of Palestinians living under occupation has often disappeared from view. A preoccupation with “balance,” regardless of the asymmetry of the situation, has given vent to a seemingly vicious circle of tit-for-tat denunciations. In this context, legitimate Palestinian anger in response to decades of oppression is frequently regarded as an obstructive proclivity for “supercharged emotions” and the investment o
link to www.jadaliyya.com

 

Bahrain

Another Bahraini killed by toxic tear gas
Another Bahraini civilian has died of asphyxia after Saudi-backed regime forces fired toxic tear gas into a house, activist reported.
link to www.presstv.ir

 

1000s of Bahrainis attend funeral
Thousands of people in Bahrain have attended the funeral of a man who died due to inhalation of tear gas fired by Saudi-backed forces in Manama. 

link to www.presstv.ir

Bahraini mother freed after months in jail for revolutionary music
Prominent Bahraini activist Fadheela Al-Mubarak was freed on Monday, nearly a year after being arrested for listening to revolutionary music, as pro-democracy protests continue. Mubarak was among the first female activists to have been arrested in Bahrain when she was taken into custody at a checkpoint in March. She was sentenced to 18 months in jail by Bahraini authorities for listening to music that is common among many of the protesters, but is deemed revolutionary by the authorities. Mubarak was the first female to be tried in a military court in Bahrain.
link to english.al-akhbar.com

Bahrain opposition launch week-long rally for reform (Reuters)
Reuters - Bahraini opposition parties, launching a week-long 'sit-in' for political reforms at a mass rally, swore on Sunday to take their campaign to the centre of last year's democracy protest in the capital Manama.
link to us.rd.yahoo.com

Egypt

Egypt activists call for general strike on #feb11
This is the poster designed by graphic artist Ganzeer (whom we interviewed in this podcast) for the upcoming "general strike" announced by revolutionary movements on February 11, the anniversary of Mubarak's overthrow. As al-Ahram reports, the revolutionaries –regrouped under a new umbrella organization – have the following demands:
link to www.arabist.net

Great new anti-army video calling for Egypt general strike, Issandr El AmraniThis video, put out by Aalam Wassef, is one of the most daring and well-made I've seen yet by the anti-SCAF movement. The basic narrative is that the SCAF represents a military that has run Egypt into the ground for some sixty years, while enjoying the fruits of its economic empire, luxury hospitals, clubs etc. It calls for a boycott of military-produced products and a general strike on February 11.
link to www.arabist.net

Iran

US and Israel 'in unison' on Iran
The US is working closely with Israel to use diplomacy to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, President Barack Obama says.
link to www.bbc.co.uk

Incoming IAF chief: Iran is our top concern
Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel said in rare speech last month that nuclear Iran would trigger arms race in Middle East, and should be addressed strategically before all other conflicts.
link to www.ynetnews.com

Attack on Iran will be disastrous: Turkey
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has urged diplomacy to resolve Western concerns over Iran’s nuclear program, warning that a military strike will result in a “disaster.”
link to www.presstv.ir

The Lede Blog: Israeli Ad Jokes About Strikes on Iran's Nuclear Program
An Israeli cable television company has removed an ad from its YouTube channel making light of a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities by Israel.
link to feeds.nytimes.com

Israel's Intentions on Iran remain unclear

Analysts differ on whether Israel's threat of a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities is a bluff to spur tougher sanctions, or a real warning. By ramping up its threat to attack Iran's nuclear development program, Israel appears to have galvanized international attention on an issue it has long sought to bring to the top of the global agenda.

http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/middleeast/~3/SqMlbYJ17MM/la-fg-israel-iran-20120206,0,3741290.story

Widening Regional Escalation Anticipated After Israeli Attack on Iran, Richard Silverstein
Several interesting developments concerning the simmering war between Israel and Iran.  The  (in Farsi) by the director of an official government think tank that advocates Iranian attacks against Israeli sites.  The author argues that Israel’s sustained attacks within Iran demand a response.  An Israeli TV news report says (in Hebrew) that the Iranian website calls for a “pre-emptive” attack on Israel, and not one that is purely in response to an Israeli first strike.  Though it is reflective of the Israel’s narrow thinking that they would call such an Iranian strike “pre-emptive,” when Israel has already attacked Iran.  One of the specific sites indicated for targeting was Sdot Micha, Israel’s secret missile base and home of its Jericho intercontinental missile arsenal.
link to www.richardsilverstein.com

Would US back Israeli attack on Iran?
US President Barack Obama has stepped up pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions by signing an executive order to implement sanctions passed by Congress late last year. Amid speculation that Israel could be preparing a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, some have wondered whether Washington would also support military action by its ally. But Leon Panetta, the US defense secretary, has said that attacking Iran would be "a conflict that we would regret", only serving to delay Iran's abilities to develop nuclear weapons, making the US a target for Iranian retribution and having dire economic consequences for the US and Europe. Al Jazeera's Patty Culhane reports from Washington.
link to www.youtube.com

Iraq

Iraq's al-Qaida claims 2 deadly attacks on Shiites (AP)
AP - An al-Qaida front group in Iraq has claimed responsibility for the two deadliest attacks on Shiites since the U.S. military completed its withdrawal last month, underlining an escalating sectarian security and political crisis that threatens to drive the country toward civil war.
link to us.rd.yahoo.com

Iraq's Sunni-backed ministers return to Cabinet (AP)
AP - Ministers from Iraq's Sunni-backed bloc ended their boycott of the Cabinet on Tuesday, a move that could restore some stability to the war-ravaged nation that has been mired in a security and political crisis since the U.S. completed its military withdrawal from the country.
link to us.rd.yahoo.com

Syria

The Lede Blog: Activist's Videos Tell of Syrian Carnage
An activist has posted a series of videos shedding light on the destructive force of the Syrian government's military crackdown in Homs.
link to feeds.nytimes.com

US closes embassy in Syria
The Obama administration has closed the US Embassy in Damascus and pulled all American diplomats out of Syria.
link to www.independent.co.uk

Syrian forces continue assault on Homs
Syrian forces pounded Homs on Monday, reportedly killing dozens, while an explosion hit the main oil pipeline fueling the restive city, opposition activists said. The explosion, the second in a week at the key pipeline which carries crude oil from the eastern Rumaila field, occurred in the district of Bab Amro, an opposition stronghold under heavy tank and mortar bombardment by President Bashar Assad's forces, residents and activists said.
link to english.al-akhbar.com

Seven Hours in Hama
“That is it! We cannot wait anymore. We are going to Hama, this morning.” My mother stood facing both of us, my twin and I, helpless and without words. It was Tuesday 16 March, two weeks after Hafez al-Assad reopened the sealed city of Hama after he massacred around forty thousand people in February 1982. My mother had vetoed our decision to travel there several times before, and we had yielded to her wishes, but not today. Hama was our childhood city that we used to visit almost monthly after the family moved to Damascus so we may attend college. We felt the mourning city calling to us. When you feel something so powerful, you have to answer.
link to www.jadaliyya.com

Theater at the UN Security Council, Asad AbuKhalil
It was quite a show at the UN Security Council this weekend. Susan Rice of the US could not believe that the veto was used in that august body. How could the veto be used to abort the will of the international community? Her country has sixty vetoes in support of Israeli war crimes.
link to english.al-akhbar.com

Yemen

Saleh target of shoe-attack in incident reminiscent of Bush in 2008
Ali Abdullah Saleh was greeted by groups of protestors as he left and returned to his hotel in New York Sunday. As Saleh came out of the Ritz-Carlton on Central Park South in New York a group of two dozen Yemeni Americans was protesting against his presence in the United States.
link to english.alarabiya.net
 

www.TheHeadlines.Org

In recent weeks, the Israel lobby has drawn a red line on the use of the phrase "Israel Firster." Supporters of Israel have lectured us that it is an "anti-Semitic trope." Here, for instance, is Spencer Ackerman denouncing the use of the term at Tablet:

“Israel Firster” has a nasty anti-Semitic pedigree, one that many Jews will intuitively understand without knowing its specific history. It turns out white supremacist Willis Carto was reportedly the first to use it, and David Duke popularized it through his propaganda network. And yet [M.J.] Rosenberg and others actually claim they’re using it to stimulate “debate,” rather than effectively mirroring the tactics of some of the people they criticize.

As if the very words have anti-Semitism in their DNA.

Well Ackerman is wrong. The term Israel Firster was used by a Zionist before it was used by white supremacists. I just got a hold of the American Jewish Committee's Yearbook for 1961. It cites the use of the term "Israel Firster" by a legendary Zionist, the late Abram Leon Sachar, the leading American historian of Jews and president of Brandeis when he said it.

Read the screenshot below:

I'll write it out:

American Jews and Israel

American Jews continued to raise large sums of money for Israel, and to defend it. Israelis, for their part, continued to seek greater commitments from American Jews and more emigrants. The conflict between Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and Nahum Goldman, president of the WZO (World Zionist Organization], did not abate. On june 2, 1960, at a meeting of Mapai's central committee, Ben-Gurion declared that neither Israel nor the Jews outside Israel needed the Zionist movement as an intermediary between them. He said that Goldmann was "neither an Israeli nor an American," but "a wandering Jew."

American Jews continued to object to Israel's claim that a genuine Jewish life was possible only in Israel. Abram L. Sachar, president of Brandeis University, at the biennial convention of JWB [Jewish Welfare Board], declared on April 2, 1960 that among Jews there is no room "for Israel Firsters whose chauvinism and arrogance  find nothing relevant or viable in any area outside of Israel."

Sachar was speaking to the JWB, or Jewish Welfare Board, which bought Torahs for Jewish boys in uniform. American uniform. And he made his comments in the context of American Jews being loyal citizens of the U.S. Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, had long urged American Jews to move to Israel. The American Jewish community was resisting the pressure to make "greater commitments" to Israel.

Sachar was a goldplated Zionist, national director of the B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundations who wrote that the "rebirth of [the Jews'] independent homeland" was "an event pregnant with incalculable opportunities for creativity and enrichment."

But Sachar needed to draw a red line of his own. He didn't like Israel Firsters. Here he is in the New York Times, 1960:

Dr. Abram L. Sachar, president of Brandeis University, rejected tonight the "dogma that only in Israel is a genuine, normal, substantive Jewish life possible."

I can't get the rest of that clip because my computer's wonky, but you get the point.

Now let's review the context in which "Israel Firster" has arisen in 2011-2012: a situation in which supporters of Israel are pushing the U.S. to go to war against Iran in some measure out of concern for Israel's security. One of these supporters is Sheldon Adelson, who personally revived Newt Gingrich's campaign with $10 million after Gingrich called Palestinians an "invented people" and who is now said to be dickering with Romney's campaign about the terms on which he will give money to the Republican frontrunner.

That dickering will turn on Romney's promises re Israel, you can be sure of it. Because, as Adelson has said, he "unfortunately" wore the uniform of the American military not the Israeli army, and he wants his son to be a sniper for the Israeli army because "All we care about is being good citizens of Israel."

If you can criticize Adelson's giving without venturing the thought that he puts Israel first-- well, do me a favor and don't turn my mind into spaghetti.

The Center for American Progress has folded under pro-Israel pressure. It has recanted its use of the term Israel Firster. The fabulous young journalist, Zaid Jilani, who used the expression in tweets, has moved on to another job. Look over the battlefield today and only Andrew Sullivan, MJ Rosenberg, and Glenn Greenwald have stood up for the acceptability of the term. Courageous writers all. And they can say that the words have a good Jewish pedigree...

P.S. I wonder what's next for the Zionist Censors? How about "Matzorian candidate?" Jon Stewart said that about the Republicans expressing endless support for Israel, with hints of dual loyalty. Sure sounds like a "trope" to me!

Yet Judt's arguments, and his great rogue state that uses the Holocaust as a get out of jail free card line, are quoted.

[Judt] argues that Israelis and their American supporters have used the Holocaust as a “Get Out of Jail Free card for a rogue state,” but seems to think that his own Jewishness and the fact that he lived in Israel at one point give him the authority to be as morally obtuse in return. Judt seems intent on transferring the lessons learned in Eastern Europe, where genuine liberalism mostly replaced ethnic nationalism, to a part of the world where such liberalism just won’t work. His proposal for a binational state was put forward with the self-certainty of an intellectual who has never had to deal with the realities of practicality and power...

[My students] are fortunate not to live in a world where ideas could be translated into monstrous projects for the transformation of society, and where being an intellectual could often mean complicity in enormous crimes.

I wonder what Fukuyama really thinks--did he perhaps want to go further and praise Judt a bit more, and the Times wouldn't let him? It kind of gives me that impression, but one never knows.

There's a context. Fukuyama is a subtle and accomplished thinker, a former neoconservative who broke over the Iraq war. Eight years ago, he had a semi-famous feud with Charles Krauthammer, who implied without saying so directly that Fukuyama was an anti-semite for noticing that the neocons may have internalized Israeli hostility to Arabs, and that it distorted their world view. An outsider could see that Fukuyama clearly won the ensuing exchanges, but it's a bruising thing for a gentile trying to maintain establishment credentials to go through-- and not everyone has the thick skin or temperament for it.

Can one sense in Fukuyama's criticism of Tony Judt's anti-Zionism a whiff of Stockholm syndrome, of bruises that still need shielding. Or does he really think (as Israel and its Washington allies try to steer America into yet another Mideast war) that the "realities of practicality and power" require shutting our minds to the questions Judt was raising?

Unbelievable that Newsweek and Daily Beast are running Niall Ferguson's promotion of a war with Iran. Israel's war or the U.S.'s, I'm not even sure which-- but he's for war. The Nazi analogy comes in with the word "appeasement," and the piece ends with a finial of foolishness that will tag Ferguson for the rest of his born days, as Condi Rice's description of Israel's onslaught on Lebanon in '06, "the birth pangs of a new Middle East," will haunt her. Ferguson:

War is an evil. But sometimes a preventive war can be a lesser evil than a policy of appeasement. The people who don’t yet know that are the ones still in denial about what a nuclear-armed Iran would end up costing us all.

It feels like the eve of some creative destruction.

Land Theft / Ethnic Cleansing 

Zionist plans to build a shopping centre on Armenian Church land
The Jerusalem occupation municipality announced a plan to build a new shopping centre with a car park on a piece of land that is owned by the Armenian Church in the old city.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk

Anti-Semitism and Israel's Inherent Contradictions, Ramzy Baroud
In a recent article, columnist Yaniv Halili described British author Ben White as 'anti-Semitic'. He also denounced Arab Knesset member Hanin Zoabi for writing a forward to White's latest book, Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy. Those of us who can see through such distorted thinking know that White is a principled writer who has never displayed a shred of racism in his work. Zoabi is very well-known civil rights leader with a long-standing reputation of courage and poise. How could anti-racist endeavors themselves become the subject of accusation by Halili and others like him?
link to palestinechronicle.com

www.TheHeadlines.Org