Palestinian students cross barriers to discuss boycott
26 minutes ago
October 3, 2009
Everything is OK
A montage — “Do you have permission to be here?” Funny and wonderfully subversive.
You can see the whole Everything is OK series here.
H.T. - Pulse Media
Lieberman: Norway too 'hostile' to have monitors in Hebron
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz October 2, 2009
Israel should consider ousting Norwegian monitors from Hebron due to Oslo's "hostility" toward Israel, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the cabinet Thursday.
An overall reassessment of Israel's relationship with Norway is needed, he argued, and expelling the monitors could be one element of this. The monitors are part of an international observer group, the Temporary International Presence in Hebron. TIPH was introduced into the city in 1994, by agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, after Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Muslim worshipers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
At a meeting last week with Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Lieberman protested Oslo's contacts with Hamas, as well as the celebrations Norway is sponsoring in honor of the 100th birthday of writer Knut Hamsun, who supported the Nazis during World War II. Of all the foreign ministers he met with in New York, Lieberman told the cabinet, this meeting was the most difficult, because "the Norwegians take a very hostile line against us."
"It may be the time has come to reassess our relations with them and reexamine our position on matters important to them, like their monitors in Hebron or [Israel's] cooperation with the forum of donor states [to the PA], which they head," Lieberman added.
Although TIPH also includes monitors from Italy, Sweden, Turkey, Denmark and Switzerland, Norway is the group's principal supporter and is effectively in charge of it. The forum of donor states is involved in institution-building in the PA, and until now, Israel has cooperated closely with it.
Tension between Jerusalem and Oslo increased recently after Norway's government pension fund decided to divest from an Israeli company, Elbit.
How similar are the cases against Iran and Iraq?
By Glenn Greenwald - September 30, 2009
Scott Shane has an article in today's New York Times examining whether the government and media's behavior now with regard to Iran is similar to what happened in 2002 and 2003 concerning Iraq. I'm quoted in the article in several places, including saying that the "similarities are substantial and disturbing." I want to focus on one point raised by this topic.
Although I think there are ample similarities, I don't think the situations are identical. To begin with, I don't believe (though it's obviously just speculation) that Obama's motive -- at least at this point -- is a military attack on Iran, if for no other reason than such an attack would severely complicate everything else he has to do. The similarities which I referenced have far more to do with how the media uncritically digests and disseminates government claims and how unproven assertions magically transform into unchallenged facts.
Consider this front-page New York Times article written the same day Obama, along with the leaders of Britain and France, held their melodramatic press conference. This is when and how conventional wisdom about this episode solidified, and that key NYT article does little more than re-print dubious and uncorroborated claims of anonymous American officials that cast the Iranian conduct in the most threatening possible light. One paragraph after the next is guilty of that, though I want to highlight this one in particular, because it's become such a central assertion for those wanting to incite panic about the Iranian facility:
Mr. Obama said he had withheld making the intelligence public for months because it "is very important in these kind of high-stakes situations to make sure the intelligence is right" -- a clear allusion to former President George W. Bush’s release of intelligence on Iraq seven years ago this month that proved baseless. Mr. Obama’s hand was forced, however, after Iran, apparently learning that the site had been discovered by Western intelligence, delivered a vague, terse letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday disclosing that it was building a second plant, one that it had never mentioned during years of inspections.
Is there any evidence whatsoever for that claim in bold? Although this assertion is repeated as fact over and over, I've not seen anything to support it other than the claims of anonymous government officials. What evidence is there that the Iranians reported this facility to the IAEA only because they learned that the U.S. had discovered the facility? For that matter, what evidence is there that the Iranians ever realized this at all? Whether Iran reported the facility voluntarily or only because they were forced to do so by virtue of having been "caught" is a self-evidently relevant fact to all of this, and yet the claims of anonymous officials on this question are uncritically assumed to be true without any skepticism, demands for evidence, or consideration of alternative views.
The same dynamic repeats itself on the question of whether this facility could have been designed for civilian uses, whether Iran really had any feasible hope to hide it (given the pervasive use of satellites), whether there were legitimate reasons for Iran to disperse its nuclear facilities, and whether Iran really violated international law by disclosing this facility to the IAEA more than a year (at least) before operability. Far more than any comparison between the Obama administration's current intentions towards Iran and Bush's towards Iraq in 2002, that is what I mean when I say there are substantial similarities between the two time periods.
In fact, that's what I believe is the most significant issue here. It's not surprising that media coverage of this matter is similar (though not identical) to what happened in 2002 with Iraq, given that media organizations and establishment journalists (with some exceptions) never examined what they did wrong in the run-up to the Iraq War and, indeed, don't think they did anything fundamentally wrong. Recall that David Gregory, Charlie Gibson, Brian Williams and numerous other establishment journalists all explicitly said that they reject the view that they failed to do their jobs prior to the attack on Iraq. The NYT itself, one of the very few outlets to examine its pre-war behavior in any way, issued only the narrowest and mildest mea culpas, while one of that paper's prime culprits, Michael Gordon, to this day angrily rejects the notion that he did anything wrong, and thereafter, long continued to report on "the Iranian threat."
Just look at that original NYT article on Iran to see that the principal reporting methods have not changed. The whole article is framed based on claims from the government. The sources are almost all anonymous U.S. government officials. Provocative, unproven claims -- ones that will obviously inflame war passions among a significant segment of the population -- are passed on with no evidence and little questioning. Dissenting voices are excluded (other than a fleeting, token quote from the Iranian President buried in the middle). And overnight, an extremely fear-inciting and sensationalistic case against Iran was cemented as unchallengeable wisdom across the political spectrum. Along with a few other isolated reports, Shane's article today commendably includes some voices raising questions about all of this, but the vast bulk of the coverage from the start has consisted of an unquestioning recitation of the government's case against Iran. The similarities between that behavior and 2002 strike me as both self-evident and, given the lack of institutional remorse in journalism, inevitable.
Video: Territorial Domination in the West Bank
Sam Mayfield
October 2, 2009
Settlement expansion in the Occupied Territories of Palestine is about more than constructing houses for Jewish settlers. Palestinian farmland is being turned into industrial space. Illegal outposts on Palestinian land are protected by Israeli military. Roads, if Palestinians are allowed to drive on them, are often blocked without warning.
I toured Illegal settlements and outposts in the West Bank with Dror Etkes.
A Tale of Two Op-Eds
09/29/2009
Two recent op-eds tell you a lot about the corner the United States is painting itself into on Iran.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, neoconservative Eliot Cohen says we have only two options: an American or Israeli military strike "which would probably cause a substantial war," or living in a world with Iranian nuclear weapons, "which may also result in war, perhaps nuclear." Echoing the neocons' earlier campaign for the invasion of Iraq (a decision he enthusiastically endorsed), Cohen recommends that we "actively seek the overthrow of the Islamic Republic." He does not call for a U.S. invasion (for which there are no forces available and scant public support), but instead calls for employing "every instrument of U.S. power, soft more than hard" to bring down the clerical regime. And he warns darkly that if Obama allows Iran to get a nuclear weapon, he will face a firestorm at home that "will makes the squawks of protest against his health care plans look like the merest showers on a sunny day." Hmmm....I wonder what he's talking about here?
If anyone doubted that the neoconservatives were still pushing for a U.S.-led effort to remake the Middle East-despite the disaster they've already created in Iraq-this piece (and a similar oped by Paul Wolfowitz in yesterday's Financial Times-should correct that assumption. Of course, Cohen trots out the usual bogeymen about Iran's "fanatical, ruthless, and unprincipled regime" (an obvious hint that these are irrational criminals who could not be deterred), and flatly declares that no "real negotiation or understanding" is possible with such people. He says that allowing Iran to have the bomb "may yield the first nuclear attack since 1945," even though he also believes the mullahs are "willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power." (Newsflash: if "staying in power" is the Iranian leadership's primary goal, starting a nuclear war and thus inviting overwhelming retaliation by the U.S. or Israel isn't something they're going to do.)
But what is most revealing about Cohen's piece-apart from the worst-case alarmism that pervades it-is his own awareness that the forceful line he favors won't work.
First, he recognizes that air strikes by Israel or the United States can delay but not stop the nuclear program and could easily unleash a wider, highly destructive war. Second, he understands the economic sanctions haven't worked in the past and are unlikely to convince Tehran to change course now. He cannot imagine trying a more accommodating route, so all that is left is "regime change." But we've tried that too, beginning in the Clinton administration and continuing up to the present day, and Cohen doesn't argue that this will work either.
Cohen's proposed approach thus offers us the worst of all possible worlds: we continue to confront Iran with various ineffective threats, thereby ensuring that relations remain bitterly contentious, making ourselves look ineffectual, and giving them more reason to want a deterrent capability. It is an approach that will only strengthen hardliners and undercut the moderates who still hope for change there, and convince a new generation of Iranians (70 percent of the population is under 30) that America is the "Great Satan" after all.
Given that Cohen recognizes that his own recommendations won't work, one can only conclude that his real aim is to make sure that there is no accommodation whatsoever between Washington and Iran. His warnings about the protests that Obama will face are intended less to solve the actual problem than to persuade the President to stick with the failed policies we have followed for the past two decades.
The alternative to Cohen's ineffectual pessimism is laid out clearly by Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett in today's New York Times. They also recognize that military force, covert action and economic sanctions aren't going to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Given the dearth of attractive alternatives, they recognize that the only way to convince Iran not to weaponize is to engage in a broad and patient effort to transform the whole U.S.-Iranian relationship. Obama has made rhetorical gestures in that direction, but his administration has also continued covert action programs aimed at Iran, repeatedly threatened tougher sanctions, and never embraced the need for a broader "strategic understanding" with Iran.
The Leveretts remind us that Richard Nixon achieved his opening to China by taking concrete steps to reduce U.S. pressure on Beijing, even at a moment when China was helping North Vietnam kill U.S. soldiers. (And this was Mao's China, remember, which U.S. officials had long seen as fanatical, ruthless, irrational, etc.). Nixon did this because he understood that transforming the entire U.S.-China relationship was more important than worrying about Beijing's bad behavior; the key was move to a relationship where such bad behavior was no longer in China's interest.
The strategy they outline might not work with Iran, but it would hardly leave the United States worse off than the strategy Cohen recommends, which by his own admission is likely to fail. The problem, of course, is that it is the neoconservative forces that Cohen represents are now working overtime to prevent the United States from pursuing the one course of action that might-repeat, might-actually convince Iran it is better off with an enrichment capacity but not an actual bomb. - Stephen M. WaltItalian lawyers seek jail for CIA agents
October 1, 2009Public prosecutors in Italy have urged a court in Milan to jail 26 Americans for the kidnapping of a terrorism suspect in a 2003 CIA operation.
The Italian lawyers are seeking sentences of between 10 and 13 years for the US agents. They also want 13 years for the former head of Italy’s secret service, Nicolo Pollari.
The trial is the most high profile case in Europe to challenge the extra-judicial transfers also known as ‘renditions.
It centres on the abduction of the Muslim Cleric Abu Omar, who was snatched off the streets of Milan in 2003 and secretly flown to Egypt for interrogation.
He says he was tortured and held until 2007 without charge.
The US has refused to extradite any of the Americans. None of them are at the trial.
The last Bush administration admitted using Rendition as part of its so called ‘War on Terror.‘
Copyright © 2009 euronews
Israeli forces bar farmers from harvesting grapes, detain intl's
File PhotoHebron - Ma’an - Beit Ummar farmers were barred from reaching their agricultural land to harvest grapes in Wad Ar-Rish by Israeli forces stationed in the area Saturday.
Dozens of Israeli border guards were deployed in the area and told farmers the zone had been declared closed by the Israeli military, which occupies the West Bank.
A number of international peace activists were at the scene alongside the farmers and Palestinian activists who were present to help them. Two internationals, from Germany and Britain, were detained for three hours after arguing with the Israeli soldiers and demanding a reason why the area had been declared closed.
Irish exit polls show yes majority for Lisbon treaty
- guardian.co.uk, Saturday 3 October 2009 13.04 BST
A yes vote is registered in the Lisbon treaty referendum in Ireland. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA
Ireland is on course to ratify the Lisbon treaty, with early tallies showing a strong surge for a yes vote this morning.
The outcome of yesterday's referendum, which will be known later today, is set to put the European Union reform project back on track.
As early as 9.30am at the ballot count in Dublin's RDS centre, tallies were showing constituencies across the Irish capital voting 2 to 1 in favour of the treaty.
One prominent opponent, Richard Green from the Coir movement, accepted that the vote was moving in favour of yes.
Green said the expected yes vote was "a bad day for Irish workers and a good day for big business". He and his pressure group have been arguing that endorsing Lisbon would lead to a greater influx of cheap foreign labour to Ireland.
In June 2008, 53.4% of the Irish Republic voted down the Lisbon treaty and threw the entire EU project into chaos. Today many constituencies in Dublin – Ireland's key electoral battleground – which voted against the treaty 17 months ago appeared to be switching to the yes camp.
Tally returns from Dublin Mid West showed that 65% of the constituency had voted yes this time. In the 2008 poll a majority voted no...
Ahmadinejad: Western media 'weapon of subterfuge'
Press TV - October 3, 2009 09:54:28 GMT
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses the Islamic Radio and TV Union Assembly |
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says corporate media has turned into a weapon of subterfuge, with the sole aim of advancing the West's political agenda.
In a Saturday address to the Islamic Radio and TV Union Assembly, Ahmadinejad cited random examples of political bias in US and European media outlets.
As a first example of biased reporting in the West, Ahmadinejad pointed to the scant media coverage of Israel's three-week attack on Gaza, which killed over 1500 Palestinians mostly women and children, earlier in the year.
“Israelis easily used thousands of bombs against the defenseless population of Gaza Strip, who were stripped of medicine and their most essential needs. Now, eight months have passed and we see that the event has been already sunk into oblivion.”
Ahmadinejad said criticism of Israel and its actions has become 'off limits' in American and European media.
Then, Ahmadinejad turned to the sheer lack of media attention to the brutal murder of Marwa el-Sherbini, a pregnant Egyptian woman who was stabbed to death in a German courtroom while the whole jury and court officials stood by and watched.
Last but not least, Ahmadinejad pointed to the recent media hype over Iran's second nuclear enrichment plant. “In the past few days, we saw Western media outlets repeating false accusations against Iran's nuclear issue.”
“This is how the Western media works. First they distort facts and fabricate news. Then they incessantly repeat their false allegations, just to make sure that it is forever etched on the minds of people,” he said.
“[US President Barack Obama] made a huge mistake when he accused Iran of secrecy and gave rise to the recent torrent of false reports,” said President Ahmadinejad.
Referring to the sudden commotion over the newly-revealed Fordu nuclear facility in southern Tehran, President Ahmadinejad said Iran has always kept the IAEA posted on its enrichment work in line with its policy of transparency.
“Our activities are entirely based on honesty and transparency. There are no secrets between us and the IAEA whatsoever,” he noted.
Ahmadinejad warned that the mainstream media in the West has grown to become more dangerous and more threatening than any chemical or nuclear weapons.
“The media campaign has turned into a full-fledged war. I believe the West's abundant arsenals of chemical and nuclear weapons are there to deceive and intimidate,” he said.
According to President Ahmadinejad, unbiased media does not exist in the West. “Claims of freedom of press are all lies, each and every one of the western media outlets serve the interests and policies of their states,” he said.
“When I was in New York for the General Assembly, I was interviewed by several news networks, all of which asked the exact same set of questions,” he said.
“I asked them how can you call yourself an independent media, when all the questions you are asking me have been clearly dictated by your governments. Which one of these questions are posed in the interest of your people?” he noted.
President Ahmadinejad said Iran's mission today is not limited to spreading information. Our main responsibility today is to defend humanity and to create a global culture in support of the oppressed people, he explained.
In a Saturday address to the Islamic Radio and TV Union Assembly, Ahmadinejad cited random examples of political bias in US and European media outlets.
As a first example of biased reporting in the West, Ahmadinejad pointed to the scant media coverage of Israel's three-week attack on Gaza, which killed over 1500 Palestinians mostly women and children, earlier in the year.
“Israelis easily used thousands of bombs against the defenseless population of Gaza Strip, who were stripped of medicine and their most essential needs. Now, eight months have passed and we see that the event has been already sunk into oblivion.”
Ahmadinejad said criticism of Israel and its actions has become 'off limits' in American and European media.
Then, Ahmadinejad turned to the sheer lack of media attention to the brutal murder of Marwa el-Sherbini, a pregnant Egyptian woman who was stabbed to death in a German courtroom while the whole jury and court officials stood by and watched.
Last but not least, Ahmadinejad pointed to the recent media hype over Iran's second nuclear enrichment plant. “In the past few days, we saw Western media outlets repeating false accusations against Iran's nuclear issue.”
“This is how the Western media works. First they distort facts and fabricate news. Then they incessantly repeat their false allegations, just to make sure that it is forever etched on the minds of people,” he said.
“[US President Barack Obama] made a huge mistake when he accused Iran of secrecy and gave rise to the recent torrent of false reports,” said President Ahmadinejad.
Referring to the sudden commotion over the newly-revealed Fordu nuclear facility in southern Tehran, President Ahmadinejad said Iran has always kept the IAEA posted on its enrichment work in line with its policy of transparency.
“Our activities are entirely based on honesty and transparency. There are no secrets between us and the IAEA whatsoever,” he noted.
Ahmadinejad warned that the mainstream media in the West has grown to become more dangerous and more threatening than any chemical or nuclear weapons.
“The media campaign has turned into a full-fledged war. I believe the West's abundant arsenals of chemical and nuclear weapons are there to deceive and intimidate,” he said.
According to President Ahmadinejad, unbiased media does not exist in the West. “Claims of freedom of press are all lies, each and every one of the western media outlets serve the interests and policies of their states,” he said.
“When I was in New York for the General Assembly, I was interviewed by several news networks, all of which asked the exact same set of questions,” he said.
“I asked them how can you call yourself an independent media, when all the questions you are asking me have been clearly dictated by your governments. Which one of these questions are posed in the interest of your people?” he noted.
President Ahmadinejad said Iran's mission today is not limited to spreading information. Our main responsibility today is to defend humanity and to create a global culture in support of the oppressed people, he explained.
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