Monthly Archives: August 2009

Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor denounces Bush-era policies

Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor denounces Bush-era policies
By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, August 7, 2009

President Obama’s counter-terrorism chief on Thursday repeatedly rebuked the Bush administration in a speech designed to make the case for a broader approach to fighting Islamic extremism.

In his first public appearance as the White House counter-terrorism advisor, John O. Brennan said that President George W. Bush’s policies had been an affront to American values, undermined the nation’s security and fostered a “global war” mind-set that served only to “validate Al Qaeda’s twisted worldview.” [continued…]

Turkey is part of Europe. Fear keeps it out of the EU

Turkey is part of Europe. Fear keeps it out of the EU
By Tariq Ramadan, The Guardian, August 6, 2009

When on his recent visit to Turkey President Obama called for Turkish entry into the European Union, he put his finger on a strategic and cultural sore spot. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking for the majority position in Europe, was quick to respond: Turkey may one day enjoy a privileged relationship with the EU, but full membership is out of the question. Turkey is not European – geographically or culturally.

Interpretations of the US stance are numerous and contradictory, but they highlight deep tensions within Europe on the issue. Some believe the US is concerned primarily with securing access to the energy reserves of the Caspian basin; others suspect Washington of using Turkish alignment with American policy (by way of Nato) to exert pressure on its European allies; still others see an attempt to weaken Europe by placing a Turkish economic, demographic and cultural millstone around its neck.

None of these hypotheses is wholly accurate or inaccurate. Nevertheless, they do reveal Europe’s continuing contortions over its identity and its future. The Turkish question rarely figures in the foreground of European debate today, yet its spectre hovers over discussions of “European identity”, “immigration” and the “Muslim question”. [continued…]

US asks Israel for settlement lull

U.S. asks Israel for one-year settlement freeze
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz, August 6, 2009

American Middle East envoy George Mitchell has asked Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak for a “deposit,” an advance commitment of a one-year freeze on construction in West Bank settlements.

Mitchell raised the idea in his talks with Netanyahu and Barak in Israel last week. He argued that the Arab states will not make gestures toward normalization with Israel without a guarantee of an end to building in the settlements. Mitchell said an Israeli agreement to temporarily freeze construction would facilitate concessions from the Arab states.

A senior source in Jerusalem noted that while Netanyahu and Barak did not reject the request, they disagree with the Americans over some of the details. Mitchell asked for a construction freeze of at least a year, but Israel has agreed to suspend building on the settlements for six months, at most.

The Americans have not yet said clearly what will happen at the end of the freeze period. Israel wants a U.S. commitment to reach new understandings with Jerusalem over future developments that would be similar to those between former president George W. Bush and former prime minister Ehud Olmert.

Israel and the U.S. also disagree over the future of 2,500 housing units already under construction in the settlements. Israel wants to complete all of these homes, while Mitchell seeks to reduce the number to be completed as much as possible.

Negotiations over the issue will continue over the coming weeks. Netanyahu and Mitchell are to meet in London on August 26 for another round of talks. A highly-placed source in Jerusalem said he expected agreement on the issue at the meeting.

The Americans presented the deposit concept at a meeting in Jerusalem on Friday of representatives of the Middle East Quartet. Mitchell’s deputy, David Hale, said the administration of President Barack Obama is seeking similar promises from the Arab states. Representatives of the European Union, the United Nations and Russia spoke of the need to consider the next stage – the renewal of peace negotiations – in addition to determining a party to mediate between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Hale said public disclosure in the near future of a formula for the next stage would harm negotiations.

On Monday Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, was summoned to the State Department for a reprimand, for the second time in two weeks. This time it was over the eviction of two Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The State Department called the eviction a provocation that was contrary to the spirit of the road map. At the previous meeting, two weeks ago, State Department officials conveyed to Oren their displeasure over plans to build housing for Jews on the site of the Shepherd Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah.

Israel’s ambassador in Stockholm, Benny Dagan, was also summoned to the Swedish foreign ministry in protest at the evictions of Palestinians. Sweden currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.

From Sheikh Jarrah to Sheikh Munis
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, August 6, 2009

At the top of the hill, a few dozen meters from where a house now stands, there used to be an irrigation pool for the village citrus groves. I swim every morning at the municipal swimming pool built on the ruins of the village irrigation pool. Palestinian Jaffa oranges grew in the now-vanished groves. My house stands there now. The land was “redeemed,” as land acquisition was called in Zionist propaganda. In the case of Sheikh Munis, it was redeemed by force, and Tel Aviv’s Ramat Aviv neighborhood was built there, including Tel Aviv University, a magnificent academic institution built on the ruins of a village whose 2,230 inhabitants were surrounded and threatened. They fled, never to return.

All that remains of the large village is Habayit Hayarok (now a conference and party center) another house on Levanon Street and the cemetery, which sits neglected on the outskirts of the parking lot of an intimidating government facility – no outsiders allowed. Of course, there is neither a memorial nor a monument to the village that was wiped off the face of the earth – one of 418.

Somewhere, perhaps in a refugee camp in terrible poverty, lives the family of the farmer who plowed the land where my house now stands. According to the Israeli judicial system, they have the right to get their land back immediately, destroy my house, return and grow Jaffa oranges for export on its ruins, and remove me by force if necessary. The Jerusalem District Court, which recently ruled that representatives of the Sephardi community committee had the right to take back the Hanun and Gawi families’ apartments in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, has opened the 1948 file.
That is, if Israel had an egalitarian system of law and justice, if the legal system were fair, because then millions of Palestinians would be able to applaud the court and demonstrate their joy in the streets at the ruling. The road to justice denied in 1948 has been opened to everyone. From now on, Jews and Arabs will be able to demand the restitution of their property. The return is in the offing, with the backing of the Israeli justice system.

But of course, it’s not like that. The court that sealed the fate of the two Palestinian families and allowed extremist settlers to live in their place has once again laid bare the rule of law’s true state in Israel: racist and applying a double-standard, with separate legal systems for Jews and Arabs.

We should perhaps thank the court for its scandalous ruling, which not only sparked a justifiable international wave of protest against Israel, but also revealed its true face. “There are judges in Jerusalem,” as Menachem Begin said, and they have made it official: apartheid. Ownership rights are for Jews alone.

The distance between Sheikh Jarrah and Sheikh Munis has been shortened in one fell swoop. Those who contend that Jews must be given back their property cannot in the same breath deny the Palestinians’ property rights because of their national origin. It’s true that a system of strict laws and regulations denies the Palestinians what it allows the Jews, but all reasonable Israelis must now ask themselves if this is the system of justice and the law of the “Jewish” state they want to live in.

It is impossible to ignore the injustices of 1948 while hundreds of thousands of refugees rot in the camps. No agreement will hold water without a solution to their plight, which is more feasible than Israel’s strident scaremongers suggest. But rulings like the current one make it harder to distinguish clearly between Sheikh Jarrah and Sheikh Munis, between the conquest of 1948 and the conquests of 1967. My house stands on land stolen by force, and it is the obligation of Israel and the world to redress the injustice without creating injustice and new dislocation. My house stands on land that was stolen, but the whole world has recognized the Jews’ right to establish their state there. At the same time, no country in the world has recognized Israel’s right to conquer Sheikh Jarrah as well.

In my morning musings on the way to the pool, I sometimes think about the land’s original owners. I long for the day when Israel takes moral and material responsibility for the injustice done to them. Now, because of the court ruling, my right to continue to swim here may also be in doubt.

Israel waging war of nerves against Iran and Hezbollah
Amos Harel, Haaretz, August 6, 2009

This week’s reports by The Times of London give the impression that Israel is raising the bar in the war of nerves against Iran and Hezbollah. On Monday the newspaper reported that Iran had completed its nuclear research program, and that its progress toward building a nuclear bomb depends only on the decision of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The following day, it warned of the danger of escalation between Israel and Hezbollah on the Lebanese border.

Both articles were written by the paper’s foreign news editor, Richard Beeston, who was in Israel last week.

The report on Iran’s nuclear program is based on anonymous “Western” intelligence sources. But at a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee briefing on Tuesday, the head of the Military Intelligence research brigade, Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, used almost identical terms to those of The Times.

Iran, Baidatz told the MKs, will soon reach the point where it can “charge forward toward a nuclear weapon.” Beginning in 2011, he said, use of the Iranian nuclear bomb will depend only the decision to deploy it, not on technological factors.

Sources for the newspaper’s report on Israel-Hezbollah tensions are not known. The Times quotes Israel Defense Forces Deputy GOC Northern Command Alon Friedman as saying the northern border could “explode at any minute.”

The timing of the articles implies that someone in Israel’s defense establishment wanted to deliver an explicit, public declaration on both the Iranian and Lebanese fronts. The fact that this source allowed a senior British journalist, to meet with and quote the Northern Command’s number-two officer appears not to have been accidental. Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, and other top officers, seldom grant interviews, much less to the foreign press.

Last week, in the wake of the mysterious explosion at a Hezbollah Katyusha rocket storehouse in southern Lebanon, Haaretz reported on rising tensions on the northern border, though both Ashkenazi and Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Ashkenazi rushed to make reassuring statements.

But Friedman’s remarks to The Times are in stark contrast to those of the other top brass. Perhaps Israel has changed tack, or Friedman simply did not receive the army’s talking points before his interview. Or maybe Friedman gave the customary response to his foreign guests – (“Don’t misjudge this quiet, on the other side the enemy is making preparations”), and the visitor interpreted this as an immediate threat.

The possibility of a confrontation with Hezbollah as a direct result of an Israeli strike appears in every Western assessment of potential developments in the region. But The Times also reported on another, aspect of the conflict, one which had already been hinted at in an Israeli newspaper.

Israel has issued several warnings recently to both Syria and Hezbollah against introducing “destabilizing weapons” to Lebanon. The entry of antiaircraft missiles into the country would seem to be a “red line” from Israel’s perspective, one that could lead it into deterrent action against Hezbollah.

But there are two caveats: It will be exceedingly difficult to rally international support for a Third Lebanon War, particularly if it were to erupt over surface-to-air missiles, which are already today deployed in Syria. And if a confrontation erupts between Israel and Iran, Israel is unlikely to ignite a secondary front that would divert resources from the main theater.

Everything related to Iran seems to be related to the wider picture. In recent months Israel has tried to flex its muscles over Iran’s nuclear program. In press briefings IDF officers no longer hesitate to refer explicitly to the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran – a taboo subject for officers until a year ago. Top Air Force officers take pains to stress their pilots’ elevated state of readiness for battle, should the need arise.

And there are still more transparent processes underway. Missile-equipped Navy ships and submarines passed through the Suez Canal several times recently with Egyptian assent in what appears to be an implied threat to Tehran. Every few months, foreign journalists receive leaks on comprehensive long-range aerial exercises.

The backdrop to all of this is the nuclear timetable – Iran’s progress, the deadline for U.S.-Iranian talks and the possibility of heightened international sanctions.

In this light Israel must stress the concreteness of the military option. Washington, which to Jerusalem seems helpess regarding Iran, finds it convenient to cultivate talk of an Israeli strike to pressure Tehran.

But it could be that Israel is indeed accelerating its preparations for a strike, out of a circumspect reading of the situation and a growing belief that Washington will not come to its aid.

A Jeremiad
By Uri Avnery, Gush-Shalom, August 1, 2009

Dear Dov Yermiya,

I have received the distressing letter that you recently sent to a limited number of friends. You paint the Israeli reality in dark – but true – colors, and end by cutting your ties with it.

“Therefore I, a 95 year old Sabra (native born Israeli Jew), who has plowed its fields, planted trees, built a house and fathered sons, grandsons and great-grandsons, and also shed his blood in the battle for the founding of the State of Israel,

“Declare herewith that I renounce my belief in the Zionism which has failed, that I shall not be loyal to the Jewish fascist state and its mad visions, that I shall not sing anymore its nationalist anthem, that I shall stand at attention only on the days of mourning for those fallen on both sides in the wars, and that I look with a broken heart at an Israel that is committing suicide and at the three generations of offspring that I have bred and raised in it.” [continued…]

Bingo! U.S. donors fund illegal Jewish settlements
By Emily Dische-Becker, Menassat, August 5, 2009

In a pre-dawn raid on Sunday (August 2) Israeli police clad in black riot gear evicted two Palestinian families—53 people in total—from two buildings in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The evictions followed a ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court that claimed Jewish families had owned the land before 1948. Two Jewish families moved in immediately after the evictions, on the same site that Israel plans to build a 200-unit settlement.

The evictions were protested by the U.K., U.S. and the United Nations, and came after the US recently also demanded a halt to Israeli construction at the site of the nearby Shepherd Hotel.

According to Haaretz, “U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman summoned Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, to tell him that the United States views Sunday’s eviction of two Palestinian families from homes in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood as a ‘provocative’ and ‘unacceptable’ act that violates Israel’s obligations under the road map peace plan.”

Compared to the Bush Administration’s policy towards settlement construction—which was apparently encouraged behind closed doors at the highest levels—President Obama’s approach is seen as “harsh” by the Israeli government and heralded by commentators who wish to see the U.S. broker a two-state solution.

The Obama administration, however, like its predecessors for the past three decades, has turned a blind eye to what makes the building and maintenance of these illegal settlements possible: donations from American charities. [continued…]

Legitimising Lieberman
By Antony Lerman, The Guardian, August 4, 2009

Avigdor Lieberman is no aberration in Israel’s polity. His aggressive rightwing Zionist rhetoric, racist demonisation of Palestinians and Arab-Israelis, shameless political populism and the tide of corruption allegations now close to engulfing him are all depressingly and dangerously familiar features of a broken system. The immigrant from Moldova has brilliantly exploited and contributed to the fracturing of politics in the state – but anyone who thinks his removal from the governmental scene will signal some sea change is sadly mistaken. The trends Lieberman represents and epitomises are deeply ingrained. Netanyahu is midwife and child of them, too.

There is speculation that were Lieberman to resign as foreign minister if indicted – as he has said he would – this would give the prime minister the opportunity of replacing the Yisrael Beiteinu party in the coalition with Tzipi Livni’s Kadima. But it is not as if Israeli democracy will suddenly return to normal if Lieberman and his party are forced out of government. Nor will Netanyahu miraculously reveal himself as having wanted to accede to President Obama’s demand that Israel halt all new construction of and in Jewish settlements all along. [continued…]

Hiroshima Day: America has been asleep at the wheel for 64 years

Hiroshima Day: America has been asleep at the wheel for 64 years
By Daniel Ellsberg, Truthdig, August 5, 2009

It was a hot August day in Detroit. I was standing on a street corner downtown, looking at the front page of The Detroit News in a news rack. I remember a streetcar rattling by on the tracks as I read the headline: A single American bomb had destroyed a Japanese city. My first thought was that I knew exactly what that bomb was. It was the U-235 bomb we had discussed in school and written papers about, the previous fall.

I thought: “We got it first. And we used it. On a city.”

I had a sense of dread, a feeling that something very ominous for humanity had just happened. A feeling, new to me as an American, at 14, that my country might have made a terrible mistake. I was glad when the war ended nine days later, but it didn’t make me think that my first reaction on Aug. 6 was wrong. [continued…]

Thoughts on Western Jihad

Our suicide bombers
By John Feffer, TomDispatch, August 5, 2009

The actor Will Smith is no one’s image of a suicide bomber. With his boyish face, he has often played comic roles. Even as the last man on earth in I Am Legend, he retains a wise-cracking, ironic demeanor. And yet, surrounded by a horde of hyperactive vampires at the end of that film, Smith clasps a live grenade to his chest and throws himself at the enemy in a final burst of heroic sacrifice.

Wait a second: surely that wasn’t a suicide bombing. Will Smith wasn’t reciting suras from the Koran. He wasn’t sporting one of those rising sun headbands that the Japanese kamikaze wore for their suicide missions. He wasn’t playing a religious fanatic or a political extremist. Will Smith was the hero of the film. So how could he be a suicide bomber? After all, he’s one of us, isn’t he?

As it happens, we have our suicide bombers too. “We” are the powerful, developed countries, the ones with an overriding concern for individual liberties and individual lives. “We” form a moral archipelago that encompasses the United States, Europe, Israel, present-day Japan, and occasionally Russia. Whether in real war stories or inspiring vignettes served up in fiction and movies, our lore is full of heroes who sacrifice themselves for motherland, democracy, or simply their band of brothers. Admittedly, these men weren’t expecting 72 virgins in paradise and they didn’t make film records of their last moments, but our suicidal heroes generally have received just as much praise and recognition as “their” martyrs. [continued…]

Power struggle hits Iran intelligence agency

Power struggle hits Iran intelligence agency
By Iason Athanasiadis, Washington Times, August 6, 2009

Beyond the power struggle playing out on the streets of Tehran is a complex battle for control of Iran’s intelligence ministry — a pivotal institution in the regime’s repression of dissent.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who began a second term this week, fired Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei late last month after Mr. Ejei objected to the president’s efforts to name an in-law as first vice president.

The departure of Mr. Ejei, a hard-line cleric close to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, two other Khamenei loyalists and nearly 20 other high-ranking officials appeared to weaken the leader’s hold over the ministry and strengthen the power of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s elite military force. [continued…]

A coup in Iran?
By Reza Aslan, The Daily Beast, August 5, 2009

Today, the mess that is post-election Iran becomes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s problem, and bets are already being placed in Iran on just how long his second term as president will last.

Ahmadinejad’s most immediate challenge will be to name 21 cabinet ministers, the three most important of which are the minister of defense, the minister of the interior (who also oversees the elections), and the minister of foreign affairs. He can also nominate up to 10 vice presidents, one of which, the first vice president, will be charged with taking over the presidency should some horrible fate befall Ahmadinejad (God forbid). According to Iran’s constitution, the president has two weeks from the day of his inauguration to present his cabinet to the parliament for approval. This will not be an easy task. [continued…]

The players in Iran’s political theatre are fluffing their lines
By Ali Ansari, The Guardian, August 5, 2009

The Islamic Republic has on the whole been good at producing political theatre. Its establishment knows that politics can be a form of entertainment and that Iranians enjoy a good show. Unlike the shah, who always appeared uncomfortable with politics, the establishment of the Islamic Republic has tended to understand its utility. The sudden scandal, the rumour and, best of all, the “trial” have all helped to preoccupy the inquisitive and perhaps reassure the sceptics that politics remains alive, if not necessarily well, in the Islamic Republic of Iran. That said, managing political theatre has always been a delicate balancing act; too little and you risk losing control over the message, too much and you lose credibility. Many, particularly those of an authoritarian disposition, would like to dispense with the process altogether.

The paradox of the current administration in Iran, and in particular the character of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is that they want it both ways. They want the theatre but they also want total control, not only of the production, but of the audience reaction. In so doing they have singularly failed to manufacture consent and have been struggling since the election on 12 June to impose their narrative. Indeed, we should not lose sight of the fact that for all the contests on the streets and the divisions within the elites, this is at heart an ideological contest, where the message matters. This is why journalists have been expelled, academics imprisoned and activists put on trial. This is why the hardline establishment insists on normality and business as usual, and why the mere continuation of protests denies them that particular fiction. In fact, control has been especially elusive of late, not least because of the crisis of authority, but because the means of transmission have been so diverse: the internet has proved just as serious a battleground as the streets. But perhaps even more significant that these have been the mistakes perpetrated by the establishment itself in its urgency to get the message right. [continued…]

The ISI, Pakistan’s notorious and feared spy agency, comes in from the cold

The ISI, Pakistan’s notorious and feared spy agency, comes in from the cold
By Declan Walsh, The Guardian, August 5, 2009

The entrance is suitably discreet: a single barrier near a small hospital off a busy Islamabad highway. Bougainvillea spills over long walls with barbed wire; a plain-clothes man packing a pistol questions visitors. Further along, soldiers emerge to check for bombs.

Then a giant electric gate slides back to reveal a sleek grey building that would not look out of place on a California technology campus. With one difference: nothing is signposted.

Welcome to the headquarters of the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate, Pakistan’s premier spy agency. Powerful and notorious in equal measure, for decades the ISI has operated behind a dense veil of secrecy, impervious to allegations of election rigging, terrorist training, abduction and assassination. Many Pakistanis call it the “state within a state”.

Now, though, the ISI is coming in from the cold. Over the past year the agency has invited a stream of western journalists into its swish, modern nerve centre. Over tea and PowerPoint briefings, spies give details of some of Pakistan’s most sensitive issues – the Taliban insurgency, the hunt for al-Qaida, the troubled relationship with India. [continued…]

Obama’s fear of fighting

The character of Barack Obama
By David Bromwich, Huffington Post, August 4, 2009

Obama cherishes the ideal of a frictionless transformation of society. It is a wish for aesthetic harmony, which he mistakes for a political goal. Its attainment would be a beautiful thing. But no matter how much he appeals for comity, Obama is certain to give offense to some. Better to choose your times and targets than allow others to force that choice.

His aversion to strife was plain from his conduct in the primaries and the general-election campaign. But the degree of avoidance we have seen could never have been predicted. Obama’s training, one recalls, was in the community-reform methods of Saul Alinsky; and yet he seems to have adapted the relevant ideas in foreshortened form. The Alinsky process of reform, as Jeffrey Stout has pointed out, goes from powerlessness to power in several stages. There is, first, the public recognition of powerlessness; then the airing of injustices, by legitimate polarization and active protest; then proposals of concrete reform; and only at last, power-sharing and reconciliation.

The strange thing about Obama is that he seems to suppose a community can pass directly from the sense of real injustice to a full reconciliation between the powerful and the powerless, without any of the unpleasant intervening collisions. This is a choice of emphasis that suits his temperament.

Reconciliation, however, can’t be genuine or lasting without some polarization, a careful (not generalized) exposure of injustices, and a fight that feels like a fight. In the absence of these, reconciliation dwindles into a rhetorical device; it leads to short-term salvation formulae and a renewal of discontents. The same objection applies to Obama’s wholly rhetorical notion that he can overcome the illegal actions of the Bush-Cheney administration by pardoning lower-echelon executors and “facing the future.” [continued…]

Time’s running out for Obama in Iran

Time’s running out for Obama in Iran
By Simon Tisdall, The Guardian, August 3, 2009

Barack Obama’s policy of engagement with Iran – the “unclenched fist” of his January inaugural address – has about 60 days left to run. If Tehran does not respond positively and credibly to his offer of dialogue on nuclear and regional issues by the end of September, all bets are off. At that point, US and European officials say, a new international coalition will set to work on possibly the toughest sanctions imposed on a single country since Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.

The threat of punitive sanctions, with or perhaps without UN security council blessing, is designed to concentrate minds in Tehran distracted by the divisive aftermath of June’s presidential election. But it also serves to discourage the Israelis – at least for now – from taking matters into their own hands by launching a unilateral military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israel’s leaders do not believe dialogue or sanctions will work. But they calculate cynically that they must give Obama’s diplomacy a chance to fail. [continued…]

A weakened Ahmadinejad sworn in for a second term
By Tony Karon, Time, August 5, 2009

The failure of the regime to quiet the streets and to close ranks behind Khamenei in his endorsement of a second Ahmadinejad term is without precedent in the Islamic Republic’s 30-year history. As leading U.S.-based Iran scholar Farideh Farhi told the Council on Foreign Relations, Khamenei and Ahmadinejad had assumed that “if they use a sufficient amount of violence, they can put an end to the popular anger that has been generated. [Instead], they continue to be surprised by the resistance that is being shown — not only by major players in Iranian politics, but the people of Iran as well. This dissatisfaction has been growing since the election.”

Where the battle lines within the regime initially appeared to be relatively clear-cut — Ahmadinejad, Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards on one side, facing off against a coalition of conservative pragmatists and reformists on the other, with each side claiming some support from within the clergy — the picture has grown murkier over the eight weeks of crisis. A number of figures in the conservative clerical and political establishment have begun to question the authorities’ handling of the election’s aftermath, particularly the crackdown on dissent. And there are clear signs from within the conservative clergy that some feared Ahmadinejad and the security establishment were usurping some of the traditional prerogatives of the clerical ruling class. [continued…]

Waiting for Maziar
By Christopher Dickey, Newsweek, August 4, 2009

Paola Gourley, 40, does not want to know whether the baby she’s carrying will be a boy or a girl. At least, not yet. The father, Maziar Bahari, 42, is in prison in Iran, where he has been held without access to a lawyer or any chance to see his family since June 21. Paola, an Italian-English lawyer working in London, has no idea how much longer Maziar will be kept from her, and this is the first child for both of them. So when sonograms show the gender of their baby, she says she will put the results in an envelope and seal it, hoping that Maziar will be freed soon and they can look at the results together. But in the back of Paola’s mind, there is a growing fear that their baby will be born in November and Maziar will still be in prison.

“I try to keep positive, but that’s my biggest fear, that this is going to be a long-term thing,” she told me from London on Tuesday. “I just hope that the people holding Maziar realize just how unfair it is, and that they release him soon. I am petrified that they will use him as a scapegoat and keep him in jail, and that he won’t be with me when the baby is born. It makes me desperately sad.” [continued…]

Blackwater founder implicated in murder

Blackwater founder implicated in murder
By Jeremy Scahill, The Nation, August 4, 2009

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.”

In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting “illegal” or “unlawful” weapons into the country on Prince’s private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety. [continued…]

Forecasts of West Bank violence may well come true

Forecasts of West Bank violence may well come true
By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz, August 5, 2009

Last weekend the State of Israel discovered the “other” West Bank. With suspicious timing, almost all the Israeli media devoted broad coverage to the improvement in the living conditions of the Palestinians in the West Bank, the increased freedom of movement permitted by Israel, the law and order that have returned to Palestinian cities and the momentum of construction and development – the new malls, the shows, the cafes.

We hate to admit it, but the Palestinian Authority, as opposed to Israel, is keeping to the requirements of the road map and is operating against the “terror infrastructure.” In the past, one of the easiest tasks for a journalist in the territories was interviewing armed men. Today they cannot be found in the West Bank cities. The government of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad disbanded Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, and the services subordinate to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas are fighting an all-out war against the armed men of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

It’s true that the West Bank has never been so quiet. But we must make no mistake; the situation remains fragile. In the opinion of many senior members of Fatah, in light of the dead end that characterizes the diplomatic contacts, the next explosion between Israel and the Palestinians is only a matter of time.

Although the PA has succeeded in improving the quality of life of West Bank residents, the Palestinians are still living under occupation. Although many of the checkpoints have been removed, there are enough surprise checkpoints and various obstacles that undermine freedom of movement; the Israel Defense Forces rarely operates in the Palestinian cities, but does so occasionally, and, above all, the PA and Fatah are forced to deal with their image as collaborators, without any diplomatic compensation from the Israeli side.

This time it probably won’t be an intifada-style popular uprising. The Palestinian public seems to be too tired for that. But from within Fatah there is a growing number of rebellious voices, calling to use weapons against the settlers and IDF soldiers.

Activists who were at the center of the last intifada and were pushed to the margins of the political arena are warning that turning the PA into the “Dayton Authority” (named after the U.S. security coordinator Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, who is helping to rehabilitate the Palestinian security forces) will not help Fatah to improve its status in the street. In the final analysis, they claim, the diplomatic crisis vis-a-vis Israel will lead to a renewal of terror attacks in the West Bankand to the formation of armed cells who will operate clandestinely.

The forecast of Hussam Khader, a leader of the Tanzim Fatah faction and one of the prominent figures in the last intifada, is even more pessimistic. He says the diplomatic freeze will lead to the removal of
the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, the strengthening of the Islamic extremists, and within about a year, a violent conflict. “The residents will throw shoes at the PA. A day will come and they will be regarded like Lahoud’s men [a reference to the commander of the South Lebanon Army],” Khader says. “It’s possible that we are marching toward a situation in which there will be two separate Palestinian entities, in the West Bank and in Gaza, but Israel must help to prove that the situation in the West Bank is better.”

Such claims are being heard with increasing frequency on the backdrop of the sixth Fatah convention in Bethlehem, at which the leadership of the organization will be elected for the first time in 20 years. The candidates know that one surefire way to win the support of conference delegates is to speak in praise of the armed struggle. If the Israeli government continues to entrench itself in its position that there is no Palestinian partner, and that this is not the time to discuss a peace agreement, it is quite possible the forecasts of a violent outbreak will, in fact, come true.

Free marriage counseling
By Tom Friedman, New York Times, August 2, 2009

Here’s what Israelis need to understand: President Obama is not some outlier when it comes to Israel. His call for a settlements freeze reflects attitudes that have been building in America for a long time. For the last 40 years, a succession of Israeli governments has misled, manipulated or persuaded naïve U.S. presidents that since Israel was negotiating to give up significant territory, there was no need to fight over “insignificant” settlements on some territory. Behind this charade, Israeli settlers bit off more and more of the West Bank, creating a huge moral, security and economic burden for Israel and its friends.

As Bradley Burston, a columnist for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, put it last week: “The settlement movement has cost Israel some $100 billion. … The double standard which for decades has favored settlers with inexpensive housing, heavily subsidized social services, and blind-eye building permits has long been accompanied by a kid-gloves approach regarding settler violence against Palestinians and their property. … Settlers and settlement planners have covertly bent and distorted zoning procedures, military directives, and government decrees in order to boost settlement, block Palestinian construction, agriculture, and access to employment, and effectively neutralize measures intended to foster Israeli-Palestinian peace progress.”

For years, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the pro-Israel lobby, rather than urging Israel to halt this corrosive process, used their influence to mindlessly protect Israel from U.S. pressure on this issue and to dissuade American officials and diplomats from speaking out against settlements. Everyone in Washington knows this, and a lot of people — people who care about Israel — are sick of it. [continued…]

Israel targets human rights groups
By Jonathan Cook, The National, August 3, 2009

In a bid to staunch the flow of damaging evidence of war crimes committed during Israel’s winter assault on Gaza, the Israeli government has launched a campaign to clamp down on human rights groups, both in Israel and abroad.

It has begun by targeting one of the world’s leading rights organisations, the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), as well as a local group of dissident army veterans, Breaking the Silence, which last month published the testimonies of 26 combat soldiers who served in Gaza.

Additionally, according to the Israeli media, the government is planning a “much more aggressive stance” towards human rights groups working to help the Palestinians. [continued…]

Haaretz website and malicious advertising

As a service to readers of War in Context, I will no longer be linking to the Haaretz English website until its operators get their act together and figure out how to block malicious advertising. Until such a time I will post interesting Haaretz articles in their entirety and would encourage other website operators to do the same.

In release of journalists, both Clintons had key roles

In release of journalists, both Clintons had key roles
By Mark Landler and Peter Baker, New York Times, August 5, 2009

Former President Bill Clinton left North Korea on Wednesday morning after a dramatic 20-hour visit, in which he won the freedom of two American journalists, opened a diplomatic channel to North Korea’s reclusive government and dined with the North’s ailing leader, Kim Jong-il.

Mr. Clinton departed from Pyongyang, the capital, around 8:30 a.m. local time, along with the journalists, Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, on a private jet bound for Los Angeles, according to a statement from the former president’s office.

The North Korean government, which in June sentenced the women to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering North Korean territory, announced hours earlier that it had pardoned the women after Mr. Clinton apologized to Mr. Kim for their actions, according to the North Korean state media. [continued…]

Iraq censorship laws move ahead

Iraq censorship laws move ahead
By Timothy Williams, New York Times, August 4, 2009

The doors of the communications revolution were thrown open in Iraq after the American-led invasion in 2003: In rushed a wave of music videos featuring scantily clad Turkish singers, Web sites recruiting suicide bombers, racy Egyptian soap operas, pornography, romance novels, and American and Israeli news and entertainment sites that had long been blocked under Saddam Hussein’s rule.

Now those doors may be shut again, at least partially, as the Iraqi government moves to ban sites deemed harmful to the public, to require Internet cafes to register with the authorities and to press publishers to censor books. [continued…]

Iraqi government hit with claims that man died in detention after torture
By Deborah Haynes, The Times, August 4, 2009

A man died in Iraqi army detention after allegedly being beaten, given electric shocks with a cattle prod and burnt with cigarettes in a case that highlights the abuses suffered by detainees at the hands of Iraqi security forces.

The fresh allegations undermine claims by Britain and the United States that the new Iraqi Government respects the rule of law and human rights, more than six years after Saddam Hussein was ousted.

In addition the US Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into allegations that one of its agents in Baghdad assisted in the beating of an Iraqi suspect, according to a former American adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Defence. [continued…]

Iran poll critics boycott ceremony

Iran poll critics boycott ceremony
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr, Financial Times, August 4, 2009

Some of Iran’s most senior politicians yesterday publicly challenged supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by boycotting the ceremony in which he endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad as president.

In an embarrassing snub, former presidents Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a conservative, and Mohammad Khatami, a reformist, refused to attend the meeting as part of their efforts to deprive the next government of legitimacy. [continued…]

Newsweek steps up effort to free reporter in Iran
By Brian Stelter, New York Times, August 4, 2009

Sam Tradeau, the New York representative for Reporters Without Borders, said that Newsweek initially tried to limit public comments about Mr. Bahari’s arrest, “believing this would be the most efficient way to secure his release, especially because the charges against him were completely baseless and ridiculous.”

But “the fact that Bahari was forced to give a false confession, and will now have to stand trial on extremely serious charges without being able to have his lawyer present, a right guaranteed to him by the Iranian Constitution, has put Newsweek in a much more urgent situation,” Mr. Tradeau said.

Newsweek now includes a prominent call to “Free Maziar Bahari” on its home page. The magazine has placed full-page advertisements in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other publications calling for his release. It has also asked readers to sign an online petition. [continued…]

Iran’s most wanted
By Reza Aslan, The Daily Beast, August 3, 2009

Iran has become “the world’s biggest prison for journalists,” the Paris-based advocacy group Reporters Without Borders reports. After opening the country to the foreign press during the presidential elections on June 12, the regime dramatically reversed course afterward, when hundreds of thousands of Iranians flooded the streets to protest the election’s outcome.

All foreign media were expelled, while the country’s own reporters were systematically rounded up and detained. Many have been taken to undisclosed locations, where they have had no communication with their families and no access to lawyers. Some have not been heard from in weeks, and some, like Amir-Hossein Mahdavi, editor in chief of Andisheh-ye Now, have suddenly popped up on state-run television to “confess” that the media’s allegations of election fraud were nothing more than a foreign plot to launch a velvet revolution in Iran. [continued…]

U.S. seeks information on 3 Americans in Iran
By Nada Bakri, Washington Post, August 4, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that she was “concerned” about three Americans detained in Iran and that the United States had not received any information from Iran about their fate since they crossed into the country from northern Iraq last week.

Clinton’s statement came after the head of the Iranian parliament’s foreign policy committee, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, confirmed the arrest of the Americans on Sunday, according to Iranian television. Iran’s Arabic-language network said in a news bulletin on Monday, quoting Iraqi police sources, that the Americans were “CIA agents.” The Iranian government, however, did not immediately endorse that claim. [continued…]

Iran’s Wall Street: whom does the bazaar back?
Time, August 3, 2009

Mousavi’s supporters are trying to get the bazaar on his side. One of the marches in the weeks after Iran’s June election went from Imam Khomeini Square past Tehran’s main bazaar. According to a witness, thousands of bazaaris closed their shops so they could stand outside and watch hundreds of thousands of green-clad protesters silently walk by. In fact, the route had been designed to draw Iran’s merchants and workers into the growing opposition coalition to make it seem as if it had the support of Iran’s commercial sector.

While Ahmadinejad had his tax run-in with the bazaar, Mousavi does not have a positive record with many bazaaris either. Older bazaaris can still remember Mousavi the firebrand leftist, who as Prime Minister in the 1980s was associated with price controls and food cooperatives during the Iran-Iraq war. But younger managers and workers generally express support for Mousavi, even though, as one pointed out, “Mousavi never visited the bazaar before the election.” Bazaaris felt slighted by the snub, and since the bazaar’s merchants are still a main conduit to Iran’s smaller towns and rural areas, this was undoubtedly communicated outside the bazaar as well. [continued…]

Fatah conference aims to boost its radical credentials

Fatah conference aims to boost its radical credentials
By Tony Karon, Time, August 4, 2009

While much of the younger generation of Fatah — and many of its leaders who remain in exile — are contemptuous of the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, to which they attribute their movement’s political demise, they don’t plan to try and unseat him just yet. Instead, they’ll seek to tie his hands. But there is a move afoot at the conference to take down Abbas’s national security adviser, the Bush Administration-favorite strongman Mohammed Dahlan. The conference will hear proposals for an investigation into the events that saw Hamas eject Fatah forces and take control of Gaza by force in 2007 — with many blaming Dahlan for having at least partly provoked the takeover. Demanding an inquiry and targeting one of his key allies is seen as another means of weakening Abbas’ authority. A second target will be Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, a political independent appointed by Abbas at Washington’s behest, although over strong opposition from both Hamas and Fatah. [continued…]

Fateh conference update #2
By Helena Cobban, Just World News, August 3, 2009

[A report in Al-Quds al-Arabi] says that reliable Fateh sources in Bethlehem say there are some Gaza-origined Fateh people now in Bethlehem/ the West Bank who are credentialed for the conference– and they spell out that this is a reference to Muhammad Dahlan and his supporters– but who are afraid that if the conference goes ahead they could be called to account for the disastrous failure Fateh suffered at the hands of Hamas in Gaza in June 2007… and that if this looks likely to happen, the Dahlan group would prefer to call the conference off on the pretext of the non-attendance of the delegates who are still resident in Gaza, rather than go ahead with it…

Yes, wheels within wheels within wheels there. I guess that’s what happens when you try to run a political “movement” that has no functioning mechanisms of internal accountability except the sloshing around of huge amounts of US-mobilized money. [continued…]

Hamas again accepts a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines
By Amjad Atallah, The Washington Note, August 3, 2009

Meshaal seems to be indicating that Hamas now endorses the US attempt to negotiate an end to the occupation.

In the past, Hamas’ position has been that that they would allow President Abbas, as leader of the PLO, to negotiate while they remained the pious opposition, undoubtedly back-biting his attempts to conclude an agreement and presenting the results as a sell-out. It was politics at its most cynical. But in Friday’s WSJ piece, Meshaal is quoted saying “Hamas and other Palestinian groups are ready to cooperate with any American, international or regional effort to find a just solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, to end the Israeli occupation and to grant the Palestinian people their right of self-determination.”

If Meshaal is truly speaking on behalf of all of Hamas (and Hamas is much better at speaking with a unified voice than most Palestinian parties), then he is actually endorsing President Obama’s efforts to quickly negotiate an end to the conflict and is offering Hamas “cooperation” in that regard. [continued…]

Palestinian economy isn’t recovering thanks to Israel, but in spite of it
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz, August 4, 2009

The Palestinian economy is not recovering thanks to Israel, but in spite of it.

Although the Shin Bet security services and the Israel Defense Forces agreed to ease pressure on the population, most of the internal checkpoints that Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered removed at the request of U.S. President Barack Obama administration, had already been slated for removal by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in response to pressure from former U.S. president George W. Bush.

In addition, according to the current report of the International Monetary Fund, Netanyahu was somewhat hasty in flaunting the success of his economic peace. The fund’s headquarters in the territories predicted that 2009 would end with 7 percent growth (not 10 percent), a statistic that will, for the first time in three years, represent a substantial improvement in the standard of living.

However, the IMF says that if Israel does not continue to remove the restrictions on internal trade, the gross domestic product per capita will decline later in the year. Incidentally, according to the report the unemployment rate still stands at an extremely high 20 percent (less than Gaza’s 34 percent). [continued…]

Reflections on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in our world

Reflections on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in our world
By Frida Berrigan, TomDispatch, August 3, 2009

In Hiroshima, Little Boy’s huge fireball and explosion killed 70,000 to 80,000 people instantly. Another 70,000 were seriously injured. As Joseph Siracusa, author of Nuclear Weapons: A Very Short Introduction, writes: “In one terrible moment, 60% of Hiroshima… was destroyed. The blast temperature was estimated to reach over a million degrees Celsius, which ignited the surrounding air, forming a fireball some 840 feet in diameter.”

Three days later, Fat Man exploded 1,840 feet above Nagasaki, with the force of 22,000 tons of TNT. According to “Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembered,” a web resource on the bombings developed for young people and educators, 286,000 people lived in Nagasaki before the bomb was dropped; 74,000 of them were killed instantly and another 75,000 were seriously injured.

In addition to those who died immediately, or soon after the bombings, tens of thousands more would succumb to radiation sickness and other radiation-induced maladies in the months, and then years, that followed.

In an article written while he was teaching math at Tufts University in 1983, Tadatoshi Akiba calculated that, by 1950, another 200,000 people had died as a result of the Hiroshima bomb, and 140,000 more were dead in Nagasaki. Dr. Akiba was later elected mayor of Hiroshima and became an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament. [continued…]

The real tragedy in Nigeria’s violence

The real tragedy in Nigeria’s violence
By Jean Herskovits, Foreign Policy, August 3, 2009

Nigeria’s latest spate of violence — which began with attacks on police stations in four northern states — is not what it seems. Superficially, the story looks similar to (though it was not connected with) outbreaks of Islamist fanaticism elsewhere in the world: An Islamist sect run amok, threatening a town’s security, demanding an end to Western institutions, and seeking to impose a strict religious code. But instead, the clashes are a northern Nigerian version of what is happening in another (mostly Christian) region of the country, the Niger Delta. Both are violent reactions to the flagrant lack of concern on the part of those who govern for the welfare of the governed.

Ten years of supposed democracy have yielded mounting poverty and deprivation of every kind in Nigeria. Young people, undereducated by a collapsed educational system, may “graduate,” but only into joblessness. Lives decline, frustration grows, and angry young men are too easily persuaded to pick up readily accessible guns in protest when something sparks their rage. Meanwhile, those in power at all levels ignore the business of governing and instead enrich themselves. Law and order deteriorate. The Nigerian police, which are federal, are called on, but they have grievances of their own. Ill-trained, ill-paid, and housed in squalid barracks, they are feared for their indiscriminate use of force. The military, though more professional, is not prepared for dealing with unrest — and unrest has proliferated more and more. [continued…]

Islamist uprising killed 780 in one Nigerian city: Red Cross
AFP, August 2, 2009

At least 780 people were killed in last week’s military operation to quell an uprising by an Islamist sect in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, the Red Cross said Monday.

“So far a total of 780 dead bodies were picked from the streets of Maiduguri and given a mass burial at three sites in the city,” Nigeria Red Cross official Muhammad Zanna Barma told AFP.

Fighting erupted between security forces and members of an extremist Islamist sect after an attack on a police station in nearby Bauchi state, and later spread to Kano, Yobe and Borno states.

Officials had last week put the death toll in violence in Yobe and Bauchi states at 98, bringing the overall total to 878, using the Red Cross figure for Maiduguri.

Suggesting on Sunday that the vast majority of the dead were sect members, officials said the bodies were swept into mass graves as their families were unwilling to claim them, for fear of being associated with the notorious sect — styled on Afghanistan’s Taliban. [continued…]