Author Archives: Paul Woodward

Israel envoy to U.S.: We have no plan to strike Iran

Israel envoy to U.S.: We have no plan to strike Iran
Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren interviewed by Fareed Zacharia, CNN, August 16, 2009

ZAKARIA: Let’s talk about Iran.

John Bolton has recently said that he believes that Israel is likely to attack Iran by the end of this year. Is that true?

OREN: I don’t think it’s true. I think that we are far from even contemplating such things right now.

The government of Israel has supported President Obama in his approach to Iran, initially the engagement, the outreach to Iran. The prime minister…

ZAKARIA: You’re just saying this, Michael. You don’t really — it is well known that the government of Israel was deeply uncomfortable and nervous about the idea of an engagement with Iran.

OREN: We were. But we were greatly comforted during the prime minister’s visit here in May, when the president told the prime minister, sure, that there would be a serious reassessment of the engagement policy before the end of the year.

And we are further reassured now that that end-of-the-year deadline has been moved up to September. We actually have a date when it’s going to occur.

We are comforted by the fact that the administration, in the aftermath of recent events in Iran, has exhibited greater willingness to consider formulating a package of serious sanctions against Iran, even now in advance of the reassessment.

ZAKARIA: Isn’t it true that we now know something about Iran that we weren’t quite sure about, which is, there are many moderates in Iran, both on the streets of Tehran and the rest of the country, but also within the government.

OREN: Unquestionably. We know that the Iranian — certainly, the Iranian people, but even the Iranian leadership, is not as monochromatic as we thought, that there are dissenters. Not necessarily moderates in the sense of their relationship with Israel, but moderates certainly in an internal Iranian context.

But what concerns us, at the end of the day, is not so much a change of personalities, but a change of policy. We would like to see an Iranian willingness to desist from supporting terrorist groups, Hezbollah, Hamas. We’ve seen none of that; on the contrary, business as usual.

We would like to see indications of Iranian willingness to suspend the enrichment of uranium. We’d like to see a willingness evinced on the part of the Iranians to stop producing the centrifuges that enrich that uranium. We’ve seen none of that. On the contrary, we see business as usual for the Iranians, even in their rhetoric across the board. [continued…]

Throwing Ahmadinejad a lifeline
By Hossein Askari and Trita Parsi, New York Times, August 14, 2009

The economics of a gasoline embargo simply doesn’t make sense. Iran imports roughly 40 percent of its domestic gasoline consumption at world prices and then sells it along with domestically refined gasoline at a government-subsidized price of about 40 cents per gallon. As a result, domestic gasoline consumption is high. It is also smuggled and sold to neighboring countries.

Over the past 10 years, this policy has cost Iran in the range of 10 to 20 percent of its G.D.P. annually, depending on world prices and the government-mandated pump price. Yes, a whopping 10 to 20 percent of G.D.P. In need of additional revenues, the regime has wanted to eliminate this subsidy, raise the price to world levels and reduce consumption, but has been paralyzed by the specter of a domestic backlash.

Even assuming that a gasoline embargo would be effective, what would be its result? Consumption would decline by 40 percent and government revenues would go up, because no payment would be needed for gasoline imports.

If Tehran allowed the reduced supply of gasoline to be sold at a price that would equate demand to supply, the price would increase to a level that would eliminate the subsidy, meaning no subsidy for imported gasoline and no subsidy for domestically refined gasoline. The government would have more revenue to spend elsewhere. The sanctions would have done what Tehran has wanted to do for years and the government would not be held responsible! [continued…]

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Mubarak to tell U.S. Israel must make overture

Mubarak to tell U.S. Israel must make overture
By Michael Slackman, New York Times, August 17, 2009

In White House meetings beginning Monday, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is expected to tell the Obama administration that Arab nations want peace, but are unwilling to abide Mr. Obama’s call to make good-faith concessions to Israel until Israel takes tangible steps like freezing settlements, an Egyptian official said.

As part of its effort to resuscitate the peace process, the Obama administration has asked Arab countries to make small but symbolic gestures to normalize relations with Israel, like allowing planes to fly through their airspace or improving cultural ties. The administration has also asked Israel to freeze all growth in settlements.

So far, neither side has agreed to Mr. Obama’s proposed first steps, and so the president is expected to look to Mr. Mubarak for help in breaking the latest Middle East deadlock, regional analysts said. [continued…]

Too gung-ho? Israel military rabbis draw criticism
By Matti Friedman, AP, August 17, 2009

Most Israelis expect their military rabbis to confine themselves to such tasks as making sure the army provides kosher food and respects the Sabbath. But lately, some of them are asserting their own idea of Jewish virtue at the risk of stepping into the country’s culture wars.

Some critics worry that the rabbinate and its charismatic chief, Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki, are infusing a militant mix of Judaism and nationalism into a traditionally secular institution that embodies the Israeli consensus.

On the Palestinian side, Islamic hard-liners already see their war with Israel through an uncompromising religious lens, and the rabbinate’s critics warn that the Jewish state must not follow suit and risk pushing the conflict closer to a zero-sum holy war. [continued…]

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Afghanistan’s tyranny of the minority

Afghanistan’s tyranny of the minority
By Selig S Harrison, New York Times, August 17, 2009

As the debate intensifies within the Obama administration over how to stabilize Afghanistan, one major problem is conspicuously missing from the discussion: the growing alienation of the country’s largest ethnic group, the Pashtun tribes, who make up an estimated 42 percent of the population of 33 million. One of the basic reasons many Pashtuns support the Taliban insurgency is that their historic rivals, ethnic Tajiks, hold most of the key levers of power in the government.

Tajiks constitute only about 24 percent of the population, yet they largely control the armed forces and the intelligence and secret police agencies that loom over the daily lives of the Pashtuns. Little wonder that in the run-up to Thursday’s presidential election, much of the Taliban propaganda has focused on the fact that President Hamid Karzai’s top running mate is a hated symbol of Tajik power: the former defense minister Muhammad Fahim.

Mr. Fahim and his allies have been entrenched in Kabul since American forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001 with the help of his Tajik militia, the Northern Alliance, which was based in the Panjshir valley north of the capital. A clique of these Tajik officers, known as the Panjshiris, took control of the key security posts with American backing, and they have been there ever since. Washington pushed Mr. Karzai for the presidency to give a Pashtun face to the regime, but he has been derided from the start by his fellow Pashtuns with a play on his name, “Panjshir-zai.” [continued…]

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Inside the Taliban: ‘The more troops they send, the more targets we have’

Inside the Taliban: ‘The more troops they send, the more targets we have’
By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, The Guardian, August 15, 2009

Instead of the trademark Taliban uniforms of turbans, eyeliner and flip-flops, these men wore Russian and Nato poncho raincoats over their shalwars, and boots and trainers. Most striking was the way they held their guns. Instead of carrying them in the standard militia style, on their shoulders or holding them like walking sticks, they wore them strapped around their chests, one hand by the trigger and the other holding the muzzle down. They stood just like the Americans.

The stout commander, Mawlawi Jalali, sat surrounded by his men. One carried the white flag of the Taliban and another a video camera, which he kept pointed at me at all times.

“We are Afghans fighting the jihad and defending our country under the leadership of Jalaluddin Haqqani,” the commander said. He spoke in a schoolmasterly tone. As well as being a commander, Mawlawi Jalali is a teacher in Haqqani’s madrasa.

“The Americans toppled the emirate [of the Taliban] and we are fighting to bring it back. When the Taliban were here the jihad was only in Afghanistan. Now, thanks to the Americans, the jihad has spread to many other countries.”

How did he plan to pursue his holy war? “We use different tactics: mining the streets, fighting and direct attacks. Here in this camp we make all the preparations and have all the men we need for these different tactics.”

What about the new American surge, I asked. Did it concern him?

“We attack the towns, like in Wazi Zadran, where there is a strong American and Afghan garrison, and mine the streets every day. We average two or three attacks a day against the Americans and their allies. The more troops they send, the more targets we have, so it’s good.” [continued…]

Why Taliban leaders prefer dead diplomats
By Jason Burke, The Observer, August 16, 2009

Also, the Taliban do not get most of their money from narcotics, as is often said, but they receive a significant amount from private donors in the Gulf or elsewhere in the Islamic world who are much less keen to pay for violence directed at voting Afghans than strikes on western troops or their “stooges”.

So it makes sense that the Taliban, or in this case probably the allied insurgent group led by hardline cleric and warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani, have preferred to launch the first genuinely spectacular strike since the beginning of the election campaign against a diplomatic western target.

As their spokesman explained, rather than hit the military, the Taliban would have preferred dead diplomats. Though a bomb outside the Isaf headquarters would show the insurgents’ ability to strike anywhere, their key target is international public opinion. Given the number of journalists and TV crews in the Afghan capital to cover the elections, a spectacular suicide bombing was always going to be an easy way of getting the media coverage that they need. [continued…]

Afghanistan passes ‘barbaric’ law diminishing women’s rights
By Jon Boone, The Guardian, August 14, 2009

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands’ sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.

“It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying ‘blood money’ to a girl who was injured when he raped her,” the US charity Human Rights Watch said. [continued…]

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If they won’t make peace we may have to make it for them

If they won’t make peace we may have to make it for them
By Tony Karon, The National, August 15, 2009

Until now the Obama administration has clung to the basic assumptions of the Oslo process: incremental steps on both sides build the confidence necessary to negotiate a bilateral agreement on final-status issues such as borders, Jerusalem and refugees. Plainly that approach has failed so far, and it’s hard to see it succeeding simply because there is a new cast of actors in the lead roles. The problem may be in the script rather than the casting.

There is no domestic political pressure on Netanyahu to make the territorial compromises necessary for a deal. On the contrary, his once precarious domestic political position has been strengthened by his resistance to the settlement freeze demands, and Israelis are unlikely to accept the conflict that would erupt if their government tried to evict thousands of West Bank settlers under a peace agreement. Nor are the Palestinians inclined to make compromises that the refugees would consider surrender of their rights.

In the absence of domestic pressure on either side to force a compromise, restarting talks would be either a repeat of the Annapolis failure or a demonstration that the gap between the two sides cannot be bridged by mutual consent. Either way, the parameters of a two-state solution will have to be prescribed by the international community, just as they were in 1947 – except this time with enough international clout and domestic support to prevent a repeat of the tragedy that followed the last UN partition of Palestine. [continued…]

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Jund Ansar Allah group was armed by Fatah operatives, Hamas claims

Jund Ansar Allah group was armed by Fatah operatives, Hamas claims
By Khaled Abu Toameh, Jerusalem Post, August 16, 2009

Jund Ansar Allah is one of several tiny radical Islamist groups that have popped up in the Gaza Strip in the past few years.

These groups have openly challenged the Hamas government on the grounds that it has not imposed Islamic law (Shari’a).

The radical groups want to see a regime similar to the one in Sudan and other Islamic countries, where thieves have their arms amputated and those found guilty of adultery are stoned to death.

Some have claimed that these groups are either linked to or inspired by al-Qaida, but so far there is no evidence to back up their claim.

Hamas officials, however, say that many of the leaders and members of these groups were in fact affiliated with the former Fatah-controlled security forces or with militias belonging to Fatah in the Gaza Strip.

A senior Hamas official told The Jerusalem Post over the weekend that Jund Ansar Allah received its weapons from former Fatah policemen and security officials in the southern Gaza Strip.

The official said he did not rule out the possibility that Fatah leaders in the West Bank were trying to use radical Islamic groups to undermine the Hamas government. [continued…]

Al-Qaeda affiliated group declares war on Hamas
By Ali Waked, Ynet, August 15, 2009

Al-Qaeda loyalists in Gaza declared war on Hamas Saturday after violent shootouts left 24 people dead, including Jund Ansar Allah leader Abdel-Latif Moussa.

In a message posted by al-Qaeda’s websites the Islamic Swords of Justice, a group affiliated with the Salafi movement, vowed to avenge the deaths. “We tell our people who witnessed this crime that this is not over, and war is on its way,” the message said. [continued…]

Profile: Jund Ansar Allah
BBC News, August , 2009

Operating initially in Rafah and Khan Younis, Jund Ansar Allah spread rapidly throughout Gaza and, until Friday’s raid, claimed to have 500 members, including a number of foreign fighters.

It is said to have a military base in a former Israeli settlement, from which it carried out a number of minor attacks on Israeli forces during the first half of the year, according to its website.

On 8 June, however, the group came to public attention with a spectacular, if unsuccessful, raid on the Karni border crossing.

At least three of its fighters were shot dead by Israeli troops after 10 rode into battle on horses laden with large quantities of explosives. [continued…]

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New Israeli rules curb travel from West Bank

New Israeli rules curb travel from West Bank
By Jonathan Cook, The National, August 15, 2009

In an echo of restrictions already firmly in place in Gaza, Israel has begun barring movement between Israel and the West Bank for anyone holding a foreign passport, including humanitarian aid workers and thousands of Palestinian residents.

The new policy is designed to force foreign citizens to choose between visiting Israel, including East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed illegally, and the West Bank. In most cases, travel between the two areas will no longer be possible.

The new regulation is in breach of Israel’s commitments under the Oslo accords to western governments that their citizens would be given continued access to the occupied territories. [continued…]

Ezra Nawi: Jewish pacifist facing jail for aiding Arabs
By Tim McGirk, Time, August 15, 2009

A plumber by trade, Ezra Nawi is a Jewish member of a small band of Israeli peace activists who put themselves on the line week in and week out by traveling to the stony hills outside Hebron to help Palestinians defend their land against right-wing Jewish settlers. And he has the lumps to show for it. Four years back, some settlers at Susya had tried to drive a Palestinian family off their land by tossing a dead dog into their well in order to poison the family’s water. The following day, Palestinians hauled the dog out of the well and were trying to draw water under the protection of Nawi and some other volunteers from an Jewish-Arab peace group known as Ta’ayush. Masked settlers appeared, smashed one activist with the butt of a gun and broke a long wooden stick over Nawi’s head.

Nawi reacted as he always has — by holding his ground — without resorting to violence. In his many confrontations over the years with Israeli police, soldiers and settlers, Nawi has never struck back, say his colleagues at Ta’ayush. “Non-violence is Ezra’s natural affinity,” says David Shulman, a Ta-ayush member and professor of Sanskrit who has on multiples occasions witnessed Nawi’s encounters with settlers and police. “He is amazingly gentle and empathetic. He’s not capable of violence.” [continued…]

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Moussavi forms ‘grass-roots’ movement in Iran

Moussavi forms ‘grass-roots’ movement in Iran
By Robert F Worth, New York Times, August 16, 2009

The Iranian opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi announced the formation of a new social and political movement on his Web site on Saturday, following through on a promise made last month and defying a renewed government campaign of intimidation aimed at him and his supporters.

The movement is not a political party — which would require a government permit — but a “grass-roots and social network” that will promote democracy and adherence to the law, Mr. Moussavi wrote in a statement on his site. It is to be known as the Green Way of Hope, in deference to the signature bright green color of his campaign for the June 12 presidential election, which he maintains was rigged in favor of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The announcement was Mr. Moussavi’s first major public statement since the Iranian authorities stepped up their pressure on the opposition by opening a mass trial two weeks ago. Prosecutors have accused Mr. Moussavi’s campaign of links to a vast conspiracy to bring down the Iranian government. After he and many others denounced the trial, the chief prosecutor issued a stark warning that anyone questioning the trial’s legitimacy could in turn be prosecuted. [continued…]

Hard-line cleric named Iran’s judiciary chief
AP, August 16, 2009

Iran’s supreme leader appointed a hard-line cleric as the country’s new judiciary chief at the end of his predecessor’s term, state television reported Saturday.

Sadeq Larijani’s appointment does not appear to be related to the turmoil that has wracked Iran after the disputed June presidential election. But the new judiciary chief will face an early test in determining how to respond to allegations that opposition protesters detained after the election were tortured to death. [continued…]

The Revolutionary Guards: gaining power in Iran
Time, August 13, 2009

The shadowy Revolutionary Guards already oversee a 130,000-strong parallel army and run large swatches of Iran’s economy, from dentist clinics to the country’s controversial nuclear program. But signs have emerged in recent weeks that the élite military arm isn’t satisfied: it may just want to run the entire Islamic republic.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), or Sepah for short in Farsi, is widely believed to have played a large role in orchestrating the crackdown on political dissidents and protesters following the disputed presidential election. Its political influence within the regime has always far exceeded the actual army’s, and it has increased exponentially since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected to office in 2005. But the speculation among Iranian opposition sources is that, these days, the IRGC’s powerful patron — whose second term officially began last week — has now become its puppet, falling under the influence of a gang of security chiefs (the so-called New Right) that harbor schemes to further radicalize the regime or topple it in a military takeover. [continued…]

Iran tries more activists in post-election turmoil
AP, August 16, 2009

Iran on Sunday put on trial 25 more activists and opposition supporters, including a Jewish teenager, for their alleged involvement in the turmoil following the recent presidential election.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has attempted to paint those who took to the streets after the June election to protest his disputed victory as agents of foreign enemies seeking to topple the country’s Islamic system. [continued…]

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Idle Iraqi date farms show decline of economy

Idle Iraqi date farms show decline of economy
By Timonthy Williams, New York Times, August 15, 2009

Late July and early August is date harvesting season in Iraq, when within the span of a few weeks the desert sun turns hard green spheres into tender, golden brown fruit prized for its sweetness.

But here in Iraq, one of the places where agriculture was developed more than 7,000 years ago, there are increasing doubts about whether it makes much sense to grow dates — or much of anything for that matter.

As recently as the 1980s, Iraq was self-sufficient in producing wheat, rice, fruits, vegetables, and sheep and poultry products. Its industrial sector exported textiles and leather goods, including purses and shoes, as well as steel and cement. But wars, sanctions, poor management, international competition and disinvestment have left each industry a shadow of its former self.

Slowly, Iraq’s economy has become based almost entirely on imports and a single commodity. [continued…]

The sheikh down
By Shane Bauer, Mother Jones, September/October, 2009

It’s a bright day in February, and I am in a pink villa on the outskirts of Fallujah, sitting with a tribal sheikh and a Marine commander as they hunch over a plate of truffles. The sheikh is Eifan Saddun al-Isawi, a charming 33-year-old Iraqi in a red-checkered kaffiyeh, a brown dishdasha, and DKNY wraparound sunglasses who uses phrases like “sons of bitches” when he talks about Al Qaeda with Americans. He is the head of Fallujah’s Sahwa, or Awakening, council, the Sunni militia hired by the United States in early 2007 to fight its enemies in Iraq, and he’s become one of the American military’s go-to guys in the city, as evidenced by the photos on his walls of him with George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

The American officer, Lt. Colonel Chris Hastings, apologizes for forgetting to bring Eifan “magazines with pictures of pretty ladies” and congratulates him for winning a seat in the provincial elections. He proceeds to tell Eifan to make sure that a certain someone the Marines are “concerned” about doesn’t make it into local politics. Eifan assures him he’ll see to it.

Hastings also needs Eifan on the hearts-and-minds front: The Marines recently killed a teacher strapped with a suicide belt, and Hastings wants the sheikh to convince his community that the Americans aren’t bloodthirsty warmongers. The Awakening councils don’t officially work for the Americans anymore—the Iraqi government now pays the $300-a-month salaries of Eifan’s men—but Eifan obliges immediately. “Give me pictures and I will give it to all the imams and sheikhs to show them he was wearing a belt,” he says. He then presses the lieutenant colonel to release some of his friends from prison (Hastings agrees), offers him an antique hunting rifle (Hastings declines), and steers the talk back to the topic he’s been hinting at throughout the meeting: American cash.

“Just tell the colonel to give me the contract. Come on, man. You know I’ll do a good job,” he says. Over the years, Eifan’s gotten used to the way Americans do business in Iraq. Working with them has made him a millionaire. [continued…]

Minorities trapped in northern Iraq’s maelstrom
By Sam Dagher, New York Times, August 16, 2009

Kamal Ahmed woke up before the crack of dawn and went to the village mosque where he serves as the muezzin.

After calling the people to prayer, he went back to sleep on the roof of his house in a metal post bed covered with a mosquito net, a common practice in Iraq during the sweltering summer months. Minutes later, a huge explosion brought down half of the two-floor house. His side of the house remained miraculously intact, but three members of his family, who were asleep inside, were crushed to death.

Two explosions, which obliterated a large swath of this village of nearly 10,000 people near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Monday, killed 34 people and wounded almost 200. The village is inhabited by Shiite Shabaks, a Kurdish-speaking minority. [continued…]

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Sometimes it’s not your war, but you sacrifice anyway

Sometimes it’s not your war, but you sacrifice anyway
By T. Christian Miller, Washington Post, August 16, 2009

To outsource the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has turned to the cheapest labor possible. About two-thirds of the 200,000 civilians working under federal contracts in the war zones are foreigners. Many come from poor, Third World countries. Others are local hires.

These low-paid foreign workers face many of the same risks soldiers do. Mortars have killed Filipinos who served meals in mess halls. Assassins have targeted Iraqis translating for soldiers. Roadside bombs have ripped into trucks driven by Turkish nationals. These workers have been wounded like soldiers. They have died like soldiers.

The United States has a system to provide care for such civilian casualties. Developed in the 1940s, it is an obscure type of workers’ compensation insurance, funded by taxpayers and overseen by the Labor Department. Mandated by a law called the Defense Base Act, the system requires almost every federal contractor working abroad to purchase insurance to cover injuries arising from work or war, for all employees, American or foreign.

American civilian workers have had trouble enough getting payment for their injuries. AIG, the primary provider of such insurance, has battled them over everything from prosthetic legs to treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, according to court records and interviews. But at least the Americans have a fighting chance.

For foreign workers, the system has not even come close to delivering on its promises. In Nepal, I spoke with a family in a remote valley of tumbling rivers and jewel-green rice fields. After neighbors heard news reports over the radio, the family watched an Internet video that showed that their son had been executed in a dusty ditch in western Iraq on his way to work at a base for U.S. soldiers. Neither the company nor the United States had made any effort to contact them. The elderly couple, who had relied upon their son’s salary, wondered how they would survive. [continued…]

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A thousand little Gitmos

A thousand little Gitmos
By Petra Bartosiewicz, Mother Jones, July/August, 2009

The last person to see Syed Mehmood Hashmi as a free man was his friend Mohammed Haroon Saleem, who on June 6, 2006, drove Hashmi to London’s Heathrow Airport, walked him to the security checkpoint, and watched him hoist his bag and head for the gate. But Hashmi never made his flight. At passport control, constables pulled him from the line and told him they had an extradition warrant on behalf of the US government. He was to be charged with aiding Al Qaeda.

Today Hashmi, who is 29, sits in a windowless cell, in solitary confinement. He is not allowed to watch television or listen to the radio or read a newspaper unless it is at least 30 days old and censored. He is not allowed to speak to guards, other inmates, or the media, or to write anyone but his attorney and his family (once a week on three single-sided pages). The only people cleared to visit, besides his lawyer, are his mother and father, but he couldn’t see them for three months after he was caught shadowboxing in his cell—an infraction that cost him visiting privileges. Hashmi’s lawyer, Sean Maher, says the isolation is slowly driving his client mad.

Hashmi is not in Guantanamo Bay, nor is he an enemy combatant. He’s a US citizen, born in Pakistan and raised in Flushing, Queens, facing trial in federal court in Manhattan. His home for the past two years has been the Special Housing Unit at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a stone’s throw from the Brooklyn Bridge. Hashmi might be guilty, he might not. We may never know—because when he goes before judge and jury later this year he won’t get a fair trial. Much of the government’s evidence against him is secret, and he can’t see it because he doesn’t have a security clearance. Maher, who does have a security clearance, can’t see much of it either. Maher finds this incredible.

“There are cases across the country where men are being convicted and given astronomical sentences under the most inhumane and draconian conditions possible,” says Maher. “Animals at the Bronx Zoo get treated better than this.” [continued…]

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Obama is not delivering the goods

Obama’s America is not delivering the goods
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, August 14, 2009

With great sorrow and deep consternation, we hereby declare the death of the latest hope. Perhaps rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated, to paraphrase the famous quote by Mark Twain, but the fears are being validated day after day. Barack Obama’s America is not delivering the goods. Sharing a glass of beer with a racist cop and a pat on the back of Hugo Chavez are not what we hoped for; wholesale negotiations on freezing settlement construction are also not what we expected. Just over six months after the most promising president of all began his term, perhaps hope has a last breath left, but it is on its deathbed.

He came into office amid much hoopla. The Cairo speech ignited half the globe. Making settlements the top priority gave rise to the hope that, finally, a statesman is sitting in the White House who understands that the root of all evil is the occupation, and that the root of the occupation’s evil is the settlements. From Cairo, it seemed possible to take off. The sky was the limit.

Then the administration fell into the trap set by Israel and is showing no signs of recovery.

A settlement freeze, something that should have been understood by a prime minister who speaks with such bluster about two states – a peripheral matter that Israel committed to in the road map – has suddenly turned into a central issue. Special envoy George Mitchell is wasting his time and prestige with petty haggling. A half-year freeze or a full year? What about the 2,500 apartment units already under construction? And what about natural growth? And kindergartens?

Perhaps they will reach a compromise and agree on nine months, not including natural growth though allowing completion of apartments already under construction. A grand accomplishment.

Jerusalem has imposed its will on Washington. Once again we are at the starting point – dealing with trifles from which it is impossible to make the big leap over the great divide.

We expected more from Obama. Menachem Begin promised less, and he made peace within the same amount of time after he took office. When the main issue is dismantling the settlements, the pulsating momentum that came with Obama is petering out. Instead, we are paddling in shallow water. Mitchell Schmitchel. What’s in it for peace? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will once again meet him in London at the end of the month. A “magic formula” for a settlement freeze may be found there, but the momentum is gone.

Not in Israel, though. Here people quickly sensed that there is nothing to fear from Obama, and the fetters were taken off. Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quick to declare that there is no Palestinian partner, even after the Fatah conference elected the most moderate leadership that has ever been assembled in Palestine. Afterward, in a blatant act of provocation, he brought a Torah scroll into the heart of the Muslim Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, in full view of television cameras, just so America can see who’s boss around here.

Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, another two politicians who smell American weakness, were quick to declare during a visit to Ma’aleh Adumim that Israel will not freeze any construction. To hell with Obama. The settlers continue to move into more homes in East Jerusalem, Netanyahu is silent and Israelis sense that the “danger” has passed. Israel is once again permitted to do as it pleases. The landlord has once again gone insane. Except that the landlord has gone insane because the real landlord is showing signs of weakness, signs of folding, signs of losing interest in events in the region that most endangers world peace.

Nothing remains from the speeches in Cairo and Bar-Ilan University. Obama is silent, and Yishai speaks. Even “Israel’s friends” in Washington, friends of the occupation, are once again rearing their heads.

One source familiar with Obama’s inner circle likened him this week to a man who inflates a number of balloons every day in the hope that one of them will rise. He will reach his goal. The source compared him to Shimon Peres, an analogy that should insult Obama. The trial balloons the U.S. president sends our way have yet to take off. One can, of course, wait for the next balloon, the Obama peace plan, but time is running out. And Israel is not sitting idly by.

The minute Jerusalem detected a lack of American determination, it returned to its evil ways and excuses. “There is no partner,” “Abu Mazen is weak,” “Hamas is strong.” And there are demands to recognize a Jewish state and for the right to fly over Saudi Arabia – anything in order to do nothing.

An America that will not pressure Israel is an America that will not bring peace. True, one cannot expect the U.S. president to want to make peace more than the Palestinians and Israelis, but he is the world’s responsible adult, its great hope. Those of us who are here, Mr. President, are sinking in the wretched mud, in “injury time.”

Editor’s Comment — When an 11 year-old gets the privilege of going to The White House to interview the president and the kid respectfully observes, “I notice as president you get bullied a lot,” it’s time to sit up straight.

Obama’s lack of backbone is apparent to a child and his method for handling getting bullied — “if I’m doing a good job, I’m doing my best, and I’m trying to always help people, then that keeps me going” — might make him feel better but it does little to push back those who are emboldened by his weakness.

Is Obama capable of imposing his will? After six months we should know the answer to that question. The fact that we don’t is a problem.

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Hamas: Head of Al-Qaida affiliate killed in Gaza

Hamas: Head of Al-Qaida affiliate killed in Gaza
By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz, August 15, 2009

Hamas security said Saturday that the leader of an Al-Qaida-inspired group in the Gaza Strip has been killed during a fierce gun battle that began on Friday.

Abdel-Latif Moussa, the leader of Jund Ansar Allah, was killed when fighting resumed with Hamas forces after dawn Saturday, Ihab Ghussein, a Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman, told The Associated Press.

He said Moussa detonated an explosives vest he was wearing during the fighting.

“The so-called Moussa has committed suicide…killing a mediator who had been sent to him to persuade him and his followers to hand themselves over to the government,” Ghussein said. Continue reading →

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People Not Places: greatest hip-hop song for Palestinians ever

People Not Places: greatest hip-hop song for Palestinians ever
By Will, KABOBfest, August 14, 2009

This docu-music-video is based on the song of the same name by Invincible featuring Abeer and Suhell Nafar (DAM). Invincible plays two characters in the video: a Birthright Israel tour recruiter, styled as a used car salesman; and herself, subverting the recruiter’s mission by exposing the buried Palestinian significance of each location in the tour.

Invincible exposes the process of historic and continued colonization of Palestine as being even deeper than land seizure and ethnic cleansing, but one that attempts to erase the indigenous language, culture, and memory of Palestinians.
Intertwined with the music video are interviews that expose how Zionist claims to a Jewish “birthright” to Palestine have come at the expense of the Palestinian Right of Return to their indigenous land. These interviews show how the Right of Return of Palestinians is interconnected with the resistance of occupied and displaced refugee communities globally, from Turtle Island to Puerto Rico and beyond.

People Not Places is featured on Invincible’s ShapeShifters album, available in the EMERGENCE Store.

Read lyrics and explanations for People Not Places. [continued…]

Settlers at odds over Bnei Adam outpost
By Efrat Weiss, Ynet, August 15, 2009

Settlers residing at the illegal West Bank outpost of Bnei Adam have recently asked Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu to rule on whether they should comply with the State’s eviction order.

Rabbi Eliyahu asked Rabbi Haim Drukman, the head of the Bnei Akiva yeshivot center to make the final ruling, and the latter said the settlers should comply with the order – which the Head of the Benyamin Council, Avi Roeh, agreed to as well.

The ruling, however, has left the settles conflicted, as some agree to a consensual evacuation and some still oppose it. A settlers’ group calling itself “the committee for the cessation of the cooperation with the enemy” distributed flyers through the West Bank Thursday, calling on settlers to disregard the ruling. [continued…]

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Abdullah Abdullah throws down election gauntlet to President Karzai

Abdullah Abdullah throws down election gauntlet to President Karzai
By Jeremy Page, The Times, August 15, 2009

“Without rigging, Karzai will lose the vote in southern Afghanistan,” Dr Abdullah told The Times. “People are crossing ethnic, linguistic and regional lines.”

At the last election in 2004, Mr Karzai won in the first round with 55.4 per cent of the vote and vowed to eradicate terrorism, poverty, corruption and the opium trade.

Five years on, he has not only failed on all of those counts; a Taleban insurgency has enveloped most of the country and international forces have suffered their bloodiest month since 2001.

The election is seen not just as a test of his popularity but of the entire international mission in Afghanistan. “The legitimacy of the international community’s involvement in Afghanistan is at stake in this election,” said Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts’ Network. “These British soldiers — if they’ve died for something that ends in a mess then you simply can’t defend it.” [continued…]

The future of Afghanistan
By Jason Burke, The Guardian, August 14, 2009

In two weeks, or six if there is a run-off, Afghanistan will have a new president for the next five years. Whether in five years the new president will still have Afghanistan is uncertain. It depends not on the elections themselves but on what happens afterwards.

These elections, as part of a broader strategic review, will, it is hoped, re-energise the troubled international effort to secure and stabilise Afghanistan by bringing a new legitimacy to a government elected by an imperfect but theoretically universal suffrage.

However, as Benazir Bhutto once explained to me patiently and somewhat ironically given the records of her own governments, if in developed countries a leader’s legitimacy comes from being chosen in free and fair elections, in her own Pakistan and in states like it, legitimacy comes more from post-election performance. This needs to be nuanced, of course, as all such generalisations do, but it is nonetheless fair to say that there are few Afghans who have much confidence in the electoral process itself, justifiably given the scale of potential fraud and the security problems. So it is what happens post-election that will determine whether the winner is seen by the population generally to deserve their position or not. [continued…]

Suicide blast kills at least seven, injures dozens in Kabul
By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post, August 15, 2009

Just five days before a presidential election that the Taliban has vowed to thwart, a massive suicide car bomb exploded outside the U.S. military headquarters in Kabul on Saturday morning, killing seven people and wounding scores of others in the largest attack in the capital in months.

The 8:30 a.m. blast, on the main road outside the concrete barriers that wall off the U.S. and NATO headquarters, along with the U.S. Embassy, was the first major in Kabul since February, when Taliban insurgents attacked three government buildings, killing at least 19 people. The explosion Saturday set cars on fire, crumbled concrete walls and shattered windows of buildings hundreds of yards from the explosion site. [continued…]

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Baghram isn’t the new Guantanamo, it’s the old Guantanamo

Baghram isn’t the new Guantanamo, it’s the old Guantanamo
By Andy Worthington, Huffington Post, August 15, 2009

Back in September 2005, when I first began researching Guantánamo for my book The Guantánamo Files, the prison was still shrouded in mystery, even though attorneys had been visiting prisoners for nearly a year, following the Supreme Court’s ruling, in June 2004, that they had habeas corpus rights. Researchers at the Washington Post and at Cageprisoners, a human rights organization in the U.K., had compiled tentative lists of who was being held, but, although these efforts were commendable, much of it was little more than groping in the dark — a broken jigsaw puzzle based on media reports and interviews with released prisoners — because the Bush administration refused to provide details of the names and nationalities of those it was holding.

In April 2006 — four years and three months after Guantánamo opened — the government finally conceded defeat, after the Associated Press took the Pentagon to court, and won. That month, the first ever list of prisoners (PDF) — containing the names and nationalities of the 558 prisoners who had been subjected to the administration’s Combatant Status Review Tribunals (one-sided reviews, designed to rubberstamp their prior designation as “enemy combatants”) — was released, and was followed in May by a list of the 759 prisoners held up to that point (including the 201 who had been released before the tribunals began), which included names, nationalities, and, where known, dates of birth and places of birth (PDF).

The government also released 8,000 pages of tribunal transcripts and allegations against the prisoners, which pierced the veil of secrecy still further, allowing outside observers, as well as lawyers, the opportunity to examine whether the government’s claims that the prison was full of terrorists were true, and to conclude that, actually, the prison was largely populated by innocent men or low-level Taliban foot soldiers, recruited to fight an inter-Muslim civil war that began long before the 9/11 attacks, and had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or international terrorism. [continued…]

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Friction among Iran authorities heats up

Friction among Iran authorities heats up
By Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim, Los Angeles Times, August 15, 2009

Rival camps within Iran’s corridors of power intensified their threats against each other Friday, signaling potentially dangerous clashes within elite circles and the security establishment after the disputed June 12 reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Hard-line clerics close to Ahmadinejad called for prominent reformist Mehdi Karroubi, a former speaker of parliament and a presidential candidate, to stand trial for making allegations of jailhouse rape and torture in the country’s detention centers.

On the opposing side, a group of former reformist lawmakers issued a letter late Thursday demanding that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, be investigated by the Assembly of Experts, clerics who have the power to replace the supreme leader, in relation to the election’s violent aftermath.

The factional disputes, which are expected to get worse before the naming of the next Cabinet, come as street protests have faded. [continued…]

Iran tries to suppress rape allegations
By Robert F Worth, New York Times, August 15, 2009

Iran’s clerical leadership on Friday stepped up a campaign to silence opposition claims that protesters had been raped in prison, with prayer leaders in at least three major cities denouncing the accusations and their chief sponsor.

The accusations of rape — usually a taboo subject in Iran — have multiplied and provoked strong reactions in the days since a reformist cleric and presidential candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, broached the subject last weekend. His allegations added fuel to an already volatile debate about prison abuse in the wake of Iran’s disputed June 12 election.

Also on Friday, a group of reformist former lawmakers issued an extraordinary statement on opposition Web sites in which they denounced the government’s harsh tactics and appealed to a powerful state body to investigate the qualifications of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Although it was not clear who had endorsed the statement, or even if all of the lawmakers were in the country, it appeared to be the most direct challenge to the supreme leader’s authority yet in the unrest following the election. [continued…]

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Our man in Kabul

A technocrat shakes up the Afghan campaign
By Carlotta Gall, New York Times, August 14, 2009

Whether wrapped in a shawl for a televised debate, sitting on a dirt floor with a shopkeeper, or thundering over speakers in a dust storm, Ashraf Ghani, the most educated and Westernized of Afghanistan’s presidential candidates, is shaking up the campaign before Thursday’s election in unusual ways.

A former finance minister with a background in American academia and at the World Bank, Mr. Ghani, 60, says he is trying to change politics in Afghanistan. Using television and radio, Internet donations and student volunteers, as well as traditional networks like religious councils, he is seeking to reach out to young people, women and the poor, and do the unexpected: defeat President Hamid Karzai.

Mr. Ghani’s national support is hard to gauge — one recent poll put it at just 4 percent — and he probably remains an outsider in the race, trailing Mr. Karzai and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, both of whom have much larger power bases. [continued…]

Can economist woo Afghans?
By Rosie Dimanno, Toronto Star, August 11, 2009

Amidst a presidential slate now culled to 36 contenders, Ghani, a non-aligned independent, is currently in third place, according to the polls, a Ghilzai Pashtun (that’s good) undercut by a perceived poor grasp of the country’s internecine tribal politics, with no traction among the kingmaker warlords (that’s bad).

He can be acerbic and provocative, berating the administration of President Hamid Karzai at every turn as corrupt and incompetent. (Karzai declined to participate in yesterday’s debate – which aired live on national radio – but called a press conference a few hours later to unveil his wide-ranging manifesto for Afghanistan.)

Ghani’s resume bona fides include introducing a new Afghan currency during his finance ministry tenure, initiating the extraordinarily successful National Solidarity Program that has dispersed $500 million (U.S.) in World Bank aid to 23,000 villages and overseeing the private sector launch of competitive telecom companies – 7.5 million cellphones now in use, generating $1 billion in tax revenues for the government. Even poor goatherds in rural Afghanistan have cellphones.

The numbers are blinding. But in a country where 70 per cent of the citizenry is illiterate and big-picture macroeconomics incomprehensible, this is not the stuff of populist appeal. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — Funny how the Western media, clearly enamored with Ghani’s Western enculturation, is now happy to promote his “Gandhi” image. It makes you wonder whether his campaign adviser, James Carville — to whom the differences between Afghan and Indian culture probably mean little — couldn’t resist making a connection between Ghani and Gandhi on the silly basis that they are just one letter apart.

Taliban chiefs agree ceasefire deals for Afghan presidential election
By Jon Boone, The Guardian, August 13, 2009

A series of secret ceasefire deals have been agreed with Taliban commanders to ensure that voting can go ahead in Afghanistan’s volatile south during next week’s presidential elections.

Under the deals, brokered by Ahmed Wali Karzai – the controversial brother and campaign manager of the president, Hamid Karzai – individual Taliban commanders will agree to pull back on election day and allow the Afghan army and police to secure the polling centres.

A Nato spokesman confirmed that a number of deals between the Afghan government and insurgents were in the pipeline, saying: “We support any initiative that enhances security and enables the people of Afghanistan to vote.”

The US embassy has given its blessing to the plan, which was discussed last week at a joint meeting of the country’s national security chiefs. [continued…]

U.S. seeds new crops to supplant Afghan poppies
By Yochi J Dreazen, Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2009

Obama administration officials say the U.S. will largely leave the [opium poppy] eradication business and instead focus on giving Afghan farmers other ways of earning a living.

The new $300 million effort will give micro-grants to Afghan food-processing and food-storage businesses, fund the construction of new roads and irrigation channels, and sell Afghan farmers fruit seed and livestock at a heavy discount. The U.S. is spending six times as much on the push this year as the $50 million it spent in 2008.

“We’re trying to give the farmers alternatives so they can move away from the poppy culture without suffering massive unemployment and poverty,” says Rory Donohoe, the U.S. Agency for International Development official leading the drive. “The idea is to make it easier for farmers to make the right choice.” [continued…]

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