A member of the International Solidarity Movement visits Yad Vashem – the Zionist Propaganda Museum

 i. no mention of the fact that Yad Vashem is situated about ½ mile from the massacre at Deir Yassin in April 1948 when over a hundred Palestinian civilians, women and children included, were butchered by the Irgun and Stern gangs.
ii. No mention of how the far-right today also pays homage at Yad Vashem whilst still denying the holocaust

Yad Vashem demonstrates why it is first and foremost a propaganda institute - the Mufti was a minor war criminal and his Muslim SS battalions were the only example among the SS to rebel against the Nazis

iii. No mention of the special wall devoted to the British and Zionist appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj al amin Husseini, who later collaborated with Hitler. He was a minor war criminal, but has a special section devoted to him nonetheless. The obvious linkage Yad Vashem’s Zionist historians are trying to create is between today’s Palestinians and neo-Nazi supporters.

Most of the rest of the essay I thoroughly agree with.

Tony Greenstein

Yad Vashem, Power, and the Politics of History

Michael Kaminski MEP of Poland's Law & Justice Party - opposed any  apology by Poland for Jedwabne, when anti-Semitic Poles burnt alive some 600 Polish Jews

The answers to these questions, as it turned out, were ambiguous, but perhaps not as ambiguous as I might have wished. In fairness, the museum certainly had redeeming qualities. Yad Vashem did manage to capture the humanity –by which I mean the sensuousness and affective texture of human experience which often reveals itself only in the most mundane and idiosyncratic of stories – of those millions of Jews who were slaughtered with the kind of dispassionate calculation that only modernity could have produced, (3) while still giving one some sense of the larger historical forces that were at work. I will grant it that. But, sadly, in many other respects the museum lived up to my worst expectations.

First, while Yad Vashem’s exhibits were not entirely devoid of historicity, the museum largely conformed to an understanding of antisemitism and the Nazi genocide which sees them not merely as unique but as exceptional historical phenomena. From this perspective, antisemitism is regarded as a transhistorical and essentially inexplicable product of some inherent Gentile hatred; it may have had distinct iterations, but has always been and will remain the irrational axis upon which the relations between Jews and non-Jews turn. Similarly, the Nazi genocide is treated as the face of evil itself, an event so (quantitatively) colossal and so (qualitatively) monstrous that no other episode in history can reasonably be compared to it. Second, the museum gave one the impression that the victims of the Nazi genocide were almost exclusively Jewish, in spite of the fact that millions of others perished in the Nazi death machinery.

The third concern with Yad Vashem is, in some regards, the gravitational center around which the museum’s other problematic dimensions revolve: namely its teleological representation of the relationships between the long history of antisemitism, the Nazi genocide, and the formation of the Israeli nation-state, whereby the Nazi genocide appears the inevitable culmination of Gentile hatred towards an allegedly "stateless" Jewry, just as the creation of Israel appears the exclusive means of Jewish redemption. The museum goes so far as to literally walk visitors through this historical sequence step by step, each exhibition of a particular place and time winding in a snake-like movement towards the next, culminating in the creation of Israel and the putative restoration of Jewish dignity. The experience reaches its climax in an unquestionably powerful display: the photos of victims peer down from the center of a circular room, suspended above a dark conical abyss that feels like a pit of despair. Along the walls of the room one can see folder after folder full of the names of those who have been killed (names which are being collected still). Consolation is to be found only upon exiting the museum, when one steps outside to find a scenic viewpoint showcasing a picturesque Jerusalem in all its grandeur, a not-so-subtle symbol of Jewish salvation on Earth.

In these ways, Yad Vashem proved a quintessential example of what the Jewish social critic Norman Finkelstein has called "the Holocaust Industry," a characterization of the agents and institutions which have produced a hegemonic ideological representation of the Nazi genocide in the service of their narrow interests. For Finkelstein, the development of this industry is essentially a post-1967 phenomenon, one that is closely tied to the US geopolitical alliance with Israel which developed in force after Israel quickly emerged victorious in the 1967 war (and in which Israel plays the role of a crucial, yet subordinate, US partner). The coincident interests were essentially three fold. First, US state and capitalist agencies recognized Israel as a vital outpost for the projection and reproduction of US political-economic power in Southwest Asia and North Africa (particularly as a bulwark against secular Arab nationalism), and came to rely upon the representation of the Nazi genocide as a symbol of the ever-present dangers of antisemitism in an effort to reduce virtually unwavering support for the Israeli state to some kind of absolute moral obligation. Second, in the US, Jewish elites (every ethnic group has its elites, and we Jews are no exception to the rule) saw an opportunity to advance their aspirations of assimilation and upward mobility by embracing Israel and Zionism with renewed vigor, now rationalized by depicting Israel as the only means of escaping an unparalleled and eternal victimhood (even if few had plans to actually emigrate). Finally, Israel was able to repeatedly invoke the Nazi genocide as the justification for the violent constitution of its settler-colonial state, for its original and ongoing ethnic cleansing and subordination of the Palestinian people. (4)

The Holocaust Industry has produced a seductive historical narrative, but it is one which, in my view, both degrades the memory of those who perished in the Nazi Genocide and leaves us incapable of drawing meaningful ethical, analytical, and political lessons from this momentous tragedy. Truly doing justice to all those who lost their lives in the Nazi genocide would mean remembering all of the victims (not only Jews) – and in a manner which does not cynically instrumentalize their suffering – as well as constructing a historical analysis which serves to illuminate the pitfalls and opportunities for advancing the struggle for collective liberation in the present. In order to be ethically viable, then, a Holocaust memorial museum would have to, at a minimum, differ from Yad Vashem in the following respects:

(1) Rather than representing the Nazi genocide as entirely exceptional, as an historical aberration which defies comparison, such a musuem would search out the Nazi holocaust’s commonalities with and differences from other historical events and processes. Incensed at just such exceptionalism in the wake of the Nazi holocaust, and especially the ways in which it ignored comparable European crimes in the colonial world, the Martiniquean poet and social critic Aimé Césaire exclaimed:

"People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: ‘How strange! But never mind-it’s Nazism, it will. pass!’ And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, but the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack."(5)

Hans Christian Strache of Austria's fascist Freedom Party - they might doubt the holocaust but they certainly support Israel

And, as Finkelstein points out, the US is hardly exempt from the kind of historical parallels upon which Césaire’s moral indictment of Europe is founded:

"In fact, Hitler modeled his conquest of the East on the American conquest of the West…During the first half of this century, a majority of American states enacted sterilization laws and tens of thousands of Americans were involuntarily sterilized. The Nazis explicitly invoked this US precedent when they enacted their own sterilization laws…The notorious 1935 Nuremburg Laws stripped Jews of the franchise and forbade miscegenation between Jews and non-Jews. Blacks in the American South suffered the same legal disabilities and were the object of much greater spontaneous and sanctioned popular violence than the Jews in prewar Germany."(6)

Furthermore, the Nazi legacy of racially delineated forced labor and systematic elimination ought to immediately recall the US history of slavery and the genocide of the Native American population. And while Israel’s sympathizers are quick to dismiss any comparison of the Israeli state with Nazi Germany as antisemitic ranting, it takes considerable intellectual acrobatics to avoid drawing any parallels whatsoever: as Nazi Germany directly and indirectly forced Jews to emigrate from or flee their countries, so too has the Israeli state been founded on the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians from their homeland; as Nazi Germany herded Jews into ghettos, so too has the Israeli state constructed militarized spatial enclaves in which Palestinians are confined (relatively or absolutely), exploited, and controlled; and just as Nazi Germany constructed a racist state which formally subordinated Jews, so too has Israel relegated its Palestinian citizens to third-class status and deemed the indigenous population of Palestine a "demographic threat,"going so far as to pass legislation banning thousands of Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens from living in Israel proper, a political move which in some ways resembles the Nazi introduction of miscegenation laws.(7) It is not by any means my intention to equate the Nazi and Israeli states, which would merely be an exercise in intellectual dishonesty, but rather to say that they have some disturbing resemblances– such as the militarized geographical segregation of populations, the massive dispossession of communities from their homes, and the racist subordination of certain groups not only by way of the military and police but through the politico-juridical apparatus – which are in turn specific outgrowths of processes inherent in the modern world. We ought to take stock of such comparisons and ensure that our indignation over the Nazi genocide does not pass over present-day crimes just as worthy of condemnation. Such a comparative approach would also work to de-exceptionalize the history of antisemitism, and thereby ground the particular struggle against anti-Jewish racism in the more general struggle against racism in all its forms.

(2) Rather than emphasizing the victimization of Jews during the Nazi holocaust to the exclusion of all other communities, such a museum would identify the Nazi violence towards myriad groups, and refrain from situating each group’s suffering in some arbitrary hierarchy of worthiness. There were countless non-Jewish victims of Nazism, from communists to queers. As Finkelstein notes, both Romanis ("Gypsies") and those who were differently-abled were targeted for systematic elimination. Romani communities suffered causalities which were proportionately comparable to those suffered by European Jews, and there is evidence that the Nazi machinery of genocide was designed first with the differently-abled, rather than the Jews, in mind.(8) In addition to honoring the memory of these communities which similarly suffered a profound tragedy, this more holistic approach serves, like the de-exceptionalization of antisemitism, to open up greater possibilities for using the history of the Nazi holocaust to advance the cause of collective liberation.

(3) Finally, rather than situating the Nazi holocaust within a teleology which leads from the victimization of the European Jewish diaspora under antisemitism to national Jewish redemption within the Land of Israel, such a museum would be attuned to the role of historical contingency in both the development of Nazism and Israeli settler-colonialism. Such a museum would also recognize that Zionism was but one of many Jewish responses to antisemitism. The Nazi genocide was no more a historical inevitability than the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and if we treat it as such, we are left unable to determine its actual roots and dynamics. Meanwhile, Zionism has by no means had the fealty of Jews since its inception. Zionism was and remains contested. In fact, when Zionism first emerged towards the end of the nineteenth century, few Jews identified with its obsession with national consciousness building and its aspirations for building a territorial nation-state as a "Jewish homeland." Alternative Jewish responses to antisemitism during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries included that of the Bund, a Jewish socialist organization which recognized the particularity of the Jewish struggle against racism and the need for some degree of Jewish autonomy and self-determination, but which simultaneously grounded this struggle in more universal aspirations for collective liberation. Even today, though Zionism is admittedly hegemonic within most Jewish communities, there are also those, such as myself, who regard Zionism as a deplorable and irredeemable enterprise, which shares more in common with Nazism (from its antisemitic precepts to its wider embrace of racism, militarism, authoritarianism, and colonialist expansionism) than it does with any genuine liberation struggle. By bringing contingency and contestation back into the analysis of the relations between antisemitism, Nazism, and the founding of Israel, it becomes possible to fundamentally question the Israeli project of state-building – to ask whether Israel has in fact provided an ethically viable answer to the so-called "Jewish question," or whether it has merely displaced this question, along with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

The moral weight of the Nazi genocide cannot be overstated, but let us work to ensure that our engagement with its memory advances the cause of collective liberation, rather than an illusory liberation for some gained only through the imposition of violence, indignities, and suffering upon others.

"The unspoken terror permeating our collective memory of the Holocaust (and more than contingently related to the overwhelming desire not to look the memory in its face) is the gnawing suspicion that the Holocaust could be more than an aberration, more than a deviation from an otherwise straight path of progress, more than a cancerous growth on the otherwise healthy body of the civilized society; that, in short, the Holocaust was not an antithesis of modern civilization and everything (or so we like to think) it stands for. We suspect (even if we refuse to admit it); that the Holocaust could merely have uncovered another face of the same modern society whose other, more familiar, face we so admire. And that the two faces are perfectly comfortably attached to the same body. What we perhaps fear most, is that each of the two faces can no more exist without the other than can the two sides of a coin." – Zygmunt Bauman(9)

"Although it is so often taught that Israel became a historical and ethical necessity for the Jews during and after the Nazi genocide, [Hannah] Arendt and others thought that the lesson we must learn from that genocide is that nation-states should never be able to found themselves through the dispossession of whole populations who fail to fit the purified idea of the nation. And for refugees who never again wished to see the dispossession of populations in the name of national or religious purity, Zionism and its forms of state violence were not the legitimate answer to the pressing needs of Jewish refugees. For those who extrapolated principles of justice from the historical experience of internment and dispossession, the political aim is to extend equality regardless of cultural background or formation, across languages and religions, to those none of us ever chose (or did not recognize that we chose) and with whom we have an enduring obligation to find a way to live. For whoever"we" are, we are also those who were never chosen, who emerge on this earth without everyone’s consent, and who belong, from the start, to a wider population and a sustainable earth. And this condition, paradoxically, yields the radical potential for new modes of sociality and politics beyond the avid and wretched bonds of a pernicious colonialism that calls itself democracy. We are all, in this sense, the unchosen, but we are nevertheless unchosen together. On this basis one might begin to think the social bond anew." – Judith Butler (10)Politics of Power: Burying Truth through Resolutions

- David Langstaff is a Jewish-American radical organizer from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He recently graduated from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, where he studied political economy and global history. He is passionately committed to building a more just, equal, and democratic world, and has been a participant in movements for liberatory social transformation for a number of years, most recently in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) and Occupy movements. In late 2012 he spent two months working with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the West Bank. This article was contributed to the PalestineChronicle.com. Visit:

Notes:

(1) Benjamin Fondane, "Preface in Prose," Exodus [1942-43].
(2) Mahmoud Darwish, Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).
(3) On the relationship between modern beaucratic organization and the Nazi genocide, See Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).
(4) Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (London: Verso, 2003).
(5) Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (New York, Monthly Review Press, 1972), 3.
(6) Finkelstein (2003), 145.
(7) Israel has also recently admitted to injecting migrants of Ethiopian origin with long-acting birth control, according to many Ethiopian women who received this treatment, against their will. See, e.g., Talila Nesher, "Israel admits Ethiopian women were given birth control shots," Haaretz (27 January 2013).
(8) Finkelstein (2003), 75, 76.
(9) Bauman (1991), 7.
(10) Judith Butler, Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 24-25.
Related posts:
Auschwitz Survivor Sees Nazi Acts in Israel
Beyond Chutzpah – Book Review
Museum in Gaza to Display Area’s Rich Cultural History
Forum for Living History: This Story Should Be Told

Sexual Harassment & Alleged Rape Were the SymptomsLack of Democracy was the Cause

Martin Smith on the look-out for teenage SWP members?

On Sunday March 10th an Emergency Meeting of the SWP voted to endorse the Central Committee’s [CC] handling of the allegations of rape and sexual harassment against Martin Smith ‘Comrade Delta’, as well as upholding the expulsion of four activists.  The CC had used to good effect its control of the SWP machine, coupled by bullying, threats of physical attack and plain old fashioned rigging, to maintain its position.  The immediate response was the resignation of scores of activists and the formation of an International Socialist Network.  The CC has won a Pyrrhic victory and in so doing possibly created the catalyst for a viable socialist party in Britain.

Add caption

The original source of the conflagration in the SWP and its causes have been dealt with previously in SWP Crisis Over Cover-up of Rape & Sexual Harassment Allegations against former National Secretary Martin Smith  SWP Central Committee - Rabbits Caught in the Headlights - Gilad Atzmon Rides to the ‘Rescue’ of Martin Smith and the SWP leadership as well as guest posts by Simon Pirani Parallels Between the SWP and the WRP?  A Comparison by Simon Pirani formerly of the WRP and Women’s Liberation & Class Oppression by Camilla Power. 

People can also refer to the Weekly Worker which has made much of the running on the issue including printing the first open resignation letter, by former Socialist Worker journalist Tom Walker..
 
Feminism
 

The SWP as it would like to be thought of

To some, like Tom Walker, the cause of the problem in the SWP was a hostility and inability to come to terms with feminism.  I disagree.  This was the symptom of a deeper malaise.  Feminism is a movement of democracy within capitalism, it is not a complete analysis or solution.  It too is subject to factors of class. 
 

Martin Smith's only non-SWP supporter - Gilad Atzmon

In other words feminism and women’s liberation are not immune from class society.  Women operate as both oppressors and oppressed.  Who can doubt that white women in southern Africa or Israeli women are/were, at one and the same time, both oppressors of Black and Palestinian people – women included – at the same time as they were oppressed by white or Israeli men?  Who can doubt that the White woman on a slave plantation was superior to the Black slave, of either sex?   Did Nazi or SS women show solidarity with Jewish women?

The answers to the above questions are obvious yet they are ones that the feminist movement has avoided, as have some of its male proponents.  Thirty years ago, with the formation of the Jewish Feminist Group and its adoption of a pro-Zionist position, supported by the feminist magazine Spare Rib, Black women and Women of Colour produced Outrage by way of reply.

SWP leadership's leading internal critic - but with a strategy that guaranteed defeat

A parallel is a national liberation movement where the future oppressor and the present day oppressed combine to demand freedom and independence.  One of the key differences between the revolutionary socialist and Stalinist traditions has been whether or not the oppressed classes economically should keep silent and postpone their own demands for socialism and equality in order not to alienate the richer capitalist section of the movement.

The communist parties were particularly appalling in this respect as one can see today from the support of the South African Communist Party for the police massacre of the Marikana miners.  In Britain after 1945, the Communist Party even proposed the continuation in power of a National Coalition including the Tories!  In Iran, the alliance between Khomeini and the Tudeh Party led to the butchering of thousands of socialists.

Laurie Penney - an early astute critic of the SWP's handling of rape allegations

At certain key times women come together across class to make specific demands.  The suffragettes were a good example.  The demand for the right of women to vote crossed class boundaries.  But even then the Women’s Social & Political Union, set up by the Pankhursts, later organised exclusively among the middle class.  It broke from its alliance with the Labour Party because the latter adopted the call for universal suffrage!  Why?  Because it supported the maintenance of the property qualification for those voting.
 
It is no accident that a number of officers and members of the WSPU ended up in Sir Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists, including its General Secretary, Nora Dacre Fox (Elam) who became their Southern Women’s organiser.  Emmeline Pankhurst and two of her daughters, Adela and Christabel, moved to the far right after the First World War.  Only Sylvia campaigned for universal suffrage and opposed-imperialism and fascism.

SWP students - nearly all of whom have now resigned or been isolated

The idea that the root cause of the SWP’s problems lie in the magic properties of feminism are an illusion.  Feminism in the 1970’s and ‘80s produced Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt, whose hostility to the working class is matched only by their ardour to secure equality between oppressors. 

However an organisation which is undemocratic and whose leadership behaves in an exploitative and manipulative fashion, is indeed likely to replicate the patriarchal aspects of capitalism.  And being astute, the SWP CC thrust its leading women comrades into its defence.  Of the 7 members of the SWP’s Disputes Committee who exonerated Smith, no less than 5 were women. Candy Udwin chaired the crucial session at the AGM, which not only exonerated the CC and Smith but which barred the victim from attending or listening to the session.  The same session which was packed with pro-CC speakers and which was forbidden from discussing the issue itself was confined by Udwin to the question of whether procedures were followed.

The Changing Contours of Capitalism - There’s no success like failure
 
It seems to me that there are two, interrelated causes of the crisis in the SWP.   The first is, like the Bourbons, the far-left is condemned learn nothing and forget nothing.  It is the antithesis of the Marxism it nominally espouses.  The leadership of the SWP saw socialism and desire for an end to alienation and oppression, including personal oppression, in much the same way as the leaders of the Catholic Church take Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount and its injunction that the meek are blessed and one should seek righteousness to heart.

In The Left: There’s no success like failure’ I pointed out the obvious.  Capitalism has restructured the working classand to a large extent, atomised it.  There are no big battalions of miners, car workers, and shipbuilding workers in Britain today.  The concentration on the working class at the workplace and strikes, which are of course important in their own right, is not in itself an answer to the question of how to build socialism.  Capitalism no longer lives in fear of the industrial proletariat.  Many classes – serfs, peasants, indentured labour – have been oppressed and exploited but the concentration on the working class was because of its potential for it being able to change society.  Unfortunately there is no evidence for this bar Russia nearly a century ago, one of the most backward capitalist states in Europe.

Rather than face up to this, the SWP has concentrated its fire on the supposed threat to Leninism.  What was Prof. Callinicos's (or Stallinicos as he is known) response to the allegations of rape against a former National Secretary and the way it was handled?  Nothing.  Instead we have a patently dishonest article In Defence of Leninism  or rather the SWP Central Committee’s interpretation of Leninism.  In Leninism is finished: a reply to Alex Callinicos Louis Proyect argues, on the basis of Lars Hi's Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? In Context, that Lenin had never even sought to build a vanguardist democratically centralist controlled party but a party modelled on the German Social Demoratic Party. 

I claim no expertise in these matters but as I showed in Rabbits Caught in the Headlights  with my own expulsion, the SWP CC use democratic centralism not in order to intensify the fight against the state, whilst preserving our own secrets, but in order to control its own members.  It was bureaucratic centralism, honed to perfection by the CC. 

This means that like the Papacy, the CC is infallible.  It cannot make mistakes.  There is no analysis of history, where it has gone wrong, whether its root assumptions are correct. Respect, the Socialist Alliance, the failure of anti-war movement - these never happened.  Therefore no lessons were drawn.  Factions are verboten for all except 3 months of the year and the CC’s own permanent faction.   All attempts to discuss the failure of the socialist left, the failure of resistance to the Coalition’s attacksor even to discuss the question of how to resist the Government’s Divide & Rule tactics between benefit claimants and workers or the public and private sector go by default.  Even to map out a simple explanation of what has caused the latest capitalist crisis, its options and perils, is fraught with peril.

Far from Democratic Centralism providing some form of solution to the infiltration of spies such as Mark Kennedy in anarchist and direct action groups, it has actually done the State’s job for it by neutralising far-left groups politically.  The key task ahead, the formation of a socialist party from the grassroots upwards, not the ghost that presently masquerades as the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, is an urgent necessity not least because if we fail now, then the far-right in the form of UKIP+ could step into the breach.

Just in case they feel missed out, as they have barely commented upon what has happened, a few words for the Socialist Party.  They may not have the horrific practices of the SWP and their own internal structures, whilst no more democratic than the SWP’s at least seem able to tolerate a measure of dissent, but they are wedded to the same idea.  The belief that the road to socialism lies in the incremental growth of the revolutionary party, though with the SP it is in alliance with left trade union leaders in a rerun of the formation of the Labour Party.  In short economism long past its sell-by-date.

How should the SWP Central/Disputes Committee have reacted?
 
What would a democratic party have done if it had faced the problems that faced the SWP leadership over Martin Smith?

The first thing that should have happened, if the CC was seriously interested in investigating the matter, was to suspend Martin Smith's membership pending an investigation.  This is the normal response of an employer in these circumstances and one would indeed expect such an action in response to a complaint of rape or sexual harassment by a woman member of the union.

The second and most obvious solution would be for the woman alleging rape to be helped, supported sympathetically and directed to a Rape Support Group or the Police.  Comrades should have been specifically directed to support her whilst the matter was investigated.  Instead she and the woman who alleged sexual harassment were left to hang out and dry and even worse - they were victimised and villified.

If the alleged rape victim was unwilling to either go to the Police, understandable given their record, or to a Rape Crisis Group and she positively wished the Disputes Committee to deal with the problem, despite them having no forensic powers, or powers to question under oath, then they clearly faced a choice.  Either to refuse to undertake the task or to accept that both people could not remain in a single party and to therefore decide the question of whether the woman was raped on the civil test, the balance of probability.

In actual fact, if Martin Smith was concerned at all for the fate of the SWP as opposed to his own power and privilege, he would have resigned until his name was cleared. 

Those who personally knew Martin Smith on the DC should have stepped down.  That they did not do so suggests that there was a determination to exonerate a trusted comrade and dispense with what they saw as a nuisance complaint.  The woman concerned should have both been represented and allowed to cross examine Smith.  Instead and quite outrageously, the women were denied all sight of Martin Smith’s evidence but he was allowed to see what they had said.

People complain about bourgeois justice but there are strict rules about things like Disclosure.  In employment tribunals, where I practice, there are standard Orders whereby all parties have to provide a Standard List of Documents.  If the employer provides evidence during the Tribunal one can object and usually one will succeed.  Likewise in a criminal trial even more stringent rules apply and lack of disclosure can be fatal for the Prosecution.  This, it should be borne in mind, has been forced from the bourgeois state.  It was not granted as of right until the cases of wrongful conviction and police racism and brutality that sparked the riots of the early ‘80’s, became too much. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 was brought in.  It has to be said that the SWP’s ‘justice system’ is not a patch on the bourgeois state's.

Likewise through a representative Smith should have been able to cross-examine his accuser, but not about her drinking habits, sexual relations, mode of life but about the allegations themselves and any relevant context.

The third thing would have been to look at the evidence itself, after a serious and reasonable investigation.  It is of course impossible for me to comment on what, if any evidence was uncovered or gathered.  However there is one matter I am curious about and yet no one seems to have touched upon it.

The woman herself seems to have been a very young comrade, 17 apparently.  Smith is, I guess around the age of 50.  If this is the case then Smith is about 3 times as old as the woman.   There is no law against this but in general inter-generational sex is exploitative and to be frowned upon.  A man of 50 is about 2/3 through his life.  A woman of 17 is about to start adult life.  There is a biological clock.  People become more frail as they get older and the younger partner is expected to care for them in later years.  This is not exactly equality as most such relationships involve older men.  But an older man forming a relationship with a teenager has a confidence, in Smith's case a party reputation and perspective that a teenager doesn’t possess.  In other words he has power over her personally.  Such a ‘relationship’ cannot be equal.  It may not be a crime but it is indicative of a breach of trust for a senior member of the SWP to sleep with young members of the party and calls into question his own motives. 

But there was a second charge by another woman, a full-timer who has it would seem been dismissed, of sexual harassment.  Even the Chair of the Disputes Committee, Pat Stack, who I always knew in the student movement as an ultra-loyalist, believed that it was proven.  Together on the balance of probability I would therefore reach the conclusion that the rape accusation was more likely than not and on that basis Martin Smith would have been expelled.  That is not to say he was guilty but faced with two conflicting versions I would have preferred the testimony of the woman in view of the second allegation and the admitted sexual relationship.  

But of course this was not an option.  It did not happen and the woman in question was effectively called a liar.  It now appears that the rape allegations against Smith aren’t the first of their kind amongst the SWP leadership.  Allegations of rape and sexual harassment against another full-timer were also heard by the Disputes Committee  when the allegations against Smith first surfaced.  The evidence was overwhelming re the sexual harassment and he was suspended for two years.   Unlike the 4 SWP Facebook members who talked about the allegations who were expelled, instantly, without a hearing, by SWP Secretary Charlie Kimber.  Allegations of rape are less serious, it would appear, than conversing over Facebook.

Is there a pattern?

The SWP CC is a self-perpetuating body.  It employs about 100 full-timers who keep tabs on the membership and quell any incipient rebellion.  It presents a slate for election to annual conference.  It is not possible to vote for or against individual members.  There has rarely been an alternative slate and there has never been a successful challenge.  The SWP leadership is quite immune from challenge and as recent events demonstrate it will do anything to keep its power intact.

Clearly any democratic party of the Left has to have an internal democracy which means that its leadership is elected and that members have the rights to form factions.  The alternative is a leadership which sees itself as apart from the membership and even begins to see that membership as a threat.  Sections of the SWP leadership seem to have developed a cult-like relationship.  It is inconceivable that some members did not know of Martin Smith’s tendency to form relationships with teenage party members, itself a sign of potential abuse.  The possibility that Smith’s behaviour was not a one-off are strong. 

In SWP: We need to talk about "Karl"  there is another allegation of a cover up of rape, this time by a full-timer a District Organiser.  According to Andy Newman of the increasingly right-wing Socialist Unity blog, a ‘long-time editor’ of SW (presumably the late Chris Harman):

‘used to have a reputation that “no means yes”, and when he vistied some districts, experienced comrades in the know sought to ensure he was not left alone with young women.

When women who had been assaulted complained, they were diminished and hounded out of the SWP. I know of one occasion when a victim of sexual assault was sat down with a senior woman CC SWP member who told her to keep quiet for the good of “the party”, excusing the behaviour because “capitalism fucks everyone up”, and then warning if she didn’t keep quiet then no-one would believe her, and the SWP would destroy her reputation.

During the 1980s there was a strange phenomenon of several angry young womwn comrades who used to talk about the sexism of this leading comrade, but they had been intimidated out of explaining what had happened, and instead the discusion often focussed on seemingly trivial details, like the fact that he always referred to women socialists by their first names, and male comrades by surnames (lenin and marx, but Rosa and Clara, for example)

To fnd an organisation that systematicaly for decades covered up sexual assault and who intimidated women who complained into silence praised in this was is disgraceful.

Even worse, I know of an IS/SWP district in the 1970s who colluded in silence and looked the other way when a leading industrial militant was raping his own step-daughter: the individual in question had previoulsy been in the IMG, who had also covered it up. When as a young 17 year old I confronted him at a party and asked him loudly if he was still fucking his duaghter, it was me cautioned by the SWP, while the truth of thse allegations was quietly ignored.’

Like all bureaucracies, the SWP’s has developed rhythms and modes of behaviour which it deems acceptable.  Preying on young women in the party seems acceptable to a certain leadership-friendship ‘fuck circuit’ as they have been called.
 
Where do we go from here
 
The SWP conference has taken place and some 71 of those who have resigned have posted a public statement as to why they did so. (see below)   A new International Socialist Network has also been formed  which does have the potential to bring about a party of the socialist left that is serious about building a new society.  The largest party in Britain today comprises ex-members of the SWP, notwithstanding the hundreds who have been expelled over the years,

But such a network and hopefully an organisation should not look back to the IS with rose-tinted glasses.  I was expelled from the IS in 1972, as the organisation moved from being a party of Luxembourgist to Leninist democracy (at least according to Cliff).  Many were the mistakes it made and to imagine that there was a golden era will be to eventually repeat the mistakes that were made on the way.  But the need for a new party of the socialist left, a party which is anti-capitalist but not sectarian, which prides itself on debate whilst at the same time being a party of activists (unlike the 5,000 missing members of the SWP) is something to aim for.

What is essential is that those who resign in disgust at the behaviour of the SWP are not lost to socialism.  Now is the time for all those who are resigning from the SWP, including those who have had a former association and been expelled, to come together.  As for the SWP itself, with its student organisation in ruins (members of the Brighton-Sussex SWSS have resigned en masse) its days are numbered as the leadership relies on the votes of the politically and in some cases physically dead.

Tony Greenstein

Once Again Israel breaks an Agreement

One of the parts of the agreement that led to the freeing of Gilad Shalit was that Gazan fishermen would not be prevented from fishing up to 12 miles from the coast.  This is quite normal but Israel fires on anyone going beyond 3 miles.  There is no possible ‘security’ justification for this – its purpose is clear – to destroy the Palestinian economy and make Gazans dependent on Israel.  Of course it also destroys an indigenous economy and causes yet more unemployment.

Claremont McKenna College in Southern California Ignores Racist Outburst and Accuses the Victim

The Nazi contours of Zionist Racism Revealed in Professorial Outburst

Crosspost Electronic Intifada

Racist Israeli Professor Yaron Raviv whom Claremont College, California are protecting

 It is a hallmark of the most virulent racist ideologies that the colonised are dehumanised and compared to vermin.  After all, the only relationship human beings have to cockroaches, germs and rodents is to kill them.

The truth always hurts - Israeli Professor Raviv didn't like reminding about the Occupation Checkpoints

Hitler made it clear in Mein Kampf (220) that “If the best men were killed on the front, then one should at least destroy the vermin [Jews] at home.”   To Hitler ‘Nature is cruel; therefore we are also entitled to be cruel. When I send the flower of German youth into the steel hail of the next war without feeling the slightest regret over the precious German blood that is being spilled, should I not also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin?' 
Joachim Fest in "Hitler” Vintage Books Edition, 1974, p. 679-680.
 
Hitler warned the German people not to be ‘misled into thinking you can fight a disease without killing the carrier, without destroying the bacillus.  Don't think you can fight racial tuberculosis without taking care to rid the nation of the carrier of that racial tuberculosis.’ 
[D Irving, The War Path: Hitler's Germany 1933-1939. Papermac, 1978]

Racist abuse of Palestinian called 'cockroach' by faculty member - Claremont authorities turn a blind eye

Zionists toohave compared Jewish people in the diasporaof being vermin . Pinhas Rosenbluth, a leading German Zionist, who was to become Israel's first Minister of Justice and a ‘liberal’, wrote that Palestine is ‘an institute for the fumigation of Jewish vermin.’ 
[Classic Zionism and Modern Anti-Semitism: Parallels and Influences (1883-1914), Joachim Doron, Studies in Zionism, No. 8 Autumn 1983 citing “Feldbrief aus dem Osten’ Der judische Student (1914) p. 74.]
 
What is worrying about the cowardly and timid Claremont College authorities is that instead of disciplining, i.e. firing the racist professor, they have deemed it of importance whether those exercising the rights of free speech had the right to do so.  As for Raviv, he is left to his own devices, since racism is American as apple pie, they obviously see no cause for concern.  Of course in Israel, Raviv’s comments would not raise an eyebrow.  As the article below mentions, Israel’s Chief of Staff under Begin, Raful Eitan, described Palestinian as ‘drugged cockroaches’.

Nonetheless it is an important demonstration that the right of ‘free speech’ in the US applies primarily to those who capitlaism and the free market.  Universities and colleges are ideological transmission belts for the rationalisation of support for US foreign policy.

Tony Greenstein

Israeli professor working in US calls Palestinian student a "cockroach"

Gabriel Schivone and Nora Barrows-Friedman
The Electronic Intifada, 19 March 2013 

Israel Apartheid Week brought out the best in Israeli Professor Raviv at Claremont

Students in the five-college Claremont system in southern California are organizing against an act of racial discrimination by an Israeli professor who called a Palestinian student a “cockroach.”

Since the incident became public, the student says he has faced violent threats written on his reserved seat in the campus library, and someone flattened one of the tires of his car with a sharpened key.

The first incident occurred on Monday, 4 March, when the Claremont group of Students for Justice in Palestine launched its series of events marking Israeli Apartheid Week with street theater actions simulating mock Israeli military checkpoints at three of the colleges throughout the day. Israeli Apartheid Week is marked at campuses nationwide and internationally to educate the wider public about Israel’s occupation and supremacist rule in Palestine.
At one point that evening, a man who was later identified as a faculty member at Claremont McKenna College aggressively approached the Students for Justice in Palestine members staffing a mock checkpoint which was set up outside an entrance of the Collins Dining Hall on the campus.

The professor, Yaron Raviv, who is an Israeli citizen and teaches economics at Claremont McKenna College, demanded that the dining hall staff, the dean of students and campus security remove the Students for Justice in Palestine members from the area.

But since Students for Justice in Palestine had acquired official permission for its event and had its paperwork in order, neither the school officials nor the dining staff agreed to remove the students. They did request, however, that the students not block the doorway.

The student activists complied with this request, according to a Claremont McKenna College Campus Safety and Security officer’s incident report obtained by The Electronic Intifada.

A Palestinian member of Students for Justice in Palestine, Najib Hamideh, then walked up to the professor and politely asked his reason for being there, requesting that the man identify himself. In an exchange verified and quoted in the officer’s report, the professor then responded, “Fuck off, you cockroach.”

According to Hamideh, Raviv next referred to all the Students for Justice in Palestine members as cockroaches, and then asked him which of the Claremont colleges Hamideh belonged to. When Hamideh replied that he attends Pitzer College, Raviv then responded that “all Pitzer kids are cockroaches,” Hamideh says.

The Electronic Intifada attempted to contact professor Raviv for a comment on 13 March, but he has still not replied to our request.
 
“Bias-related incident”

Violent, profane speech allegedly written on a card marking Nijab Hamideh’s reservation of a study carrel in the campus library.

The harangued student, as well as the Claremont chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine as a whole, are stressing to the student body and Claremont administrations that professor Raviv’s conduct amounts to racial discrimination and falls within the category of a “bias-related incident.”

In a Claremont Colleges’ document titled “Communication Protocol for Bias-Related Incidents,” it clearly states that “Bias-related incidents are expressions of hostility against another person (or group) because of that person’s (or group’s) race, color, religion, ancestry, age, national origin, disability, gender or sexual orientation, or because the perpetrator perceives that the other person (or group) has one or more of those characteristics.”

“Use of the term ‘cockroach’ must be taken in its specific historical context as hateful, racist, enemy imagery,” Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine wrote on 7 March, both in an incident report filed with Pitzer administrators and in a public statement to the Pitzer student body’s discussion forum. The student group cited cases of the term applied to Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide and to Jews under Nazi Germany (“Students allege bias related exchange with professor,” The Student Life, 8 March).

The term has also been used by Israeli military and political leaders in reference to Palestinians throughout its history.

Reported in The New York Times in April 1983, for example, the Israeli army Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan proposed building 10 settlements for every stone-throwing incident in the West Bank and Gaza. “When we have settled the land,” Eitan said, “all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged roaches in a bottle.”

Daniel Segal, a longtime professor of anthropology and history at Pitzer College, told The Electronic Intifada that Raviv’s behavior was “clearly harmful” to the educational environment.

“Faculty should be modeling how, when we disagree with each other, we challenge each other with evidence and/or questions about the logic of the position that we’ve developed from the evidence,” he said. “Name-calling, particularly denigrating name-calling, is not conducive to dialogue across very strong political differences. And for a faculty member to do that is to corrode and degrade the educational context of the colleges; it’s an attack on the students, it’s also an attack on our community.”
 
“Great irony”

An Israeli instructor called a Palestinian student a “cockroach” during a mock checkpoint action.

Raviv’s use of the term “cockroach,” Segal added, was particularly troubling. “A cockroach is something that ‘we humans’ have only one relationship to. We try to stomp on them, we try to wipe them out, we try to kill them, we try to eliminate them.”

Hamideh, having graduated from high school in the occupied West Bank where he lived for 10 years, remembers being “subject to this form of abuse many times before,” he said in a Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine public statement (“Statement regarding bias-related incident on Claremont McKenna Campus,” SJP Claremont Facebook page, 8 March 2013).

“It is a great irony that at a checkpoint simulation on campus that I helped to organize, I experienced an Israeli calling me a cockroach, just as has been done to me many times before at actual checkpoints in the West Bank. To me, this is a discriminatory incident and I personally do not feel comfortable as a student on a campus where a faculty member is allowed to demean me and curse at me.”

For fellow Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine member Zavi Kang Engles, the incident at the mock checkpoint strikes at the heart of Palestinian rights advocacy by students as a whole. The professor’s “cockroach” slur “also implicated other people doing this sort of work,” she told The Electronic Intifada. “In that way, the professor’s remarks were an attack on all of SJP.”

Sixteen persons — including reporters for Pomona College’s The Student Life and The Electronic Intifada, and nearly all the members of Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine, along with supporters such as the Pitzer College student body vice president — crowded into the Pitzer dean of students’ tiny office late afternoon on 8 March, to meet with Dean of Students Moya Carter and Vice President for Student Affairs Jim Marchant.

Hamideh was visibly disturbed during the meeting, at one point nearly breaking down, his voice shaking, as he cited further personal trauma. “When I go back to my country, the [Israeli army] makes me open up my Facebook, my Gmail, and if they see any conversations [on this topic] …” He said that he was afraid of what Israeli forces might do, including refuse him entry into the West Bank in the future.

Students under investigation

In a Pitzer campus-wide statement on 8 March, Marchant wrote that his Pitzer administration was investigating what he mildly described as “inappropriate and hostile verbal comments by a CMC [Claremont McKenna College] faculty member” directed at the student during the event (“Students accuse professor of hate speech following Palestine justice event,” Claremont Port Side, 11 March).

But in its initial statement on 7 March, Pitzer’s administration was quick to emphasize that it is working with Claremont McKenna College in a joint investigation of “whether the policy on demonstrations was followed” by Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine during their event. The colleges understood that “some form of verbal exchange occurred involving a Pitzer student and CMC faculty member.”

Such remarks did not sit well with members of Students for Justice in Palestine, which stated in their public response that “both the Pitzer and CMC administrations should be putting more effort into investigating the discriminatory and harmful actions of a faculty member rather than investigating the previously sanctioned, constitutionally protected event held by [Claremont SJP].”

In the following days, Pitzer administrators seemed to agree. “I apologize, the [7 March] statement was misleading,” Marchant said in the meeting on 8 March. He explained the effort as a “compromise” with Claremont McKenna College, whose administrators remain focused on whether the student group followed school policies, while Pitzer administrators are concerned with the “verbal exchange.”

Marchant’s clarifying regrets didn’t make it into his campus-wide statement made later that evening. He did, however, concede that the group informed Campus Safety and Security of its event, for which it obtained formal permission, and complied with all requests by school officials on the scene prior to the incident.

Claremont SJP has garnered the strong support of Pitzer College faculty during this ordeal. Along with news of the incident spreading rapidly throughout the student campus, on 10 March the Pitzer Faculty Executive Committee stated in a letter obtained by The Electronic Intifada that it was “extremely concerned” by the incident, urging Claremont McKenna College and Pitzer to finish investigating the matter “immediately and thoroughly.”

Admonishing the Pitzer administration, the faculty committee added: “We think it is unfortunate that the initial public communications about this issue were focused on potential demonstration policy violations — we reassert that the right to peaceful demonstrations is an integral piece of an open, intellectually vigorous college community.” The committee reaffirmed a “protection from verbal assault and harassment.”

In a follow-up letter to the entire five-college student body dated 15 March, the Pitzer Faculty Executive Committee stated that “the Pitzer investigation into the matter has shown that the five college students involved in the SJP event of 4 March did not violate any procedures in carrying out their event. It is [Claremont McKenna College], however, that has the responsibility for further investigation into Professor Raviv’s behavior, and conducting that investigation is not within Pitzer College’s purview.”

The committee added that it will work with faculty and students to “organize forums for discussion of the incident and related topics,” after this week’s spring break.

Claremont College - Not a picture of tranquility but academic tolerance for racism

“Repressive environment”

Asked to comment on the situation, Liz Jackson, cooperating attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Palestine Solidarity Legal Support Initiative, wrote in an email to The Electronic Intifada: “This case epitomizes the repressive environment faced by students who stand up for Palestinian rights on campuses nationwide.” Jackson added that “from Brooklyn to Berkeley, from South Florida, to southern California, students are subjected to harassment, discriminatory treatment and legal threats.”

In particular, California has become a hotbed for legal and administrative measures aimed to discourage Palestinian rights-based activism.

In August 2012, the California state assembly passed a non-binding, bipartisan resolution, HR 35, which civil rights organizations say conflates on-campus Palestine solidarity activism and rights advocacy with anti-Semitism.
The range of activities that California legislators recommended banning includes merely stating that Israel has engaged in “crimes against humanity” or “ethnic cleansing,” or using language describing Israeli policies as racist or akin to apartheid; the sponsoring of boycott, divestment and sanctions actions; and other political activities regularly organized by student Palestine solidarity groups.

It was revealed that resolution HR 35 was drafted with help from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an ultra-right-wing Zionist organization which is building a “museum of tolerance” on top of an ancient Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem (“California legislator promise to affirm free speech rights on campus earns praise of Palestine solidarity activists,” Mondoweiss, 4 September 2012).

“Chilling effects”

Back at the 8 March meeting at Pitzer College, Dean Moya Carter said she had met with Claremont students who were upset by the Students for Justice in Palestine mock checkpoint action, which they perceived as “hostile” and “aggressive.” According to one student she quoted, “[SJP members] weren’t being pro-Palestine, they were being anti-Israel.” However, no outside groups have contacted the college nor have any complaints about the mock checkpoint action been filed as of 8 March, according to both Carter and Marchant.

More significantly, no action has been taken against professor Yaron Raviv as of press time.

Professor Daniel Segal told The Electronic Intifada that even though Raviv is “clearly in violation of [the college’s] handbook” due to his bias-related targeting of Najib Hamideh and the other students, he was not surprised that the Claremont McKenna College administration has chosen to be protective of Raviv rather than take responsibility. “[CMC] has not cultivated a respect for and a commitment to foster dissent, particularly dissent from the left,” Segal added.

By choosing to scrutinize an approved protest action rather than pursue an investigation into one of their faculty members’ wrongful, racist conduct toward students, Segal explained that this is just the latest in a series of “chilling effects” that the Claremont McKenna administration has had on dissent and protests.
Further attacks

Meanwhile, aggressive attacks against Hamideh have taken place since the incident with Raviv became public. Hamideh told The Electronic Intifada that on 12 March, a sharpened metal key had been deliberately shoved deep into his car’s tire, flattening it. On the same day, a threatening note was found scrawled on a card marking his reservation for a carrel desk in the college’s library.

On the library carrels, each desk has a sign reading “This carrel has been reserved for” and then the student’s name. Hamideh explained that someone had written “me to fuck” under his name and scrawled under that, in different handwriting, “in the skull.” Hamideh said that although Student Affairs had been notified, and had acted “horrified,” administration officials haven’t yet taken any action.

Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine member Sonia Mehrmand said that since the incident with professor Raviv became known, students have expressed shock and outrage — but also support for SJP and its members. “It’s not slipping under the radar like it could have,” she said. “The angry voices are the loudest ones. It doesn’t mean that they’re the only ones.”

Hamideh said, “I really feel like it’s an act of desperation … When I was in Palestine, I remember first hearing about [the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement] and thinking that it was never going to happen. But like in South Africa, the BDS movement started, and then on college campuses, and it pushed through. It gained national attention. And that’s how oppression can be stopped.”
All images courtesy of Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine.

Gabriel M. Schivone is a Chicano-Jewish American and a student researcher at the University of Arizona and is a on the ad hoc steering committee of National Students for Justice in Palestine.

Nora Barrows-Friedman is an associate editor with The Electronic Intifada.

See also Students Allege Bias-Related Exchange with Professor, The Student Life
By Carlos Ballesterosm Fri, Mar 8

The weekend local paper, the Brighton Argus did an interview with me.  It's not often they interview a self-confessed communist about anti-Zionism and imperialism!  Enjoy.
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/10309187.The_Big_Interview__Tony_Greenstein/

This blog will be taking a week's break as I'm off for a week's 'holiday' in freezing Britain!

Tony Greenstein

Solid Strike of Brighton PCS Members in DVLA, Courts and Job Centre Plus

Below are a few pictures of pickets outside the courts and Job Centre Plus in Brighton. There were also picket lines at the DVLA office which , like all others in the country, is being closed down on the grounds that the Internet makes such officers superflous!


Representative from Sussex University Occupation Addresses Picket

Nationally a quarter of million PSC members went on strike.

PCS national president Janice Godrich said "Reports show this strike has been one of the best supported ever, by members and the public."

PCS Picket at the Courts is in the background

There have been unprecedented levels of solidarity from the public and other trade unionists, with picket line visits and speakers at strike rallies.

There will be a half day strike on Friday 5th April and Mark Serwotka has called for other unions to join the PCS on Wednesday 26th June when Osborne announces the Comprehensive Spending Review.
 

 

 

Albania - the only Nazi-occupied country where the number of Jews increased

It’s not a  story that’s oft told.  It doesn’t really fit in with the myth of the Judeo-Christian civilization that is peddled today.  When the fundamentalists of Pastor John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel are the Zionists’ primary political supporters today and when Islam is held to be the enemy of civilisation and the West’s main threat, it is inevitable that the history of the holocaust will itself be distorted.

Yet the facts are quite clear.  Muslim Albania was the only country in Nazi occupied Europe where the number of Jews actually increased – from 200  to around 2,000.  Yad Vashem, the main holocaust memorial propaganda institute in Israel, which is responsible for their literary output, has a whole wall devoted to the minor war criminal, the Mufti of Jerusalem as if to emphasise Palestinian and Muslim complicity in the holocaust.  It has yet to honour as 'righteous among the nations' a single Arab, despite the fact that the number of Jews who died in Nazi/Vichy occupied North Africa was about 1% of the Jewish population, compared to 90%+ for Poland and the Baltic countries.

Albanian Jews

Below are a number of articles, including from Yad Vashem, that paint a different story to the holocaust narrative that is predominant today.

Albanians saved Jews from deportation in WWII

Predominantly Muslim Albanians saved almost 2,000 Jews from deportation to the concentration camps during World War II. The family of US author Johanna Jutta Neumann was among those rescued.

"The Albanians were fantastic - after the war, there were even more Jews there than before," Johanna Jutta Neumann said. During World War II, the Hamburg-born Jewish woman found refuge with a Muslim family in Albania. Less than 200 Jews lived in the small southeastern European country with a population of less than a million people before the war - and about 2,000 Jews called Albania home after World War II.

Today, Neumann, 83, lives in Washington, DC. The German-Albanian Friendship Association invited her to Germany to present her book Via Albania, in which she describes her family's escape from Hamburg to Italian-occupied Albania in the spring of 1938. The Albanian Embassy in Berlin issued visas to Jews until 1942; as a result, until the summer of 1943 many European Jews applied to Albania for what was no longer possible anywhere else: asylum.

A matter of honor - Book cover of Umweg über Albanien the German translation of Via Albania Copyright: DAFG Verlag Via Albania was translated into German

In Albania, it is customary to offer guests ("mikut") loyalty and hospitality - and guarantee their safety. Once an Albanian has given a guest his word, his "besa," he must live up to it. It was this very tradition that contributed to giving Jews from throughout Europe safe refuge between 1938 and 1945 in Albania, a country with a predominantly Muslim population. The majority of the Jewish refugees lived in Albania until the early 1990s. After the fall of the Communist regime, many Albanian Jews emigrated to the United States and Israel.

The Israeli Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem has so far honored 69 Albanians as "Righteous among Nations," an honor bestowed on people who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Some of them were specially honored in the travelling exhibition "Besa: A Code of Honor," first shown in 2008 at the United Nations headquarters in New York and now touring German cities, including Dresden, Görlitz and Leipzig.

'Hall of Names' in the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial EPA/JIM HOLLANDER

Albanians saved Neumann's family from deportation and extermination. At first they lived in a hotel - only to get acquainted with Albanian hospitality. "We left the hotel after about three months and moved in with a Muslim family," Neumann said, adding that the Jewish family experienced their first Ramadan and Bairam festivals. "It was wonderful. People treated us like their own family."

A safe haven
The fascist occupiers tried to deport Jews from Albania, too, but the population refused to surrender the Jews living in their country. Even members of the Albanian government pitched in, providing Jewish families with forged documents.

Many Albanian farmers took in and hid Jews. Anna Cohen's family fled Thessaloniki and found refuge in the village of Tre Vllaznit, near Vlora.

"I was born in Albania shortly after the war ended, and I was raised there," said Cohen, a New York dentist who left Albania for the USA in 1992. "I always felt like an Albanian of Jewish heritage."

Albania was the opposite of other eastern European countries under Nazi occupation where Jews were concerned - Albania became their safe haven, according to Kiel-based historian and Balkans expert Michael Schmidt-Neke.

Between 1938 and 1945, more than 70 percent of the Albanian population was Muslim, the remaining 30 percent was Orthodox or Catholic. The ratio led to a great deal of interreligious tolerance, Schmidt-Neke said. The willingness to help persecuted Jews ran across the social, religious and political spectrum, he said, adding, "There were people who worked with the communist resistance that saved Jews as well as those who cooperated with the occupiers while they hid Jews in their homes."

“Where Religious Prejudice and Hate Did Not Exist”[1]

Jews in Albania

Yael Weinstock Mashbaum

Introduction

In our last newsletter we addressed Jews from the southeastern European countries of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Greece. While we in no way exhausted the topic, this issue focuses on the Jewish community of Albania, as the situation for Jews in this country during the Holocaust, is unique and even optimistic.

Almost all Jews in Albania during the Second World War were saved from Hitler’s “Final Solution.” This is remarkable and a circumstance that cannot be found in any other occupied country in Europe. How did this happen? Why was Albania good to its Jews?

Albania, 1941, Buena Tova Rubenovic, Archival Number 5571/4Albania, 1941, Buena Tova Rubenovic

Berat, Albania, A House where Jews were Hidden, Archival Number 3793/3

History of Jews in Albania

A Jewish presence existed in Albania since the second century C.E. when a wave of Romaniote Jews immigrated to the north of the country. At the end of the 14th century, Romaniote Jews from Greece immigrated to Albania, with their unique customs and traditions. At the end of the 15th century during the Spanish Inquisition, the Turkish Sultan invited the Jews to live under Moslem rule in the Ottoman Empire and this brought Sephardic Jews to Albania. Though life for Jews was not always perfect, it proved to be a safe haven for centuries. Jews continued to emigrate from Greece in the 18th and early 19th centuries, arriving in Albania, settling in Vlora. Until World War II, the Jews of Albania maintained contact with the Jews of Ioannina and Corfu in Greece, and relied on these larger and more established communities to periodically provide a rabbi, cantor, and mohel (person who performs ritual circumcision) for their religious needs.


Before the 1930s some two hundred Jews lived in Albania. With Hitler's rise to power and an increase in antisemitic activities, Jews felt threatened in their own countries,and began migrating from their homes in western and central Europe. By the outbreak of World War II, between six hundred and 1,800 refugees had arrived in Albania, from Germany, Austria, Serbia, Greece, and Yugoslavia, on their way to the United States, South America, Turkey, and Palestine. On the whole, Albania did not discriminate against its Jews. Due to Albania’s liberal visa application process, Jews began coming from all over Europe, and once the United States closed its door to them in 1938 and the Italians invaded in 1939, they realized that they would have to stay in Albania for the duration of the war. They did not realize at the time how lucky it was to have ended up there.

Italian Occupation

Italian Soldiers Entering Durazzo, Albania, April 1939, Archival Number FA119/94Italian Soldiers Entering Durazzo, Albania, April 1939

When the Italians arrived in Albania they announced some anti-Jewish rules but the restrictions were not nearly as harsh or severe as those in German occupied countries. Jews were allowed to celebrate holidays and did not need to hide their identity. In Albania proper, Jews were not required to wear a “J” or “Jew” on their clothes (see Jewish Badge). However, life was different in the annexed territories such as Kosovo, which was brought under Albanian control in 1941. The Germans demanded that the Jews of Pristina be handed over to them. The Italians refused, but eventually agreed to hand over prisoners. Among the prisoners were sixty Jews, who were then murdered. Jewish refugees from other parts of Yugoslavia who had reached Pristina were transported to the older areas of Albania, where they were housed in a camp at Kavaje. Eventually some two hundred refugees were in this camp. The conditions there were poor, but the inmates could leave the camp during the day. About one hundred Jewish men from Pristina, later joined by their families were taken to Berat. In Berat, many were aided and protected by local Albanians. Smaller numbers of Jewish refugees could also be found in other localities, including the capital Tirana. Eventually, many of these Jews were turned over to the Nazis, and four hundred were shipped to Bergen-Belsen.

German Occupation

In September 1943, after the change in Italy's government, Albania came under German control. The Germans requested a list of Jews living in Albania, and the Albanian government refused, reassuring the Jews that they would be protected in their country. However, this did not remove all potential danger from the Jews of Albania.

All around them Jews were being deported to concentration and death camps. In fact, the Jews of Vlora were almost wiped out when the Nazis prepared a list and planned to arrest them. However, that night the partisans came down to the city and began singing and dancing as a symbolic gesture of defiance. The Germans decided to depart that night, saving the lives of the Jews of Vlora.

The Righteous of Albania

Albania, the only European country with a Muslim majority, committed itself to saving all of its Jewish inhabitants. Almost all Jews living within Albanian borders during the German occupation, those of Albanian origin and refugees alike, were saved, except members of a single family. Ultimately, there were more Jews in Albania at the end of the war than before.

Berat, Albania, The Frasheri family who saved Jews from Yugoslavia, Archival Number 3793/1Berat, Albania, The Frasheri family who saved Jews from Yugoslavia

You can find more information on Albanians who have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, on the Yad Vashem website.

Teaching about Albania during the Holocaust

The story of Albanian Jews during the Holocaust is not complete without the story of the Albanians, both Muslim and Christian, who defied the Nazis and hid hundreds of Jews in their homes, preventing them from being murdered. This hospitality and heroism is worthy of discussion in the classroom.

In addition, many people are unfamiliar with the story of Albania during the Holocaust, and this country does not often arise when considering topics for educational purposes. However, teaching students about the geographic breadth that the Holocaust encompassed is important in helping them understand even further complexities about the period. It also expands their associations with the Holocaust, not limited to Germany, Poland, and concentration camps. On a lighter note, this is a happier story as the Jews were saved and people showed kindness and compassion to them. This is an excellent segue to the discussion of Righteous Among the Nations.

There are several resources that you may use in your classroom to develop this topic further:

Rescue in Albania by Harvey Sarner is a short book with a detailed look at the history of Albania and its Jews from the establishment of the community through the post-World War II era. I do not recommend assigning this book as reading, but an educator may lift pieces that relate to the topic at hand.

Yad Vashem’s exhibition called “Besa: A Code of Honor” discusses Muslim Albanians who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. Focusing on six Righteous Among the Nations, this online exhibit tells just a handful of stories of those who were saved and their rescuers.

The interview in this newsletter on the Romaniote Jews of Ioannina, Greece. Intertwined with photographs, this article with accompanying slides discusses the unique traditions of the Romaniote Jews, who also maintained a strong community in Albania.

Every place and every person tells their own story. Teaching the Holocaust from the perspective of countries in southeastern Europe undoubtedly teaches the complexities of the period. In the case of Albania, the situation was especially different than in any other country, both in the way Jews were treated and how they were welcomed in and saved. At a time when the world closed its doors, Albania extended its arm of hospitality. Even among the devastation and death, there were heroes and rescuers and this is important to teach as well.
[1] Quote by Herman Bernstein, the United States Ambassador to Albania, in 1934.

Jewish resistance in Albania

This article presents the unusual story of the very small Jewish community of Albania. The Jews of Albania were saved by the actions of the citizens of the country, mostly Moslems, who provided them with shelter and refuge.

The history of the Jewish community

The Jewish community of Albania existed within a Moslem country. The community was established in 1930, when several tens of Jews immigrated there from various Balkan countries. (Balkan is the historical, geographical name for the land which stretches across southeast Europe. This area is named for the Balkan Mountains which cross Bulgaria and Serbia). In the 1940’s another wave of Jewish refugees came from Greece, Macedonia, Croatia and Yugoslavia, in the wake of Nazi occupation. At the end of the war there were approximately 400 Jews in Albania, who were not permitted to leave since the country had become communist. In 1991, when the system of government changed, all 500 Albanian Jews made aliya to Israel.

During the Holocaust

In October 1940 parts of Albania were annexed to Italy. The Italians wanted to use its territory as a strategic base for the conquest of Greece. In September 1943, with the surrender of Italy, Albania was occupied by the Germans. After the Nazi occupation, the Jews of Albania found refuge in the homes of local families (most of them Moslems, and a few Christians) and with groups of partisans. Thanks to the solidarity evinced by their neighbors, all of the Albanian Jews were saved. Albanian Jewry was the only Jewish group in Europe whose numbers grew during the German occupation. Yad Vashem has recognized 63 Albanians as Righteous Among the Nations – a record number if one takes into account the number of Albanian inhabitants and the number of Jews who lived there. The fate of the Jews of Kosovo, part of Albania during WWII, was different. A company of S.S. operated there, their members recruited from among the local Albanians. The Jews were sent from there to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and to forced labor camps.

Albania and the Wannsee Conference report

In the report of the Wannsee Conference (a meeting which took place on January 20, 1942, where representatives of the Nazi government offices met in the Berlin suburb Wannsee), Albania appears on the list of countries whose Jews were destined for extermination in the Final Solution. The number of Jews listed in Albania was 200. This single line in the well-known document makes it clear that, in the German planning for the Jews, every Jewish community was included, every Jew to the last one.

Conclusion

During the war there were 803,000 inhabitants in Albania, of which 200 were Jews. Albania succeeded were other European countries failed. Most of the Jews who lived within her borders during the German occupation – several hundred Albanian Jews and Jewish refugees- were saved

Source:        Balkan Holocausts, Steven Bauman – Yad Vashem website

The Muslim Brotherhood continues where Mubarak left off – maintaining Israel’s Blockade

Egyptian women in Cairo march in protest at the military's use of excessive force against women and unarmed protesters. Photograph: Mohamed Omar/EPA

Hamas keeps silent about the betrayal of its fellow Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has always been a conservative, clerical organisation, representing the interests of the small businessman and capital, whilst being bitterly hostile to the Left.  It played a contradictory role with British imperialism until independence and supported the nationalist revolution led by army officers in 1952 only to end up being banned for allegedly trying to murder Gamel Abdel Nasser.

But what is important to understand is that this ‘party of god’ is in reality a reflection of the particular societies in which it operates.  So today in Egypt, under MB, it continues the policy of  Hosni Mubarak in enforcing the Israeli siege.  Indeed in flooding dozens of  tunnels  in Rafah it is going one step worse than even Mubarak in enforcing Israel’s siege of Gaza. 

In the meantime we see the Brotherhood’s commitment to democracy in the assumption by Morsi of dictatorial powers and the continuation by the Police of torture of opponents and the role of the army in upholding the present subservience to the US.

It must therefore be an embarrassment to Hamas, an Israeli created offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brother hood, for its sister party to be doing Israel’s work.  But then Hamas has only itself to blame.  When demonstrators took to the streets in the Arab spring in Tahrir Square, many Gazans came out in the streets to demonstrate in their support.  Hamas, just like Fateh and Abbas in Ramallah, used its thugs to drive people back into their homes.

The major conclusion from this is that the Muslim Brotherhood is incapable of leading a revolution against Western imperialism without at the same time seeking to enslave their own people.

Tony Greenstein

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has reneged on promises to Palestine

Egypt's new dictator -  the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi

 Amira Howeidy
The Electronic Intifada, Cairo - 21 March 2013

The euphoria that erupted in Gaza minutes after Hosni Mubarak stepped down on 11 February 2011 probably came second only to Egypt’s. The ousted dictator was Israel’s “strategic asset” for good reason. He secured the blockade of the Gaza Strip from the Egyptian side, sided against Hamas and proved a reliable ally.

Even during the 22-day Israeli war on Gaza at the end of 2008, Mubarak kept the Rafah border crossing firmly shut, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention which binds Egypt, as a signatory, to protect civilians during times of war and foreign occupation.

Egypt’s dictator was removed but his legacy continues to influence realities on the ground in Gaza and around the Palestinian question in general. It does not help that his successor, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Muhammad Morsi, has done little to prove — thus far — that his policies will change course. Of course nothing is that simple. Morsi, willingly, inherited a difficult legacy of a mammoth, corrupt bureaucracy and questionable sovereignty after decades of subservience to the United States.

But judging from their discourse and performance during the past year, it’s evident that the Brotherhood — including their Freedom and Justice Party and the president — are too eager to prove their power-worthiness by demonstrating “pragmatism” and flexibility to the international community.

Some Brotherhood figures and sympathizers argue that this is vital to securing their ascendance to power in a shaky transition and to quell the fears of skeptics. This might be valid in some cases (where the regional balance of power isn’t in their favor) but it poses compelling questions on how far Morsi will go in Mubarak’s shoes under the pretext of realpolitik — and if he’ll eventually find himself trapped there.

Morsi - represents a different wing of Egyptian capitalist interests

Gaza is the barometer


Gaza, which shares a 14-kilometer-long border with Egypt, is probably one of the best barometers for Cairo’s foreign policy independence — or lack thereof.

It’s where Egypt is forced to be involved in the Palestinian question especially since Hamas’s takeover of the strip in 2007 and Israel’s subsequent land, sea and air siege. Under an expired one-year agreement (2005-2006) between Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the European Union, only people (those who are not on Tel Aviv’s blacklist) are allowed though the Egyptian-controlled Rafah border crossing, not goods.

“Approved” commodities are permitted though the Israeli-controlled Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing. While Egypt wasn’t party to this agreement, it continues to hold it, seven years after it became invalid.

In the language of the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement, the Egyptian town of Rafah is in Area C — the demilitarized zone in the Sinai peninsula, which strictly limits Egyptian forces to a lightly armed police presence. It’s also the site of hundreds of underground tunnels that link the Palestinian and Egyptian sides of Rafah, which have mushroomed since the Israeli siege of Gaza and provide a lifeline for the strip.

It’s no exaggeration to say that without the tunnels, Gaza’s 1.7-million strong population will suffer, not just because Israel allows only one third of the strip’s needs in via the goods crossings, but also because the vast majority of Gazans can’t afford Israeli products and depend on cheaper Egyptian ones. The resistance also relies on these tunnels (amongst other channels) for much-needed arms.

Because of this and the fact that a largely unmonitored underground world intertwines Gaza with Egypt, the tunnels opportunely surface as a security and political issue for Cairo.

Since the killing of sixteen Egyptian border guards last August in Rafah by still-unknown assailants, the military retaliated by launching “Operation Eagle 2” to purge Sinai of “criminal elements.” None were identified, but the media, in typical Mubarak-era fashion, was quick to blame Palestinians. After shelling mainly desert areas in northeast Sinai the army demolished dozens of tunnels and rounded up “suspects.”

Changes at Rafah crossing

It was the first time that the tunnels were targeted since Morsi came to power. But the impact of the demolitions wasn’t detrimental and the policy was reversed when, after Morsi sacked the military’s top brass, the Rafah border crossing was opened on a daily basis for the first time since the Israeli siege began.

While this was attributed to Morsi’s influence, Hamas officials say that since Mubarak’s ouster and the military’s takeover, the number of Palestinians allowed passage — in the days that the border was open — had increased from approximately 350 or 450 to 1,000, a sign that the generals were slightly less stringent than Mubarak on this issue.

Moreover, the military leadership had given deputy leader of the Hamas politburo Mousa Abu Marzook (previously based in Damascus, along with other with exile resistance factions) permission to live in Cairo, which was unthinkable before the revolution.

The difference since Morsi assumed office has been the daily opening of the crossing, which, by all accounts is a significant development and a far cry from the weeks-long closures that would happen in Mubarak times. Not only is Egypt and thus the rest of the world accessible to most Gazans, Palestine-solidarity delegations from all over the world and high-level state envoys have been visiting the strip regularly, many for the first time, in defiance of the siege and ultimately giving recognition to the Hamas rulers. It’s not what Israel had in mind when it imposed its blockade — which is precisely why Mubarak preserved the siege.

The changes at the crossing are one of the few developments that offer some insight into how Egypt under a Brotherhood president is managing the Palestinian file. There is a difference in modus operandi, but the outcome shows no signs of shaping a new reality. Instead of equating it with Egypt’s other international border crossings, Rafah is still hostage to the Mubarak-era’s calculations and commitments to Israel. It might be open daily, but as per Israel’s demands, Egypt will not allow even a cement bag through, directing goods onto Israeli-controlled Karem Abu Salem.

In the Mubarak continuum, Egypt-Gaza relations and the Palestinian file are still controlled by Egyptian intelligence, who are also involved in the military’s strategy in Sinai and Rafah. The management of the Rafah crossing is completely under the intelligence’s control and run by their mentality and calculations. While Morsi is kept informed, it is unlikely that his views, if any different, will be heeded.

But the Muslim Brotherhood’s media spokesman Gehad El-Haddad claimed to me two weeks ago that the Egyptian intelligence services are “fully under the command” of the president, and executing his orders and vision (“‘We will not let Egypt fall’,” Al-Ahram Weekly, 6 March). And so Morsi “is responsible for what happens on the ground in Rafah.”

Flooding Gaza’s tunnels with sewage

Last month “Operation Eagle 2” resumed tunnel demolitions aggressively, flooding many of them with sewage. More than 400 have been destroyed so far according to military sources cited by the local media. No one will say how far the military is going to go but given previous tunnel demolitions under Mubarak, the operation should be well calculated to leave enough tunnels to smuggle most of Gaza’s needs.

It’s still a disappointing development for Hamas’s leaders who, because of their sensitive situation, will not go on record criticizing Egypt or Morsi. Mousa Abu Marzook would only go as far as saying “We don’t want the tunnels at all, we want the strip’s provisions to go through the Rafah border crossing, which is not happening,” he told me last week.

The only exception, unsurprisingly, is Qatar’s building material, which is allowed passage for the several multi-million dollar reconstruction projects the Gulf state’s Emir Hamad bin Khalifah pledged during his visit to the strip last October. That the first visit by a head of state to the strip is from Qatar reveals more about post-revolution Egypt under a Brotherhood president, than it does about Doha. Qatar is consolidating its already-outsized regional role, while Egypt is treading cautiously within the boundaries placed by Mubarak’s three-decade rule.

Brotherhood spokesman El-Haddad calls this the responsibility of moving from the back seat of the car to the driver’s seat: “When you take the responsibility a lot of calculations happen.” And thus the Camp David peace agreement with Israel that the Brotherhood consistently rejected up to and including their 2010 election platform (which demands under chapter four annulling “all” normalization agreements with Israel and supporting the resistance) will not be broken, or even modified by them (“The electoral platform of the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidates for the 2010 parliament,” Egypt Window, 4 November 2010 [Arabic]).

This is the same statement made by the presidential spokesman last year. Now, in El-Haddad’s words, Camp David is “serving” Egypt’s interests. In the same vein, speaking to Reuters, Essam El-Haddad, Morsi’s aide on foreign relations, justified the flooding of tunnels to stop arms smuggling (“Egypt flooded tunnels to cut Gaza arms flow: aide,” 18 February 2013).



Brotherhood’s shifting position on Palestine

This post-revolution discourse is consistent with the Brotherhood’s new positions, that of its Freedom and Justice Party and Morsi himself. It’s true that the Palestinian question was central to the group’s existence since its early years (their volunteers resisted Zionist gangs in Palestine since 1947) and for decades since. But it’s fair to say that the profile of the Brotherhood’s leadership — a combination of wealth and power — in the past decade is new to the organization’s history.

Their calculations and political priorities are the outcome of their experiences under Mubarak’s rule and should be assessed within that context. In contrast, the group’s base and supporters hail from the middle and lower classes and might not necessarily accept or relate to this level of pragmatism on a central issue like the Palestinian question.

This was partially put to test when Israel launched its brief war on Gaza on 14 November 2012. Morsi first responded by recalling Egypt’s ambassador to Israel on the same day. Facing mounting public pressure, he sent his prime minister in an unprecedented, high-level state delegation to the strip 48 hours later, with the message that official Egypt is taking Gaza’s side.

When compared to Cairo’s accomplice role in the 2008 Gaza war, this development cannot be undermined. So was the direct involvement of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders in the ceasefire discussions with Morsi. Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas was conspicuously absent from the scene.

Morsi wanted to convey to Israel that “today’s Egypt is different from yesterday’s.” That pre-election Israel didn’t want a long war or the long-range missiles which Gaza fired at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, might have played in Morsi’s favor and driven his point home, not just to Tel Aviv but more importantly his constituency and supporters.

The effect of this test war has since subsided and overshadowed by the aggressive tunnel demolitions and more recently the intense anti-Palestinian, specifically anti-Hamas campaign raging in Egypt for the past week.

On the surface it might seem as a continuation of the Mubarak era demonization of Palestinians in Gaza since Hamas’s takeover of the strip. While military gags were issued to prohibit the press from reporting the numerous times trigger happy Israeli soldiers killed Egyptian border guards, supposedly by mistake, the media seized every opportunity to feed into public opinion that Sinai is Gaza’s aspired alternative state.

Today most media outlets are citing anonymous “military sources” accusing Hamas of murdering the 16 Egyptian border guards last August.

Reports on the confiscation of rolls of fabric used to make the military’s uniform in one of the tunnels is provided as evidence of Hamas or Gaza “elements” involvement in national security threatening activity.

The lack of evidence to substantiate these allegations and the armed force’s deafening silence suggest a deliberate strategy to incite against Hamas, Gaza and the tunnels while linking their alleged transgressions to Morsi and his Brotherhood, the mother organization that inspired the founding of Hamas in 1987. In other words, Morsi’s professed laxity towards his Hamas friends is compromising Egypt’s national security.

This is an oxymoronic situation: Hamas, Gaza and perhaps the Palestinian question as a whole are paying the price for the Brotherhood’s rise to power, when in fact the group, in the name of “pragmatism,” has reneged on previously declared stances related to the Palestinian question.

It’s tempting to assume that Morsi and the Brotherhood are applying a gradual, tactual strategy that will eventually lead to bolder positions. But this is conditional upon guaranteeing, against all odds, that Morsi will at least complete his four-year term and that the conservative reformist mentality of the Muslim Brotherhood will adopt a revolutionary approach towards the issue. The improbability of both is high and like Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood’s ascendance to power has put to question its raison d’être.

Amira Howeidy is deputy editor of the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Weekly.

A Database of Discriminatory Laws in Israel

If there’s one thing that Zionist supporters hate, it is comparisons between Zionism and Apartheid.  Yet the truth is dawning on many people that discriminating against people because they are Jewish is no different than discriminating against them because they are not Jewish.  Refusing to allow Arabs to rent flats in Safed or ‘Jewish’ towns is no different from the Apartheid practices of South Africa.
 
The system of ID control whereby ID cards instantly identify who is and who is not Jewish is no different from the pass laws and control in South Africa in the days of Apartheid
 

Database of Israeli Discriminatory Laws

Tony Greenstein

There are more than 50 Israeli laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel in all areas of life, including their rights to political participation, access to land, education, state budget resources, and criminal procedures. Some of the laws also violate the rights of Palestinians living in the 1967 OPT and Palestinian refugees.

You can also see Adalah's Brief on Discriminatory Laws and Bills Since 2009.

This database collects text, analyses, and legal action for present and proposed discriminatory laws in Israel and the OPT. Please explore:

Boycotting Israel is the Way to Go

Roger Waters is a wonderful example of the kind of support musicians can give to the Palestinians.  He is a member of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine and his commitment is to be admired.  Contrast this with the anti-Semitic Gilad Atzmon, whose 'support' for the Palestinians doesn't extend to supporting BDS. 

At a time when many of yesterday's superstars, such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, have turned into everything they used to rail against, when they play in Israel and thus endorse the war crimes of Zionism, for money.  Roger Waters stands out for his integrity and solidarity.

See Pink Floyd duo outshine Kate Moss at Palestine charity gig
Tony Greenstein  

Crosspost Electronic Intifada

Roger Waters, British rock legend and co-founder of the group Pink Floyd, visits Israel’s wall surrounding the West Bank town of Bethlehem, 21 June 2006. (MaanImages / Magnus Johansson)

David Cronin, The Electronic Intifada, , Brussels 18 March 2013


Roger Waters is the most famous rock star to have publicly supported the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

A founder of Pink Floyd — a British rock group which has sold more than 250 million albums — Waters decided to become active in the international Palestinian solidarity movement following a trip to the West Bank in 2006. Shocked by the oppression that he witnessed, Waters spray-painted the words “we don’t need no thought control” — a line from one of his biggest hits — on Israel’s wall.

More recently, Waters has served as a juror on the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, an initiative aimed at drawing attention to how Western governments and companies aid Israel’s violations of international law. In that capacity, he addressed the United Nations during November last year.
Visiting Brussels for the tribunal’s final session, Waters said he would explore the idea of releasing a single urging musicians not to perform in Israel. He intends to discuss this project with Steven Van Zandt, the guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, who assembled many well-known musicians to record Sun City, a protest song against apartheid in South Africa during the 1980s.

Waters spoke to The Electronic Intifada’s David Cronin.

David Cronin: Do you think the campaign for a cultural boycott of Israel is having an impact?

Roger Waters: I’d like to think that it was.

My experience when I speak to people to and say “don’t go” is either they reply “that sounds good” or they say “don’t you think it’s better to go there?”

Well, no, I fucking don’t.

I think that the kind of boycott that was implemented against the apartheid regime in South Africa back in the day is probably the most effective way to go because the situation is that the Israeli government runs an apartheid regime in Israel, the occupied territories and everywhere else it decides. Let us not forget that they laid waste to most of Lebanon around the time I started getting involved in this issue. They destroyed airports, hospitals, any public buildings they could.
They are running riot and it seems unlikely that running over there and playing the violin will have any lasting effect.

DC: Have you personally asked any fellow musicians to boycott Israel?

RW: Yeah, I have.

DC: Would you prepared to say who those musicians were?

RW: No, I wouldn’t be. It was entirely private between me and them.

All I would say is that part of my involvement here in the Russell Tribunal today and tomorrow is that I am about to publish an open letter written to all my colleagues in the music industry, asking them to join me in the BDS movement. This is not just to colleagues in the UK or US but around the world.

What caused me to write this public letter was an affair where Stevie Wonder was hired to play a gala dinner for the Israeli Defense Forces on 6 December last year. I wrote a letter to him saying that this would be like playing a police ball in Johannesburg the day after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. It wouldn’t be a great thing to do, particularly as he was meant to be a UN ambassador for peace. It wasn’t just me. Desmond Tutu also wrote a letter.

To his eternal credit, Stevie Wonder called them [the gala’s organizers] up and said “I didn’t quite get it” [and canceled the performance]. This happened one week after I made a speech to the UN. Neither of these events were reported anywhere in the mainstream media in the United States of America.

Both events were almost as important as [TV personality] Kim Kardashian’s bra size. The way they are not being reported means the media must be under instructions from somewhere not to report these things to the American public, on what grounds I cannot guess.

DC: How do you feel about the support for Israel offered by David Cameron’s government in your native Britain?

RW: Cameron has absolutely adopted Tony Blair’s wolf’s clothing that he [Blair] adopted so eagerly and happily when he went to war in Iraq on George Bush’s coat-tails.

Cameron is entirely content for Great Britain to be a satellite nation of the US. None of us can quite understand why.

There is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. The EU’s diplomatic emissaries [in the West Bank] joined together [recently]. They protested the settlements and asked for sanctions. This is almost unprecedented. But the governments of these emissaries have done nothing and continue to do nothing.

I have been very disillusioned with UK foreign policy really since [Harold] Wilson [a Labor Party prime minister during the 1960s and 1970s]. It was such a political turnabout from [Labor leaders] Keir Hardie and [Clement] Attlee and the principles of British socialism. It was a precursor for taking over the country with the appalling monetarist strategies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. I’m quite ashamed of the way we have behaved. The UK has been royally fucking the world over for centuries — not least you bog Irish.

DC: One of your fellow jurors on the Russell Tribunal, Stéphane Hessel, died recently. Did you know him well?

RW: I knew him very little. What a brave, eloquent, good-hearted, brilliant man.

DC: As a musician, have you had a chance to check out the vibrant Palestinian hip-hop scene?

RW: I haven’t. But if it thrives, I can’t find anything negative about that, so long as it’s not about bling and booty and wearing a baseball cap sideways. So long as it’s about protest and realism, rather than the flight from realism that hip-hop is in the US.

DC: In your speech to the UN, you paid tribute to Rachel Corrie. Is there anything you would like to say about Rachel Corrie, given that it’s the tenth anniversary of her murder?
 
RW: Her parents attended the [Russell Tribunal] session in New York [last year]. It was very moving.
 
DC: Do you support the hunger strikes being undertaken by a number of Palestinian prisoners?
 
RW: The thing about political prisoners is: it doesn’t matter if you are in the Maze [in Northern Ireland] or in a prison somewhere in Israel, your options are very limited. Hunger strikes or dirty protests are some of the very few options to bring attention to your specific predicament.
I respect the brave men and women who go to those lengths. As we know, hunger-striking is not like going on a diet. It is real, dangerous and painful. You don’t do it without compelling reasons.

David Cronin is a contributing editor with The Electronic Intifada. His book Europe’s Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation is published by Pluto Press.
Roger Waters address at The United Nations 29th November 2012 on behalf of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (PDF file)

The text of the speech delivered to “The UN Committee on the exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian People.” (UNISPAL) (page 1 to page 9)

    The original un-edited speech. (page 10 to page 17)

1.

Mr. Chairman, your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

Thank you very much for receiving me at this moment of solidarity and crisis. I am a musician, not a diplomat, and so I shall not waste this precious opportunity on niceties of protocol. However I will say that you must all be suffering from listening fatigue, to a certain extent, so while I’ve been sitting there listening as well, I’ve been editing my rather long speech down to a rather shorter speech, but I believe the full text will be available to anybody who cares to read it, at the end of this meeting.
I appear before you as a representative of the fourth Russell Tribunal on Palestine and in that capacity I am representing global civil society.

By way of preamble I should say my remarks here today are not personal or driven by prejudice or malice, I am looking only to shed some light on the predicament of a beleaguered people.
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine was created to shed such light, to seek accountability for the violations of international law and the lack of United Nations resolve that prevent the Palestinian people from achieving their inalienable rights, especially the right of self-determination. One particular stimulus to our convening was the disturbing failure of the international community to implement and enforce the clear judgment of the International Court of Justice in 2004, contained in its advisory opinion on the Israeli Wall, as requested by the UN.

We met here in New York City, six weeks ago, on the 6th and 7th of October, having previously sent out invitations to all interested parties.  After listening to exhaustive testimony from many expert witnesses, and after careful deliberation, we arrived at the following judgements.

We found that the State of Israel is guilty of a number of international crimes.

Apartheid

The UN’s International Covenant on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, defines that crime as inhuman acts by any government that are “committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”  As you all know, the prohibited acts include arbitrary arrest, legislative measures that discriminate in the political, social, economic and cultural fields; measures that divide the population along racial lines, and the persecution of those opposed to the system of apartheid.

As you are aware, this finding by the tribunal was endorsed earlier

In the year by the HRC Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva after submissions by the Tribunal made both orally and in writing.
Ethnic cleansing.  In this case that crime includes the systematic eviction of much of the native Palestinian population by force since 1947-48.

Collective punishment of a civilian population, explicitly prohibited by the Geneva Convention Article 33. Israel has violated its obligation as Occupying Power throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Its most serious violations have occurred recently in Gaza with the blockade and virtual imprisonment of the entire population, the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians during the Israeli offensive, “Operation Cast Lead” in 2008 and 9, and now the devastation wrought by the recent attack, ironically named, “Operation Pillar of Defense.”

As I speak, I can hear the tut, tutting of governmental and media tongues trotting out the well worn mantra of the apologists, but “Hamas started it with their rocket attacks, Israel is only defending itself,”

Let us examine that argument. Did Hamas start “It”? When did “It” start?

How we understand history is shaped by when we start the clock. If we start the clock at a moment when rockets are fired from Gaza into Israel on a certain afternoon that, is one history. If we start the clock earlier that morning, when a 13-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead by Israeli soldiers as he played soccer on a Gaza field, history starts to look a little different. If we go back further we see that since “Operation Cast Lead”, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem, 271

Palestinians were killed by Israeli, bombs, rockets, drones and warplanes, and during the same period not a single Israeli was killed. A good case can be made that “It” started in 1967 with the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. History tells us that the invasion and occupation of a land and the subjugation of its people almost always creates a resistance. Ask the French or the Dutch or the Poles or the Czechs, the list goes on. This crisis in Gaza is a crisis rooted in occupation.

Israel and its allies would contend that Gaza is no longer occupied. Really? The withdrawal of soldiers and settlers in 2005 changed the nature, not the existence, of occupation. Israel still controls Gaza’s airspace, coastal waters, borders, land, economy and lives. Gaza is still occupied. The people of Gaza, the 1.6 million Palestinians, half of them children under the age of 16, live in an open-air prison.  That is the reality that underlies the current crisis. And until we, not only understand that, but also until you, Excellencies, your governments, and your General Assembly take responsibility to end that occupation, we cannot even hope that the current crisis is over. In October, on the last occasion jurors from The Russell Tribunal addressed this committee, we were assured that our representations and reports would be advanced on the floor of the GA for general debate. If things go well today we may hope to hold you, Excellencies, to that assurance.

I have diverted briefly, let me return to the Israeli violations, which the Russell Tribunal identified.

4. Contravention of the Fourth Geneva convention’s prohibition on settlements  specifically Article 49. The settlements, ALL the settlements, are not simply an obstacle to peace, they are illegal. Period.  Full Stop.  All of them. You, in the General Assembly, and even the Security Council as well, have over the years identified them as illegal.  And yet they stand, a daily reality in which now more than 600,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem violate the law every morning simply by waking up – because their houses sit on illegally expropriated land. It is not enough to call, as some governments do, for an end to further settlement expansion; if we are to live under the law the entire settlement undertaking must be ended.

5. Use of illegal weapons. During Israel’s Cast Lead operation four years ago, international human rights organizations documented Tel Aviv’s use of white phosphorous in attacks on Gaza. Human Rights Watch found that, and I quote, “Israel’s repeated firing of white phosphorous shells over densely populated areas of Gaza during its recent military campaign was indiscriminate and is evidence of war crimes.” White phosphorous burns at up to 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. Imagine what happens when it comes into contact with the skin of a child. Human Rights Watch called for Israel’s “senior commanders” to be held accountable. But so far, there has been no such accountability. No governments, nor even you, the United Nations General Assembly, have attempted to hold these Israeli commanders accountable. We hear a great deal about the UN’s commitment to the “responsibility to protect” vulnerable populations.  Surely the UN’s “responsibility to protect” must extend to this most vulnerable of populations, Palestinians, imprisoned in a crowded, besieged open-air prison?

There are more violations, your Excellencies, but you know that. Your resolutions trace the history of Israeli violations. You regret, you deplore, you even condemn the violations. But when have your resolutions been implemented?  It is not enough to deplore and condemn. What we need is for the United Nations – for you, excellencies, your governments and the General Assembly in which you serve – to take seriously your Responsibility to Protect Palestinians living under occupation and facing the daily violation of their inalienable rights of self-determination and equality.

The will of “we the people of these United Nations” is that all our brothers and sisters should be free to live in self determination, that the oppressed should be released from their burden, by being given recourse to the law, and that the oppressors should be called to account by that same law.

In 1981 I wrote a song, called ‘The Gunner’s Dream’ it appeared on a Pink Floyd album ‘The Final Cut’, the song purports to express the dying dream of an RAF gunner as he plunges to his death from a stricken aircraft towards the corner of some foreign field. He dreams of the future for which he is giving his life. I quote.

A place to stay
Enough to eat
Somewhere old heroes shuffle safely down the street
Where you can speak out loud about your doubts and fears
And what’s more
No one ever disappears you never hear their standard issue
Kicking in your door.
You can relax on both sides of the tracks
And maniacs, don’t blow holes, in bandsmen by remote control
And everyone has recourse to the law
And no one kills the children anymore
No one kills the children anymore.

In 1982 and again in 1983, the General Assembly passed resolutions holding Israel accountable for its violations. Those resolutions called for a complete arms embargo on Israel and an end to military aid and trade with Israel. Those resolutions were never implemented.  We never expected the United States, or my government, I’m from The UK, by the way, to implement those GA resolutions – the U.S. is giving Israel $4.1 billion this year to bolster its already bloated military. The IMF says Israel is the 26th wealthiest country in the world, and Israel is the only nuclear weapons state in the Middle East – why would any government be giving them money for more arms? Beats me. But the reality that they are does not excuse other governments from their obligations to implement those arms embargo resolutions.

No such embargo has been imposed. Instead, it has fallen to global civil society to take the lead. Following a 2005 call from Palestinian civil society, social movements, activists, and increasingly church bodies and even some local government authorities around the world have created the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. It aims, as many of you know, to bring non-violent economic pressure to bear on Israel to force an end to its violations, an end to occupation and apartheid, an end to the denial of Palestinians’ right of return, and an end to Palestinian citizens of Israel being required to live as second class citizens, discriminated against on racial grounds, and subject to different laws than their Jewish compatriots. The BDS movement is gaining ground hand over fist. Just last week I was happy to write a letter of support to the Student Government of the University of California, Irvine, congratulating them on demanding that their University divest from companies that profit from the Israeli occupation.

Also, last summer I was in Pittsburg to witness The Presbyterian Churches of the USA general assembly vote on a resolution to divest from Motorola, Caterpillar and Hewlett Packard, this would have been unthinkable ten years ago. To quote the great Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are a ‘Changing”

Back to today.

You, the members of the General Assembly are about to have the opportunity to vote on changing Palestine’s UN status to that of a non-member State.

Whilst not according full UN membership, it would provide UN recognition to Palestine as a state that would have the right to sign treaties – crucially including the Rome Treaty as a signatory to the International Criminal Court.

This is a momentous occasion, which was started here 13 months ago. It is one of those rare instances where you, Excellencies, can change the course and the face of history, and at the same time reinforce one of the founding principles of the UN – the right to self determination. The bid implicitly incorporates pre 1967 borders, includes the integrity of East Jerusalem, an autonomous Gaza and the refugee diaspora.

It is momentous because there are already over 132 members who have recognized Palestine as a state and more are appearing every day. And, now, just this week Hamas has lent its support.
I urge you to consider two points. Firstly, please resist pressure from any powerful government to coerce you into defeating or delaying this issue – sadly there is a history of coercion in this hallowed place. No Government, however rich or powerful should be allowed to use its financial or military muscle to set UN policy by bullying other states on this or any other issue.

Secondly, do not take the statehood vote as the end of fulfilling your obligations – General Assembly responsibility goes far beyond UN technicalities, it must include real protection for Palestinians under occupation and real accountability for violations of the law. You have powers you do not use. You do not have to defer to or wait for the Security Council.

In just a few months we will commemorate the tenth anniversary of the killing of Rachel Corrie, the young peace activist killed by an Israeli soldier driving an armored Caterpillar bulldozer as she tried to protect the house of a pharmacist and his family in Rafah, on Gaza’s border. International activists like Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall and James Miller took the risks they did, and they, and their families paid the ultimate price, because the international community – your governments and the United Nations itself – had failed to protect the vulnerable Palestinian population living under this prolonged occupation. We are proud, though tears burn our eyes, of the work of these young activists and deeply moved by their sacrifice. But we are angry, too, that our governments and our international institutions, including the General Assembly, have failed to provide the protection that would make Rachel Corrie’s sacrifice unnecessary. Also let us not forget the thousands of courageous and anonymous Palestinians and their equally courageous Israeli brothers and sisters in arms (boycott from within) who protest peacefully on a weekly basis for the simple basic right to an ordinary human life. The right to live in dignity and peace, to raise their families, to till the land, to build a just society, to travel abroad, to be free of occupation, to aspire to each and every human goal, just like the rest of us.

Speaking of the rest of us, I live here in New York City. We are a somewhat parochial group, we New Yorkers, to a large extent cut off by propaganda and privilege from the realities of the Palestinians plight. Few of us understand that the government of the United States of America, particularly through its power of veto in the Security Council, protects Israel from the condemnation of the global civil society that I have the honor to represent here today.

Even as bombs rained down on 1.6 million people in Gaza, the President of The United States of America reasserted his position that “Israel has the right to defend itself.”

We all know the reach and power of Israel’s military capability and the deadly effects of its actions. So what did President Obama mean?  Did he mean that Israel has the right to indefinitely occupy the whole of the region, that Israel has the right to forcibly evict the populations of the occupied territories, house-by-house, village-by-village?  Did he mean that in this special case Israel has the right to carry out campaigns of ethnic cleansing and apartheid, and that the U.S. will protect Israel’s right to do so? Did he mean that Israel has the right to build roads, in occupied territory, protected by razor wire and concrete walls and CCTV and machine guns to protect the residents of Jewish-only settlements?  Did he mean that in discriminate and deadly bombing attacks, including the use of white phosphorous, on the civilian population of Gaza, by an overwhelmingly superior military force, is justified on the grounds of defense?

The Palestinians are an ancient, intelligent, cultured, hospitable, and generous people. And of course they have pride and will resist the occupation of their land and defend their women and children and their property to the best of their ability. Who would not? Would you? Would I? Would President Obama? One would hope so. It would be his duty. Imagine Washington DC, walled in, a prison, mainly rubble from repeated attacks. No one allowed in or out. Constant power cuts, foreign gunboats on the Potomac killing the fishermen, warplanes launching surgical air strikes from their impunity on high, taking out, not only the resistance but women and children too.

More than a generation ago, the General Assembly passed resolution 2625, dealing with the principle of equal rights and self-determination. It recognized that when a people face “any forcible action” depriving them of those rights, that they have the right to “actions against, and resistance to” such use of force. When the international community does not shoulder its “responsibility to protect,” Palestinians will shoulder that responsibility themselves.

This is not to suggest that I support the launching of missiles into Israel. The internationally recognized legal right of resistance means attacking any military target engaged in illegal occupation. But let us be clear, as we believe in The Law as indispensable and even handed. The launching of unguided rockets into Israel, where the most likely targets will be civilians, is not a legal form of resistance.

Many civil society activists – including many Palestinians and Israelis – are committed to non-violent resistance. The BDS movement, which has spread from Palestinian civil society to activists around the world, is part of that non-violent resistance and I support it whole heartedly, but let us be clear that the disparity of power, and the reality of the occupation, and the response of the occupied is the reality we face unless we find recourse in international law and hold all parties to it. In the meantime
Let me try to dial back the rhetoric a little and address the “Israel has a right to defend itself” claim from a legal and historical perspective.

Ex injuria non oritur jus - “A legal right or entitlement cannot arise from injustice”

If we truly oppose all violence, whether by the occupier or violent resistance by the occupied, we must aim to end the root causes of violence.  In this conflict, that means ending Israel’s occupation, colonization, ethnic cleansing, and the denial of the right to self determination and other inalienable rights that the Palestinian people is entitled to according to the UN charter and other tenets of international law.

So to the Future.

Hamas, having dropped its original demand for Israel to be dismantled in the run up to the elections was democratically elected in January2006, in elections deemed free and fair by every international observer present, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. The leaders of Hamas have made their position clear over and over again. It is this: Hamas is open to permanent peace with Israel if there is total withdrawal to the 1967 borders (22 per cent of historic Palestine), and the arrangement is supported by a referendum of all Palestinians living under occupation. I know you all know this, but where I live they don’t know this, they don’t know that that is the position of Hamas. So I’m telling them.

Mr. Chairman, Excellencies, friends. We are all here for the same reason. We are all committed to human rights, international law, the centrality of the United Nations and equality for all – including for Palestinians. We are all attending this meeting on 29th November that marks the UN’s International Day of Solidarity with The Palestinian People.

But it seems to me, our commemoration of this day is not enough.

So, what else to do? The battleground is here, at the headquarters of the United Nations, and simultaneously in the middle of New York City, with access to the media. The battle is two pronged:

To continue the work of informing the people of the USA about the reality of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and most especially, about the role of their government, the host country of the United Nations, using their tax dollars to fund and enable Israel’s violations. To remind them of the billions of dollars in military aid every year, the absolute protection of Israel in the United Nations, in the International Criminal Court and elsewhere to assure its impunity for war crimes and potential crimes against humanity – to impress upon them, “the people of the United States of America” that these dubious attachments remain the center piece of their governments’ policy in the Middle East.

Just as importantly, we must address, finally, serious reform of the U.N. The UN needs to embrace a new democracy. The veto must be rethought, or the UN will die. The use of the veto as a strategic political tool by one or other of the permanent members of the Security Council has become outmoded. The power of veto residing in the hands of just five nations makes something of a mockery of the pretence of democracy, of the idea that “The will of the Peoples” is represented here. The system is too open to abuse. The blanket protection afforded to Israel by the United States’ use of the veto, is but one example of such abuse. For instance in 1973 it blocked a resolution Re-affirming the rights of Palestinians and demanding withdrawal from the occupied territories, in 1976 another resolution calling for The right of self determination for the Palestinians, and two resolutions in1997 calling for Cessation of settlement building in E. Jerusalem and other occupied territories. There are many more.

l urge you, the General Assembly, to collectively work towards wresting the power back to the people in order to facilitate progress towards a more democratic body, better able to pursue the high aspirations of this great institution, to represent the will of the peoples of these great United Nations.
You, the General Assembly, represent the largest, most democratic component of the United Nations. The United States, and China and France and Russia and the UK have no veto here. What is needed is political will. You can make decisions, and take actions, that the Security Council cannot, or will not. The United Nations Charter begins with the words “We, the peoples, of these United Nations.”  Not “We the governments.”  I urge you, on behalf of the people of your countries, on behalf of the people of all countries, in fact on behalf of all the peoples, of this, our shared earth, to act.

Seize this historic moment.

Support the vote today for Palestinian enhanced observer statehood status as a step towards full membership.

And declare Israel’s continued membership of the UN to be dependent on reform of its illegal apartheid regime.

Thank you,

Roger Waters
29th November 2012

2.
The Full Un-Edited Text.

Mr. Secretary-General, Mr. Chairman, your Excellences, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Thank you for receiving me at this moment of solidarity and crisis. I am a musician, not a diplomat, and so I shall not waste this precious opportunity on niceties of protocol.

I appear before you as a representative of the fourth Russell Tribunal on Palestine and in that capacity I am representing global civil society.

By way of preamble I should say my remarks here today are not personal or driven by prejudice or malice, I am looking only to shed some light on the predicament of a beleaguered people.

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine was created to shed such light, to seek accountability for the violations of international law and the lack of United Nations resolve that prevent the Palestinian people from achieving their inalienable rights, especially the right of self-determination. One particular stimulus to our convening was the disturbing failure of the international community to implement and enforce the clear judgment of the International Court of Justice in 2004, contained in its advisory opinion on the Israeli Wall, as requested by the UN.

We met here in New York City, six weeks ago, on the 6th and 7th of October, having previously sent out invitations to all interested parties.  After listening to exhaustive testimony from many expert witnesses, and after careful deliberation, we arrived at the following judgments.

We found that the State of Israel is guilty of a number of international crimes.
 
1. Apartheid.
The UN’s International Covenant on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, defines that crime as inhuman acts by any government that are “committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”  As you all know, the prohibited acts include arbitrary arrest, legislative measures that discriminate in the political, social, economic and cultural fields; measures that divide the population along racial lines, and the persecution of those opposed to the system of apartheid.

As you are aware this finding by the tribunal was endorsed earlier in the year by the HRC Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva after submissions by the Tribunal made
both orally and in writing.

2. Ethnic cleansing.  In this case that crime includes the systematic eviction of much of the native Palestinian population by force since 1947-48.

3. Collective punishment of a civilian population, explicitly prohibited by the Geneva Convention Article 33. Israel has violated its obligation as Occupying Power throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Its most serious violations have occurred recently in Gaza with the blockade and virtual imprisonment of the entire population, the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians during the Israeli offensive, Operation Cast Lead in 2008 and 2009, and now the devastation wrought by the recent attack, ironically named, “Operation Pillar of Defense.”

As I speak, I can hear the tut, tutting of governmental and media tongues trotting out the well worn mantra of the apologists.

“Hamas started it with their rocket attacks, Israel is only defending itself,”

Let us examine that argument. Did Hamas start “It”? When did “It” start?

How we understand history is shaped by when we start the clock. If we start the clock at a moment when rockets are fired from Gaza into Israel on a certain afternoon that is one history. If we start the clock earlier that morning, when a 13-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead by Israeli soldiers as he played soccer on a Gaza field, history starts to look a little different. If we go back further we see that since ‘Operation Cast Lead’, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem, 271

Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombs, rockets, drones and warplanes, and during the same period not a single Israeli was killed. A good case can be made that ’It’ started in 1967 with the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. History tells us that the invasion and occupation of a land and the subjugation of its people almost always creates a resistance. Ask the French or the Dutch or the Poles or the Czechs, the list goes on. This crisis in Gaza is a crisis rooted in occupation.

Israel and its allies would contend that Gaza is no longer occupied. Really? The withdrawal of soldiers and settlers in 2005 changed the nature, not the existence, of occupation. Israel still controls Gaza’s airspace, coastal waters, borders, land, economy and lives. Gaza is still occupied. The people of Gaza, the 1.6 million Palestinians, half of them children under the age of 16, live in an open-air prison.  That is the reality that underlies the current crisis. And until we, not only understand that, and until you, Excellencies, your governments, and your General Assembly take responsibility to end that occupation, we cannot even hope that the current crisis is over. In October, on the last occasion jurors from The Russell Tribunal addressed this committee, we were assured that our representations and reports would be advanced on the floor of the GA for general debate. If things go well today we may hope to hold you, Excellences, to that assurance.

I have diverted briefly, let me return to the Israeli violations, which the Russell Tribunal identified.

4. Contravention of the Fourth Geneva convention’s prohibition on settlements– specifically Article 49. The settlements, ALL the settlements, are not simply an obstacle to peace, they are illegal. Period.  Full Stop.  All of them. You, in the General Assembly, and even the Security Council as well, have over the years identified them as illegal.  And yet they stand, a daily reality in which now more than 600,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem violate the law every morning simply by waking up – because their houses sit on illegally expropriated land. It is not enough to call, as some governments do, for an end to further settlement expansion; if we are to live under the law the entire settlement undertaking must be ended.

5. Use of illegal weapons. During Israel’s Cast Lead operation four years ago, international human rights organizations documented Tel Aviv’s use of white phosphorous in attacks on Gaza. Human Rights Watch found that, and I quote, “Israel’s repeated firing of white phosphorous shells over densely populated areas of Gaza during its recent military campaign was indiscriminate and is evidence of war crimes.” White phosphorous burns at up to 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. Imagine what happens when it comes into contact with the skin of a child. Human Rights Watch called for Israel’s “senior commanders” to be held accountable. But so far, there has been no such accountability. No governments, nor even you, the United Nations General Assembly, have attempted to hold these Israeli commanders accountable. We hear a great deal about the UN’s commitment to the “responsibility to protect” vulnerable populations.  Surely the UN’s “responsibility to protect” must extend to this most vulnerable of populations, Palestinians, imprisoned in a crowded, besieged open-air prison?

There are more violations, your Excellencies, but you know that. Your resolutions trace the history of Israeli violations. You regret, you deplore, you even condemn the violations. But when have your resolutions been implemented?  It is not enough to deplore and condemn. What we need is for the United Nations – for you, excellencies, your governments and the General Assembly in which you serve – to take seriously your Responsibility to Protect Palestinians living under occupation and facing the daily violation of their inalienable rights of self-determination and equality.

The will of “we the people of these United Nations” is that all our brothers and sisters should be free to live in self determination, that the oppressed should be released from their burden, by being given recourse to the law, and that the oppressors should be called to account by that same law.

In 1981 I wrote a song, called ‘The Gunner’s Dream’ it appeared on a Pink Floyd album ‘The Final Cut’, the song purports to express the dying dream of a RAF gunner as he plunges to his death from a stricken aircraft towards the corner of some foreign field. He dreams of the future for which he is giving his life. I quote.

A place to stay
Enough to eat
Somewhere old heroes shuffle safely down the street
Where you can speak out loud about your doubts and fears
And what’s more
No one ever disappears you never hear their standard issue
Kicking in your door.
You can relax on both sides of the tracks
And maniacs, don’t blow holes, in bandsmen by remote control
And everyone has recourse to the law
And no one kills the children anymore
No one kills the children anymore.

In 1982 and again in 1983, the General Assembly passed resolutions holding Israel accountable for its violations. Those resolutions called for a complete arms embargo and an end to military aid and trade with Israel. Those resolutions were never implemented.  We never expected the United States, or my government, I’m from The UK, by the way, to implement those GA resolutions – the U.S. is giving Israel $4.1 billion this year to bolster its already bloated military. The IMF says Israel is the 26th wealthiest country in the world, and Israel is the only nuclear weapons state in the Middle East – why would any government be giving them money for more arms? Beats me. But the reality that they are does not excuse other governments from their obligations to implement those arms embargo resolutions.

No such embargo has been imposed. Instead, it has fallen to global civil society to take the lead. Following a 2005 call from Palestinian civil society, social movements, activists, and increasingly church bodies and even some local government authorities around the world have created the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. It aims, as many of you know, to bring non-violent economic pressure to bear on Israel to force an end to its violations, an end to occupation and apartheid, an end to the denial of Palestinians’ right of return, and an end to Palestinian citizens of Israel being required to live as second class citizens, discriminated against on racial grounds, and subject to different laws than their Jewish compatriots. The BDS movement is gaining ground hand over fist. Just last week I was happy to write a letter of support to the Student Government of the University of California, Irvine, congratulating them on demanding that their University divest from companies that profit from the Israeli occupation.

Also last summer I was in Pittsburg to witness The Presbyterian Churches of the USA general assembly vote on a resolution to divest from Motorola, Caterpillar and Hewlett Packard, this would have been unthinkable ten years ago. To quote the great Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are a’Changing”

Back to today.

You, the members of the General Assembly are about to have the opportunity to vote on changing Palestine’s UN status to that of a non-member State.

Whilst not according full UN membership, it would provide UN recognition to Palestine as a state that would have the right to sign treaties – crucially including the Rome Treaty as a signatory to the International Criminal Court.

This is a momentous occasion, which was started here 13 months ago. It is one of those rare instances where you, excellencies, can change the course and the face of history, and at the same time reinforce one of the founding principles of the UN – the right to self determination. The bid implicitly incorporates pre 1967 borders, includes the integrity of East Jerusalem, an autonomous Gaza and the refugee diaspora.

It is momentous because there are already over 132 members who have recognized Palestine as a state and more are appearing every day. And, now, just this week Hamas has lent its support.

I urge you to consider two points. Firstly, please resist pressure from any powerful government to coerce you into defeating or delaying this issue – sadly there is a history of coercion in this hallowed place. No Government, however rich or powerful should be allowed to use its financial or military muscle to set UN policy by bullying other states on this or any other issue.

Secondly, do not take the statehood vote as the end of fulfilling your obligations – General Assembly responsibility goes far beyond UN technicalities, it must include real protection of Palestinians under occupation and real accountability for violations of the law. You have powers you do not use. You do not have to defer to or wait for the Security Council.

In just a few months we will commemorate the tenth anniversary of the killing of Rachel Corrie, the young peace activist killed by an Israeli soldier driving an armored Caterpillar bulldozer as she tried to protect the house of a pharmacist and his family in Rafah, on Gaza’s border. International activists like Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall and James Miller took the risks they did, and they, and their families paid the ultimate price, because the international community – your governments and the United Nations itself – had failed to protect the vulnerable Palestinian population living under this prolonged occupation. We are proud, though tears burn our eyes, of the work of these young activists and deeply moved by their sacrifice. But we are angry, too, that our governments and our international institutions, including the General Assembly, have failed to provide the protection that would make Rachel Corrie’s sacrifice unnecessary. Also let us not forget the thousands of courageous and anonymous Palestinians and their equally courageous Israeli brothers and sisters in arms (boycott from within) who protest peacefully on a weekly basis for the simple basic right to an ordinary human life. The right to live in dignity and peace, to raise their families, to till the land, to build a just society, to travel abroad, to be free of occupation, to aspire to each and every human goal, just like the rest of us.

Speaking of the rest of us, I live here in New York City. We are a somewhat parochial group, we New Yorkers, to a large extent cut off by propaganda and privilege from the realities of the Palestinians plight. Few of us understand that the government of the United States of America, particularly through its power of veto in the Security Council, protects Israel from the condemnation of the global civil society that I have the honor to represent here today.

Even as bombs rained down on 1.6 million people in Gaza, the President of The United States of America reasserted his position that “Israel has the right to defend itself.”

We all know the reach and power of Israel’s military capability and the deadly effects of its actions. So what did President Obama mean?  Did he mean that Israel has the right to indefinitely occupy the whole of the region, that Israel has the right to forcibly evict the populations of the occupied territories, house by house, village by village?  Did he mean that in this special case Israel has the right to carry out campaigns of ethnic cleansing and apartheid, and that the U.S. will protect Israel’s right to do so? Did he mean that Israel has the right to build roads, in occupied territory, protected by razor wire and concrete walls and CCTV and machine guns to protect the residents of Jewish-only settlements?  Did he mean that in discriminate and deadly bombing attacks, including the use of white phosphorous, on the civilian population of Gaza, by an overwhelmingly superior military force, is justified on the grounds of defense?

The Palestinians are an ancient, intelligent, cultured, hospitable, and generous people. And of course they have pride and will resist the occupation of their land and defend their women and children and their property to the best of their ability. Who would not? Would you? Would I? Would President Obama? One would hope so. It would be his duty. Imagine Washington DC, walled in, a prison, mainly rubble from repeated attacks. No one allowed in or out. Constant power cuts, foreign gunboats on the Potomac killing the fishermen, warplanes launching surgical air strikes from their impunity on high, taking out, not only the resistance but women and children too.

More than a generation ago, the General Assembly passed resolution 2625, dealing with the principle of equal rights and self-determination. It recognized that when a people face “any forcible action” depriving them of those rights, that they have the right to “actions against, and resistance to” such use of force. When the international community does not shoulder its “responsibility to protect,” Palestinians will shoulder that responsibility themselves.

This is not to suggest that I support the launching of missiles into Israel. The internationally recognized legal right of resistance means attacking any military target engaged in illegal occupation. But let us be clear, as we believe in The Law as indispensable and even handed. The launching of unguided rockets into Israel, where the most likely targets will be civilians, is not a legal form of resistance.

Many civil society activists – including many Palestinians and Israelis – are committed to non-violent resistance. The BDS movement, which has spread from Palestinian civil society to activists around the world, is part of that non-violent resistance and I support it whole heartedly, but let us be clear that the disparity of power, and the reality of the occupation, and the response of the occupied is the reality we face unless we find recourse in international law and hold all parties to it. In the meantime
Let me try to dial back the rhetoric a little and address the “Israel has a right to defend itself” claim from a legal and historical perspective.

Ex injuria non oritur jus.

“A legal right or entitlement cannot arise from injustice”
If we truly oppose all violence, whether by the occupier or violent resistance by the occupied, we must aim to end the root causes of violence.  In this conflict, that means ending Israel’s occupation, colonization, ethnic cleansing, and the denial of the right to self determination and other inalienable rights that the Palestinian people is entitled to according to the UN charter and other tenets of international law.

So to the Future.

Hamas, having dropped its original demand for Israel to be dismantled in the run up to the elections was democratically elected in January2006, in elections deemed free and fair by every international observer present, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. The leaders of Hamas have made their position clear over and over again. It is this: Hamas is open to permanent peace with Israel if there is total withdrawal to the 1967 borders (22 per cent of historic Palestine), and the arrangement is supported by a referendum of all Palestinians living under occupation.

Mr. Chairman, Excellencies, friends. We are all here for the same reason. We are all committed to human rights, international law, the centrality of the United Nations and equality for all – including for Palestinians. We are all attending this meeting on 29th November that marks the UN’s International Day of Solidarity with The Palestinian People.

But it seems to me, our commemoration of this day is not enough.

So, what else to do? The battleground is here, at the headquarters of the United Nations, and simultaneously in the middle of New York City, with access to the media. The battle is two pronged:
To continue the work of informing the people of the USA about the reality of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and most especially, about the role of their government, the host country of the United Nations, using their tax dollars to fund and enable Israel’s violations. To remind them of the billions of dollars in military aid every year, the absolute protection of Israel in the United Nations, in the International Criminal Court and elsewhere to assure its impunity for war crimes and potential crimes against humanity – to impress upon them, “the people of the United States of America” that these dubious attachments remain the center piece of their governments’ policy in the Middle East.
Just as importantly, we must address, finally, serious reform of the U.N. The UN needs to embrace a new democracy. The veto must be rethought, or the UN will die. The use of the veto as a strategic political tool by one or other of the permanent members of the Security Council has become outmoded. The power of veto residing in the hands of just five nations makes something of a mockery of the pretense of democracy, of the idea that “The will of the Peoples” is represented here. The system is too open to abuses. The blanket protection afforded to Israel by the United States’ use of the veto is but one example of such abuse. For instance in 1973 it blocked a resolution Re-affirming the rights of Palestinians and demanding withdrawal from the occupied territories, in 1976 another resolution calling for The right of self determination for the Palestinians, and two resolutions in1997 calling for Cessation of settlement building in E. Jerusalem and other occupied territories. There are many more.

I urge you, the General Assembly, to collectively work towards wresting the power back to the people in order to facilitate progress towards a more democratic body, better able to pursue the high aspirations of this great institution, to represent the will of the peoples of these great United Nations.
You, the General Assembly, represent the largest, most democratic component of the United Nations. The United States, and China and France and Russia and the UK have no veto here. What is needed is political will. You can make decisions, and take actions, that the Security Council cannot, or will not. The United Nations Charter begins with the words “We, the peoples, of these United Nations.”  Not “We the governments.”  I urge you, on behalf of the people of your countries, on behalf of the people of all countries, in fact on behalf of all the peoples, of this, our shared earth, to act.
Seize this historic moment.

Support the vote today for Palestinian enhanced observer statehood status as a step towards full membership.

And declare Israel’s continued membership of the UN to be dependent on reform of its illegal apartheid regime.

Thank you.

Roger Waters. 29th November 2012.

Roger Waters advocates BDS in an interview in The Rolling St one

An unprecedented mention of BDS in one of the world's most prominent culture magazines! It takes a music and moral giant like Roger Waters ...

Below the Rolling Stone articleRoger Waters Calls for Boycott of Israel - Pink Floyd rocker accuses government of 'running riot' is the original interview, cited in the article, that Waters gave to the Electronic Intifada's David Cronin.

Pink Floyd's Roger Waters says a boycott of Israel, similar to the one implemented against South Africa during apartheid, is the "way to go." He accuses the Israeli government of running a similar regime by occupying the West Bank and Gaza territories in a new interview with the Electronic Intifada.

Waters became an outspoken supporter of the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel after visiting the West Bank in 2006, where he spray-painted the lyric "We don't need no thought control" from Pink Floyd's famous anthem "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" on the Israeli West Bank barrier.

It’s not often that I reprint an article from the Jewish Chronicle, a paper I’m presently taking to the Press Complaints Commission.  But regardless of the lack of any materialist analysis, how the rise and fall of Islam as a world empire related to the development of industry, trade, a market, the following article is nonetheless interesting in debunking the widely held Zionist nostrum these days of a Judeo-Christian heritage against the Islamic enemy.  As if Islam has been the promoter of the Crusades and pogroms and Christianity the defender of the Jews.  And when Christianity split, in the wake of developing capitalist nation states and colonialism, the Protestant Reformation led by Luther proclaimed that ‘the Jews are our misfortune' - something Julius Streicher emblazoned on the masthead of Der Sturmer.

Tony Greenstein

So, what did the Muslims do for the Jews?

By David J Wasserstein, May 24, 2012

 Islam saved Jewry. This is an unpopular, discomforting claim in the modern world. But it is a historical truth. The argument for it is double. First, in 570 CE, when the Prophet Mohammad was born, the Jews and Judaism were on the way to oblivion. And second, the coming of Islam saved them, providing a new context in which they not only survived, but flourished, laying foundations for subsequent Jewish cultural prosperity - also in Christendom - through the medieval period into the modern world.

cordoba synagogue

By the fourth century, Christianity had become the dominant religion in the Roman empire. One aspect of this success was opposition to rival faiths, including Judaism, along with massive conversion of members of such faiths, sometimes by force, to Christianity. Much of our testimony about Jewish existence in the Roman empire from this time on consists of accounts of conversions.

Maimonides house in Fes Morocco

Great and permanent reductions in numbers through conversion, between the fourth and the seventh centuries, brought with them a gradual but relentless whittling away of the status, rights, social and economic existence, and religious and cultural life of Jews all over the Roman empire.

A long series of enactments deprived Jewish people of their rights as citizens, prevented them from fulfilling their religious obligations, and excluded them from the society of their fellows.

Had Islam not come along, Jewry in the west would have declined to disappearance and Jewry in the east would have become just another oriental cult

Maimonides monument in Cordoba

This went along with the centuries-long military and political struggle with Persia. As a tiny element in the Christian world, the Jews should not have been affected much by this broad, political issue. Yet it affected them critically, because the Persian empire at this time included Babylon - now Iraq - at the time home to the world's greatest concentration of Jews.

Here also were the greatest centres of Jewish intellectual life. The most important single work of Jewish cultural creativity in over 3,000 years, apart from the Bible itself - the Talmud - came into being in Babylon. The struggle between Persia and Byzantium, in our period, led increasingly to a separation between Jews under Byzantine, Christian rule and Jews under Persian rule.

Manuscript page by Maimonides Arabic in Hebrew letters

Beyond all this, the Jews who lived under Christian rule seemed to have lost the knowledge of their own culturally specific languages - Hebrew and Aramaic - and to have taken on the use of Latin or Greek or other non-Jewish, local, languages. This in turn must have meant that they also lost access to the central literary works of Jewish culture - the Torah, Mishnah, poetry, midrash, even liturgy.

The loss of the unifying force represented by language - and of the associated literature - was a major step towards assimilation and disappearance. In these circumstances, with contact with the one place where Jewish cultural life continued to prosper - Babylon - cut off by conflict with Persia, Jewish life in the Christian world of late antiquity was not simply a pale shadow of what it had been three or four centuries earlier. It was doomed.

Had Islam not come along, the conflict with Persia would have continued. The separation between western Judaism, that of Christendom, and Babylonian Judaism, that of Mesopotamia, would have intensified. Jewry in the west would have declined to disappearance in many areas. And Jewry in the east would have become just another oriental cult.

Egyptian Alexandria Jewish girls during BatMitzva

But this was all prevented by the rise of Islam. The Islamic conquests of the seventh century changed the world, and did so with dramatic, wide-ranging and permanent effect for the Jews.

Within a century of the death of Mohammad, in 632, Muslim armies had conquered almost the whole of the world where Jews lived, from Spain eastward across North Africa and the Middle East as far as the eastern frontier of Iran and beyond. Almost all the Jews in the world were now ruled by Islam. This new situation transformed Jewish existence. Their fortunes changed in legal, demographic, social, religious, political, geographical, economic, linguistic and cultural terms - all for the better.

Iraqi Jews Jakob Yusef, 70, and niece Khalda Salih, 38, stand in their home in the tiny remaining Baghdad Jewish community on April 17, 2003. The family has lived their entire life in Baghdad while the Jewish community has dwindled to approximately 60 members from around 400,000 in the 1960's. (Mario Tama / Getty Images)

First, things improved politically. Almost everywhere in Christendom where Jews had lived now formed part of the same political space as Babylon - Cordoba and Basra lay in the same political world. The old frontier between the vital centre in Babylonia and the Jews of the Mediterranean basin was swept away, forever.

Political change was partnered by change in the legal status of the Jewish population: although it is not always clear what happened during the Muslim conquests, one thing is certain. The result of the conquests was, by and large, to make the Jews second-class citizens.

This should not be misunderstood: to be a second-class citizen was a far better thing to be than not to be a citizen at all. For most of these Jews, second-class citizenship represented a major advance. In Visigothic Spain, for example, shortly before the Muslim conquest in 711, the Jews had seen their children removed from them and forcibly converted to Christianity and had themselves been enslaved.

In the developing Islamic societies of the classical and medieval periods, being a Jew meant belonging to a category defined under law, enjoying certain rights and protections, alongside various obligations. These rights and protections were not as extensive or as generous as those enjoyed by Muslims, and the obligations were greater but, for the first few centuries, the Muslims themselves were a minority, and the practical differences were not all that great.

Along with legal near-equality came social and economic equality. Jews were not confined to ghettos, either literally or in terms of economic activity. The societies of Islam were, in effect, open societies. In religious terms, too, Jews enjoyed virtually full freedom. They might not build many new synagogues - in theory - and they might not make too public their profession of their faith, but there was no really significant restriction on the practice of their religion. Along with internal legal autonomy, they also enjoyed formal representation, through leaders of their own, before the authorities of the state. Imperfect and often not quite as rosy as this might sound, it was at least the broad norm.

Rhodes Synagogue

The political unity brought by the new Islamic world-empire did not last, but it created a vast Islamic world civilisation, similar to the older Christian civilisation that it replaced. Within this huge area, Jews lived and enjoyed broadly similar status and rights everywhere. They could move around, maintain contacts, and develop their identity as Jews. A great new expansion of trade from the ninth century onwards brought the Spanish Jews - like the Muslims - into touch with the Jews and the Muslims even of India.

All this was encouraged by a further, critical development. Huge numbers of people in the new world of Islam adopted the language of the Muslim Arabs. Arabic gradually became the principal language of this vast area, excluding almost all the rest: Greek and Syriac, Aramaic and Coptic and Latin all died out, replaced by Arabic. Persian, too, went into a long retreat, to reappear later heavily influenced by Arabic.

Jews of Kai-Fung-Foo China

The Jews moved over to Arabic very rapidly. By the early 10th century, only 300 years after the conquests, Sa'adya Gaon was translating the Bible into Arabic. Bible translation is a massive task - it is not undertaken unless there is a need for it. By about the year 900, the Jews had largely abandoned other languages and taken on Arabic.

The change of language in its turn brought the Jews into direct contact with broader cultural developments. The result from the 10th century on was a striking pairing of two cultures. The Jews of the Islamic world developed an entirely new culture, which differed from their culture before Islam in terms of language, cultural forms, influences, and uses. Instead of being concerned primarily with religion, the new Jewish culture of the Islamic world, like that of its neighbours, mixed the religious and the secular to a high degree. The contrast, both with the past and with medieval Christian Europe, was enormous.

Like their neighbours, these Jews wrote in Arabic in part, and in a Jewish form of that language. The use of Arabic brought them close to the Arabs. But the use of a specific Jewish form of that language maintained the barriers between Jew and Muslim. The subjects that Jews wrote about, and the literary forms in which they wrote about them, were largely new ones, borrowed from the Muslims and developed in tandem with developments in Arabic Islam.

Also at this time, Hebrew was revived as a language of high literature, parallel to the use among the Muslims of a high form of Arabic for similar purposes. Along with its use for poetry and artistic prose, secular writing of all forms in Hebrew and in (Judeo-)Arabic came into being, some of it of high quality.

Much of the greatest poetry in Hebrew written since the Bible comes from this period. Sa'adya Gaon, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Ibn Ezra (Moses and Abraham), Maimonides, Yehuda Halevi, Yehudah al-Harizi, Samuel ha-Nagid, and many more - all of these names, well known today, belong in the first rank of Jewish literary and cultural endeavour.

W here did these Jews produce all this? When did they and their neighbours achieve this symbiosis, this mode of living together? The Jews did it in a number of centres of excellence. The most outstanding of these was Islamic Spain, where there was a true Jewish Golden Age, alongside a wave of cultural achievement among the Muslim population. The Spanish case illustrates a more general pattern, too.

What happened in Islamic Spain - waves of Jewish cultural prosperity paralleling waves of cultural prosperity among the Muslims - exemplifies a larger pattern in Arab Islam. In Baghdad, between the ninth and the twelfth centuries; in Qayrawan (in north Africa), between the ninth and the 11th centuries; in Cairo, between the 10th and the 12th centuries, and elsewhere, the rise and fall of cultural centres of Islam tended to be reflected in the rise and fall of Jewish cultural activity in the same places.

This was not coincidence, and nor was it the product of particularly enlightened liberal patronage by Muslim rulers. It was the product of a number of deeper features of these societies, social and cultural, legal and economic, linguistic and political, which together enabled and indeed encouraged the Jews of the Islamic world to create a novel sub-culture within the high civilisation of the time.

This did not last for ever; the period of culturally successful symbiosis between Jew and Arab Muslim in the middle ages came to a close by about 1300. In reality, it had reached this point even earlier, with the overall relative decline in the importance and vitality of Arabic culture, both in relation to western European cultures and in relation to other cultural forms within Islam itself; Persian and Turkish.

Jewish cultural prosperity in the middle ages operated in large part as a function of Muslim, Arabic cultural (and to some degree political) prosperity: when Muslim Arabic culture thrived, so did that of the Jews; when Muslim Arabic culture declined, so did that of the Jews.

In the case of the Jews, however, the cultural capital thus created also served as the seed-bed of further growth elsewhere - in Christian Spain and in the Christian world more generally.

The Islamic world was not the only source of inspiration for the Jewish cultural revival that came later in Christian Europe, but it certainly was a major contributor to that development. Its significance cannot be overestimated.

David J Wasserstein is the Eugene Greener Jr Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University. This article is adapted from last week's Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

The future Pope Francis, Cardinal Bergoglio, with the head of the Argeninian Junta General Videla

There is nothing new about the allegations surrounding the new Pope and nothing out of character either when it comes to supporting fascist violence and far-right regimes.  Franco had no better supporters than the Roman Catholic church.  The same with Mussolini.  Pope Pius XII was a fierce anti-communist who, along with the Catholic clergy in Germany supported Hitler’s war against ‘Bolshevism’ and refused to speak out against the persecution of Jews and Gypsies.

Just one Catholic priest, Pastor Bernard Lichtenberg, of Hedwig Cathedral in Berlin, spoke out against the deportation and extermination of the Jews.  Pius XII couched his condemnations in homilies and generalisations.  When on October 14/15 the Nazis rounded up over 1,000 Jews in Rome, of which the Pope is the Bishop, Pius remained silent.  Yet the silence of the Catholic Church also extended to the mass murder of its own priests in Poland, who were considered part of a Polish intelligentsia which must be wiped out.  That is why cries of ‘anti-Semitism’ are not convincing as an explanation.

In particular the Apostolic Nuncios, in Slovakia and Budapest, were without doubt responsible for intervening and doing their best to save Jews from deportation.  Indeed appalling though the official Catholic Church’s reaction to the holocaust was, the Zionist response was even worse.

It is therefore no surprise to know that the leading Catholic clergy in Argentina, of which Bergoglio was one, failed to speak out against the ‘disappearance’ of 30,000 Argentinians and their torture.

Cardinal Bergoglio and his supporters have made much of his humility, simple life (he even cooks his own meals and travels by public transport!).   There is nothing new in this.  What is clear is that Bergoglio comes from the same right-wing tradition as the former Hitler Youth Member, Cardinal Ratzinger, the former pope.  Bergoglio was fiercely opposed to liberation theology. 

As Archbishop Helder Camara of Brazil put it : ‘"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."

The Church teaches passivity in the face of the rich and the ruling class.  The meek will inherit the kingdom of god but in the present life they must acquiesce and render unto Caesar that which is his.  In the words of the Wobblies take-off of the Salvation Army they supported ‘pie in the sky’ but hunger on earth.

The Catholic Church today is a fabulously rich institution.  Pope Francis will no longer be leading a ‘humble’ life but will live surrounded by the immense wealth of the Vatican and the priceless Sistine Chapel and Basilica paintings of Michaelangelo, to say nothing of servants and bodyguards.

Tony Greenstein

The heart of darkness and the new Pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Cardinal Bergoglio

Cross posted from Organised Outrage
"The church's role and support of the dictatorship hasn't been fully shown under the light of day" - Ian Mount

Last night within minutes of learning that the new leader of Roman Catholicism hailed from the Church hierarchy in Argentina I posted the following comment on my Facebook wall:
'I wonder what his position was during the dirty war. The then cardinal was an absolute bastard and backed the government when it was murdering, raping, torturing and disappearing people.' 
From my late teens I have had an interest in that period of Argentine history known as the rule of the Generals. At a conference on oral history in Ennis recently I recommended Horacio Verbitsky's book The Flight: Confessions of an Argentinian Dirty Warrior as one that provided rich insight into the times. Although if the reader wants a more overarching and thorough account of the era, Guerrillas and Generals: The Dirty War in Argentina is hard to go past. It is certainly one of my favourite works of non-fiction read within the past decade.

sistine-chapel-michelangelo-painting - the not so humble surroundings of Pope Francis Bergoglio

Horacio Verbitsky has been one of the biggest critics of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Reportedly in his book, The Silence: from Paulo VI to Bergoglio, the secret links between the Church and the Navy Mechanics School, which unlike The Flight is not available in English, he claims that the new pontiff when “Provincial” of Argentina for the Society of Jesus, was complicit in the activities of the regime: 'It is terrible to see how he is rewarded.'

Although the 'highest ranking Jesuit in Argentina during the military dictatorship led by General Jorge Videla', Bergoglio seems not to have challenged the military juanta. And Videla would later claim in an interview that 'he had received the blessing of the country’s top clergymen for the actions of his regime.'

While Verbitsky is a serious journalist and human rights advocate he was at one time a member of the Montenero guerrillas, many of whose members suffered appalling violence at the hands of the Videla regime.

Whether his association with the guerillas has given his observations an ideological hue will always be a matter of debate and his detractors will certainly seek to use it to smear him.  Perhaps less easier to dismiss through the usual recourse to the slander rebuttal is the very dark shadow cast by legal proceedings:
In 2010, Bergoglio was questioned as a witness by judges probing the arrest and torture of two young Jesuits, Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics, who were taken to the notorious Naval School of Mechanics in March 1976. ESMA was known as a torture center during the so-called Dirty War, in which government agents targeted suspected left-wing activists, tens of thousands of whom were "disappeared." Yorio and Jalics were freed alive after five months. Bergoglio was alleged to have betrayed the young missionaries to the regime because they had become opposition sympathizers and he wanted to preserve the Jesuits' political neutrality.He was also questioned in two more investigations into alleged regime crimes, but no charges were brought and he denied any wrongdoing.

Bergoglio and Videla 

Michelangelo's Pieta in the Basilica Church in St Peter's Square

Other human rights activists who have documented the atrocities of the regime have defended the new pope.  Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel, himself tortured by the military, argued:

"Perhaps he didn’t have the courage of other priests, but he never collaborated with the dictatorship ... Bergoglio was no accomplice of the dictatorship. He can’t be accused of that."

The evidence thus far is that Bergoglio was at best silent. It was certainly a dangerous time for clergy who did speak out. They faced torture, murder and disappearance. And allegations in the Guardian two years ago that political prisoners were spirited away to Bergoglio's holiday home by the military to avoid Inter-American Human Rights Commission investigators are almost certainly without foundation. Against that, the Church has a history of lying and covering up for its princes, making it hard for the average observer to get to the truth.

1976-83 was a dark period in the history of a country already familiar with volatility and political violence. Argentine society was well into the throes of a guerrilla war where the guerrillas did not emerge with distinction for the manner in which they often treated those they kidnapped and held in people's prisons. But it was really when the military staged a coup in 1976 allowing it to take power that the country would have made an appropriate candidate for the title of Joseph Conrad’s work on Africa, The Heart of Darkness. The election of a new Catholic pontiff from a country with a dark history is already serving as an invitation to the Dirty War to yield what may be a dirty truth.

By Anthony McIntyre of the Pensive Quill.

Critics claim new Pope was part of Argentinean cover-up during junta reign

The Unholy Trinity

Critics of new Pope Francis have claimed that he maintained his silence as Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship raged a dirty war against left wing activists.

Some critics have pointed to his failure and the failure of his church to expose human rights violation at the height of military rule.

The claims were made in the wake of the publication of an interview with Argentina’s former military dictator Jorge Videla.

The interview, conducted in 2010, were only published on Sunday, hours before Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope in Rome.

In the interview, Videla claims that he kept Argentina’s Catholic hierarchy informed about his regime’s policy of ‘disappearing’ political opponents.

He also told El Sur magazine that that the country’s Catholic leaders, including the new Pope claim his critics, offered advice on how to ‘manage’ the policy.

Videla said he had ‘many conversations with Argentina’s then primate Cardinal Primatesta, about his regime’s dirty war against left-wing activists.'

He claimed there were also conversations with other leading bishops from Argentina’s Episcopal conference as well as with the country’s papal nuncio at the time, Pio Laghi.

Videla said: “They advised us about the manner in which to deal with the situation.
“In certain cases church authorities offered their good offices and undertook to inform families looking for disappeared relatives to desist from their searches, but only if they were certain the families would not use the information to denounce the junta.

“In the case of families that it was certain would not make political use of the information, they told them not to look any more for their child because he was dead.”

Videla added: “The church understood well and also assumed the risks of such involvement.”

Critics say the Videla confession confirms long-held suspicions that Argentina’s Catholic hierarchy collaborated with the military’s so-called process of national reorganisation, which sought to root out communism.

sistine chapel and michelangelo paintings

Thousands of left-wing activists were swept up into secret detention centres where they were tortured and murdered after the Videla led coup in 1976.

The interview claims military chaplains were assigned as spiritual advisers to the junior officers who staffed the centres.

The Argentinean church’s actions were in stark contrast to the Catholic hierarchy in Brazil, where church leaders denounced that country’s military dictatorship and provided sanctuary to its victims.
Argentinean bishops were prominent defenders of the regime against accusations of human rights abuses from abroad.

The report says that at the height of the state’s offensive, Cardinal Primatesta refused to meet with mothers of the disappeared.

It claims he also prohibited the lower clergy from speaking out against state violence, even as death squads targeted Catholic priests critical of the regime.

The “Dirty War” Pope

Cross posted from The “Dirty War” Pope– World Socialist Web Site  16 March 2013

For over a week, the media has subjected the public to a tidal wave of euphoric banality on the Roman Catholic Church’s selection of a new pope.

This non-stop celebration of the dogma and ritual of an institution that for centuries has been identified with oppression and backwardness is stamped with a deeply undemocratic character. It is reflective of the rightward turn of the entire political establishment and its repudiation of the principles enshrined in the US Constitution, including the wall of separation between church and state.

What a far cry from the political ideals that animated those who drafted that document. It was Thomas Jefferson’s well-founded opinion that “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”

Jefferson’s view—and the reactionary character of the media’s sycophantic coverage—finds no more powerful conformation than in the identity of the new pope, officially celebrated as a paragon of “humility” and “renewal.”

Placed on the papal throne is not only another hard-line opponent of Marxism, the Enlightenment and all manner of human progress, but a man who is deeply and directly implicated in one of the greatest crimes of the post-World War II era—Argentina’s “Dirty War.”

Amid the pomp and ceremony Friday, the Vatican spokesman was compelled to address the past of the new Pope Francis—the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergoglio. He dismissed the accusations against him as the work of “anti-clerical left-wing elements.”

That “left-wing elements” would denounce the complicity of the Church’s leaders in the “Dirty War” waged by the military junta that ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983 is scarcely surprising. They accounted for many of the estimated 30,000 workers, students, intellectuals and others who were “disappeared” and murdered, and the tens of thousands more who were imprisoned and tortured.

But some of Bergoglio’s harshest critics come from within the Catholic Church itself, including priests and lay workers who say he handed them over to the torturers as part of a collaborative effort to “cleanse” the Church of “leftists.” One of them, a Jesuit priest, Orlando Yorio, was abducted along with another priest after ignoring a warning from Bergoglio, then head of the Jesuit order in Argentina, to stop their work in a Buenos Aires slum district.

During the first trial of leaders of the military junta in 1985, Yorio declared, “I am sure that he himself gave over the list with our names to the Navy.” The two were taken to the notorious Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA) torture center and held for over five months before being drugged and dumped in a town outside the city.

Bergoglio was ideologically predisposed to backing the mass political killings unleashed by the junta. In the early 1970s, he was associated with the right-wing Peronist Guardia de Hierro (Iron Guard), whose cadre—together with elements of the Peronist trade union bureaucracy—were employed in the death squads known as the Triple A (Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance), which carried out a campaign of extermination against left-wing opponents of the military before the junta even took power. Adm. Emilio Massera, the chief of the Navy and the leading ideologue of the junta, also employed these elements, particularly in the disposal of the personal property of the “disappeared.”

Yorio, who died in 2000, charged that Bergoglio “had communications with Admiral Massera, and had informed him that I was the chief of the guerrillas.”

The junta viewed the most minimal expression of opposition to the existing social order or sympathy for the oppressed as “terrorism.” The other priest who was abducted, Francisco Jalics, recounted in a book that Bergoglio had promised them he would tell the military that they were not terrorists. He wrote, “From subsequent statements by an official and 30 documents that I was able to access later, we were able to prove, without any room for doubt, that this man did not keep his promise, but that, on the contrary, he presented a false denunciation to the military.”

Pope Francis enjoys a joke with supporters of the Junta

Bergoglio declined to appear at the first trial of the junta as well as at subsequent proceedings to which he was summoned. In 2010, when he finally did submit to questioning, lawyers for the victims found him to be “evasive” and “lying.”
Bergoglio claimed that he learned only after the end of the dictatorship of the junta’s practice of stealing the babies of disappeared mothers, who were abducted, held until giving birth and then executed, with their children given to military or police families. This lie was exposed by people who had gone to him for help in finding missing relatives.

The collaboration with the junta was not a mere personal failing of Bergoglio, but rather the policy of the Church hierarchy, which backed the military’s aims and methods. The Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky exposed Bergoglio’s attempted cover-up for this systemic complicity in a book that Bergoglio authored, which edited out compromising sentences from a memorandum recording a meeting between the Church leadership and the junta in November 1976, eight months after the military coup.

The excised statement included the pledge that the Church “in no way intends to take a critical position toward the action of the government,” as its “failure would lead, with great probability, to Marxism.” It declared the Catholic Church’s “understanding, adherence and acceptance” in relation to the so-called “Proceso” that unleashed a reign of terror against Argentine working people.

This support was by no means platonic. The junta’s detention and torture centers were assigned priests, whose job it was, not to minister to those suffering torture and death, but to help the torturers and killers overcome any pangs of conscience. Using such biblical parables as “separating the wheat from the chafw,” they assured those operating the so-called “death flights,” in which political prisoners were drugged, stripped naked, bundled onto airplanes and thrown into the sea, that they were doing “God’s work.” Others participated in the torture sessions and tried to use the rite of confession to extract information of use to the torturers.

This collaboration was supported from the Vatican on down. In 1981, on the eve of Argentina’s war with Britain over the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands, Pope John Paul II flew to Buenos Aires, appearing with the junta and kissing its then-chief, Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, while saying not a word about the tens of thousands who had been kidnapped, tortured and murdered.

As Jefferson noted, the Church is “always in alliance with the despot,” as it was in backing Franco’s fascists in Spain, its collaboration with the Nazis as they carried out the Holocaust in Europe, and its support of the US war in Vietnam.

Nonetheless, the naming of a figure like Bergoglio as pope—and its celebration within the media and ruling circles—must serve as a stark warning. Not only are the horrific crimes carried out in Argentina 30 years ago embraced, those in power are contemplating the use of similar methods once again to defend capitalism from intensifying class struggle and the threat of social revolution.

Bill Van Auken

Pope's election revives row over Argentine junta

By AFP
Posted  Friday, March 15  2013 at  00:57

Vatican defends Pope Francis’ actions during Argentina’s’Dirty War’

By Alessandro Speciale| Religion News Service, Published: March 15

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on Friday (March 15) hit back at critics who claim that newly elected Pope Francis failed to do enough to protect two fellow Jesuits during Argentina’s military dictatorship.

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, has been criticized for his stance towards the military junta in his native Argentina, when as many as 30,000 people died or disappeared.

After his election to the papacy on Wednesday, Francis has faced intense scrutiny for his role in the arrest of two young Jesuits, Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics, who were detained for months in a notorious torture center.

Bergoglio, the first pope to hail from Latin America, was the top-ranking Jesuit in Argentina in the 1970s during the nation’s “Dirty War.”

At a press conference on Friday, the Vatican’s chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said there has never been “a concrete or credible accusation” against Bergoglio. “He was questioned by an Argentinian court as someone aware of the situation but never as a defendant.”

According to Lombardi, criticism of Bergoglio, which first emerged on the eve of the 2005 conclave that elected then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI, is aimed at discrediting the church.

The accusations come from “anticlerical elements to attack the Church,” Lombardi said, and “must be firmly rejected.”

According to the Vatican spokesman, Bergoglio acted “to protect many persons at the time of the military dictatorship.”

Led by Jorge Videla, the military government orchestrated a reign of terror that plucked political enemies from their homes and sent then to sadistic torture centers where they were often raped, drugged and subjected to mock executions before they were killed.

The victims are called “los desaparecidos” or “the disappeared,” and number as high as 30,000. Argentinians today are still searching for the remains of the disappeared and their living offspring — scores of babies were born in their parents’ torture chambers and given to military families to adopt.

Critics say at worst, the Catholic Church was complicit in the crackdown and, at best, didn’t speak out forcefully enough to stop it. In one of his last acts as head of the Argentinian Catholic bishops’ conference, last year Bergoglio issued a collective apology for the church’s failure to protect its flock.

On Friday, the Vatican released a statement by Jalics, one of the two Jesuits allegedly tortured under Bergoglio’s watch. He said that while he has no information on Bergoglio’s actions during the five months he and his companion were detained and tortured, after his release he and Bergoglio “celebrated Mass publicly” and “embraced one another.”

“I have made my peace with these events and, as far as I am concerned, the case is closed,” he adds. “I wish Pope Francis God’s rich blessings for his office.”

Bergoglio himself always denied the accusations.

In a 2010 book-length interview, he said the two Jesuits were eventually released partially because he and his fellow Jesuits tried “like crazy” to obtain their release.

“The same night I heard about their kidnapping, I started acting,” he said in the book. The future pope says he met twice with Argentina’s military junta leadership to negotiate for their release.

While Bergoglio was always critical of the left-wing political activism of some parts of the clergy who fought actively against the dictatorship, he says he “did what he could at the time, with the little relations he could count on, to advocate for those who had been kidnapped.”

Three quarters of Argentina's 40-million-strong population are Catholic, but the influence of the church diminished under President Nestor Kirchner and his wife Cristina, who succeeded him in 2007.

Cristina Kirchner's government has legalized same-sex marriage in the teeth of strong opposition from the bishops, but pressure from the church has stymied moves to legalize abortion.

And Poirier argued that Francis's elevation might "reverse the decline and strengthen the church" in Argentina by giving it a more attractive local face.

Truthdig Columnist Resigns from PEN over its appointment of a ‘Feminist’ Supporter of US Wars, Susan Nossel

PEN International takes the toxic Nossel off the embarrassed hands of Amnesty International

Emmeline Pankhurst - a predecessor of today's feminist imperialist - handed the white feather to men who didn't support the imperialist war in Europe (1914-18)

We have come across Susan Nossel before.  She is a feminist advocate of war.  PEN, the international writers organisation, states that ‘PEN stands for the principle of unhampered transmission of thought within each nation and between all nations, and members pledge themselves to oppose any form of suppression of freedom of expression in the country and community to which they belong, as well as throughout the world wherever this is possible.'

A search of its web site shows that these fine principles don’t, for some unfathomed reason, apply to the United States.  I couldn’t find a single mention of Bradley Manning, the army soldier who gave Wikileaks thousands of documents concerning US Foreign Policy nor could I find any reference to Julian Assange either!  Presumably there are limits to freedom speech as far as PEN is concerned.

Below is a sorry tale of how the United States and in particular the State Department under Hilary Clinton, has gathered under its wing a host of ‘feminist’ supporters of the Afghan and other US wars.  All in the name of women's ‘freedom’.  Naturally they have nothing to say about the propensity of US soldiers to first rape their victims and then kill every family member in the vicinity.
Nor do ‘smart’ bombs distinguish between men, women and children.  But as the US and Dick Cheney made clear in Iraq 'we don't do body counts' - at least not of the people whose country they have invaded.  Instead, fresh from inviting war criminal Madeleine Albright, to their ‘alternative’ convention (for whom half a million dead Iraqi children were a price worth paying for sanctions) Amnesty International USA held an oh so nice kite flying exercise, in support of women’s freedom, where the genteel folk who make up AI, could let their consciences flow freely.

Nossell defends Obama's foreign policy including its opposition to the Goldstone Report on Israeli war crimes

Nossell stands in a fine feminist tradition.  Emiline and Christabel Pankhurst, the most militant of the Suffragettes,  supported World War I and handed out white feathers to men who were conscientious objectors.  Feminism itself, especially its western versions never opposed imperialist wars and in the 1980's we saw in Britain the formation of the long since dead Jewish Feminist group.

What we also see is how imperialism is able to co-opt 'feminist' arguments as a rationale for their own military aggression.  This is not new.  Blair and Nossel's liberal intervensionism used to be known by supporters of British imperialism, like the Webbs and George Bernard Shaw, as 'trusteeship'.  We held the colonies 'in trust' for their peoples who, unfortunately, were still too backward and savage to take on the responsibility themselves.

The Infamous Amnesty Poster that supported NATO in the Afghan War

Even Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia because he couldn't tolerate the terrible abuses that the Sudeten Germans were suffering from.  The attack on Poland was merely an act of defence and so on.  What is different is that the US not only conducts a nakedly aggressive foreign policy, based on the most appalling series of human rights violations and secret prisons and torture centres [see How the United States set up a Network of Torture Centres in Iraq] but it seeks to control and neutralise those who might be expected to oppose their criminal behaviour.  It understands the potential of human rights organisations to expose their hypocrisy, invading Iraq to eliminate one mass murderer only to kill about 50 times as many people, opposing Saddam's use of torture only to 'improve' on it immensely.

So  they seek instead to portray their occupation as benevolent to women, just as the British did in India with their opposition to Sutti, the burning of widows on their husband's funeral pyre.  It is doubtful whether the millions of women who died of starvation as foodstuffs were exported from India, in the name of the 'free' market, benefited all that greatly from Britain's occupation of their land.

 Tony Greenstein

Chris Hedges resigns from human rights organization PEN 

Chris Hedges resigns because of the appointment of Nossel.  The warmongers want a foot in the peace camp!

2 April 2013

Truthdig – 1 Apr 2013

The Truthdig columnist was scheduled to speak at events sponsored by PEN American Center next month, but he has resigned his membership in the writers’ organization over its executive director, Suzanne Nossel, a former aide to Hillary Clinton who may have coined the term “soft power.”

The following is from a 2004 Foreign Affairs article by Nossel titled “Smart Power: Reclaiming Liberal Internationalism”:

To advance from a nuanced dissent to a compelling vision, progressive policymakers should turn to the great mainstay of twentieth-century U.S. foreign policy: liberal internationalism, which posits that a global system of stable liberal democracies would be less prone to war. Washington, the theory goes, should thus offer assertive leadership—diplomatic, economic, and not least, military—to advance a broad array of goals: self-determination, human rights, free trade, the rule of law, economic development, and the quarantine and elimination of dictators and weapons of mass destruction (WMD)

In addition to working for the State Department under Hillary Clinton as deputy assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, Nossel has worked as executive director of Amnesty International USA, and for Human Rights Watch and The Wall Street Journal.

Chris Hedges emailed the following statement to PEN and it is reprinted here with his permission:
I will not be participating as a speaker in the PEN World Voices Festival in May.  I will not participate because of your decision to select Suzanne Nossel as Executive Director of the PEN American Center.  This appointment makes a mockery of PEN as a human rights organization and belittles the values PEN purports to defend.  

I spent seven years in the Middle East, most of them as the Middle East Bureau Chief of The New York Times.  The suffering of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation and the plight of those caught up in our imperial wars in countries such as Iraq are not abstractions to me. 

Nossel’s relentless championing of preemptive war—which under international law is illegal—as a State Department official along with her callous disregard for Israeli mistreatment of the Palestinians and her refusal as a government official to denounce the use of torture and use of extra-judicial killings, makes her utterly unfit to lead any human rights organization, especially one that has global concerns. 

PEN American Center, by appointing Nossel, has unwittingly highlighted its own failure to defend and speak out for our dissidents, especially Bradley Manning. I hereby resign from PEN.  I will wait until the organization returns to its original mandate to defend those who are persecuted, including those within the United States, before returning to the organization.

Sincerely,
Chris Hedges
More about PEN: It is a global organization made up of writer members that advocates for free expression and other human rights causes. The chapter representing the eastern United States is called PEN American Center and was founded in 1922. Its membership has included Robert Frost, Tony Kushner, Langston Hughes, Thomas Mann, Arthur Miller, Susan Sontag, Salman Rushdie and John Steinbeck .

U.S. Cooption of the Human Rights Movement Continues

An Appeal to PEN: Exec. Director Suzanne Nossel Must Go

by John V. Walsh and Coleen Rowley / April 1st, 2013

When political people have finished with repression and violence PEN can indeed be forgotten. Until then, with all its flounderings and failings and mistaken acts, it is still, I think, a fellowship moved by the hope that one day the work it tries and often manages to do will no longer be necessary.
    – Arthur Miller who once led PEN

To advance from a nuanced dissent to a compelling vision, progressive policymakers should turn to the great mainstay of twentieth-century U.S. foreign policy: liberal internationalism… (which) should offer assertive leadership — diplomatic, economic, and not least, military — to advance a broad array of goals…

Suzanne Nossel, new Executive Director of PEN American Center in Smart Power, Foreign Affairs

Suzanne Nossel is a disturbing choice as the new executive director of PEN, American Center, an American branch of the worldwide association of writers and related professions devoted to free expression and “the ideal of one humanity living in peace in the world.” The stark contrast between the statements of Arthur Miller and Suzanne Nossel above is enough to sound an alarm. But Nossel’s career path, the masters she has served, the stances she has taken and the activities she has sponsored demonstrate profound differences with PEN. PEN cannot remain true to the ideals articulated by Arthur Miller with Nossel at the helm. She is an embodiment of the ongoing, and all too successful, cooption of the Human Rights movement by the U.S. government.

Nossel’s AI Backs NATO Assault on Afghanistan: Bombing Women to Free Them

“Amnesty’s Shilling for U.S. Wars”

Nossel came to PEN after a year’s stint as Executive Director of Amnesty International, USA (AI), in 2012. Before that she served in Hillary Clinton’s State Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. Let’s consider her time at AI first.

Nossel assumed her post as Executive Director of AI, in January, 2012. Then in May when NATO held its “Summit Meeting” in Chicago, AI sponsored a “Shadow Summit” there. As part of this effort AI mounted a campaign which employed bus stop billboards supporting the NATO invasion in the words, “NATO, Keep the Progress Going. Human Rights for Women and Girls in Afghanistan.”1 “Bombing the women to save them” might well have been the slogan.

AI’s “Shadow Summit” featured a number of panels at a Chicago Hotel with the main speaker at the first panel former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, who famously observed to Leslie Stahl that the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, including an estimated 500,000 children, on her watch during the Clinton administration was a price “worth it” to weaken former U.S. ally, Saddam Hussein. What was such a person doing at an AI event? The same panel featured other female luminaries from the U.S. foreign policy establishment, including Melanne Verveer, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, who was also a main speaker with Albright; U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois; and Afifa Azim, General Director and Co-Founder, Afghan Women’s Network; along with Moderator Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Deputy Director of AI.

One of us (C.R.) and Anne Wright, who resigned from the State Department in 2003 to protest the war on Iraq, along with a handful of fellow antiwar activists attempted to attend the panel but were refused entrance until some in the group pointed out that they were members of AI. AI then allowed the group to enter, but in an apparent lapse of concern for free speech, only if signs opposing NATO’s war on Afghanistan were left outside. Such is the forgetfulness that proximity to power breeds. In a written account of the panel entitled “Amnesty’s Shilling for U.S. Wars,” Rowley and Wright noted that the CIA’s, “Red Cell” in a report disclosed by Wikileaks, had recommended a strategy of using “women’s rights” to sell the war in Afghanistan. Rowley and Wright continued in their piece: “When we saw that audience participation was going to be limited to questions selected from the small note cards being collected, we departed. We noted, even in that short time, however, how easy it was for these U.S. government officials to use the “good and necessary cause” of women’s rights to get the audience into the palm of their collective hand — just as the CIA’s “strategic communication” expert predicted!” One has to ask what is afoot when a former State Dept. official takes over an organization like AI, which then neatly fits its approach into that of the U.S. government.

A few months after the appearance of the Rowley/Wright piece and complaints by other members and donors of AI, Nossel resigned unceremoniously. A call to AI’s national office unearthed the reply from a staff member that the “staff had been told” that Nossel had resigned “for personal reasons.” The promise of a return call by someone more knowledgeable did not materialize. Who was responsible, on or off the board, for hiring Nossel in the first place remains a mystery.

The Revolving Door: A Formula for Cooption

Nossel had previously worked at the State Department under Hillary Clinton. Nossel is often credited with coining the phrase “Smart Power,”2 which Clinton repeated interminably in her Senate confirmation hearings to characterize how she would run State and which Nossel defined in a 2004 article in Foreign Affairs as “assertive leadership — diplomatic, economic, and not least, military.” What was this smartly powered State Department like into which Nossel was hired? Perhaps Ralph Nader has taken the measure of it most perceptively, in a CounterPunch essay entitled, “Hilary’s Bloody Legacy: Militarizing the State Department”:

Behind the public relations sheen, the photo-opportunities with groups of poor people in the developing world, an ever more militarized State Department operated under Clinton’s leadership.

A militarized State Department is more than a repudiation of the Department’s basic charter of 1789, for the then-named Department of Foreign Affairs, which envisioned diplomacy as its mission. Secretary Clinton reveled in tough, belligerent talk and action on her many trips to more than a hundred countries. She would warn or threaten “consequences” on a regular basis. She supported soldiers in Afghanistan, the use of secret Special Forces in other places and “force projection” in East Asia to contain China. She aggressively supported or attacked resistance movements in dictatorships, depending on whether a regime played to Washington’s tune.

Because Defense Secretary Robert Gates was openly cool to the drum beats for war on Libya, Clinton took over and choreographed the NATO ouster of the dictator, Muammar al-Gaddafi, long after he had given up his mass destruction weaponry and was working to re-kindle relations with the U.S. government and global energy corporations. Libya is now in a disastrous warlord state-of-chaos. Many fleeing fighters have moved into Mali, making that vast country into another battlefield drawing U.S. involvement. Blowback!

Thus did Nossel’s strategy of “Smart Power” play out as she worked at the side of Clinton.

Before working at State, Nossel worked at Human Rights Watch, which has come under increasing criticism for its distorted accounts of the Chavez government in Venezuela and other official enemies of the US. And before that she worked at the UN under Richard Holbrooke as the Clintons masterminded the bombing of Yugoslavia and pushed NATO eastward in violation of assurances given by Reagan to Gorbachev.

Here we behold a revolving door between government and human rights NGOs, much like the one connecting the Pentagon and defense contractors or between regulatory agencies and the corporate entities they are to regulate. Nossel is clearly aware of the use that the U.S. government can make of organizations like PEN, writing in her 2004 “Smart Power” essay “that the United States’ own hand is not always its best tool: U.S. interests are furthered by enlisting others on behalf of U.S. goals.” In what sense can PEN claim to be a “non-governmental organization” with Nossel in charge? In what sense can PEN claim to protect writers from the state with someone in charge who has been a frequent and unapologetic presence in the corridors of power?

The Subversion of Human Rights Organizations

For many decades the rhetoric of human rights has been used by the West to justify its aggressive actions around the world. James Peck in his superb and much neglected work, Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-opted Human Rights, painstakingly and meticulously documents such subversion over the past 50 years. But the subversion goes farther than the selective attention often paid to official enemies and the relative neglect of human rights violations by U.S. allies. He also points out that the concept of human rights that has prevailed in the West over this period is a shriveled one, basically confined to civil rights. Although the mainstream human rights movement in the West claims to take its inspiration from the UN Declaration of Human Rights, it rarely mentions Articles 25 and 26, among others, which affirm health care and education as rights. Thus the fact that Gaddafi’s Libya had the highest literacy rate or highest score in all of Africa on the UN’s Human Development Index counted for nothing in assessments of Gaddafi. Nor is faintest praise to be found for the many hundreds of millions lifted from poverty and made literate in New China.

Similarly, Jean Bricmont in his insightful, Humanitarian Imperialism, another book studiously avoided by “progressives” in the West, details the use of human rights rhetoric to gain the support of European intellectuals for the Clintons’ assault on the Balkans. This in fact marked a turning point in the view of intellectuals toward the wars of present day imperial powers on weaker nations, a view that set the stage for assaults on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and now Syria. It marked a sharp break with the opposition of intellectuals to the U.S. war on Vietnam. The important principle of sovereignty enshrined in international law to protect weak nations from falling prey to powerful ones was rudely tossed aside, with much talk of human rights as the justification.

PEN Shows No Concern for Julian Assange or Bradley Manning

The principle at work here is not new. Julien Benda raised it long ago in The Treason of the Intellectuals. As Benda said, “There are two sets of principles. They are the principles of power and privilege and the principles of truth and justice. If you pursue truth and justice it will always mean a diminution of power and privilege. If you pursue power and privilege it will always be at the expense of truth and justice.” In our time we may identify Noam Chomsky and the late Alexander Cockburn among those who follow in the tradition of Benda. They represent the best in the tradition of PEN.

The question is which way will PEN go – the way of Benda or continue along the way of Nossel. Today a search on the PEN, America, web site readily yields entries for Pussy Riot, Ai Weiwei, and Liu Xiaobo, but nothing is to be found for “Bradley Manning” or “Julian Assange”! That in itself speaks volumes about Nossel’s PEN. As Chomsky and others have often pointed out, the primary duty of intellectuals is to critique their own ruling elite. After all, we can most affect our own rulers and it is their actions we are most responsible for. And that is what requires genuine courage. Criticizing elites in countries that are America’s official enemies is an easy and secure career path.

PEN members should take action

For those who are appalled by what is happening at PEN, here are links to a list of current  and newly elected officers and Trustees. They bear ultimate responsibility for the path that PEN is taking and for Suzanne Nossel’s employ. The issue can also be raised at the upcoming PEN World Voices events in NYC. It is clear that many speakers at these events, perhaps the overwhelming majority, hold views quite the opposite of Nossel’s, as well they should. Nossel should resign. Speaking out in cases like this is the only way to prevent the Empire from corrupting all it touches, including the human rights movement.

Although Nossel is often credited with the term “Smart Power,” from the title of her article in Foreign Affairs in 2004, Joseph Nye, Dean emeritus of Harvard’s Kennedy School of government and another Pentagon and State Department functionary over the decades when not slaving in the fields of academe, published a book in 2003 with the title, Smart Power.

John V. Walsh, lately become an associate member of PEN, is a biophysicist/neuroscientist living in the Boston and area and a contributor to DissidentVoice.org, CounterPunch.org, and Antiwar.com. 

Coleen Rowley, now an antiwar activist in the Twin Cities area, is a former FBI special agent and legal counsel in the Minneapolis field office, who wrote a “whistleblower” memo in May 2002 and testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee about some of the FBI’s pre-9 / 11 failures. The authors can be reached at: John.Endwar@gmail.com. We are interested in hearing from members of PEN and others who are interested in taking action. Read other articles by John V. Walsh and Coleen Rowley.

“Amnesty’s Shilling for U.S. Wars”

 June 18, 2012

For decades, Amnesty International has been a respected name in the cause of human rights, but its recent hiring of Suzanne Nossel, a longtime U.S. “humanitarian interventionist,” has swung the organization more behind the Afghan War and the use of U.S. military force, Ann Wright and Coleen Rowley write.

By Ann Wright and Coleen Rowley

The new Executive Director of Amnesty International USA – Suzanne Nossel – is a recent U.S. government insider. So it’s a safe bet that AI’s decision to seize upon a topic that dovetailed with American foreign policy interests, “women’s rights in Afghanistan,” at the NATO Conference last month in Chicago came directly from her.

Nossel was hired by AI in January 2012. In her early career, Nossel worked for Ambassador Richard Holbrooke under the Clinton Administration at the United Nations. Most recently, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organizations at the U.S. Department of State, where she was responsible for multilateral human rights, humanitarian affairs, women’s issues, public diplomacy, press and congressional relations.

Amnesty International's "NATO: Keep the Progress Going" poster at a Chicago bus stop.

She also played a leading role in U.S. engagement at the U.N. Human Rights Council (where her views about the original Goldstone Report on behalf of Palestinian women did not quite rise to the same level of concerns for the women in countries that U.S.-NATO has attacked militarily).

Nossel would have worked for and with Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Samantha Power and Susan Rice, and undoubtedly helped them successfully implement their “Right to Protect (R2P)” – otherwise known as “humanitarian intervention” – as well as the newly created “Atrocity Prevention Board.”

This cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy (which has served mainly to rationalize the launching of war on Libya) is now being hauled out to call for U.S.-NATO military intervention in Syria.

“Smart Power” = smart wars?

In fact, Nossel is herself credited as having coined the term “Smart Power,” which embraces the United States ’ use of military power as well as other forms of “soft power,” an approach which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced at her confirmation as the new basis of State Department policy.

An excerpt from Nossel’s 2004 paper on “Smart Power” published in the Council on Foreign Relations’ Foreign Affairs magazine sounds a lot like Samantha Power’s (and also traces back to Madeleine Albright’s) theories:

“To advance from a nuanced dissent to a compelling vision, progressive policymakers should turn to the great mainstay of twentieth-century U.S. foreign policy: liberal internationalism, which posits that a global system of stable liberal democracies would be less prone to war.

“Washington, the theory goes, should thus offer assertive leadership — diplomatic, economic, and not least, military [our emphasis] — to  advance a broad array of goals: self-determination, human rights, free trade, the rule of law, economic development, and the quarantine and elimination of dictators and weapons of mass destruction (WMD).”

Perhaps the AI’s hiring of a State Department shill as executive director of its U.S. affiliate was merely coincidental to how/why its “NATO Shadow Summit ” so closely mimicked the CIA’s latest propaganda assault, but….

The “CIA Red Cell,” a group of analysts assigned to think “outside the box” to anticipate emerging challenges, was right to worry in March 2010 when the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) found that 80 percent of French and German citizens were opposed to continued deployment of their countries’ militaries in the U.S.-NATO war in Afghanistan.

Even though public apathy had, up to that point, enabled French and German politicians to “ignore their voters” and steadily increase their governments’ troop contributions to Afghanistan, the CIA’s newly-created think tank was concerned that a forecasted increase in NATO casualties in the upcoming “bloody summer … could become a tipping point in converting passive opposition into active calls for immediate withdrawal.”

In a “confidential” memo, the “Red Cell” wrote: “The Afghanistan mission’s low public salience has allowed French and German leaders to disregard popular opposition and steadily increase their troop contributions to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Berlin and Paris currently maintain the third and fourth highest ISAF troop levels, despite the opposition of 80 percent of German and French respondents to increased ISAF deployments, according to INR polling in fall 2009.

“Public Apathy Enables Leaders To Ignore Voters …

“Only a fraction (0.1-1.3 percent) of French and German respondents identified ‘Afghanistan’ as the most urgent issue facing their nation in an open-ended question, according to the same polling. These publics ranked ‘stabilizing Afghanistan’ as among the lowest priorities for US and European leaders, according to polls by the German Marshall Fund (GMF) over the past two years.

“According to INR polling in the fall of 2009, the view that the Afghanistan mission is a waste of resources and ‘not our problem’ was cited as the most common reason for opposing ISAF by German respondents and was the second most common reason by French respondents. But the ‘not our problem’ sentiment also suggests that, so for, sending troops to Afghanistan is not yet on most voters’ radar.

“But Casualties Could Precipitate Backlash

“If some forecasts of a bloody summer in Afghanistan come to pass, passive French and German dislike of their troop presence could turn into active and politically potent hostility. The tone of previous debate suggests that a spike in French or German casualties or in Afghan civilian casualties could become a tipping point in converting passive opposition into active calls for immediate withdrawal.”

The CIA “Special Memorandum” went a step further, inviting “a CIA expert on strategic communication and analysts following public opinion” to suggest “information campaigns” that State Department polls showed likely to sway Western Europeans.

The “Red Cell” memo was quickly leaked, however, furnishing a remarkable window into how U.S. government propaganda is designed to work upon NATO citizenry to maintain public support for the euphemistically titled “International Security Assistance Force” (ISAF) waging war on Afghans. Here are some of the CIA propaganda expert’s suggestions:

“Messaging that dramatizes the potential adverse consequences of an ISAF defeat for Afghan civilians could leverage French (and other European) guilt for abandoning them. The prospect of the Taliban rolling back hard-won progress on girls’ education could provoke French indignation, become a rallying point for France’s largely secular public, and give voters a reason to support a good and necessary cause despite casualties. …

“Outreach initiatives that create media opportunities for Afghan women to share their stories with French, German, and other European women could help to overcome pervasive skepticism among women in Western Europe toward the ISAF mission. … Media events that feature testimonials by Afghan women would probably be most effective if broadcast on programs that have large and disproportionately female audiences.”

‘NATO: Keep the Progress Going!’

Amnesty International struck similar themes in announcements  posted online as well as billboard advertisements on Chicago bus stops, telling “NATO: Keep the Progress Going!” beckoned us to find out more on Sunday, May 20, 2012, the day thousands of activists marched in Chicago in protest of NATO’s wars.

The billboard seemed to answer a recent Huffington Post article, “Afghanistan: The First Feminist War?”

“The feminist victory may be complete in America, but on the international stage it’s not doing so well with three quarters of the world’s women still under often-severe male domination. Afghanistan is an extreme case in point in what might be termed the first feminist war … a war that now may not be won even if Hillary Clinton dons a flack jacket and shoulders an M16 on the front lines. Still, since the Bush Administration to the present America ‘s top foreign policy office has been held by women … women who have promised not to desert their Afghan sisters.”

Our curiosity was further piqued because we consider ourselves to be women’s rights and human rights proponents and also due to our own prior federal careers in intelligence and military. (Colonel Wright is retired from the State Department/US military and Rowley is from the FBI.)

So along with a few other anti-war activists, we packed into a taxi to head to the Chicago hotel where Amnesty International’s “Shadow Summit” featuring former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and other female foreign relations officials was being held.  We happened to carry our “NATO bombs are not humanitarian”; “NATO Kills Girls” and anti-drone bombing posters that we had with us for the march later that day.

As we arrived, an official-looking black car dropped off Melanne Verveer, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, who was to be a main speaker (on the first panel, along with former Secretary Albright; U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Illinois; and Afifa Azim, General Director and Co-Founder, Afghan Women’s Network; along with Moderator Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Deputy Director of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Women and Foreign Policy Program).

Verveer cast a cold glance at us and would not answer Ann Wright’s questions as she scurried into the hotel with her aides surrounding her and us following behind. At first the hotel security guards tried to turn us away but we reminded the registration desk the Summit was advertised as “Free Admissions” and that some of us were members of Amnesty International.

So they let us register and attend as long as we promised to leave our signs outside and not disrupt the speakers. The hotel conference room was about half full. We stayed long enough to hear the opening remarks and the moderator’s first questions of Albright and the other speakers on the first panel.

All generally linked the protection and participation of Afghan women in government as well as the progress made in educating Afghan women to the eventual peace and security of the country as envisioned by the new strategic “partnership” agreement that Obama had just signed with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Ms. Verveer said Afghan women do not want to be seen as “victims” but are now rightfully nervous about their future. When we saw that audience participation was going to be limited to questions selected from the small note cards being collected, we departed, missing the second panel as well as kite-flying for women’s rights.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL’S KITE FLYING IN SUPPORT OF THE AFGHAN AND ASSORTED US WARS

We noted, even in that short time, however, how easy it was for these U.S. government officials to use the “good and necessary cause” of women’s rights to get the audience into the palm of their collective hand — just as the CIA’s “strategic communication” expert predicted!

Secretary Albright?

Not everyone was hoodwinked however.  Even before the “Summit” was held, Amnesty realized it had a PR problem as a result of its billboard advertisement touting progress in Afghanistan. An Amnesty official tried to put forth a rather lame defense blaming an accidental poor choice of wording.

But many readers (and AI members) posted critical comments and questions, including concerns about Albright’s involvement given her infamous defense of Iraqi sanctions in the 1990s, which were estimated to have caused the deaths of a half million Iraqi children, with the comment “we think the price is worth it.”

Under the blogger’s explanation: “We Get It / Human Rights Now,” there were comments like these:

“Could someone from AI please explain why Madeleine Albright was invited to participate in this event? We (and especially those of us who are familiar with AI) should all be able to understand that the wording on the poster was a genuine, albeit damaging, mistake. But why Ms. Albright?”

“The posters are pro-NATO and play into prevailing tropes about so called ‘humanitarian intervention’ via ‘think of the women & children’ imagery. The posters & the forum that includes Albright are neither slight slips nor without context. AI is coping heat because they have miss-stepped dramatically. There is NOTHING subtle about either the imagery nor the message!

“It is not a case of ‘oh sorry we didn’t realize it it could be interpreted that way!’ They used pro Nato imagery & slogans ahead of & during a controversial summit that has thousands protesting in the streets. Tell me again how that is not taking sides?

“They asked a notorious apologist for mass murder of children to speak on the right of women and children…tell me again: how is that not taking sides. So it is absolutely reasonable for past supporters (and board members like myself) to be asking how it is that Amnesty USA so lost its bearings they could make a critical SERIES of errors like this?”

Of course the defensive AI blog author never answered the numerous questions asking why Amnesty had chosen Madeleine Albright as their main speaker. So we will venture an answer that probably lies in the fact that all of the powerful feminist-war hawks who have risen to become Secretary of State (or are waiting in the wings) are now taking their lead from the ruthless Grand Dame who paved the way for them, Madeleine Albright — (see Coleen Rowley’s recent articles: “Obama’s New ‘Atrocity Prevention Board’: Reasons for Skepticism”  and “Militarization of the Mothers: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby, from Mother’s Day for Peace”).

It’s also possible the highest ranks of the feminist wing of military interventionism (i.e. Madeleine Albright, Condi Rice, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, et al) are so passionate and hubristic about the nobility of their goal and “Amercan exceptionalism” that some have simply succumbed to a kind of almost religious (blind faith) type fervor.

The Road to Hell

Nossel’s and Albright’s theories are flawed in many ways but suffice it to say that democracies are actually not less prone to war. A long list of “democracies” – including Nazi Germany, the Roman Empire, the United Kingdom, France and the United States itself – disprove this assertion.

In any event, the U.S. has been terribly hypocritical in its support of “democracies” in foreign countries, often toppling or attempting to topple them (i.e. Iran’s Mossadeqh, Guatemala’s Arbenz, Chile’s Allende) in order to gain easier control of a foreign country through an allied dictatorship.

No one is going to argue that the goals of humanitarianism, preventing atrocities and furthering women’s rights around the world are not “good and necessary” (in the words of the CIA strategic communications expert). We would go so far as to say these ARE truly noble causes!

Testimonials about human rights’ abuse are often true and fundamentalist regimes’ treatment of women seems to vary only in degrees of horrible. But while it’s true that many women lack rights in Afghanistan, some would argue that it’s conveniently true. And that the best lies are always based on a certain amount of truth.

The devil, however, lies in the details of promoting equality and accomplishing humanitarianism. Most importantly the ends, even noble ends, never justify wrongful means. In fact, when people such as Samantha Power decide to bomb the village Libya , to save it, it will backfire on a pragmatic level.

It must be realized that it is the nobility of the U.S.-NATO’s motivation that – as CIA propaganda department has advised – should be relied upon to convince otherwise good-hearted people (especially women) to support (or at least tolerate) war and military occupation (now known to encompass the worst of war crimes, massacres of women and children, torture, cutting off body parts of those killed, as well as increasing mental illness, self-destructive behavior and suicides among U.S. soldiers and the corresponding cover-ups of all such horrible means).

In the decades after Vietnam, a number of military scholars identified declining American public support for that war as the main factor responsible for the U.S. “losing” Vietnam. One lesson learned and quickly implemented was to get rid of the military draft and put the wars on a credit card so fewer citizens would pay attention.

Some control also had to be gained over the type of free media (that led to trusted TV anchor Walter Cronkite broadcasting his public souring on the Vietnam War). A whole series of war propaganda systems, from planting retired generals as “talking heads” on TV to the assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld deciding to “embed the media,” have worked pretty well to maintain the necessary level of war momentum in mainstream media and amongst public opinion.

But now, with American polls approaching the same problematic levels as those in Europe cited by the “CIA Red Cell,” we suddenly see major human rights organizations like Amnesty International (as well as others) applauding Obama’s (and the feminist war-hawks’) “Atrocity Prevention Board.”

Such sleight of hand seems to work to work even better amongst political partisans. By the way, it should be noted that Congress may allow these Pentagon propagandists to target American citizens through the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013.

There are some clear lines where the laudable need to further human rights should not be twisted into justifying harsh economic sanctions that kill hundreds of thousands of children or, even worse, “shock and awe” aerial bombing that takes the lives of the women and children the “humanitarian” propagandists say they want to help.

Madeleine Albright’s response about the deaths of a half million children on 60 Minutes, that “the price was worth it,” illustrates the quintessential falsity of what ethicists call “act utilitarianism” or concocting fictional happy outcomes to justify the terrible wrongful means.

It also seems that a human rights NGO, in this case Amnesty International, which had gained a solid reputation and hence the trust of those it has helped through the years, will be jeopardized in aligning itself with the U.S. Secretary of State and NATO.

This is exactly how the Nobel Peace Prize got corrupted,  aligning itself with the U.S. Secretary of State and NATO, which is why Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire withdrew from the Nobel Peace forum held in Chicago during NATO.

Good NGOS and non-profits that want to maintain the trust in their humanitarian work tend to be very careful to maintain their independence from any government, let alone any war-making government. When NGOs, even good ones, become entwined with the U.S./NATO war machine, don’t they risk losing their independent credibility?

Ann Wright is a 29-year U.S. Army/Army Reserve Colonel and a 16-year U.S. diplomat who served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq war. She returned to Afghanistan in 2007 and 2010 on fact-finding missions.

Coleen Rowley, a FBI special agent for almost 24 years, was legal counsel to the FBI Field Office in Minneapolis from 1990 to 2003. She wrote a “whistleblower” memo in May 2002 and testified to the Senate Judiciary on some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures. She retired at the end of 2004, and now writes and speaks on ethical decision-making and balancing civil liberties with the need for effective investigation.

Zionist Attempts to Ban Solidarity with the Palestinians & anti-Zionism as 'anti-Semitic' Rejected by Employment Tribunal

 

the hapless Ronny Fraser looks shell-shocked at the verdict

Anthony Julius - smug but not so bright as he gives himself credit for.  All legal bluster and threats turned to ashes

Brian Klug - defence witness - Oxford don, co-founder of Independent Jewish Voices and expert on anti-Semitism

Mike Cushman of LSE and Bricup

Emeritus Professor Jonathan Rosenhead of the LSE & co-founder of Bricup

Sally Hunt - soft-left leader of UCU who did her best to be helpful to the Zionists but received no appreciation

Dr Sue Blackwell - Bricup, Birmingham University & ex-UCU Executive - stalwart fighter for the Palestinians

As someone who has spent over a dozen years representing claimants in employment tribunals, I cannot recall an occasion when a tribunal delivered such a devastating verdict on the tactics and merits of the other side’s case.  But is is any wonder when 20 days, an unusually long time for a tribunal hearing, were taken up with an attempt to use the courts to shut down debate inside a trade union under the guise of discrimination law?  Some 23 Bundles were prepared and the claimant had 29 witnesses, when it is normal for there to be just one, jointly agreed bundle and at most 5 or 6 witnesses.

It seems that Anthony Julius, judging by the 864 pages of his history of anti-Semitism in England, thought that he could overwhelm the Tribunal's powers of discernment through the sheer volume of paperwork.  Normally bundles should be no more than 100 pages.  Even complex commercial cases rarely achieve this amount of paperwork.  Not only was the case preposterous, it was also highly artificial and synthetic.  Even the Jewish Chronicle's Simon Rocker, no friend of the Palestinians, is forced to admit that 'Anti-Israel union case was ‘act of epic folly’


Not only did the Employment Tribunal conclude that this was an attempt to achieve political ends by legal means, but they also made it clear that they were ‘troubled by the implications of the claim. Underlying it we sense a worrying disregard for pluralism, tolerance and freedom of expression, principles which the courts and tribunals are, and must be, vigilant to protect (for a recent example, see Smiih-v- Trafford Housing Trust [2012] EWHC).'

One of the more interesting aspects to me is how Antony Julius, the lawyer who nearly bankrupted the Princess Diana Foundation, through absurd claims of copyright, whilst charging the charity multi-million pound fees, could seriously believe he had a case.  Discrimination cases are notoriously difficult to win, even when there is tangible evidence of discrimination.  You have to be pretty sure of your case.

Jeremy Newmark - the pushy CEO of Jewish Leadership Council who the Tribunal found was a liar

Having tried to push his way into a meeting where he had no right to be, it was claimed that Newmark was 'Jew-baited'

This was a case of tilting at windmills and testifies to the utter stupidity and narrow-mindedness of the ‘leaders’ of the Jewish community and the Jewish establishment in  Britain.  Jeremy Newmark, Chief Executive Officer of the Jewish Leadership Council (Jewish capitalists who refuse to accept even the rigged 'democracy' of the Board of Deputies of British Jews) and ex-Alliance for Workers Liberty member and arch-Zionist Jane Ashworth were called untruthful i.e. liars.

Discrimination is based on what are called ‘protected characteristics’ – for example disability, sexual orientation, sex, age, religion etc.  The case was wobbly from the start.  It was primarily based on resolutions at University &College Union AGMs.  It is difficult to see how democratic debate at a union annual general meeting counts as harassment.  But perhaps Zionists live in a different universe.  They boast Israel is ‘the only democracy’ in the Middle East but when they lose a debate they cry ‘anti-Semitism’.

But for the purposes of the Race Relations Act 1975 (now Equalities Act 2010) Jews fall, as do Sikhs, under the rubric of ‘race’.  A small obstacle had to be overcome – how is a boycott of Israeli universities an act of harassment against British Jews?  The answer of course is that being Jewish is inextricably intertwined with supporting Israel – which proclaims itself as a Jewish State.  In other words opposing Israel automatically means opposing Jews – ipso facto ‘anti-Semitism’ - anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism, as most Zionists will admit when pressed (& some like Jonathan Hoffman don’t need prompting!).

The tribunal stated that 'Jewishness' is a protected characteristic - but this begs the question - what is Jewishness?

Where the tribunal may have gone wrong is in its assertion [Para.18] that ‘Jewishness’ is itself a Protected Characteristic.  I disagree.  It is a description of what may constitute a PC but in itself is an elusive concept.  However that would be small comfort to Ronnie Fraser as the verdict itself is virtually unchallengeable legally.

What angered the Zionists most was the Tribunal's finding that Zionism is 'not intrinsically a part of Jewishness'

In Para. 53 the Tribunal highlighted the good/bad Jew dichotomy that Zionists both complain about whilst using it themselves against Jewish opponents.

The Tribunal put their finger on the hypocrisy of Zionists who talk about how they resent 'bad' and 'good' Jewish terminology when 'traitor' and not being mainstream are their main epithets!

 ‘No doubt Mr Julius is right that this device is employed, but it is certainly not limited to anti- Semitic discourse. It is the old 'divide and rule' trick which campaigners against racism in all forms have long warned against. That, as a debating tactic, it is alive and well was illustrated before us. When it was put to the Claimant that many Jewish members of the Respondents disagreed with his views, he protested that the 'bad' Jew label was being applied to him… the Claimant was to be found employing the very device of which he complained, disparaging pro-Palestinian Jewish speakers as 'not mainstream'. Professor Hillel-Ruben appeared to say something similar.’
Interestingly, one of the never ending series of Zionist front organisations, the Academic Friends of Israel was also exposed as one man, his wife and a computer! (Para. 55)

Like most Zionist lobby organisations, Stand With Us etc., Academic Friends of Israel, is a one man and his wife band

‘The Claimant does much of his campaigning through the 'Academic Friends of Israel' ('AFI'), an impressively-presented organisation with a PO Box address, a mission statement and a letterhead showing its patron as the Chief Rabbi and its advisory board as comprising a list of dignitaries including the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Despite appearances, as the Claimant engagingly told us, AFI consists of him, his wife and a computer.’

Accusing Newmark of doing what he did, i.e. trying to push his way in, was 'anti-Semitic' - Jewish 'pushiness' is apparently  an anti-Semitic stereotype

In Para. 131, the Tribunal took great exception to the usual Zionist device of presenting anyone who opposes them as an anti-Semite.  A leading Zionist, Jeremy Newmark, tried to push his way into the UCU’s 2008 Conference and was told to stop pushing.  This was an anti-Semitic remark because Jews are always described as ‘pushy’!!

‘There was a conflict of evidence concerning an event at the Respondents' Congress in 2008…. A closed debate was to be held, for which permits were required. Ms Jane Ashworth… managed (as she put it) to "sneak in" without the necessary permit. Mr Jeremy Newmark, now and perhaps then Chief Executive of the Jewish Leadership Council (also a witness before us), attempted to do likewise but was stopped by stewards. He then tried to push his way in, but was not allowed to do so. … We also reject as utterly unfounded the emotive allegation of Ms Ashworth that Mr Newmark was "Jew-baited". He was not baited at all. Neither Ms Ashworth nor Mr Newmark was a member of the Respondents.'

Unsurprisingly the tribunal went on to find [Para. 148] ‘that we have rejected as untrue the evidence of Ms Ashworth and Mr Newmark concerning the incident at the 2008 Congress …. Evidence given to us about booing. jeering and harassing of Jewish speakers at Congress debates was also false, as truthful witnesses on the Claimant's side accepted. One painfully ill-judged example of playing to the gallery was Mr Newmark's preposterous claim, in answer to the suggestion in cross- examination that he had attempted to push his way into the 2008 meeting, that a 'pushy Jew' stereotype was being applied to him.’  

John Mann  MP - another 'expert' on anti-Semitism who doesn't like answering questions not to his liking

The tribunal took particular exception to Newmark’s statement that ‘the union was "no longer a fit arena for free speech", a comment which we found not only extraordinarily arrogant but also disturbing. We did not derive assistance from the two Members of Parliament who appeared before us. Both gave glib evidence, appearing supremely confident of the rightness of their positions. For Dr MacShane, it seemed that all answers lay in the MacPherson Report (the effect of which he appeared to misunderstand). Mr Mann could manage without even that assistance. He told us that the leaders of the Respondents were at fault for the way in which they conducted debates but did not enlighten us as to what they were doing wrong or what they should be doing differently. He did not claim ever to have witnessed any Congress or other UCU meeting. And when it came to anti- Semitism in the context of debate about the Middle East, he announced, "It's clear to me where the line is ... " but unfortunately eschewed the opportunity to locate it for us. Both parliamentarians clearly enjoyed making speeches. Neither seemed at ease with the idea of being required to answer a question not to his liking.’ [my emphasis]

Dennis MacShane Crooked ex-MP - caught invoicing himself for extra expenses - 1 of Fraser's star witnesses of truth

It is difficult to conceive of a more devastating put-down to the inflated image of themselves that people like Mann hold.  MacShane is, of course, no longer an MP but his arrogance is unlikely to have deserted him.

The finding of the tribunal concerning the respondent’s witnesses was entirely differerent [para. 149]:

‘the Respondents' witnesses were rather less colourful than the Claimant's. They were after all called for the mundane purpose of telling the Tribunal about facts rather than ventilating their opinions (although Mr Julius took the opportunity to explore their opinions nonetheless). In so far as they were tested on matters of fact, we found all of them careful and accurate witnesses.’

Despite my doubts as to whether ‘Jewishness’ counts as a protected characteristic, doubts which the tribunal seem to share, the section of the tribunal judgment that caused most grief to the Zionists was  para. 150 where they found that  

‘a belief in the Zionist project or an attachment to Israel or any similar sentiment cannot amount to a protected characteristic. It is not intrinsically a part of Jewishness and, even if it was, it could not be substituted for the pleaded characteristics, which are race and religion or belief.’

The dismissal of the harassment charges verged on the brutal.  The tribunal found that:

‘152    It is implicit in the word 'unwanted' that a claimant complaining of harassment must have a sustainable ground for feeling aggrieved about the conduct on which the claim is rested. He has none.
153 … Was the conduct 'related to' the Claimant's protected characteristics of race or religion or belief? Plainly, the Respondents' conduct was not. Their constitutional behaviour was not connected in any way whatsoever with his Jewishness.
154     Did the Respondents' conduct have the effect of violating the Claimant's dignity or creating the necessary adverse environment for him? Self-evidently, it did not.'

In para. 155 the tribunal found that even if, legally, the actions of Congress or individual members of UCU, could be construed as harassment ‘we would not uphold it. Apart from anything else (in particular, the question whether debates and decisions about Israel, the academic boycott and so forth 'related to' the Claimant's race or religion or belief), the requisite effect would not be made out. We bear in mind the need to avoid trivialising the protection against harassment.’   In other words, the reasons for passing such a motion or debating the Boycott of Israeli universities had nothing to do with harassing Jewish people but with political positions on Israel.

In para. 156 the tribunal emphasises that point that even if Mr Fraser felt harassed as the result of the passing of a motion ‘we are quite clear that it would not be reasonable for it to have had such an effect…. When a rugby player takes the field he must accept his fair share of minor injuries (see Vowles, para 35, citing an earlier Court of Appeal authority). Similarly, a political activist accepts the risk of being offended or hurt on occasions by things said or done by his opponents… ‘

The activities of the Parliamentary Committee on Anti-Semitism have never been examined.  Its membership is wholly Zionist and it takes assertion as fact when coming from Israel advocates.  In para. 157 the tribunal have a few words of their own to say about the unfair way this Committee operates:
 ‘The Respondents defended themselves courteously but robustly against treatment by the Parliamentary Committee the fairness of which was, to put it at its very lowest, open to question. Their response was sincere and had substance. On any view, it was open to them to do as they did. Their action cannot properly be seen as 'unwanted': it was perfectly proper and unobjectionable. No legal claim can arise from it.’

The tribunal deal equally trenchantly with the other claims by Ronnie Fraser and the Zionists.

In para. 163 ‘Complaint (6) is obviously untenable. The fact that some Jewish members resigned from the union is part of the narrative in this case but it cannot amount to harassment of the Claimant by the Respondents. 'Unwanted' conduct (as we understand that term) is not identified.’   

164     Complaint (7) fares no better. 'On our primary findings, nothing is established concerning dealings between the Respondents and the EHRC about which any remotely arguable complaint of harassment (or anything else) could be made. There was no 'unwanted' conduct. There was no adverse effect. In any event, such an effect could not be reasonable.

 165     'There is nothing in complaint (8). Again, it falls on our primary findings. The Respondents' management of the meetings and debates was unobjectionable and no valid allegation of 'unwanted' conduct on their part (rather than by pro- Palestinian activists) can be founded on it.'

166     'In respect of complaint (9) the Claimant again fails to make out any arguable complaint of 'unwanted' conduct against the Respondents. There was a debate, constitutionally managed by them, which culminated in the vote to reject the EUMC Working Definition. It was open to Congress to consider that motion. Its legality was not in question. The vote was valid and the outcome was the product of the union's democratic processes…. Nor was the Respondents' conduct 'related to' the Claimant's protected characteristics. Nor did their conduct produce the prescribed effect upon him. Nor would it have been reasonable for it to do so.’

167     'Complaint (10) is obviously hopeless.' 

The tribunal then makes clear its own anger that such a hopeless case should have taken up 25 days of tribunal time in order to pursue a political campaign by other means.
‘178     'We greatly regret that the case was ever brought. At heart, it represents an impermissible attempt to achieve a political end by litigious means. It would be very unfortunate if an exercise of this sort were ever repeated.’
 
This is repeated at para. 180:

'The Employment Tribunals are a hard-pressed public service and it is not right that their limited resources should be squandered as they have been in this case. Nor… should the Respondents have been put to the trouble and expense of defending proceedings of this order or anything like it.’

Which strongly suggests that the Claimant, the Israeli government and his other sponsors face a hefty claim for costs.  Activists should ensure that the UCU Executive try to reclaim the costs of this unnecessary action.


Perhaps the icing on the cake is the tribunal’s observations that the Zionists operate in a fundamentally undemocratic manner:

179     'We are also troubled by the implications of the claim. Underlying it we sense a worrying disregard for pluralism, tolerance and freedom of expression, principles which the courts and tribunals are, and must be, vigilant to protect..’

180    'What makes this litigation doubly regrettable is its gargantuan scale…. The Employment Tribunals are a hard-pressed public service and it is not right that their limited resources should be squandered as they have been in this case. Nor, if (contrary to our view) it was proper to face them with any claim at all, should the Respondents have been put to the trouble and expense of defending proceedings of this order or anything like it.’

The employment tribunal noted that 50 Jewish academics had signed a letter rejecting the suggestion that UCU was an anti-Semitic organisation.  Like it or not, the Zionist claim that to be Jewish is to be Zionist is no longer acceptable to rationale thinking people. It is confined to the Melanie Phillips and David Aaronovitches of this world.  It is a classic anti-Semitic trope in fact.

But what has also been missed, by pro-Palestinian supporters and anti-Zionists, is that ‘lawfare’ the resort to law to resolve political disputes, is a sign of the weakness of the Zionists.   This is shown by similar failed attempts in the USA.  Courts may consist primarily of conservative minded judicial appointees, especially the higher courts, establishment to their roots, but they nonetheless have an attachment to logic and precedent.  The idea of taking a political debate into a courtroom has always been frowned on, as Gray J made clear in the libel action launched by David Irving against Penguin Books.  The idea that one can short-cut a democratic majority at a conference with the decision of a judge is, itself, fundamentally undemocratic.  But given that supporters of Israel and Zionists have lost the battle of public opinion and because Israel relies on elite opinion and military power, there is no other option.

Zionism and Zionist activists are firmly opposed to free speech.  The Union of Jewish Students, which regularly (& unsuccessfully) tried to ban me speaking on campuses always, without exception, refused the option they were offered to debate me.  Why?  Because they know that when they debate with their opponents they invariably lose.  Zionists aren’t very good at getting across to people their convoluted distortions of history and their misuse of the holocaust.

Below are a number of articles and comments on what happened.

BM BRICUP, London WC1N3XX
bricup@bricup.org.uk
www.bricup.org.uk

PRESS RELEASE 26th March 2013 -  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

UNION DEFEATS LEGAL CHALLENGE ALLEGING ANTISEMITISM:  RIGHT TO ADVOCATE BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL UPHELD

* Judgment says that complainant was trying to use the law for political purposes

* Employment Tribunal result hailed as important victory by pro-Palestinian groups
BRICUP today welcomed the outcome of the Employment Tribunal (ET) case brought by
Ronnie Fraser against his union, the University and College Union (UCU). The former college teacher’s claim of institutional antisemitism on the part of the union was thrown out comprehensively.

"Fraser vs. UCU" was viewed by activists as a test case for all UK unions’ right to advocate boycott of Israeli universities and products, and firms that operate in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. It also has important implications for free speech on Palestine and Israel on university campuses.  In the two-week hearing at Kingsway ET last November, Fraser had alleged that he was treated unfairly and with hostility during union debates about academic boycott, and about the decision not to use a contentious ‘working definition of antisemitism’ that conflated antisemitism with criticism of Israel.
Fraser’s case was argued by Anthony Julius, the lawyer who handled Princess Diana’s divorce, and author of a recent book on antisemitism. His numerous witnesses included the disgraced former MP Denis MacShane.  Summing up for Fraser, Mr. Julius argued that the ‘attachment to Israel’ of many Jews in the UK constitutes a ‘protected characteristic’ under the Equality Act 2010. If the Tribunal had agreed with him, open discussion of Israeli policies – whether in the unions or in the media - would have become almost impossible.

Fraser agreed that he had been able to speak in UCU’s boycott debates but claimed that his speeches at UCU's Annual Congress were not applauded because of antisemitism on the part of fellow delegates. But UCU's Counsel, Antony White QC, showed that other Jewish speakers, both for and against the boycott motions, had been applauded.

All ten of Fraser’s claims were thrown out by the ET. The judgment says “we greatly regret that the case was ever brought. At heart it represents an impermissible attempt to achieve a political end by litigious means”. 

The tribunal received a letter signed by 58 Jewish members of UCU who said that they held differing views about academic boycott, but all agreed that their union was not antisemitic.  Fraser is the founder and director of the pressure group Academic Friends of Israel and a member of the Board of Deputies (BoD) of British Jews. The hearing revealed the extent to which pro-Israel lobby groups had attempted to interfere with UCU's policies and decision- making. In his evidence Fraser admitted that "the Friends of the various Israeli University groups" had donated £70,000 to the Fair Play Campaign Group, set up by the BoD and the Jewish Leadership Council to coordinate activity against boycotts of Israel. Fraser further alleged that the Fair Play Campaign Group in turn had given £50,000 to Engage, an organisation campaigning against academic boycott. Fraser and his witnesses admitted under cross-examination that in 2007 he withdrew a Congress motion on antisemitism after pressure from the BoD, the Jewish Leadership Council and Engage.

Tom Hickey, a senior member of UCU’s National Executive Committee, said: “This is a landmark judgment. The accusation of antisemitism against UCU because it supports a  boycott of Israel is absurd. Its record in fighting racism, including antisemitism, is second to none in the trade union movement. Had this vacuous charge been upheld, unions and universities would have been silenced on the key moral issue of the century”.

According to Professor Jonathan Rosenhead of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) “The Fraser case against UCU has now been shown up clearly for what it was, an attempt to shut down legitimate debate about Israel. The Israelis have a word for it –‘lawfare’. It isn’t working.”  [ ends ]

Notes
1. UCU, the University and College Union, represents approximately 120,000 academic and academic-related staff in Further and Higher Education in the UK. UCU was formed in June 2006 by the amalgamation of the Association of University Teachers (AUT) and the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE).
Please note that while the people quoted above are members of UCU, they do not claim to speak for UCU, only for BRICUP. UCU's own press release can be found at: http://www.ucu.org.uk/6562
2. "Fraser further alleged that the Fair Play Campaign Group in turn had given £50,000 to Engage" - it should be noted that some of Fraser's witnesses contradicted him on this point.
3. For further information contact:
Tom Hickey:
Prof. Jonathan Rosenhead:
Mike Cushman:
Sue Blackwell:

FRASER vs. UCU: BACKGROUND BRIEFING NOTES

This note describes first, the relevant discussion of Israel and Palestine within UCU; second, the history of legal advice and interventions; and finally Mr Fraser’s known involvement.

1. Relevant motions passed by UCU Congresses
The Fraser case against UCU has arisen from the policy discussions and decisions within UCU about Israel and Palestine, especially those concerned with an academic boycott of Israeli universities, which has been endorsed by organisations representing the bulk of Palestinian civil society

It has never been proposed that the union should instruct its members to implement such a boycott. However, a range of motions short of this have been proposed, and passed, at successive UCU annual Congresses from 2007 onwards. Mr Fraser’s case against the union cited his experience of these debates at Congress.

The key debates and motions passed have been as follows:

2007 – Congress agreed to circulate the Palestinian (PACBI) call for boycott to branches; encourage members to consider the moral implications of links with Israeli universities; and organise a tour of UK universities by Palestinian academic trade unionists.

2008 – affirmed that criticism of Israeli policy is not per se antisemitic; agreed to promote wide discussion among members about the appropriateness of continuing links with Israeli academic institutions.

2009 – [following the Israeli Cast Lead invasion of Gaza] called for a number of changes in UK government policy on Israel/Palestine; urged branches to discuss the Palestinian call for a boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign; and resolved to hold an international, inter-union conference to investigate the lawful implementation of a BDS campaign including the option of institutional academic boycott.

On advice from legal counsel that it would be outside the powers of the union to make a call to boycott Israeli academic institutions this motion, though passed by Congress, was ruled null and void by the UCU President.

2010 – resolved to start the process of imposing a boycott on Ariel College (in a West Bank settlement)

2011 – agreed to circulate the PACBI call for academic and cultural boycott of Israel to members; resolved not to use the ‘EUMC working definition of anti-semitism’ in internal UCU procedures.

2. History of legal threats and moves against UCU and its predecessors

May 2005 - AUT (one of UCU’s predecessor organisations) received a letter from Anthony Julius of solicitors Mishcon de Reya, acting for 6 AUT members. It argued that boycott resolutions passed at AUT Council 2005 were ultra vires  , i.e. falling outside the union’s objects as defined in its rules of association.

2007 – UCU, and the Trustees of UCU, sought legal advice respectively from (Lord) Anthony Lester and Anthony White QC on the implications of the resolution passed in 2007. Their views were (respectively) that the union could lay itself open to charges of unlawful interference in contractual relations between union members and Israeli or other institutions; and that UCU would be acting outside its objects if it even allowed votes on the boycott to be held at branch meetings.

2007 Anthony Julius of solicitors Mishcon de Reya wrote to UCU on behalf of 4 un-named UCU members threatening legal action over the main resolution passed at the previous Congress
May 2008 – the Stop the Boycott organisation commissioned an opinion from Michael Belloff QC and Pushpinder Saini QC on that year’s impending boycott resolution. They argued i) that the terms of the motion were outside the union’s rules; ii) that UCU could incur liability for inducing acts of discrimination on grounds of racial origin contrary to the Race Relations Act; and iii) that discussion of such resolutions could descend into an attack on Jews generally, thereby creating a hostile atmosphere for Jewish members which would be contrary to the discrimination provisions of the

Race Relations Act.

2008 – UCU Congress agreed a rule change, drafted on the advice of the union’s standing counsel and proposed by the union’s National Executive Committee, to extend the union’s objects as defined in its rules of association.

2008 – UCU was for several months under threat of legal action by 12 anonymous members unless it repudiated the previous year’s motion.  UCU met counsel for the litigants but declined to do so.

2012 – Julius threatened action on behalf of Fraser which eventually led to the tribunal hearing.

3. The Fraser case

Ronnie Fraser is a UCU member and chief organiser of, in effect, a 1person organisation called Academic Friends of Israel which received funding from non-UCU sources. He and it made appearances at UCU congresses.  In 2007 Ronnie Fraser’s UCU branch proposed a motion to Congress to incorporate the 'EUMC working definition of Antisemitism' into the union’s working practices. In the Employment Tribunal proceedings it was revealed that this was intended to make implementing a boycott through UCU impossible. He withdrew the motion on the advice of the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council, who disagreed with his strategy.

In 2010 Ronnie Fraser made a complaint to UCU of alleged antisemitism in e-mail posts made to the union’s Activists List by a UCU member. He based this complaint entirely on statements in the posts which he said violated the ‘EUMC definition of Antisemitism’. The complaint was investigated, the member appeared before an internal tribunal, and all the charges were rejected.

In 2011 Congress decided (see above) not to use the EUMC Working Definition within UCU.  The argument was not that antisemitism was to be ignored (indeed as a form of racism any instances should be severely dealt with by the union) but that the EUMC definition conflates anti-semitism with criticism of Israel. 

In 2012 Ronnie Fraser commenced proceedings against UCU through Anthony Julius of Mishcon De Reya, alleging institutional antisemitism within UCU – in the conduct of debates, and specifically against himself.

UCU activist writes: It's about the Palestinians stupid

Mike Cushman  Crosspost from Jewsansfrontieres

To no one’s surprise a Zionist claque has swiftly assembled to denounce the findings of the Fraser vs UCU Employment Tribunal. It would appear that according to these voices the only business a the next meeting of UCU’s national executive will not be fighting the massive cuts in UK higher and further education but debating when and in what format to reissue The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Hysterical rubbish, of course but we have to explore why the reaction is so unbalanced. Fraser and his legal advisors chose the legal terrain and the scope of their action, not UCU. They chose their schedule of witnesses who declaimed and dissembled but failed to address the matters that Fraser wished the tribunal to consider.

Anthony White, counsel for UCU, demolished their testimony but was only able to do so with such effectiveness because they were such poor witnesses.  Ever since the tribunal, Fraser’s self-proclaimed friends have been picking over 50 pages of closely argued legal findings trying to claim they are simultaneously technically narrow and the most wide-ranging antisemitic text of recent years.

Hirsh and Susskind et al fail to grasp at least two very basic points. They solipsistically believe it is all about the Jews; they cannot understand or believe that it is about the Palestinians.

For the vast majority of those active in support of Palestinian rights it was the oppression of Palestinians that led them to activity.  They only started to consider Zionism as an ideology when they started to enquire why Israel was behaving so badly and so criminally.  At that point they encountered the Zionist justification for occupation and oppression and took a stance of either deploring the degradation of a potentially positive movement or took a more radical stance of identifying Zionist ideology, in itself, at the heart of the problem.

The absence of the Palestinians even as objects, let alone actors, in the Zionist exclusionary Jewish narrative tells us all we need to know about why being anti-Zionist is radically different from being an anti-Semite.  Anti-Zionism is a stance against a pernicious anti-Palestinian racism.  Zionism is an ideology that allows Israel to behave as it does while simultaneously believing that Israel conforms to the norms of liberal, law-based democracy.

Secondly, they continually ask, ‘why only boycott Israel?’  The Palestinian call for BDS is the only extant call for boycott by a significant national liberation movement.  Other movements and peoples call for different forms of support each of which must be considered on its merits.

Israel’s crimes are not to measured on a Richter scale of oppression against those of China or Burma or Zimbabwe and only be the subject of campaigns when they reach the hotly contested pinnacle at the top of the Premiership of abuse.  That the crimes are profound and continuing is a sufficient justification.

Other regimes are the subject of regular denunciation and sanction by western governments, Israel is singled out not by our opposition but by the condoning of its actions by the USA; its massive military and civil aid; and its systematic cover at the Security Council.  Similarly the EU treats Israel, in defiance of geography, as a surrogate, if displaced, part of Europe and grants the privileges of association without requiring the fulfilment of Council of Europe human rights standards.

None of this is deny the possibility, and occasional reality, of support for Palestinian rights being motivated by malice towards Jews.  We have a duty to criticise and condemn such behaviour when we see it and the Palestinian rights movement is, in general, self-aware and self critical on this.  Fraser and his team were unable to discover any such motivation behind the actions of UCU officers and activists and are now reduced to asserting that its absence can only be the result of a wider collaboration to conceal it.  Such concealment is beyond the limited ability of UCU, PSC, BRICUP, the Employment Tribunal Service or other presumed conspirators.  Its absence is just that, an absence.

Mike Cushman is a member of BRICUP and is a UCU branch secretary and a regular speaker in favour of Palestinian rights at successive UCU congresses. His interventions were regularly referred to by Fraser and his witnesses.

Follow BRICUP on twitter

Keep up to date with the academic boycott at


Times Higher Education 27 MARCH 2013, JACK GROVE

A Jewish academic who claimed the University and College Union’s policy on Palestine constituted harassment has been rebuked by an employment tribunal for misusing the legal process.


Ronnie Fraser, a further education lecturer and founding director of Academic Friends of Israel, argued that the UCU was institutionally anti-Semitic owing to motions passed in favour of a boycott of Israel.

Despite enlisting the services of Anthony Julius, best known as Diana, Princess of Wales’ divorce lawyer and a partner at Mishcon de Reya, all of his 10 claims of harassment have been “dismissed in their totality”.

During the 20-day hearing in December, Mr Fraser called several witnesses to give evidence, including Howard Jacobson, the Booker Prize winning novelist, John Mann MP, the former MP Denis MacShane and numerous leading Jewish academics.

However, in its judgment, which was published on 25 March, Mr Fraser’s claim is strongly criticised by the tribunal members.

The action is branded by tribunal panel members as “an impermissible attempt to achieve a political end by litigious means” and a case which showed a “worrying disregard for pluralism, tolerance and freedom of expression”.

Mr Fraser, the child of refugees who fled Nazi Germany, is viewed as a “sincere witness”, but the tribunal notes his “political experience” and are not impressed by his claim that the tone of several debates at the UCU’s annual congress “violated his dignity”, thereby constituting harassment.

“No doubt some of the things said in the course of debates were upsetting, but to say they violated his dignity…is to overstate his case hugely,” the judgment says.

“The claimant [Mr Fraser] is a campaigner,” it adds.

“He chooses to engage in the politics of the union in support of Israel and in opposition to activists to the Palestinian cause.

“When a rugby player takes the field he must accept his fair share of minor injuries. Similarly, a political activist accepts the risk of being offended or hurt on occasions by things said or done by his opponents (who themselves take on a corresponding risk).”

Scorn is also invoked for Mr Julius’s decision to pursue certain points, with complaints variously dismissed as “palpably groundless”, “obviously hopeless” and “devoid of any merit”.

The “sorry saga” had also acquired a “gargantuan scale” that required a 20-day hearing and a 23 volumes of evidence which was “manifestly excessive and disproportionate”, the tribunal adds.

“Our analysis to date has despatched almost the entire case as manifestly unmeritorious,” it concludes.

Several complaints were also made with reference to the wrong act of Parliament, while some were also “out of time” as the incident has occurred too long ago to bring to the tribunal.

The judgment also says public resources had been “squandered” conducting such a long case, while “nor should the [UCU] have been put to the trouble and expense of defending proceedings of this order”.

Sally Hunt, UCU general secretary, said: “This has been an extremely difficult period for the UCU staff and members involved in defending the union’s position and I am especially pleased therefore that the tribunal found our witnesses to be careful and accurate.

“The claimant, while unsuccessful, of course had the right to challenge the union in the courts and will be treated with respect within the union as will his views on this question.

“Now that a decision has been made I hope in turn that he, and others who share his views, will play an active part in the union and its debates rather than seek recourse to the law.”

jack.grove@tsleducation.com


Even the rabidly Zionist Jewish Chronicle sees it as 'a blistering rejection'

Pro-Israel activist's case against UCU fails

By Jenni Frazer, March 28, 2013

A blistering rejection of pro-Israel activist Ronnie Fraser's case against the academic union, UCU, was published on Seder night by a London employment tribunal.

In a 49-page ruling, the Employment Judge, AM Snelson, sitting with Mr A Grant and Lady Sedley, rejected Mr Fraser's claims of unlawful harassment by the UCU, and dismissed the entire proceedings.

The reserved judgment was issued in respect of nearly three weeks of hearings which took place in October and November last year. In a stern rebuke in the conclusion of the judgment, Judge Snelson wrote: "Lessons should be learned from this sorry saga. We greatly regret that the case was ever brought. At heart, it represents an impermissible attempt to achieve a political end by litigious means...What makes this litigation doubly regrettable is its gargantuan scale."

The judge rebuked the litigants, saying "the Employment Tribunals are a hard-pressed public service and it is not right that their limited resources should be squandered as they have been."

Although the tribunal said that Mr Fraser had impressed them "as a sincere witness" with "nothing synthetic about his displays of emotion", there were harsh words for several others who gave evidence during the hearing, particularly the chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, Jeremy Newmark, whose testimony was rejected as untrue.

Two MPs - one has since resigned from Parliament - were also criticised for giving "glib evidence, appearing supremely confident of the rightness of their positions... Both parliamentarians clearly enjoyed making speeches. Neither seemed at ease with the idea of being required to answer a question not to his liking."

Mr Fraser said that he was "naturally disappointed" at the decision but added that he was "grateful that the hearing provided us with the opportunity to raise and discuss in great detail the issues of discrimination and antisemitism which are so important to Anglo-Jewry."

He expressed particular concern over a statement in the judgment that "a belief in the Zionist project or an attachment to Israel" was "not intrinsically a part of Jewishness".

Mr Fraser commented: "For the court to say that as Jews we do not have an attachment to Israel is disappointing considering we have been yearning for Israel for 2000 years and it has been in our prayers all that time."

He said; "As a member of the Board of Deputies, I intend to campaign for us as a community to accept a definition of Jewishness which includes a connection with Israel and the adoption of a definition of anti-semitism."

UCU CLEARED OF ANTISEMITISM; ANTHONY JULIUS CHARGED WITH ‘BEING RUBBISH’

By Jamie, 26 March 2013

A lengthy legal battle between the University and College Union (UCU) and Ronnie Fraser, a college lecturer and 50 percent of pro-Israel pressure couple Academic Friends of Israel, has ended with a complete victory for UCU. Fraser, represented by lawyer and prominent Engage-nik Anthony Julius, had accused the union of antisemitic harassment, connected with its record of pro-Palestinian activism and advocacy. An employment tribunal dismissed the claim.

The tribunal's judgement is detailed, considered, and hilarious. The highlights:

Anthony Julius is rubbish

• I do not think that law means what you think it means: '[Anthony Julius] referred in support of his argument to a concept unfamiliar to us and not, so far as we are aware, known to our law' (p. 7)

• 'It seems to us that a belief in the Zionist project or an attachment to Israel or any similar sentiment cannot amount to a protected characteristic. It is not intrinsically a part of Jewishness and, even if it was, it could not be substituted for the pleaded characteristics, which are race and religion or belief. Accordingly, if and in so far as the Claimant [i.e. Ronnie Fraser] seeks to base his claim on what might be termed a sub-characteristics (we are bound to say that we remain uncertain as to Mr Julius's position on this point), we find that it is not open to him to do so.' (p. 37)

• Prior to legal action, Anthony Julius wrote a letter to the UCU demanding 'the abrogation of Motion 70 of 2011 [which rejected theEUMC Working Definition of antisemitism - cf. p. 22], an open an[d] unqualified acknowledgement that the union had been guilty of institutional anti-Semitism coupled with a public apology, a commitment to abide by a code of conduct in respect of its Jewish members to be drawn up by a body comprising individuals approved by the claimant and a further commitment to sponsor a programme (for a minimum of 10 years and conducted by that same body) educating academics about the dangers of anti-Semitism, "with special reference to the relationship between anti-Semitism and what now passes for 'anti-Zionism'".' (pp. 33-34) Will that be all, sir?

The UCU is alright

• [In general, our judgement is that UCU Congress] proceedings were well-ordered and balanced... They were managed in an even-handed fashion with speakers selected in turn to speak for and against the motions... The debates were conducted with courtesy. Speakers on both sides received applause. Despite strength of feeling, they lightened the occasion with humour from time to time. We were quite unable to detect the atmosphere of intimidation which the written case on the Claim's behalf attempted to convey.' (p. 32)

Academic Friend of Israel

• 'The Claimant does much of his campaigning through the 'Academic Friends of Israel' ('AFI'), an impressively-presented organisation with a PO Box Address, a mission statement and a letterhead showing its patron as the Chief Rabbi and its advisory board as comprising a list of dignitaries including the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Despite appearances, as the Claimant engagingly told us, AFI consists of him, his wife and a computer. Like any experienced political activist, he is alive to the PR benefits of disseminating his own views in such a way as to seem to be speaking for a significant number of others.' (p. 19)

• On Ronnie Fraser (who comes off quite well in the judgement): 'He believes passionately in the campaign which he has waged for so long, and appears to regard this litigation as an important engagement within it. Although his sincerity is not in question, his political experience showed at a number of points. He veered away from awkward questions. We were also struck by the contrast between his simple, down-to-earth style and the magnificent prose in which his written case was couched. We do not believe that it would ever occur to him to thank that as a member of the respondents [i.e. UCU] he inhabits an environment of "thickening toxicity"'. (p. 36)

The Bozo Brothers

• Of John Mann MP and former MP Denis MacShane, who appeared before the tribunal:

'Both gave glib evidence, appearing supremely confident of the rightness of their positions. For Dr MacShane, it seemed that all answers lay in the MacPherson Report (the effect of which he appeared to misunderstand). Mr Mann could manage without even that assistance. He told us that the leaders of the Respondents were at fault of the way in which they conducted debates but did not enlighten us as to what they were doing wrong or what they should be doing differently. He did not claim ever to have witnessed any Congress or other UCU meeting. And when it came to anti-Semitism in the context of debate about the Middle East, he announced, "It's clear to me where the line is..." but unfortunately eschewed the opportunity to locate it for us. Both parliamentarians clearly enjoyed making speeches. Neither seemed at ease with the idea of being required to answer a question not to his liking.' (p. 36)

• The tribunal describes a 13 Dec 2006 meeting, requested by UCU officials Sally Hunt and Paul Mackney with Mann and MacShane, concerning the 2006 All-Party Inquiry into Antisemitism:

'The meeting was not a particularly productive one. Ms Hunt and Mr Mackney referred to parts of the report which had described Jewish students feeling threatened on campus and explained that they wished for further information because that matter called for investigation. The parliamentarians did not provide any detail and did not genuinely respond to that inquiry at all. Mr Mann led for them and the more conciliatory tone of Dr MacShane gave way to a somewhat hostile display in which Mr Mann made no bones about his view that the union was operating in an anti-Semitic way and that those at its head must address the problem. He did not explain what the anti-Semitic behaviour was supposed to have consisted of besides referring to the boycott debate and characterising any boycott of Israel or Israeli institutions as itself anti-Semitic.' (p. 24)

• On the All-Party Inquiry into Antisemitism, commissioned by Mann and chaired by MacShane, the tribunal comments: ' [its] fairness... was, to put it at its very lowest, open to question.' (p. 38)

Jeremy Newmark is an antisemitic stereotype

• 'There was a conflict of evidence regarding an event at the Respondents' [i.e. UCU's] Congress in 2008... A closed debate was to be held, for which permits were required. Ms Jane Ashworth, a member of Engage... managed (as she put it) to "sneak in" without the necessary permit. Mr Jeremy Newmark, now and perhaps then Chief Executive of the Jewish Leadership Council... attempted to do likewise but was stopped by stewards. He then tried to push his way in, but was not allowed to do so. Mr Waddup [of the UCU]... spoke to Mr Newmark and told him that he would not be allowed in. We reject the allegation that Mr Waddup said, "You're not wanted here". We also reject as utterly unfounded the emotive allegation of Ms Ashworth that Mr Newmark was "Jew-baited". He was not baited at all... [W]e have rejected as untrue the evidence of Ms Ashworth and Mr Newmark concerning the incident at the 2008 Congress...

'Evidence given to us about booing, jeering and harassing of Jewish speakers at Congress debates was also false, as truthful witnesses on the Claimant's side accepted. One painfully ill-judged example of playing to the gallery was Mr Newmark's preposterous claim, in answer to the suggestion in cross-examination that he had attempted to push his way into the 2008 meeting, that a "pushy Jew" stereotype was being applied to him.' (pp. 32, 36) Ah, the 'preposterous Jew' trope. Typical.

• 'The opinions of witnesses were [mostly]... unremarkable and certainly not unreasonable. One exception was a remark of Mr Newmark in the context of the academic boycott controversy in 2007 that the union was "no longer a fit arena for free speech", a comment which we found not only extraordinarily arrogant but also disturbing.' (p. 36)

Palpable, obvious

• The tribunal's summary judgements of Fraser's and Julius's ten complaints, respectively: 'without substance'; 'devoid of any merit'; '[t]here is nothing in [it]'; 'palpably groundless'; 'arguable'; 'obviously untenable'; 'fares no better'; '[t]here is nothing in [it]'; 'fails to make out any arguable complaint'; 'obviously hopeless'. (pp. 37-41)

• 'Lessons should be learned from this sorry saga. We greatly regret that the case was ever brought. At heart, it represents an impermissible attempt to achieve a political end by litigious means. It would be very unfortunate if an exercise of this sort were ever repeated... We are also troubled by the implications of the claim. Underlying it we sense a worrying disregard for pluralism, tolerance and freedom of expression'.

In the contradiction lies the hope.

Bertholt Brecht

Crushing defeat for Israel lobby as anti-boycott litigation fails in UK
Asa Winstanley 

UCU cleared of harassment in landmark tribunal

Read the judgment of the Fraser v UCU Tribunal in full

How the American far-Right neo-cons see it
How British Justice Failed Ronnie Fraser, Ben Cohen

A good example of the careful, considered and thoughtful responses we have come to expect from Mark Gardner of the misnamed Community Security Trust.

First the normal idiot Zionist approach to the Employment Tribunal judgment in Fraser v UCU. This is the kind of person who prefers to rest on cliches, standard responses whatever the question or who, if stumped for an answer cries ‘anti-Semitism’.  I’ll let you decide which category best fits Mark Gardner, the world’s most highly paid ‘fighter against anti-Semitism’ (about £130,000 pa).  Gardner is the loquacious spokesman for the Zionist Community Security Trust.  He is never lost for an answer, even if it is the same one.  As per usual, he was articulate and eloquent when giving his well reasoned response to and analysis of the employment tribunal decision.

Gardner may oppose 'anti-Semitism' but here he is, best of friends, with arch-bigot Richard Littlejohn

Not for Gardner any   legal subtleties, case law, knowledge or familiarity with the Equalities Act 2010 still less an explanation of how anti-Zionism is a breach of a protected characteristic.  Good gracious no.  As far as Gardner was concerned the tribunal was a ‘harbinger of hate’ and for good measure ‘sneering bastards’!  It is unlikely that he has ever met them, so whether they sneer or what their parentage is seems a matter of speculation, though having read the closely argued Judgment, it seems anything but sneering or hateful.  Unless telling some home truths is in itself hateful.

In an entirely different vein, an extremely interesting article from a Zionist Adam Wagner.  He will of course be ignored and in fact it is, in many ways, good that he is ignored, since what he is arguing for his both for the Zionists to take a look at themselves and for them to abandon their ‘anti-Semitism = anti-Zionism’ approach to all criticism.

Adam Wagner argues that ‘More importantly, the ‘anti-Zionism equals racism’ argument is plainly bankrupt and has no purchase in wider society. We should move on to something which might actually work.’  Therein lies the problem.  Nothing does work.  How do you justify shooting 16 year old kids dead in a West  Bank where no soldier has died for over a year?  How do you justify the recent death of a 30 year old Palestinian prisoner from torture or the eviction of ‘unrecognised’ villages as part of a Nazi style ‘Judaification’ (the Nazis operated a ‘deJewification’ policy) in the Negev and Galilee and East Jerusalem.  If you can’t shoot the message down try shooting the messenger.  Problem is.  It ain’t working!

Tony Greenstein

Legal Ruling Shines Unflattering Light on the Anti-Zionism Equals Racism Campaign

Adam Wagner - one of the more sensible Zionist lawyers

Adam Wagner" Adam (@adamwagner1) is a barrister specialising in human rights & medical law. He is founding editor of UK Human Rights Blog...."
5th April, 2013

Sometimes we need an outsider’s perspective to bring into focus uncomfortable truths about ourselves. Just before the Passover festivities, the Employment Tribunal released a 45-page judgment full of Biblical fury which did just that.

The judgment was about a legal claim  brought by a maths teacher, Ronnie Fraser, against his teaching union. He claimed that the Union had harassed him in breach of equality laws due to its handling of the Israel-Palestine debate.

The full judgment can be read here (PDF). If you have any interest in Jewish communal politics and in particular how the Israel-Palestine debate is handled, I highly recommend you read it. Perhaps set aside half an hour over a well-earned post-Passover sandwich – it’s worth it, I promise.

Fighting racism has never been well paid - supporting racism and Zionism is very lucrative.  Gardner claims to do the first when being paid for the latter!

I won’t try to summarise Employment Judge Snelson’s findings here, but I would like to draw out a few points. The main one is that the Claimant, represented by solicitor Anthony Julius, lost in a big way. This was a total, unqualified demolition job. As an outcome, it really was ten plagues bad.

The language of the judgment is harsh and at times sarcastic. As a lawyer, you can take it from me that it doesn’t get much worse than this. This was a “sorry saga”, the Tribunal “greatly regret that the case was ever brought”, at its heart the case was “an impermissible attempt to achieve a political end by litigious means”. Perhaps worst of all, the claim showed a “worrying disregard for pluralism, tolerance and freedom of expression.”

Let’s just step back for a moment. Just because a judge rules on something doesn’t mean they are right. Judgments get appealed and overturned. Reading this one, and not having been in court for the weeks of evidence, there are at least two possibilities. First, that the Tribunal has taken an irrational or perverse dislike to the claimant, his lawyers and some of his witnesses – that is a real possibility, given how scathing the judgment is. The second is, however, is that the Tribunal has got it broadly right, having listened to the extensive evidence and nonetheless dismissed the case out of hand.

As I said, I wasn’t there – this is an evidence heavy case so you really have to have sat through it to reach a proper conclusion. But assuming for the purpose of this article that the Tribunal did get it right, there is a lot here to be worried about.

Preposterous

Let’s take just a single paragraph, number 148. Here the Judge is summarising his conclusions on the claimant’s witnesses who included British Jewish luminaries such as the author Howard Jacobson. Some gave “careful, thoughtful, courteous evidence”. Others however, “seemed more disposed to score points or play to the gallery rather than providing straightforward answers to the clear questions put to them.” Again, ouch.

Particular criticism was reserved for Jeremy Newmark, the Chief Executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, a committee of community grandees:

We regret to say that we have rejected as untrue the evidence of Ms Ashworth and Mr Newmark concerning the incident at the 2008 Congress… Evidence given to us about booing, jeering and harassing of Jewish speakers at Congress debates was also false, as truthful witnesses on the Claimant’s side accepted. One painfully ill-judged example of playing to the gallery was Mr Newmark’s preposterous claim, in answer to the suggestion in cross- examination that he had attempted to push his way into the 2008 meeting, that a ‘pushy Jew’ stereotype was being applied to him. The opinions of witnesses were not, of course, our concern and in most instances they were in any event unremarkable and certainly not unreasonable. One exception was a remark of Mr Newmark in the context of the academic boycott controversy in 2007 that the union was “no longer a fit arena for free speech”, a comment which we found not only extraordinarily arrogant but also disturbing.

Wow. Here are some words you never want to hear in litigation: “untrue”, “false”, “preposterous”, “extraordinarily arrogant”, “disturbing”. To recap, this is the Chief Executive of an organisation which is arguably now the main ambassador of the Jewish Community to the wider British community. This may all be unfair and perverse, but if it is not then we should be worried about the implications.

Then came the MPs. Not just any MPs, but Denis MacShane and John Mann, both well known to the Jewish community; Mr MacShane chaired the The All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism, Mann authored the Football Association Taskforce on Tackling Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Again, it’s bad:

We did not derive assistance from the two Members of Parliament who appeared before us. Both gave glib evidence, appearing supremely confident of the rightness of their positions. For Dr MacShane, it seemed that all answers lay in the MacPherson Report (the effect of which he appeared to misunderstand). Mr Mann could manage without even that assistance. He told us that the leaders of the Respondents were at fault for the way in which they conducted debates but did not enlighten us as to what they were doing wrong or what they should be doing differently. He did not claim ever to have witnessed any Congress or other UCU meeting. And when it came to anti- Semitism in the context of debate about the Middle East, he announced, “It’s clear to me where the line is …” but unfortunately eschewed the opportunity to locate it for us. Both parliamentarians clearly enjoyed making speeches. Neither seemed at ease with the idea of being required to answer a question not to his liking.

As I said, wow. These are MPs who have been lionised by the Jewish community, and in particular the Jewish Chronicle (perhaps not incidentally, Anthony Julius chairs the JC board, a point highlighted by the Judge). "And on the topic of that Parliamentary Committee”

    157… The Respondents defended themselves courteously but robustly against treatment by the Parliamentary Committee the fairness of which was, to put it at its very lowest, open to question.

The sarcasm drips off that final sentence, doesn’t it? Ultimately, the Tribunal concluded that contrary to the claimant’s arguments, the Union’s meetings were “well-ordered and balanced” and that almost the entire case was “manifestly unmeritorious”. Most importantly, the Tribunal rejected out of hand the argument that “a belief in the Zionist project or an attachment to Israel or any similar sentiment” can amount to a protected characteristic."

Lessons not learned

Where does this leave us? It is tempting to see this “sorry saga” as no more than an unfortunate and hubristic litigation fail, or an “act of epic folly” as the Jewish Chronicle’s ‘Ask the QC’ QC Jonathan Goldberg commented. But I think there are wider lessons here which we would ignore at our peril.

Anyone who follows Jewish communal politics and reads the JC will recognise many in the cast of characters as well as the arguments. Anti-Zionist or pro-Palestinian campaigners are regularly branded as anti-Semites. Despite the good work of organisations like Yachad, this is still a regular and well-supported narrative at the centre of much of the Jewish communal response to criticism of Israel. But that approach – which really amounts to communal comfort food – has clearly failed. And yet it is still wheeled out: watch, for example, this stirring but flawed recent speech by the Chief Rabbi to AIPAC, an American pro-Israel lobby. They hate us, so they would say that. Etc.

Of course, some criticism of Israel is linked to or motivated by anti-Semitism, but isn’t it time to stop using vast resources to paint legitimate debate as racial hatred? As well as failing miserably as an pro-Israel argument, this approach also risks fatally undermining work against real anti-Semitism. Aren’t we just a little bit ashamed for major communal leaders and organisations to have backed a claim showing a “disregard for pluralism, tolerance and freedom of expression”?

In a prediction of Michael Fish quality, the JC originally said of the case that unless UCU repented its “clear antisemitic behaviour”:

'we could be set for this decade’s version of the Irving trial – a specific case which acts to crystallise broader themes and issues'

Jeremy Newmark -  CEO of Jewish Leadership Council - an arrogant liar as the employment tribunal found

It certainly did crystallise broader themes and issues. But not the  ones the cheerleaders hoped for. As said above, it is possible that this Tribunal reached a perverse decision. No doubt some will say so once the recriminations begin to fly. I imagine some will even accuse the Judge of anti-Semitism. But assuming for a moment that he was right, we should, as a community, be embarrassed by this ruling. It involved not just the looney fringe but central figures in the community, who have been branded exaggerators, manipulators and arrogant liars. More importantly, the ‘anti-Zionism equals racism’ argument is plainly bankrupt and has no purchase in wider society. We should move on to something which might actually work. And that is the lesson of this sorry Passover saga.

The colour of her coat didn't match her politics - but her demise is welcome nonetheless

The infamous Sun headline that celebrated the deaths of hundreds of Argeninian conscripts

I was active as food collections organiser in Brighton during the Miners’ Strike of 1984-5.  We collected for the 3 pits in the Kent coalfield.  They are no more.  Members of Brighton Miners’ Support Group visited Armthorpe in Yorkshire, which the Police had laid siege to for 3 days before going on the rampage.  It was the home of Markham Main colliery.  Markham Main is no more.  It wasn’t immigrants or refugees or Bulgarians who took those jobs, it was the monetarists who Thatcher led.  The Fred Goodwins of this world.

Meryl Streep as  Thatcher - she couldn't have done more damage

As part of her plan to destroy the power of the working class, she pursued a mad policy of power stations running on gas rather than coal, an enormous waste of a commodity that is fast running out.  All to defeat trade union power and let her friends in the City let rip..  Regulation for financial services and businesses were lightened (a job that Blair’s monkey Gordon Brown completed) with the results we see today.

Unfortunately the celebration is marred by the sexist banner

If Thatcher was the enemy then the trade union leadership were the scabs who ran for cover, as they did in 1926.  Instead of solidarity action they offered words and I can remember one large miners’ meeting, that the then General Secretary of the TUC Norman Willis spoke at where, unknown to him, a  noose was dangled from the balcony until it was resting a few feet above him.  I remember the bravery and selflessness of the Women Against Pit Closures and the woman in whose house I stayed, Aggie Currie.  They helped lead the strike defying the middle class feminists in London who thought all violence was ‘macho’ and women’s main concerns was their own sexuality.

The Tory Press pays tribute to their idol - she 'saved' Britain for the wealthy

The tragedy was that despite the brilliant leadership of the now discredited Arthur Scargill, the Nottingham Miners in their majority didn’t strike.  Very foolishly Scargill failed to support a ballot of all the membership.  But regardless the Nottinghamshire miners believed the promises of Thatcher and her PR guru Tim Bell.  They paraded with their union jacks and formed a scab Union of Democratic Miners, which was riven by corruption and nepotism.  The Notts. Miners were duly stabbed in the back as their pits were closed when they had served their purpose.

The kids who die from heroin on the estates of Yorkshire and Wales, those without hope of employment in Northumberland or Derbyshire can thank Thatcher for this.

Thatcher came to power in 1979 with a majority of about 20.  In 1983 this was increased to about 144.  Why?  The Malvinas/Falklands war.  Thatcher gained enormously from the patriotic jingoism that was about.   When Argentina invaded the islands, Britain imposed a 200  mile exclusion blockade.  When a rusty 2nd world war naval ship, the General Belgrano was sailing in the exclusion zone away from the Malvinas it was sunk, at Thatcher’s explicit command.  Next day she told people to ‘Rejoice, rejoice’  and that disgusting rag, The Sun had a headline ‘Gotcha’ over the deaths of hundreds of  men.

Now that the evil hag has finally died of senile dementia, a condition she suffered from since a young girl, we should take her cheerleaders at their word and indeed rejoice.  It’s not every day that good things happen.

Tony Greenstein

Tribute from Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Fein

Gerry Adams - President of Sinn Fein

Here's what Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, said about Lady Thatcher:

Margaret Thatcher did great hurt to the Irish and British people during her time as British prime minister. Working class communities were devastated in Britain because of her policies. Her role in international affairs was equally belligerent whether in support of the Chilean dictator Pinochet, her opposition to sanctions against Apartheid South Africa; and her support for the Khmer Rouge.

Here in Ireland her espousal of old draconian militaristic policies prolonged the war and caused great suffering. Her failed efforts to criminalise the republican struggle and the political prisoners is part of her legacy. It should be noted that in complete contradiction of her public posturing, she authorised a back channel of communications with the Sinn Fein leadership but failed to act on the logic of this. Unfortunately she was faced with weak Irish governments who failed to oppose her securocrat agenda or to enlist international support in defence of citizens in the north.

Margaret Thatcher will be especially remembered for her shameful role during the epic hunger strikes of 1980 and '81. Her Irish policy failed miserably.’
And from George Galloway:
Thatcher described Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist". I was there. I saw her lips move. May she burn in the hellfires.

And naturally, Thatcher was a great supporter of Zionism too!


 

A typical Polish shtetl (small town) that the Nazis wiped out in their entirety

Chavka delivering her speech

Chavka Fulman-Raban - the last of the Warsaw Ghetto survivors

When the last Commander of the Jewish Fighting Organisation (ZOB), Marek Edelman ‘wrote a letter in support of those whom he called "commanders of the Palestinian military, paramilitary and partisan operations - to all the soldiers of the Palestinian fighting organizations." He was disowned by the whole of the Israeli political establishment, which has never hesitated to use the holocaust to defend the Zionist state.

Below is a statement from Chavka Fulman-Raban, one of the last Ghetto fighters (though strictly speaking she was arrested as a courier for the resistance and was in Auschwitz at the time).  Below is the article that Chavka gave on Yom Ha'atzmut, the day commemorating the holocaust of European Jewry.

by Richard Silverstein on April 9, 2013 ·
Crosspost from Tikun Olam

On Yom Ha-Shoah, one of the few remaining living survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto, Chavka Fulman-Raban, delivered a fierce denunciation of evil and injustice, including the Israeli Occupation.  Her speech was offered to guests at the ceremony of Beit Lohamey Ha-Getaot (the Ghetto-Fighters House).

I’ve translated it based on the speech  she uploaded to Facebook:

Chavka’s family: her mother survived the war. Marek and Vuk died as resistance fighters.

There is a unity in this commemoration–70 years since the [Warsaw Ghetto] Rebellion.  We’re also nearing the end of the Shoah generation and the last of the [ghetto] fighters.  Most of you in front of me, you are the generations of continuity: the second, third and fourth generations.  I have mixed emotions and thoughts about the past, present, and future.

I will tell you about one experience from that time.  Spring 1942.  I was a courier for an underground operation.  I arrived to visit my friend from the youth movement, Dror Bachrubishov, in occupied eastern Poland very close to the Nazis.

Chavka

I stood in the small railroad station and from the window I could make out, on a field next to the railroad tracks, a great multitude, thousands of men, women, and children.  Overseeing them were Germans running wild on horseback.  A few meters from me, through the window, I saw four boys digging a hole.  The soldiers shot them and they fell into it.  The next morning the field was empty.  At night, the trains had gone on their way: to the camps, to death.

Chavka’s family: her mother survived the war. Marek and Vuk died as resistance fighters.

These were the moments at which I understood and which I feared: this is the beginning of the end.  This is the Shoah.  With this terrible truth, I returned to the Warsaw ghetto, to my family which remained there, to my comrades.

The [Warsaw Ghetto] rebellion became for us [at that moment] necessary and clear.  We continued educational activities and seminars, the underground school and newspapers.  It was important to strengthen the sad, dying ghetto youth.

But at this point, it became most important to find weapons sources.  The deportation of 300,000 Warsaw Jews to Treblinka in the summer of 1942 strengthened us and determined for us that the last battle–the armed rebellion–neared.  That it must break out.

On April 19 1943, seventy years ago, the first rebellion in occupied Europe broke out–the Jewish rebellion.  I wasn’t part of it.  As a courier, I had been arrested during resistance operations in Kharkov and had been brought to Auschwitz a number of months earlier.

All of my nearest, most beloved comrades fought from the rooftops, in the fires, from the bunkers.  Most of them perished.  I hurts me that I can no longer remember all their names.  We memorialize only a few.  But in my heart I am not parted from them, from the forgotten.

Leave in your hearts and memories a place for them, younger generations.  For the beautiful and bold, so young, who fell in the last battle.  I wish for the thousands of you before me, lives enriched with love, beauty, laughter, and meaning.

Continue the rebellion.  A different rebellion of the here and now against evil, even the evil befalling our own and only beloved country.  Rebel against racism and violence and hatred of those who are different.  Against inequality, economic gaps, poverty, greed and corruption.

Strengthen humanistic education and values of ethics and justice.  These too are [a form of] rebellion against alcoholism among our youth and the terrible phenomenon of attacks against the elderly.

Rebel against the Occupation. No–it is forbidden for us to rule over another people, to oppress another [people].  The most important thing is to achieve peace and an end to the cycle of blood[letting].  My generation dreamed of peace.  I so want to achieve it.  You have the power to help.  All my hopes are with you.  If only [you could].

I am so proud to share a religion and ethnic identity with this woman.  She represents the best of all that is Jewish.  She represents the best of all that is Israeli.

Please consider a donation to support the ground-breaking research, translation and peace-making efforts of Tikun Olam.