Truthout June 3, 2011:
As Israeli opposition parties, peace and human rights activists, and editorialists denounced their prime minister’s intransigence in the face of President Barack Obama’s peace initiative, Congressional Democrats here in the United States have instead joined their Republican counterparts in lining up to support the right-wing Israeli leader’s defiance…
Category: Israel and Palestine
Israel and Palestine
Obama’s Mideast Speech: Two Steps Back, One Step Forward
Foreign Policy In Focus /Institute for Policy
Studies May 20, 2011 & Huffington Post
President Barack Obama’s May 19 address on U.S. Middle East policy… failed to consistently assert principled U.S. support for human rights, democracy, or international law…
Obama’s Veto on Israeli Settlements Demonstrates Contempt for International Humanitarian Law
Huffington Post March 21, 2011
The US veto of a mildly worded UN Security Council resolution supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and reiterating the illegality of Israeli settlements in occupied territories leaves little doubt that… Obama shares his predecessor’s contempt for international law. All fourteen of the other members of the Security Council voted for the resolution — which was cosponsored by a nearly unprecedented majority of UN members…
Mubarak’s Ouster: Good for Egypt, Good for Israel
Huffington Post Feb 17, 2011 | Updated May 25, 2011
Also in Common Dreams and Tikkun: The inspiring triumph of the Egyptian people in the nonviolent overthrow of the hated dictator Hosni Mubarak is a real triumph of the human spirit. While there will likely be continued struggle in order to ensure that the military junta will allow for a real democratic transition, the mobilization of Egypt’s civil society and the empowerment of millions of workers, students, intellectuals and others in the cause of freedom will be difficult to contain…
Israel Represses Israelis and Congress Approves
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies December 28, 2010; also Huffington Post, Antiwar.com, Common Dreams, and Occupied Palestine
It’s been two years since Israel initiated the “Operation Cast Lead” military assault on the besieged Gaza Strip. Since then, the right-wing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has launched an unprecedented wave of intimidation against Israeli peace and human rights groups. These groups say they are “working in an increasingly hostile environment,” according to a New York Times report, and that Israeli government leaders are fostering “an atmosphere of harassment” by turning “human rights criticism into an existential threat.” However, Congress has chosen to look the other way…
Democrats Push Through Yet Another Anti-Palestinian Resolution
December 19, 2010Though outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has insisted that there just isn’t enough time for the lame duck Democratic-controlled Congress to consider much of the progressive legislation on the docket prior to the Republican takeover early next month, she and other Democratic leaders did find time last Wednesday to pass a resolution condemning efforts by Palestinian moderates to seek recognition of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
The Oslo accords were signed in 1993 with the vision of Israel’s eventual withdrawal from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. This was an enormous compromise on the Palestinian side, given that such a state would leave them with only 22% of their historic homeland, the rest of which became the state of Israel in 1948…
New Arms Deal to Israel Stokes Militarism
Truthout November 10, 2010
The recently announced deal for the United States to provide Israel with 20 new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets marks yet another blow for arms control advocates and those who had hoped the Obama administration would resist continuing with the Bush administration’s policy of further militarizing the Middle East. Once again rejecting calls from the peace and human rights community to link arms transfers to adherence to human rights and international law, the $2.75 billion deal is one of the largest arms procurements by the state of Israel. This is the first part of a series of US taxpayer-funded arms transfers to Israel expected to total more than $30 billion over the next decade…
A “Progressive Hero?” Time to Think Outside of the Boxer
Huffington Post Oct 20, 2010|Updated May 25, 2011; also ZNetwork
The failure of progressives to make major inroads in electoral politics in the U.S. today could not be better illustrated than a recent decision by Democracy for America, a million-member political action committee founded by former Vermont governor Howard Dean which claims leadership in the support for progressive candidates for office, regarding a veteran U.S. senator facing reelection in November. The senator has strongly defended Israeli attacks on civilian population centers in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Lebanon and rejected calls for linking the billions of dollars in U.S. aid to human rights considerations…
Congress Defends Murder of American Peace Activist and Other War Crimes
Truthout October 11, 2010; also in Znetwork
Despite revelations from a detailed investigation by a special commission of the UN Human Rights Council confirming that Israel committed war crimes, the overwhelming majority of both Republican and Democratic members of Congress remain on record defending the Israeli attack as legitimate self-defense. This is particularly striking given evidence presented in the report that five of the nine people killed, including a 19-year-old US citizen, were murdered – shot execution-style by Israeli commandos…
Senate Again Undermines Obama’s Middle-East Peace Efforts
Huffington Post October 11, 2010. Also by ZNetwork.
Once again, as President Barack Obama began pressuring the right-wing Israeli government to freeze the expansion of its illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, leading Congressional Democrats have joined in with Republicans to try to stop him.
Pavlovian Congress Jumps to Israel’s ‘Self-’ Defense
Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, June 25, 2010, also in Znetwork.org
In a letter to President Barack Obama date June 17, 329 out of 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives referred to Israel’s May 31 attack on a humanitarian aid flotilla in international waters, which resulted in the deaths of nine passengers and crew and injuries to scores of others, as an act of “self-defense” which they “strongly support.” Similarly, a June 21 Senate letter — signed by 87 out of 100 senators — went on record “fully” supporting what it called “Israel’s right to self-defense,” claiming that the widely supported effort to relieve critical shortages of food and medicine in the besieged Gaza Strip was simply part of a “clever tactical and diplomatic ploy” by “Israel’s opponents” to “challenge its international standing.”
Israel’s Dubious Investigation of Flotilla Attack
Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies June 24, 2010: Also by OpEdnews.com, Common Dreams, Huffington Post & Znetwork
Few decisions of the Obama administration have outraged the peace and human rights community as much as its successful efforts to block an international inquiry into May’s Israeli aid flotilla attack. Instead, supported by leading Republican and Democratic members of Congress, the Obama administration has thrown its weight behind an investigative committee handpicked by right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu… [source]
Democratic Party Defends Israeli Attack
OpEdNews Op Eds, June 16, 2010, and Common Dreams
Tens of thousands of Israelis protested in the streets of Tel Aviv last weekend against their right-wing government’s attack on an unarmed humanitarian aid flotilla sailing in international waters. International condemnation of the raids continued in foreign capitals. Meanwhile, in Washington, Democratic congressional leaders were lining up alongside their Republican colleagues to defend the Israeli assault. Countering the broad consensus of international legal scholars who recognize that the attack was in flagrant violation of international norms, prominent Democrats embraced the Orwellian notion that Israel’s raid, which killed at least nine activists and wounded scores of others, was somehow an act of self-defense… [source]
Will the Flotilla Attack Be Our “Kent State” Moment?
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, June 7, 2010;
also CommonDreams, ZNetwork & Baltimore Nonviolence Center blog
Israel’s attack on the unarmed flotilla last weekend could be a “Kent State moment.” When white middle-class students were gunned down on a college campus, it woke up a whole new segment of American society to police killings of minority students. Similarly, while the Israeli military has been killing Arab civilians for years, now that they have attacked European and American peace activists it has created a whole new dynamic. [source]
U.S. Support for Israel Mirrors 80s Support for El Salvador Junta
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies
June 3, 2010; also Huffington Post & ZNetwork
It’s like the 1980s all over again. During that decade, the Reagan administration – with the support of Congress – sent billions of dollars worth of unconditional military and other support to the right wing-junta in El Salvador, just as the Obama administration is today with the right-wing government in Israel. When Salvadoran forces massacred 700 civilians in El Mozote, Congressional leaders defended the killings, saying that the U.S-backed operation was “fighting terrorists.” Similarly, when Israel massacred over 700 civilians in the Gaza Strip early last year, Congressional leaders defended the killings for the same reason. [source]
Israel’s Latest Violation
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, June 2, 2010; also Antiwar.com, CommonDreams, Huffington Post, OpEd News, Truthout & ZNetwork
Every time Israel’s right-wing government engages in yet another outrageous violation of international legal norms, it is easy to think, “No way are they going to get away with it this time!” And yet, thanks to the White House, Congress and leading American pundits, somehow, they do. Israel’s attack on an unarmed flotilla of humanitarian aid vessels in the eastern Mediterranean — resulting in more than a dozen fatalities, the wounding of scores of passengers and crew, and the kidnapping of 750 others — has so far proven no different. [source]
Interview: Gaza Freedom Flotilla Attack (audio)
Talk Nation Radio: Listen at Archive.org
The Gaza War, Congress and International Humanitarian Law
Middle East Policy Council April 16, 2010; also Institute for Palestine Studies, ResearchGate, Typeset.io & Wiley
The large-scale killing of civilians during Israel’s three-week assault on the Gaza Strip in 2008-09 received widespread condemnation from human-rights advocates and international legal scholars the world over. In both Europe and North America, public reaction to the grossly disproportionate Israeli response to Hamas rocket attacks was the most negative ever expressed against an Israeli military action. In Israel itself, soldiers who had witnesses some of the atrocities joined Israeli peace activists in exposing war crimes committed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). However, the U.S. Congress, under the leadership of the Democratic Party, overwhelmingly defended the Israeli offensive, even to the point of attacking leading defenders of international humanitarian law. [source]
John Hall: Still the One? Why Democrat John Hall does not deserve MoveOn endorsement
Alternet, March 8, 2010 and Huffington Post, May 10, 2010: In the face of expected Republican gains this year, receiving the support of MoveOn, one of the country’s largest progressive advocacy groups, is of particular importance for Democratic candidates. One of only a handful of House incumbents to receive the coveted endorsement by MoveOn’s political action committee is Democrat John Hall, who represents the 19th district in upstate New York. John Hall is the former frontman for the band Orleans (“Dance with Me,” “Still the One,” etc.).