Palestine Chronicle - Headlines

Gaza's Race Car Students 'Inspirational'

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:45:21 -0500

By Stuart Littlewood

Imagine a handful of engineering students imprisoned in the tiny Gaza enclave taking on the cream of Europe's technical universities in a competition to build a race car and compete with it.

They did it last year. And they’re planning to do it again this year – at least that’s what their students’ union tells me, and I’ve been trying to get confirmation.

Formula Student (FS) is a challenge to university students around the world to design and build a single-seat racing car, which they must then put through its paces at the Silverstone Circuit in the UK in a series of static and dynamic tests.

The aim is to inspire young people and boost skills in advanced engineering. In Europe the competition is run by the Institution of Mechanical Engineer (IMechE). America has a similar student competition run by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).

Students have to pretend they’ve been engaged by a manufacturing firm to produce a prototype car for evaluation. In addition to technical skills, the exercise teaches management, marketing and people skills. The motorsport industry regards this as an ideal standard of achievement for students making the transition from college to workplace.

Last year’s Class 1 winner was the University of Stuttgart. Stuttgart, of course, is home to Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, and the University is renowned for its advanced automotive engineering. Gottlieb Daimler himself was a student there, and Wilhelm Maybach received an honorary doctorate from the University at the age of seventy - names to conjure with!

This gives some idea of what the Gaza lads, who are starting in Class 2, will eventually be up against. Peter Leipold, 26, Chief Executive of the winning Rennteam Stuttgart, said: “Formula Student gives you the chance to learn much more than you ever could through studying, internships and diplomas. You have to deal with ideas and concepts, design, manufacturing, costing, materials, testing, logistics – there’s such a huge range of work you have to do. I don’t think there’s any other competition in the world in which you can learn so much.”

Construction of the car itself has to conform to nearly 30 pages of stringent rules and regulations. A four-stroke piston engine no larger than 610cc must be used, but this is enough to catapult the car from 0 to 60mph in just a few seconds. Electric only or hybrid vehicles are also allowed.

Further rules cover judging. The cars are judged in a series of tests such as technical inspection, cost and sustainability, presentation, and engineering design, solo performance trials, and high performance track endurance.

The rules even cover "unsportsmanlike conduct".

The competition has been running in the UK since 1998 and Silverstone has been the venue since 2007. Nowadays Silverstone, besides being the home of Formula One racing, incorporates a technology park and is a very different world from the old aerodrome circuit many of us remember from the 1950s and 1960s.

Blockaded and Starved of Resources

The Khan Younis Training Centre (KYTC), located near Rafah, at the southern end of the Gaza Strip, was set up by UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency) in 2007 to provide training for Gazan refugees and to inject skilled labour into the local economy. One of the programmes it offers is Autotronics, which includes diagnosis, maintenance & repair of automotive systems, injection & ignition systems and electronics & electrical systems

Ever since Hamas won the 2006 elections in Palestine and enforced their right to govern the Gaza Strip this tiny coastal enclave has been viciously blockaded by Israel, turning it into a prison. Nothing gets in or out without Israel's say-so. Although the siege is illegal under international law the international community does nothing. In 2009 KYTC’s first Autotronics class, frustrated at the lack of workshop materials for hands-on automotive experience, set about building a race car from recycled parts. The following year the students decided to go further and build a car to the exacting standards of Europe's Formula Student contest. 11 students eventually travelled to the UK last June with their high-octane creation.

Entered in Class 2, the team won 3rd prize for their business plan and came 9th with their financial report. But they were docked a huge number penalty points for missing the deadline for their design and specification report. This was because Israel’s illegal blockade prevented specialty parts from Italy reaching them. The team had to improvise with recycled items from Gaza. Had they been awarded just an average score for the design and specification section they’d have finished in the top half of the results table along with Bath, Budapest, Brunel and Edinburgh.

Dr Colin Brown, Director of Engineering at IMechE, said: “It really is inspirational to see a team working so hard with the odds stacked against them like this. Formula Student is a massive challenge in its own right, but to be working with almost entirely recycled parts in one of the most deprived areas in the world is remarkable.

“These students epitomise the spirit and inventiveness of those who take part in Formula Student.”

Domestic Water pipes and Old Motorcycle Engine

Who are these remarkable youngsters and who encouraged them to get involved? UNRWA says: “The 11 youngsters that make up the Formula Student team are following a course in autotronics, designed to give a solid practical grounding in automobile engineering. In educational terms, it equates to an A Level or Ordinary National Certificate (ONC). Many are from a background that the United Nations describes as “abject poverty”, which means families who do not have the financial resources to provide for the very basic necessities such as food, clothing, and hygiene…”

The Principal of the KYTC, Dr Ghassan Abu-Orf, was aware of the then-fledgling Formula Student competition while teaching at the University of Sunderland in the UK. When he returned to Gaza, he reckoned that building such a car locally would be an ideal project for his pupils.

According to Emel (Muslim Lifestyle) Magazine, "once the team had made the plans for the car and identified the necessary parts they needed, they set about contacting various suppliers around the world to see where they could be acquired from. After many companies turned them down, the students found an Italian company that was willing to work with them. But even after the parts were sent, the Israeli authorities refused to let them enter the Gaza Strip.

“We didn’t give up,” a member of the team told Emel. “As Palestinians, we look for plan B all the time.”

So the students checked old cars and machinery in the Strip and salvaged the parts they needed. The engine came from a used Honda motorcycle and the chassis was fabricated with domestic hot water pipes. “Unfortunately we didn’t have the tools, machines and parts necessary to give us the best possible results — technology in Gaza is still quite primitive and out of date in comparison with international standards. But our mission was different, and remains different.”

Sahar Mousa, writing in Rotterdam4gaza, said: "For us the Formula Student competition is more than a prize, its more than a competition to win, it’s not related to being famous or to get any material reward. When we think about the competition we think about Palestine, we think about the Palestinian people wherever they are, we think about a message we need to send for the world. We need to tell everybody that we are a part of this world and we deserve our place in this world. We are able to be active and Palestinian Youth are able to create, innovate, and compete.

“Yes we can make it, we are strong enough to do it, because it’s for Palestine and it’s for every Palestinian."

Sadly, I’m posting this article without any contributions from the main players – the General Union of Palestinian Students UK who hosted the Gaza team while in Britain, the Palestinian Embassy in London, and the team itself. The reason? After several requests the union said it was “too busy” to give me the team’s contact details. The embassy has not, as far as I know, issued any press releases or briefings, although it did reproduced a Daily Telegraph report on its website last June. I have written twice asking the ambassador’s office for information and contact details only to be ignored. After combing the internet I found a general email address for KYTC. Two emails have been sent but not acknowledged.

So this amazing story is scraped together from other sources. Had I known about it last summer, I’d have been at Silverstone cheering the lads on.

But it would be good to know ...

• While in the UK the team visited Parliament and presumably other places besides Silverstone. Did they manage to establish any helpful links to the performance car industry (constructors and R&D) or liaise with likeminded education and training establishments?
• Have they arranged a programme yet for their 2012 visit?
• For 2012 what changes are they making? Will it be the same car modified or an entirely new one? Same team or a new one?

These were among the questions sent to the Principal, although he might not have received them. I also asked for pictures. Again nothing.

The 2012 event is only three month away. If the KYTC lads read this and wish to update me on their preparations I’ll be happy to do a follow-up. But I hope they appreciate that writers and reporters need to wrap up their stories and move on. If unable get a timely reply or make proper contact they soon lose interest.

As for the Palestinian embassy in London, its prime task is surely to represent all Palestinians in a good light, showcase their achievements and help open doors to opportunities. This year, if indeed these remarkable youngsters are coming back, let us hope the Ambassador and his staff are on the ball and actively engaged.

- Stuart Littlewood's book Radio Free Palestine can now be read on the internet by visiting www.radiofreepalestine.org.uk. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

'Most Gifted Foreign Correspondent in a Generation'

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:31:45 -0500

By Ralph Nader

Anthony Shadid, called the 'most gifted foreign correspondent in a generation' by his then Washington Post colleague, Rajiv Chandrasekaran (author of the widely heralded book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City"), didn't really need a byline. For anyone who knew of his peerless, unique reports from the Middle East would read them and just know they were a Shadid special.

Alas, there will be no more Shadid reports and features from the streets, alleys, souks, homes, hospitals, workplaces and cultures of the Arab countries. For on an assignment from The New York Times in a dangerous, mountainous area of Syria last week, this humble, brilliant, nuanced, generous, honest, brave double-Pulitzer-Prize winner (with another one likely on the way) died from an apparent asthma attack together with severe allergic reactions and exhaustion.

Mr. Shadid, only 43, with by a wife and two children, never wanted to be a war correspondent embedded in the U.S. military invasions and attacks of these countries. Fluent in Arabic, he wanted to be free to find out what was going on in the Arab communities throughout the Middle East and communicate the truth to the American people and the world.

This son of Oklahoma by way of the University of Wisconsin Journalism School did just that, for more than 15 years in the tumultuous Arab world from North Africa to West Asia. As Rajiv Chandrasekaran wrote, "His coverage of the Middle East - from Iraq, Lebanon, Libya and beyond - was, simply, the best. He set the standard. If you cared about the region, if you really wanted to understand what was going on, you read Anthony. If you were in his presence, as I was - we were fellow correspondents and housemates in Baghdad - you watched his performances with the awe usually reserved for basketball stars and violin virtuosos."

The Pulitzer Board's encomium in 2004 cited Mr. Shadid for "his extraordinary ability to capture, at personal peril, the voices and emotions of Iraqis as their country was invaded, their leader toppled and their way of life upended."

He not only went into areas fraught with danger, he also paid the price. In 2002 while covering the Israeli assaults in the West Bank for the Boston Globe, he narrowly escaped death. His photographer and colleague, Michael Robinson Chavez described the scene, "We were in Ramallah. A shot rang out and a piercing scream echoed through the deserted streets. I saw a Palestinian helping a wounded man. It was Anthony. Israeli Defense Forces had shot him in the neck."

Last year in Libya, Mr. Shadid, photographer Tyler Hicks, and two other Times journalists were seized by pro-government militias and incarcerated for a week of fear, physical abuse and hair-trigger threats before being released only to learn that their driver had already been killed.

Mr. Shadid's writings invited the ire of the Mubarak police when he was in Egypt during the Arab Spring, and he was a wanted man by the Syrian regime, which made his last assignment by The New York Times via smuggler-guides not exactly a prudent managerial decision.

No one with such compassion, sense of history, culture and love of peace could hide his feelings better than reporter Anthony Shadid did. In the report on his loss in the Times, Rick Gladstone wrote of Shadid's "elegiac prose." Gladstone wrote, "In the opening of a new book, House of Stone, to be published next month, he [Shadid] described what he had witnessed in Lebanon after Israeli air assaults in the summer of 2006:

'Some suffering cannot be covered in words. This had become my daily fare as a reporter in the Middle East ... In the Lebanese town of Qana, where Israeli bombs caught their victims in the midst of a morning's work, we saw the dead, standing, sitting, and looking around. The village, its voices and stories, plates and bowls, letters and words, its history, had been obliterated in a few extended moments that splintered a quiet morning."

Of course, Mr. Shadid would not mention that his ancestral village was not that far away from this recognized (even by Israelis) war crime on Qana's civilians. He would hold back any feelings in his subsequent writings with a stiff, professional upper lip.

The extended Shadid family in Oklahoma comes from a background of pioneering achievement in America after overcoming great tragedy back in what was then greater Syria. From the village of his forebears, Marjayoun, came a stream of immigrants. One was a teenager, Michael Shadid, who escaped the historic famine of that time, during the Ottoman Empire, which took the lives of his six siblings.

He started as a youthful peddler, caught the eye of a dean at Washington University in St. Louis who encouraged him to go to college and then medical school. He chose to practice in the impoverished farm country around Elk City, Oklahoma and in 1929 started the first pre-paid cooperative hospital in the country, wrote and toured the nation promoting the virtues of prepaid medical care. His indefatigable work was a precursor of the Kaiser and Puget-Sound prepaid health care plans.

Anthony Shadid's managing editor at the Washington Post, Phil Bennett, who worked closely with him, summed up why there has been a remarkable outpouring of heartfelt accolades (see his New York Times website) from his colleagues. "He changed the way we saw Iraq, Egypt, Syria over the last, crucial decade," Mr. Bennett declared. "There is no one to replace him," he added sorrowfully.

Mr. Shadid's legacy will be illuminated and rooted in forthcoming awards and honorary fellowships. But his most personal, lasting contribution will be how his writings and his ways of finding and comprehending the story elevated the standards of his profession for those young journalists who will follow him along with the readers they will enlighten.

(Interested readers may wish to see further commentary on Anthony Shadid by visiting The New York Times and The Washington Post.)

- Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us. He is encouraging people around the country to gather in their own towns or cities on Sept. 10 to discuss ways to avoid overreactions to threats. Visit: www.nader.org.

Illusions of 'the Yemeni Model'

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:40:55 -0500

By James Gundun - Washington, D.C.

They couldn't believe their ears.

After months of backroom negotiations and a week of intense lobbying reduced the United Nations to Moscow's 'consensus,' nyet still reverberated throughout the Security Council's chamber. Russia and China's veto of a potential resolution in Syria triggered immediate outrage and disgust, exploding throughout Western capitals, oppositional Arab states and global social media. Unable to contact her counterpart during the resolution’s internal debate, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ascended the UN’s stage to ask Moscow, "Are you on the side of the Syrian people? Are you on the side of the Arab League?"

She would drop the rhetorical questions after Saturday’s double-veto with China, declaring, “The Syrian people have asked the Security Council to act. The Arab League has asked the Security Council to act.”

Whose side, though, is the Obama administration on? Despite lacking the moral high ground in Syria’s revolution, Moscow’s counter-propaganda against the Western-Gulf winds of regime change is floating on indirect truths. Russian officials persistently argue that foreign powers are invested in their own interests, and that regime change was approved as soon as Syria’s uprising accelerated in March 2011. Most of Moscow’s rhetoric is applicable to itself, but Western and Gulf leaders have condemned Russia and China for vetoing a resolution that Syria’s opposition doesn’t fully support. Instead, the UN Security Council (UNSC) has opted to copy the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) unpopular power-sharing initiative in Yemen.

Cross-pollination of Yemen and Syria’s “transitions” could have preceded last October, when the UNSC unanimously passed the GCC initiative with minimal Western coverage (Yemen has received the least U.S. attention of any major uprising). The GCC’s power-sharing agreement between Saleh’s General People’s Congress (GPC) and the oppositional Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) slowed the pace of regime change to a crawl, freezing the organic pro-democracy movement and various actors out of the political process. Saleh’s vice president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur al-Hadi, was formally promoted to the presidency on February 21st, courtesy of a UN-authorized referendum that is being wrongfully billed as an election.

President Barack Obama broke his silence over the weekend by christening a redundant exercise, telling Hadi that he’s “optimistic that Yemen can emerge as a model for how peaceful transition in the Middle East can occur when people resist violence and unite under a common cause.”

Conceived by U.S. and Saudi minds in April as a post-Mubarak model, the GCC initiative combined elements of Egypt’s contingency to quell Yemen’s revolutionary forces. Most of Saleh’s relatives - those that haven’t defected or succumbed to oppositional pressure - remain in their military positions, including his son and nephew. Ahmed and Yayha still coordinate with U.S. officials as the heads of Saleh’s Republican Guard and Central Security Organization, the leading perpetrators of violence against anti-regime protesters. His half-brother also commands the Air Force, which has bombed al-Qaeda positions as well as anti-government tribesmen.

Although direct military support is reportedly on hold, the White House’s counter-terrorism chief recently announced an increase in equipment and training as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) continues to assert its reach. John Brennan and U.S. Ambassador Gerald Feierstein have also shunned Yemen’s pro-democracy movement in favor of Saleh’s regime, and Hadi’s new ranking of “Field Marshall” completes the parallel. One Yemeni minister even told Reuters that “the American administration... will strongly confront any attempts to keep Hadi from being elected as the country's president.”

Western and Gulf powers view the GCC’s agreement as a model of counter-revolution; the diplomatically-immune Saleh has been “removed,” a controllable figure from his regime sits in his place, counter-terrorism operations are unaffected, Yemen’s opposition is cornered by the ruling party and foreign powers, and the revolutionaries were forced to choose between a single-candidate “election” and further political isolation. The GCC’s power-sharing was constructed from the ground up to prevent regime change, a reality that will become more apparent during the volatile two-year “transitional” period to Yemen’s next election cycle.

Moscow eventually realized that a similar process could be replicated and internationally approved in Syria, contributing to a stalemate that now haunts the region. Choosing Abu Dhabi’s first Russian-GCC ministerial as his strategic setting, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov launched his campaign less than two weeks after the UNSC passed Yemen’s Resolution 2014. Lavrov told reporters that Moscow is “convinced that this approach to Yemen’s developments, presupposing a dialogue between authorities and opposition forces, must be applied to the situation in Syria as well.” The Minister's positive description of Yemen’s power-sharing agreement demonstrates just how counter-revolutionary it is.

“The GCC’s initiative was launched, and everyone – the Cooperation Council itself, Arab League, EU, US, Russia and China – have acted very responsibly, not dictating artificial deadlines but providing sufficient time – months – for the stated purpose to be achieved.”

Seemingly expecting a quid pro quo in Syria, consultations between U.S. and Russian officials began before Lavrov went public. Reports of private negotiations surfaced through January, many of them alleging that the Obama administration left Moscow to compose a soon-to-be-released "Russian initiative.” This plan would be rejected by Syria’s opposition and Western capitals alike, but the conditions of “dialogue” and “a cabinet of national unity” remain identical to Yemen’s. The crossover was solidified after Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani, Qatar’s Prime Minister, unveiled the Arab League’s Syrian initiative with the following line: “This plan is similar to the plan for Yemen, where there was certain progress.”

Al-Thani called on Bashar al-Assad to "delegate powers to the vice president to liaise with a government of national unity,” to which Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem replied, “We do not imitate Yemen.”

The Obama administration and Europe’s full support for the Arab League’s "remarkable" proposal has generated one more obstacle for Syria’s revolutionaries. Admittedly divided on their leadership and international demands, oppositional groups find themselves caught in the jet wash of competing foreign powers. When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed, "What happened yesterday at the United Nations was a travesty,” she failed to mention that the UN’s text was significantly diluted for Russian approval. UN Ambassador Susan Rice singled out Moscow and Beijing’s “empty arguments and individual interests” despite Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin’s confidence that “we have a much better understanding of what we need to do to reach consensus."

Russia has dutifully obeyed in Yemen and is even charged with overseeing a national dialogue, giving new meaning to Rice’s assertion that Syria’s opposition “is faced with a neutered Security Council.” What she means is that Washington easily acquired Moscow’s vote in Yemen and insists on the same obedience in Syria. Looking at the region through their eyes, Russian officials have lost Libya and are jealously monitoring the Obama administration's counter-revolutions in Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain. They must fume over the double standard of Ali Saleh, who escaped Western sanctions and is currently traveling in California before he makes a triumphant return to Sana'a.

Now Washington has the audacity to control Syria’s transition.

Considering that Moscow received its terms in Syria, Russia’s veto jars with Lavrov’s vocal support for copying Yemen’s power-sharing deal. Russian officials may have felt uncomfortably rushed, as Churkin later told PBS’s Charlie Rose, but Moscow also feels that it cannot lose Syria at any cost - a dangerous zero-sum game. The Arab League’s transition will be pocketed as a last resort, and for now al-Assad’s “unconditional” dialogue remains the centerpiece of any political resolution. Lavrov would later announce after an emergency visit to Damascus, “Today we received confirmation from the president of Syria that he is prepared to cooperate in this effort.”

Beijing also sent Vice Foreign Minister Zhai Jun to play up al-Assad’s constitutional referendum, which has been dismissed by Western capitals and oppositional networks.

An inherently unstable deal that avoids the country’s fundamental divisions, Syria's GCC clone has been greeted with predictable hostility from al-Assad’s regime. The situation is far past the point of “dialogue” and cannot be reversed through superficial reforms. Exile and immunity may offer a last hope at averting a large-scale civil war, but an emulation of Yemen’s breakdown will likely follow a U.S.-Russian compromise. Instead Western and Gulf officials continue to disseminate the false notion that Yemen’s deal is “working,” having forced Saleh out of the presidency and temporarily halted wide-scale bloodshed.

Clinton briefly alluded to this scenario when addressing Syria’s prospects, saying, “it took a long time, it was a lot of false starts, but we just kept at it day after day. And they’re going to have an election; they’re going to have the chance to at least try to move forward.”

Clinton naturally leaves out the resistance from Yemen’s revolutionaries, Houthi Sect and Southern Movement, who were blackballed due to their refusal to accept the GCC’s terms. Now the majority of Yemen’s violence has redirected into the north and south, and no sincere outreach to either movement has been attempted. Investigations and trials into Saleh’s abuses (before and after the revolution) are unlikely to materialize since his family is protected by national and international immunity, leaving old wounds to create new friction. The GCC initiative trades democracy for security, ignoring the probability that its imbalanced conditions will result in neither.

While the consequences of regional warfare are chillingly real in Yemen and Syria, the ultimate political effect reinforces a long-established double-standard: removing U.S. enemies while preserving friendly regimes. Those foreign powers that truly support Yemen and Syria’s people should put their interests first.

- James Gundun is a political scientist and counterinsurgency analyst. His blog, The Trench, covers the underreported areas of U.S. foreign policy. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Follow him on Twitter @RealistChannel.

Israeli Military Courts as Enforcement Mechanism of Occupation

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:27:10 -0500

By Charlotte Kates

'As for your judicial apparatus…: it is one of the instruments of the occupation whose function is to give the cover of legal legitimacy to the crimes of the occupation, in addition to consecrating its systems and allowing the imposition of these systems on our people through force. This judicial apparatus also supports the administration of this occupation - which is the worst form of state-organized terrorism - as if you were in a permanent state of self-defense. The legitimate resistance of our people is seen as if it were terrorism that must be combated and liquidated and judgment is placed upon those that practice or support it. And in the face of this contradiction between two logics, there would have to be a conviction.' – Ahmad Sa'adat, Palestinian leader and political prisoner, addressing Israeli military court.

Khader Adnan's 66 days of hunger strike under administrative detention, without charge or trial, sparked global discussion, outrage, and movement - perhaps the largest ever seen in the long history of the Palestinian prisoners' struggle - as Adnan's courage, steadfastness and strength inspired solidarity the world over. During that time, it was on many occasions expressed that Khader Adnan should be charged, or released. Administrative detention is a particularly appalling mechanism of political detention - based on secret evidence, with no cognizable charges and no opportunity to confront said 'evidence' - used arbitrarily by Israel to hold Palestinian organizers for six-month renewable periods.

The abolition of administrative detention (a call which has been taken up by Amnesty International) is a long-term demand of the Palestinian prisoners' movement - and Israel’s use of this system violates international law. However, it must be noted that "being charged" in the Israeli military courts, the justice system that governs Palestinians in the occupied West Bank of Palestine, is in no way a solution for Palestinian political prisoners. Any trial provided to a Palestinian political prisoner under such a system is fundamentally unjust and a mechanism of perpetuation of occupation. The military courts are not an alternative to administrative detention; instead, administrative detention is one piece of the structure of mass imprisonment and military rule constructed by the occupation. Given the prominence of the "charge or release" conversation in Khader Adnan's case, it is important to explore what being "charged" in Israel's military courts means for Palestinians under occupation and apartheid.

Out of 4,489 Palestinian political prisoners currently held in Israeli jails, 309, including Khader Adnan, are held under administrative detention. Imprisonment is a fact of life for Palestinians; over 40% of Palestinian men in the West Bank have spent time in Israeli detention or prisons. There are no Palestinian families that have not been touched by the scourge of mass imprisonment as a mechanism of suppression.

Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails come from the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jerusalem, and Israel. All - including the Palestinians of '48, who hold Israeli citizenship - face deeply unjust structures throughout the process of arrest, charge, trial and sentencing. Far from being an objective, neutral or beneficent system for Palestinians, the Israeli court system is part and parcel of the mechanism of occupation, bolstering and serving as a direct arm of military/state power in enforcing occupation control over Palestinian lives and land.
Over 2,500 military orders govern the West Bank. The "Order Regarding Security Provisions [Consolidated Version] (Judea and Samaria)" grants the Israeli military "the authority to arrest and prosecute Palestinians from the West Bank for so-called 'security' offenses," notes Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. Another military order, issued in August 1967 and still in place today, criminalizes organizing protests, assemblies or vigils, waving flags and political symbols, and printing political material, and "also deems any acts of influencing public opinion as prohibited 'political incitement', and under the heading of 'support to a hostile organization,' prohibits any activity that demonstrates sympathy for an organization deemed illegal under military orders."

The Israeli military retains for itself the right to declare any Palestinian organization 'illegal' and thus prosecute membership or association with that organization. Most Palestinian political parties, including Islamic Jihad (which is one of the four largest political parties in Palestine), as well as countless labour unions, student groups, women’s organizations, and other sectoral groups, fall squarely into the category of 'illegal organizations' and a large number of Palestinian political prisoners who have been "charged and tried," are serving sentences for 'membership in an illegal organization,' 'support for a hostile organization' and similar charges.

In the Israeli military courts, the charge of 'membership in an illegal organization' carries no maximum sentence, although "a military court decision instead set... a precedent that the minimum penalty is 24 months' imprisonment. In fact some Palestinians, such as Ahmad Sa'adat, have been sentenced to as much as 30 years' imprisonment on such charges. Under Israeli criminal law, the maximum penalty is one year..."

Palestinians facing military courts are often confronted with secret evidence; can be denied access to lawyers for up to 90 days; can be held for up to 2 years "until the end of legal proceedings;" and confront vague and non-specific charge sheets. It should be noted that settlers in the West Bank do not face this system of military courts; they, instead are directed into the Israeli criminal justice system, with much higher protections for the accused and much lower sentencing ranges. Addameer notes one particularly egregious example of this disparity: "On 21 January 2011, Israeli settler Nahum Korman who beat an 11-year-old Palestinian child, Helmi Shusha, to death, was sentenced to 6 months of community service. On the same day, Suad Ghazal, a 15-year-old Palestinian girl accused of attempting to stab an Israeli settler was sentenced to 6 and a half years in prison."

Israeli military trial judges are active members of the Israeli military; many are former military-court prosecutors, and not all military judges are required to hold completed legal training.

It must be noted that the net effect of "trying" a Palestinian for membership in Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas, or for that matter, Fateh, all of which remain illegal organizations under the arbitrary Israeli military orders governing the West Bank, is to place that person in prison for a minimum of two years for membership in a political party. Rather than encouraging such a structure as an alternative to administrative detention, it is incumbent upon those of us who would stand in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners to recognize that administrative detention is one piece of an entire system that exists in order to buttress occupation and undermine Palestinian existence, resistance, and organization. In order to build solidarity, we must refuse to accept as normal or legitimate the criminalization of Palestinian resistance and politics by the Israeli occupation.

Palestinians from Jerusalem, in particular those from East Jerusalem occupied in 1967, face a dual system of law, usually being held for interrogation under the military system before transfer to the Israeli civil system for trial, but under the category of 'security prisoner.' Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, prior to 2005, were subject to the same military orders as prevail in the West Bank. Following the 2005 "disengagement," Palestinians from Gaza abducted by the Israeli military are now held as 'unlawful combatants,' and subject to an administrative detention scheme with no six-month limits. Palestinian political prisoners who are citizens of Israel are charged as 'security' offenders in the Israeli civil system, depriving them of rights afforded to criminal defendants. 'Security offenders' may be held for 60 days without being charged and denied access to a lawyer for three weeks. They are subject to the same interrogators from the Israeli Security Agency as are prisoners from the West Bank and Gaza - and thus the same tactics of abuse and inhumane treatment amounting to torture.
The Israeli court systems - certainly the military system, but also the civil 'security' system - are no solution for Palestinian prisoners. Instead, those systems are mandated to enforce the rule (and the illegitimate “law”) of occupation and apartheid.

Khader Adnan is the latest in a long line of heroes and heroines of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement. Over the years, many of them have used the hunger strike – Adnan the longest - as a powerful weapon of dissent and resistance, placing their bodies on the line to confront the occupation within its own prisons. Most recently, in October 2011, hundreds of prisoners engaged in a hunger strike for over twenty days demanding the end of isolation and solitary confinement. Many of those prisoners have been held under administrative detention; many thousands more through the ‘trials’ and ‘convictions’ of the Israeli security regime. All of those prisoners need continuing support and solidarity, and the growth of such solidarity is one way in which Khader Adnan’s hunger strike, and his courage, will continue to challenge and confront the occupation.

An international coalition of prisoners’ rights and Palestine solidarity organizations have called for global mobilization for April 17, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day (and what will be the day of Adnan’s release.) Such a global mobilization is also an opportunity to link the struggle of Palestinian prisoners in mutual solidarity with political prisoners elsewhere, from Leonard Peltier to Ricardo Palmera to countless others in the jails of the U.S., Canada, and the world. This includes Palestinian political prisoners in international jails; the 65th day of Khader Adnan’s hunger strike was also the 9th anniversary of Dr. Sami al-Arian’s arrest. Al-Arian remains under house arrest in Virginia today, years after he was acquitted on the majority of charges – and convicted of nothing – by a jury, because he refuses to be forced into becoming an informant on the Palestinian community.

The call to action for April 17 states:

“We must not allow Khader’s struggle to pass, like so many before his, as one more brave stand crushed by the armed might of the Israeli apartheid regime, unremarkable and inconsequential. Rather let this historic moment mark the beginning of a revitalized global movement for Palestinian prisoners, their rights, their families, and their struggle. Together, we can make it so.”

- Charlotte Kates is a Palestine solidarity activist with the Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign (http://boycottisraeliapartheid.org) and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network (http://samidoun.ca ) in Vancouver, on unceded Coast Salish Territories. She is a member of the Organizing Committee of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and is active with the National Lawyers Guild and its International Committee. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

An Open Letter to President Abbas

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:16:54 -0500

By John V. Whitbeck

Dear President Abbas,

There was visible and audible euphoria at the UN General Assembly in September when you announced Palestine's application for UN membership, at UNESCO's Paris headquarters in October when Palestine was admitted as a member state and at UNESCO again in December when the Palestinian flag was formally raised in your presence (and mine).

Since then, nothing ...

It is understood that you agreed with the Quartet to freeze Palestine's diplomatic initiatives until January 26 to permit a final effort to initiate meaningful negotiations with Israel. Predictably, that effort failed. However, January 26 has long passed. Still, nothing ...

I shared your surprise that, with nine of the states on last year's UN Security Council having already extended diplomatic recognition to the State of Palestine, you could not line up even the nine affirmative votes for Palestine's admission as a member state necessary to force the United States to choose between a veto (infuriating the Muslim world and much of mankind) and an abstention (infuriating Israel and its American supporters).

However, even though the turnover of five non-permanent members on January 1 does not appear to have changed the eight-affirmative-votes-only reality, this does not mean that there is nothing that Palestine can constructively do to recover the initiative and positive momentum of last fall.

You could proceed promptly to the UN General Assembly to obtain an overwhelming vote to upgrade Palestine's status from "observer entity" to "observer state". The memberships of the UN and UNESCO are substantially identical, and only 14 states voted against Palestine's admission as a UNESCO member state. Logically, even fewer states should oppose "observer state" status for Palestine at the UN.

Immediately after having Palestine's "state status" confirmed at the UN, you could make a formal -- and historic -- statement comprising at least the following three elements:

(i) The announcement of the merger or absorption of the Palestinian Authority into the State of Palestine;

(ii) An undertaking by the State of Palestine, during a one-year period in which the State of Palestine would seek in good faith to achieve a definitive agreement with the State of Israel on all modalities for ending the occupation on a two-state basis, to assume and perform all of the functions, rights and obligations previously assumed and performed by the Palestinian Authority under existing agreements between the PLO and the State of Israel, including security cooperation if the State of Israel is willing to cooperate with the State of Palestine; and

(iii) A commitment by the State of Palestine, in the event that a definitive agreement with the State of Israel on all modalities for ending the occupation on a two-state basis is not reached within this one-year period, to consult the Palestinian people by referendum as to whether they prefer continuing to seek to end the occupation through partition, with a sovereign Palestinian state on only 22% of the territory of historical Palestine, or henceforth seeking the full rights of citizenship in a single democratic state in all of historical Palestine, free of any discrimination based on race, religion or origin and with equal rights for all.

If there remains any hope of actually achieving a decent two-state solution on the ground, presenting the issue and the choice, both before Israel and before its Western supporters, in this manner should stimulate the most intensive effort imaginable to actually achieve it. If, even with the issue and choice presented in this manner, a decent two-state solution were to prove impossible to achieve, the Palestinian leadership and people, having acted reasonably and responsibly, would be standing firmly on the moral high ground, ready to shift their goal to the only other decent alternative with the maximum conceivable support of the rest of mankind.

During this decisive year, you could also seek admission of the State of Palestine, successively, to several more carefully chosen UN agencies, such as the World International Property Organization, the World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as to the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and, potentially, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and even the Commonwealth, choosing those targets which both appear most constructive in practical and strategic terms and in which success is highly likely.

You could leave the Security Council waiting, always open for a vote at a moment of your choosing, perhaps after a change of government in a member state. In this context, you will surely have noticed that François Hollande, tipped by the polls to become the next French president in May, has included in his campaign booklet "My 60 Pledges for France" the following pledge: "I will support international recognition of the Palestinian state."

Necessarily, you would stop issuing "Palestinian Authority" passports and start issuing "State of Palestine" passports.

By proceeding in this way, you would affirm the existence and reality of the state in multiple ways, through a steady succession of manifestations of statehood, while building a tangible record of "successes", avoiding any visible "failure" and keeping Palestine and the imperative need to end the occupation on the "front burner" of the world's attention.

In addition, an overwhelming General Assembly vote in support of "statehood status" for Palestine, coupled with a steady succession of "facts on the ground" manifestations of statehood, would make it more difficult for Security Council members to resist or block full UN membership for Palestine at such time as you may deem it opportune to seek it.

As always, I wish you courage and wisdom in seizing the initiative and setting the agenda so as to achieve, finally, some measure of justice and a decent future for the Palestinian people.

Respectfully,
John V. Whitbeck

- John V. Whitbeck is an international lawyer who has advised the Palestinian negotiating team in negotiations with Israel. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

False Prophets of Peace - Book Review

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:14:33 -0500

Reviewed by Ludwig Watzal

(Tikva Honig-Parnass, False Prophets of Peace. Liberal Zionism and the Struggle for Palestine, Haymarket Books, Chicago, Ill. 2011, 262 pp.)

This book explores the Israeli Zionist Left’s discourse regarding the, Jewish and democratic” State of Israel and all of its ramifications. Such undertaking was overdue because it exposes Zionist left-wing intellectuals as hypocrites. It was not the Israeli right that did the “dirty“ work of legitimatizing colonization, oppression, expulsion, discrimination and dispossession of the original owners of the land, the Palestinians, but left-wing “liberal” intellectuals, especially those of the Zionist Labor movement. They provided not only the political, legal and military establishment with ideological legitimacy but also with a “scientific” one. Through their intellectual twists and turns, they laid the foundations for governmental policies that “have made possible Zionist colonialism in the Apartheid settler state of Israel” (193), writes Tikva Honig-Parnass in her unique book.

The author was born into the Jewish community of pre-state Palestine, fought in the first Israeli-Arab war in 1948, and served as the secretary of the then-radical Left-Zionist party Mapam (the United Workers Party) in the Knesset from 1951 to 1954. In 1960 she broke with Zionism and joined the ranks of supporters of the Israeli Socialist Organization “Matzpen”. Since then she has played an active role in the movement against the 1967 occupation of Palestinian land as well as in the struggle for Palestinian national rights, especially for the rights of Palestinian Israelis who live since 1948 as second-class citizens in Israel proper.

As important as this book may be for the unmasking of Zionist-left hypocrisy, her article “Reflections of a Daughter of the ‘48 Generation’” in “News from within” of January 1998 is nearly as important to understand Honig-Parnass’ political worldview and her total rejection of Zionist ideology. As a politically conscious human being, she found the gap between the purported universalist Zionist rhetoric and its exclusivist parochial real nature unbearable. The humanistic rhetoric of leftist Zionists was limited to those “like us”, and that the other side of the coin was alienation from and dehumanization of all who were “other” – East European Jews, Mizrahim, and above all – Arab Palestinians, writes the author.

Contributing to Ms. Honig-Parnass’ “conversion” was her realization how the “48 generation” had been “programmed to reject with disgust the concept of human rights as an absolute value and to accept its subjection to the collective aim, namely the aims of Zionism and the establishment of a Jewish state.” The Zionist-racist stereotypes of “Arabs” that prevail till this day were already common, according to the author, when the Zionist movement initiated its colonial enterprise. “We sow, and they come and uproot; we plant and they come and burn; we build and they destroy. We never asked the obvious question: But why?”

According to the author, the premises of Zionist ideology can never generate empathy for the suffering of the victims of occupation and oppression. Consequently, “the dehumanization of the Palestinian enemy will certainly continue, and so too will the brutalization and dehumanization of the oppressors themselves, who will continue to ‘shoot and to weep’ or weep and even light candles and return to religion.” After the author left the “Alternative Information Center” she edited together with Toufic Haddad the critical newsletter “Between the Lines”. In 2007, an excellent book they wrote: “Between the Lines. Readings on Israel, the Palestinians, and the U. S. ‘War on Terror’” was released by Haymarket Publishers.

“False Prophets of Peace” unearths the truth and the central role played by the Israeli left in laying the foundation of the colonial settler project and its campaign of dispossession. U. S. and European liberal opinion still clings to a myth of “progressive” Israeli Zionist intellectuals. The author concentrates on the discourse of these elite intellectuals and academic circles that have nourished the myth of the Zionist Left. She analyses their support for an exclusivist Jewish state that acts as the central Zionist premise guiding Israel’s official ideology, and their attempts to reconcile that with the definition of Israel as a democracy. The book also focuses on the persistent and dominant role of the Zionist labor movement throughout the state’s institutions and political culture. Special attention is paid to the role of the Zionist left “in granting legitimacy to Israel’s version of Apartheid and ‘close to Fascist’ political culture could not have been played to right-wing intellectuals and politicians.” (17) The latter never claimed to base their support for the Jewish identity of the state on universal human rights.

Honig-Parnass asserts that it has become commonplace among Zionist Left scholars and activists to compare the forms of discrimination in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) to South Africa’s Apartheid system. The parallels seem undeniable. Members of the Zionist Left in Israel, however, “refrain from acknowledging the Apartheid nature within the Green Line”, (5) whereas, for example, Saree Makdisi argues that “almost every law of South African Apartheid has its equivalent in Israel today”.

In nine chapters the author challenges every premise of the Zionist Left concerning its defense of Israel as a “Jewish and democratic” state and the justifications given for treating Israeli Palestinians as second-class citizens. The dividing line between the non-Zionist critical Israeli Left and the Zionist Left are represented by the historical events of 1948 and 1967. The representatives of the non-Zionist Israeli Left, which is a tiny minority, regard the injustices committed in 1948 as the starting point of the conflict between Jews and Arabs (“Israel was born in sin”), whereas the Zionist Left sees the cause of the conflict in the June-war of 1967 and the ensuing occupation. Zionist Leftists dismiss also the notion of Israel as a “colonial settler state” and its maintenance as a Western hegemonic colonial project. (24) Have not the Zionist “Pilgrim Fathers” described their project as “colonization” (hityashvut)? According to Honig-Parnass, the Zionist Left wants to erase the memory of the Nakba, the catastrophe that befell the people of the Land of Palestine, the Palestinians. (21) The Nakba is not only the turning point in the modern history of Palestine but also its focal point to the solution of the conflict. The focus on the 1967 occupation as the main cause of the conflict “denies the structural discrimination against Palestinian citizens, and their history and current oppression are excluded from the political discourse and activity of all wings of the Israeli ‘peace camp’”. The intellectual hairsplitting culminates in the “differentiation made by the Zionist Left between the 1967 occupation and the Zionist creation of the Jewish state not only excuses the absence of a moral condemnation against the oppression of Palestinian citizens, but it is also viewed as compatible with the struggle for ‘peace’”.

The Zionist Left does everything it can to prove to Western liberals that Israel as a “Jewish state” can be both “Jewish” and “democratic”. For any Western democrat this appears like trying to square the circle but apparently not for Zionists. According to the author, the Zionist Left is haunted by a “demographic ghost”. (42) This alleged threat seems to numb the minds of eminent intellectuals such as Menachem Brinker of the Hebrew University, who “fails to see the conflict between his commitment to the Jewish state and his liberal values”. (43) The Zionist Left sticks to “the rule of the majority” that discloses its support of the “Law of return”, which in its design maintains this majority, writes the author. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, talking about a “Jewish majority” is already a political delusion: right now, 11.4 million people live under Israeli domination. Of these, 5.6 million are Jewish, while 5.8 million are not Jewish. Even Ruth Gavison, law professor at Hebrew University and former president of the Israeli Association of Civil Rights (ACRI), supports policies to preserve a Jewish majority, a view that sounds bizarre to Western audiences: “Israel has the right to control Palestinian natural growth (…) Control of birth rates is not racism.” (41) Respected scholars like Benny Morris are taken in by the so-called demographic threat, as shown in his interview with Ari Shavit in the daily “Haaretz”. The author quoted him saying: “The Israeli Arabs are a time bomb. Their slide into complete Palestinization has made them an emissary of the enemy that is among us. They are a potential fifth column. In both demographic and security terms they are liable to undermine the state. So that if Israel finds itself in a situation of existential threat, as in 1948, it may be forced to do it (to expel L. W.).” (50)

For the Zionist Left the Jewish identity of the State of Israel is considered an immutable fact, to which Palestinians must resign themselves. These intellectuals leave no doubt that the Jewish state has been created and sustained by Israel’s military might. Tikva Honig-Parnass holds the former Palestinian Knesset Member Azmi Bishara and the National Democratic Assembly (NDA) in high esteem because they put forward the demand for a “state for all its citizens” instead of the “Jewish and democratic” state.

For Western liberal intellectuals, pundits and their media multiplicators, Israel is perceived as an open, liberal Western outpost to a “barbaric” environment, echoing how Theodor Herzl, the founding-father of Zionism used to present his Zionist enterprise to Western imperialist politicians. Not so much has changed since then: Israel is presented as “a villa in the jungle” (Ehud Barak). In the chapter “A Theocratic Jewish State” Honig-Parnass illustrates how Jewish religion and religious rhetoric has been and continues to be used to justify the Jewish state with the catchphrase “return to Zion” as a pretext for colonization. The secular Zionist Left had no qualms in defaming the Jewish orthodox instead of the real danger to the existence of the State of Israel, the members of the “National Religious Party” (Mafda) and their yeshivas in which the students complete a dual training as regular soldiers and as indoctrinated religious fanatic Zionists. (79-88) In the “Kinneret Covenant”, published on January 11, 2002, the Zionist Left became reconciled with the fanatical religious right. Their representatives were among others the fanatical General Efraim Eitam from Mafdal and the geographer Arnon Sofer of Haifa University who warned of “the demographic danger of Arabs in Israel”. (84) Among representatives from the Zionist Left in this meeting were the well-known Professor Shlomo Avineri and the iconic Zionist Yuli Tamir. Eitam summarized this bizarre gathering by saying that in our hearts we felt “that we are all brothers” (”Effi” Eitam). This “feeling of brotherhood with the extreme right Right has been affirmed through the Labor Party’s participation in the right-wing governments.” (87)

Only very few Israeli intellectuals see Israel as a “colonial settler state” and “the Zionist movement as an ongoing colonial project” (89), like the author does. The anti-Zionist socialist organization Matzpen was one of few exceptions. This group was founded in 1962 by members of the Israeli Communist Party (MAKI) such as: Moshé Machover, Akiva Orr, Oded Pilavsky, and Yrmiyahu Kaplan. They were joined by some Palestinian Israelis who had left or had been expelled from MAKI, such as Jabra Nicola – a Palestinian Marxist. This group developed a consistent anti-Zionist approach and rejected Zionism as a settler colonial project. For Matzpen, “the expulsion of the Palestinians was Zionism’s main goal from the outset”. (114) They regarded the Zionist assertion of the “Jewish and democratic” state as contradictory with democracy. The author shares Bishara’s classification of Israel as an “ethnic democracy” (96). Other Israelis like Oren Yiftachel call the State of Israel an “ethnocracy” rather than a “democracy”. The author shows how Israel’s legal system is saturated with discriminatory laws against the Arab and non-Jewish population. The discrimination against the Mizrahim (Jews from Arab countries) in Israel proper occurs on a subtler level.

The author mentions specifically the Zionist Left understanding of “peace”. The Zionist Left was thrilled by the so-called Oslo Peace Process, although even outside observers realized that this kind of “peace process” would not lead to peace but rather to collaboration of the colonized elite with the colonizer. The Israeli-German human rights lawyer Felicia Langer and myself were the sole persons in Germany who expressed such criticism immediately after the signing of the Oslo-accords in September 1993 when the rest of the world applauded this fraud. The Oslo accords did blur the minds of the Zionist Left towards Israel’s continued colonization of the West Bank, and the failed “peace” negotiations at Camp David in July 2000 was the casket nail of the so-called Zionist Left peace movement. The collapse of the Zionist peace movement was best reflected by then Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s phrase: “there is no partner for peace.” (171) If the Zionist Left would have been on the ball it should have recognized that not PLO chairman Yasser Arafat was the “peace enemy” but Barak and his companion U. S. President Bill Clinton. Honig-Parnass shows in chapter “The Zionist Left and `Peace’” how hypocritical the Zionist Left was in the question of peace.

This book compiles for the first time an overall criticism of the worldview of the Zionist Left in Israel, which is perceived in the West “as one of us”. Tikva Honig-Parnass has accomplished a feat by presenting to the outside world an inner Israeli debate on the “Jewish and democratic” setup of the State of Israel and its discrimination of its own non-Jewish inhabitants. Western democrats would certainly be outraged to discover the undemocratic worldview of the Israeli Zionist Left. This outstanding book will, hopefully, find many readers. Intellectually, the book is a real treat.

- Dr. Ludwig Watzal is a Bonn, Germany-based journalist and editor. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

US-China's Dangerous Contest for Asia-Pacific

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:04:13 -0500

By Ramzy Baroud

On two occasions in my life I found myself living close to the South China Sea. The sea became my escape from life's pressing responsibilities. But there is no escaping the fact that the deceptively serene waters are now also grounds for a nascent but real new cold war.

China takes the name of the sea very seriously. Its claim over the relatively massive water body – laden with oil, natural gas and other resources – is perhaps ‘ill-defined’, per the account of the BBC (Nov 3, 2011), but it is also very serious. Countries such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei are uneasy but are caught in a bind. China’s growing regional influence – to some, perhaps ‘encroaching hegemony’ – is an uncontested fact of life. To challenge - or balance - the rising Chinese power, these countries face a most difficult choice: accepting China’s supremacy or embracing an intractable American return to the region. The latter option is particularly worrisome considering the US’s poor military track record throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

Frankly, there is little choice in the matter for small, vulnerable countries. A conflict is already brewing, and China, emboldened by astonishing economic growth as well as military advancement, seems to be gearing up to challenge the US’s uncontested military dominance in the region.

Despite efforts to slash the defense budget by $487 billion in the next ten years, the US sees the Asia-Pacific region as its last major holdout outside NATO’s traditional geographic influence. In fact, last January the Defense Department had announced its plans to remove two of four US combat brigades stationed in Europe. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta tried to assure US NATO allies that the US remained committed to Europe’s security, and that the move was merely part of a new strategy of ‘smart defense’. But the writing on the wall was crystal clear.

“If we look behind the slogan of smart defense, I would say that at least 20 years ago all these ideas were on the table,” according to Thomas Enders, CEO of Airbus. “So why is this time different? It could be austerity. But...the NATO members, particularly the Europeans will not spend more on defense for the foreseeable future, say 10 years” (Reuters, Feb 4).

Teetering at the brink of economic depression and bankruptcy, and forced into making unprecedented austerity decisions, the US and its NATO allies have already crossed all sorts of uncharted territories. Panetta’s assurances will hardly erase the comments made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates last June foretelling a “dim, if not dismal future for the transatlantic alliance.” However, it is very telling that despite budget cuts and the downgrading of US military presence in Europe, the US will be shifting its focus to the Asia-Pacific. This was the gist of President Obama’s announcement of new military strategy last month.

In his recent remarks before the Senate Armed Service Committee, Panetta said the US planned to keep a rotational military presence in Australia and the Philippines. However, due to China’s growing economic might and direct sway over US’s own economy, US officials are less daring when explaining their renewed interests the region.

The fear of China’s dominance is at the center of US foreign policy of the Asia-Pacific region. It is a fight that China cannot lose. For a declining empire like the US, the fight is also central to American strategy aimed at maintaining a level of global hegemony - especially where the US still claims few allies. On his last Asian tour last month, Panetta was emphatic that the US return to Asia was not a temporary political maneuver. “I want to make very clear that the United States is going to remain a presence in the Pacific for a long time...If anything, we're going to strengthen our presence in the Pacific,” he said. This message had been asserted earlier, although in different contexts, by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and President Obama himself.

A direct confrontation remains unlikely because of the economic interests shared by both China and the US. That said, the symbiotic relationship is now becoming increasingly imbalanced in favor of China. In his recent visit to the US, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping told business leaders that the US should not push China too far in the Asia-Pacific region. “We hope the US will truly respect the interests and concerns of countries in the region, including China,” he said (USA Today, Feb 15). Compared to other visits by top Chinese leaders, Xi received less reprimand, an indication of a shift in US diplomacy regarding China.
However, it’s worth noting that official US statements regarding the Asia-Pacific region – often made by departments of state, commerce and trade - are becoming increasingly fused with statements made by military leaders, a sign of creeping danger.

The South China Sea is, in particular, a contentious issue. The US is obviously interested in the resource-rich body for economic and strategic reasons. For China, it is additionally a matter of national pride. The Chinese message to Western and other companies is to stay away from areas that China sees as its territorial waters. “We hope foreign companies do not get involved in disputed waters for oil and gas exploration and development,” said a foreign ministry spokesman.

The race for supremacy over Asia is being renewed, this time with China more forceful than ever. The South China Sea is likely to emerge as major point of contention in coming years. Leaders of adjacent countries might find themselves being forced to choose sides in a foreseeable conflict over resources and military presence.

It was Deng Xiaoping who championed China’s economic reforms throughout the 1980s. Then China was seen too amiable – if not disaster-prone - to ever articulate and defend a clear foreign policy agenda. Those days are over, and the US has taken serious note of that.
“There are challenges facing the Asia-Pacific right now that demand America's leadership (and the 21st century will be) America's Pacific century,” declared Hilary Clinton prior to the APEC summit in Hawaii last November (Xinhua, Nov 19).

Understandably, her comments raised the alarm throughout Chinese media that a cold war is officially underway. While the giants are now contending in the open, smaller and less influential countries in the region are being exposed to all sorts of bleak possibilities.

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).

Baroud Talks to CPDS: Clear, Non-Factional Message Urgently Needed

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:33:56 -0500

By Yousef M. Aljamal – Gaza, Palestine

For the 7th week in row, the Center for Political and Development Studies, (CPDS) - a Gaza based think-tank - held a lecture via Skype with Palestinian and international activists, aiming at drawing attention to crucial issues related to Palestine. Palestinians have been misrepresented and defamed in the world as a result of PR campaigns unleashed by well-financed pro-Israeli groups, and CPDS, like other groups attempt to bring a more balanced view on the issue.

Ramzy Baroud, a Palestinian-American journalist, the founder and editor of the Palestine Chronicle, a well-regarded Palestinian website in the US, and the author of three books including his last My Father Was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story talked to CPDS on Sunday, February 19, on 'How to Establish a Palestinian Narrative', with the presence of Palestinian activists, academics and politicians.

"We have the truth on our side – a clear and consistent Palestinian discourse that articulates everything regarding the conflict from a collective Palestinian point of view. By this, I don't mean the factional narratives of Hamas, Fateh, or PFLP. I mean the view that represents the values, objectives and principles of the vast majority of Palestinians everywhere regardless of ideology and faction", Baroud said.

The International Community played a major role in the Palestinian cause, marked with the known, but unimplemented 194 UN Resolution, calling for the return of the forcibly displaced refugees to their homeland. The vulnerable refugees have not made it home since then, yet their number grew, hitting 6 million; scattered across the globe. The calls to grant Palestinians self-determination, repeatedly advocated by various UN resolutions remain ink on paper.

"This is important because we constantly try to engage the international community, particularly, civil society groups around the world. They are very important to our cause. The more we engage civil society, using the language they understand, the better we promote our just cause. Our history is clear, and we must narrate it with equal clarity, so that people can relate to it,” he continued.

Some experts believe that the growing unity between Fatah and Hamas could signal a turning point for the so-called 'peace process'. US brokered talks between Palestinians and Israelis have had no considerable results. The promises of establishing a 'viable and independent Palestinian state', made by the American administrations since 1993 didn't put an end to the Israeli occupation. But what it did achieve was dividing Palestinians into two camps, thus harming the Palestinian National Movement.

"Factionalism forced some of us to borrow history of other nations to supplant the gaps created by our infighting, thus the heavy borrowing from other anti-colonial struggles. While history by extension has its own uses, our authentic history was neglected and overlooked".

"But Palestinian historians,” Baroud said, “should be keenly interested in conveying the collective history of refugee camps - Nusirat refugee camp, Shejaeaa' neighborhood and Jabalia. “This is how we resist national fragmentation, factional and ideology-based agendas", he noted.

A movement of young writers and bloggers emerged in Gaza after the 2008-2009 massacre that claimed the lives of over 1400 Palestinians, primarily civilians. Youth started to look for alternatives to convey their message to the world, using alternative media and social networks.

"To get the Palestinian narrative heard, we have to possess clarity of message and an equally clear set of objectives. Our objectives must be based on humanistic values. That message must emerge from Gaza and the West Bank; from Palestine itself", Baroud stressed.

The PA has controlled the narrative of the Palestinian people for the past two decades. A real and credible election should be held to represent Palestinians worldwide.

"I am sorry to say that the behavior of PA officials can be extremely embarrassing. They are constantly touring from London to Washington. They speak like people who are removed from the everydayness of ordinary Palestinians. They speak a language of power, funds and ‘peace process’. As if Palestine is a charity or a bank account that needs to be fed with endless cash. That is not the language of people with a national project. Palestinians didn’t sacrifice for over 63 years for this", he added.

Khader Anan, a young Palestinian leader in an Israeli prison, captured the attention of media and people across the globe, entering his 65th day of striking for being ‘administratively’ detained with no charge. Palestinian activists used Twitter to bring the international community's attention to his cause, tweeting about him and making his name and struggle a trend.

Baroud continued, "Khader Adnan is simply seeking freedom. He brought the attention of the world to the Palestinian cause more than anyone else. We need to raise questions; such as, how can we convey our message to the world? What message do we need to send out? This is our historical opportunity to step forward. We need to think strategically about how to use the world's solidarity to serve the Palestinian cause. Otherwise, we will lose ground".

"Gaza and the West Bank have been politically and geographically fragmented by Israel. This has resulted in intellectual fragmentation. This is risky. To solve this problem, you Palestinians on the ground need to be the source. You need to be clear and demanding. The starting point is Gaza. You need to find a way to look beyond factionalism and ideological affiliations. You must think deeply about taking part in that discourse. You need to be clear and very strong. You are the origin and source. Tell all that Palestine is not just a clearing-house of NGOs. Palestine is the people who are suffering under the siege", he ended.

CPDS aims at bringing attention to the way the world thinks about Palestine and telling it how Palestinians perceive their cause. This lecture is one in a series that The Center held recently to help the Palestinian people improve their presence in the global political arena.

-Yousef M. Aljamal works with the Center for Political Development Studies (CPDS) - a Gaza based non-profit organization that aims at having Palestine represented "in the tongues of its own people". CPDS also works to enhance Palestine's presence in world forums and international organizations.

Unmaking of Israel � Book Review

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:42:12 -0500

Reviewed by Jim Miles

(The Unmaking of Israel. Gershom Gorenberg. Harper Collins, New York. 2011)

Many recent works are reflecting an internal crisis within Israel, part of which is the increased power of the ultra-Orthodox Jews within the educational, military, and political systems. Gershom Gorenberg’s “The Unmaking of Israel” presents clear and well argued points concerning this aspect of current Israeli life and politics, and, as reflected in other works by Jewish writers, “The ongoing occupation, the fostering of religious extremism, the undercutting of the law by the government itself all threaten Israel’s future.”

Gorenberg’s thesis is narrowly focused on this aspect of Israeli life, and while there are some arguable points of historical interpretation, his general argument is well presented and well thought out. It is not a work about the Palestinians per se, but about the nature of the ongoing occupation and all the hazards that it brings back to Israel. It is about the nature of the settlements, and although this is not new territory (see Yakov M. Rabkin, “A Threat From Within”, Fernwood Publishing, Canada, 2006; and “Lords of the Land,” Eldar and Zertal, Nation Books, New York, 2005)) his presentation is current with the ongoing trends of the settlements and Israeli politics. He looks at the effects on the military as the ultra-Orthodox constituency becomes political - against its better wishes - but also effectively so as a majority creator in the Knesset. His third thread is the increasing power of the ultra-Orthodox community in the manner in which the military is operated, and how that influences in turn the settlements and the occupation.

Foundations for Future Problems

The second chapter provides a brief and generally accurate description of events following the Nakba. Gorenberg discusses aspects of democracy within the new state and the fact that neither a constitution nor a Bill of Rights has ever been crafted. Without a constitution to restrain political power (as opposed to democratic power), Gorenberg argues that the “deification of the state was even more dangerous than the potential concentration of power,” yet the “majority in parliament held nearly unlimited power.”

Compromises that were made then - the financial support of the Orthodox haredi schools, the deferments given to men studying at yeshivot - Talmudic studies - from military service, the creation of a Rabbinic bureaucracy to control marriage - were all seeds for the future. “No one imagined, for instance, that by funding haredi schools, the state would transform ultra-Orthodox society and risk ending up in the palm of its hand.”

As for the Palestinian Arabs, they were treated as “ethnic adversaries” rather than citizens to be integrated. The creation of new property laws, the exploitation of older laws from the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate, and the ongoing acceptance of the Jewish National Fund contributed to the double standards of Israeli Arabs being colonized citizens of a theoretically democratic state.

Settlers and Outposts

In “The Capital of Lawlessness,” Gorenberg discusses events post 1967 in relation to the settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. After the war, settlements became a means by which Israelis could reclaim the land, and at the same time, “At driving wedges between Palestinian towns and preventing the emergence of a continuous Palestinian state.” Most of the section presents information that “in acquiring land for settlement, the state’s misuse of law was particularly blatant,” that the “new technique for acquiring land was to exploit local laws to establish that the property belonged to the state in the first place….Everything was done according to law. But the law existed to serve the cause of settlement, not the cause of justice.” As Gorenberg argues, the occupied territory became “a realm where, ultimately, there was no law.” The end result of this lawlessness he argues, is that “Stone by stone, they were dismantling the state of Israel.”

The next chapter examines the next generation of the settler population. Supported by the state through large financial incentives, the religious settlement movement is “recasting nationalism, at its most tribal, as religious doctrine.” The newer outpost settlements are “the flagship project of the militant second generation” again violating Israeli law and international law. The result of the support for the outposts, “fomented the growth of a theologically driven far-right movement that saw the state and even the established settlement leadership as illegitimate.” Generally, Gorenberg gives examples of how settlements have ignored/abrogated/transgressed laws in the occupied territories. While the courts may at times uphold the law, generally the government, army and /or police involved take no action.

Religion, the Military, and Working Life

The influence of the religious academies and their co-opting of the military is the subject of the next chapter. A later development augmenting the yeshivot studies of the Orthodox was the establishment of paramilitary academies. These academies present a viewpoint in which their becomes a risk of future insubordination or mutiny, and from the events surrounding the disengagement of 2005, “the state and the army have allowed the threat to democratic control of the military to grow.” Similarly, the government’s acquiescence to clerics in the military allows the “theological right…to politicize the military,” and legitimizes “the religious right’s antihumanistic attitudes and its claim to be the voice of Judaism.” Gorenberg concludes “Israel evolves backward, returning to the moment of a fragile state facing an armed faction [Irgun - Menachim Begin] dedicated to fantasies of power and expansion.” Only this time, it comes from within the army.

The final argument on Israel’s unmaking concerns the haredi role of civic society within Israel. Generally the haredi schools “provide scant preparation for earning a living and no preparation at all for participation in a democratic society.” By exempting the haredi from basic education and allowing the ultra-Orthodox to control the state’s religious bureaucracy, the state fostered a “burgeoning sector of society that neither understand nor values democracy.” The descriptions provided of the schooling and lifestyle of the haredi as fundamentalists is reminiscent of the criticisms many on the right in the west attribute to the Muslim madrassas, and indeed of the Christian fundamentalist right. The influences of this sector are felt in politics, education, the economy, the military, the courts, religious institutions, and in arguments as to who is really Jewish.

Importing Settler Ideology

The final arguments concern the “importation” of the settler’s ideology into Israel, behind the Green Line. This has several facets. One is the ongoing ethnic struggle for land, where “settlers” are encouraged to live in areas that are predominantly Arab, or in cultural boundary areas between Arabs and Jews. In a sense Israel has created a burgeoning one state solution, as the “Green Line had truly been erased. Israeli cities and West Bank hills were fronts in the same war.”

Another facet was created when Avigdor Lieberman and “Israel is Our Home” party joined a coalition with Netanyahu’s Likud. This created an “intense effort to use parliamentary power against basic democratic principles.”A declaration of allegiance to Israel as a “Jewish and Zionist state” did not receive sufficient support, but another bill introduced the same idea for civil servants and yet another for employees of the film industry, and a third required it for immigrants other than those entitled under the right of return law. Another bill allowed housing segregation in community settlements.

Solutions

Gorenberg’s solutions are obvious in consideration of his thesis and supporting arguments. He sees three basic threads:

- First, “End the settlement enterprise, end the occupation, and find a peaceful way to partition the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.”

- Secondly, “it must divorce state and synagogue - freeing the state from clericism, and religion from the state.”

- Finally, “Graduate from being an ethnic movement to being a democratic state in which all citizens enjoy equality.”

A discussion on how to repatriate the settlers indicates that “For Israel to move forward, most settlers must move home….The point of evacuating settlements is to end the ethnic conflict, not to import it.” With the more recent activism by Jewish and other supporters of Palestinian/Arab rights (the BDS movement is not mentioned, but “international pressure” is) Gorenberg concludes, “The settlements do not improve Israel’s bargaining position: rather, they destroy Israeli credibility and chain Israel to the occupied territories.”

Realistic?

The solutions offered by Gorenberg make a great deal of sense, and generally amount to unravelling the complicated web of military, religious, and political structures that have developed over the decades since Israel was formed and in particular since the start of the post 1967 occupation. If Israel existed in an isolated scenario these solutions would be difficult enough to enact.

There is a larger position to consider. Israel’s overall economy now reflects the general trend of right wing governments, with corporations and the military fully entwined in the political arena (see “Start-Up Nation - The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle.” Senor and Singer McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, 2009. While extolling Israel’s “miracle” economic growth, it also illustrates the intertwined roles of the army, education, the government, and corporations - free enterprise it isn’t). The union of right wing theocracy with right wing political ideology will be a difficult arrangement to overcome, as the ability to control the population becomes one of the main enterprises of the now corporate-military state.

The U.S. is a prime example of this, while espousing the virtues of freedom and democracy, it has in the past decade enacted many laws that take away many citizens’ rights, and has abrogated and ignored many other laws from their own Constitution to international law. The U.S. is Gorenberg’s biggest miss in his discussion. Israel is either a U.S. outpost of militarized corporations, or the U.S. is Israel’s puppet fighting for its empire in the Middle East - perhaps a bit of both. With over 3 billion annually in aid, with much more in military ordinance and military, technological, and security information trading between the borders, not only does Israel need to resolve its internal problems if it is to survive as a democracy (already an arguable proposition), it will also have to resolve its relationship with the U.S.

Israel tends to use or ignore the U.S. as it best sees fit for its own purposes. With several hundred nuclear weapons and a technologically advanced military, Israel will continue to exist in one form or another for a long while. Whether it does so according to Gorenberg’s suggestions, all worthwhile and valid, will also depend on how it deals with its ties to the U.S. empire.

“The Unmaking of Israel” is a well worthwhile study in current political thought in Israel from the Jewish perspective looking for a fair, equitable, and democratic state, alongside the same for the Palestinians. I would like to see an addendum, or perhaps a whole new volume with suggestions on how Israel will deal with its U.S. ties, ties that will continue to limit its abilities to become what Gorenberg suggests.

- Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle. Miles' work is also presented globally through other alternative websites and news publications.

2013 Budget: 'Difficult Cuts' for Americans, Jackpot for Israel

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:17:25 -0500

By Josh Ruebner

Speaking before students at Northern Virginia Community College on February 13, President Obama unveiled his 2013 budget request, in which he proposed "some difficult cuts that, frankly, I wouldn’t normally make if they weren't absolutely necessary. But they are." These budget cuts are unavoidable, the President argued, because "the truth is we're going to have to make some tough choices in order to put this country back on a more sustainable fiscal path." In a sad commentary on the misplaced priorities of the Obama Administration, however, these "tough choices" will affect the delivery of basic services to U.S. citizens while the Israeli military hits the jackpot at taxpayer expense.

As part of its budget request, the White House released a 205-page document detailing the cuts, consolidations, and savings the Obama Administration is proposing. These proposed cuts include $5 million to the USDA to analyze food-borne pathogens, potentially making the U.S. food supply even less safe than it already is after 30 people died last year after eating listeria-infected cantaloupe; a $359 million cut to the EPA to provide grants to states for water infrastructure projects when an estimated 1.7 million Americans shockingly lack access to basic water and sanitation services according to the Water Infrastructure Network; and a whopping $360 billion cut over ten years in Medicare, Medicaid, and other health programs even though the World Health Organization rates the U.S. health system as only 37th globally in health care performance.

Given these "difficult cuts" to the budget, it is easy to agree with Israeli journalist Ran Dagoni, who wrote last year in the Israeli business newspaper Globes, that "the time has come to bid goodbye to the military aid that the US extends to Israel, that generous package..that enables the Israeli taxpayer to share the cost of procuring equipment for the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] with the US taxpayer." After all, Israel – the 28th wealthiest country in the world in 2011, with a per capita gross domestic product greater than Korea and Saudi Arabia according to the International Monetary Fund – hardly needs U.S. charity more than we need safe food, clean water, and health care.

Yet, instead of reducing or even just freezing levels of U.S. military aid to Israel, President Obama wants to provide Israel with $3.1 billion of U.S. taxpayer-funded weapons next year, an increase from $3.075 billion in 2012, making the State Department’s claim that this budget request "maintains last year's record funding levels" for Israel both immodest and inaccurate. By comparison, of the nine other Near Eastern countries receiving U.S. military aid, the budget request for eight of them is unchanged from last year’s budget while the request for Tunisia declined.

Were Israel using these weapons for legitimate purposes and to further U.S. foreign policy objectives, then perhaps a persuasive case could be constructed for why the United States does not need to make any budgetary "tough choices" when it comes to Israel. However, Israel misuses U.S. weapons, in violation of U.S. laws, to commit grave and systematic human rights abuses against Palestinians in furtherance of its 44-year military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip and its illegal colonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. From 2000 to 2009, the United States provided Israel with more than $24 billion of military aid and delivered more than 670 million weapons, rounds of ammunition, and related military equipment. During that same period, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, Israel killed at least 2,969 Palestinians "who did not take part in the hostilities and were killed by Israeli security forces (not including the objects of targeted killings)."

Israel often kills Palestinians with these same U.S. weapons provided at taxpayer expense. Such was likely the case last December when an Israeli soldier fired a high-velocity tear gas canister at 28-year-old Mustafa Tamimi, a resident of the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, who was protesting against Israeli settlers seizing land on which his village's natural spring is located. The canister, fired from an Israeli armored vehicle, struck the activist in the face. He died the next day from his wounds. Strong evidence exists that the tear gas canister that killed Mustafa was made by Combined Systems, Inc. of Jamestown, Pennsylvania and likely could have been one of more than 595,000 tear gas canisters and other "riot control" equipment, valued at more than $20.5 million, which were funded by U.S. taxpayers and given to the Israeli military between 2000 and 2009.

Not only does U.S. military aid to Israel make U.S. taxpayers complicit in Israel’s human rights abuses of Palestinians; it also acts as a disincentive for Israel to work in tandem with the Obama Administration to achieve stated U.S. foreign policy goals of freezing Israeli settlement expansion, ending Israeli military occupation, and establishing a Palestinian state and a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace.

The United States cannot afford the moral and economic costs of providing ever-increasing amounts of U.S. taxpayer-funded weapons to Israel. In this era of "tough choices" for the budget, here is a clear-cut example of a subsidy that should be ended.

- Josh Ruebner is the National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and a former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at Congressional Research Service. This article was contributed to PalestineChronicle.com.

Fikra: Israeli Forum for Arab Democrats

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:57:29 -0500

By Maidhc � Cathail

On February 10, subscribers to Fikra Forum's mailing list received a bilingual (English and Arabic) letter from director David Pollock informing them:

"In reaction to last week's exclusive Fikra Forum report, Inside the Syrian Army by Ilhan Tanir, contributor Josef Olmert and I present analysis on how the U.S. and the international community should support the FSA [Free Syrian Army]."

Five days later, Fikra Forum subscribers received another email with the subject title, “Leading Syrian Activist Calls for International Intervention.” In his introductory note, Pollock explained:

“As the international community struggles to halt the Syrian regime’s brutal assault on its people, Fikra Forum would like to share our newest piece by Radwan Ziadeh, an official with the Syrian National Council and executive director of the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies. Ziadeh calls for intervention, urging the international community to form a coalition that legitimizes the SNC as the unified representative of the Syrian opposition and acknowledges the council’s plan for the future of Syria.”

At the bottom of both Fikra Forum emails was the following address:

“The Washington Institute for Near East Policy | 1828 L STREET NW | SUITE 1050 | WASHINGTON | DC | 20036 | US”

However, if one were to visit the Fikra Forum website, one might get the impression that the “online community that aims to generate ideas to support Arab democrats in their struggle with authoritarians and extremists” was trying to hide its association with The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the think tank created by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to “do AIPAC’s work but appear independent.” In its remarkably vague “About Us” section, the only clue to its affiliation with “the think tank AIPAC built” is this acknowledgement:

“Fikra Forum is grateful to the Nathan and Esther K. Wagner Family Foundation for their contribution to the launch of Fikra Forum in the memory of Steven Croft, who during his life believed passionately in the power of ideas to transform lives.”

Steven Croft’s February 20, 2009 Death Notice in the Chicago Tribune tells us a little more about those passionate beliefs:

“He was also philanthropically involved in local, national and international organizations including the Arthritis Foundation, AIPAC, Israel Bonds and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.”

Notwithstanding the apparent overlap, WINEP also appears to be coy about its relationship with Fikra Forum. Despite the fact that David Pollock is the Kaufman fellow at The Washington Institute, “focusing on the political dynamics of Middle Eastern countries,” there appears to be no mention there of the “unique online community” he directs “with the goal of generating ideas to produce a brighter future for Arab democrats.”

By an amazing coincidence, WINEP has its own “Fikra” (Arabic for “Idea”), which it describes as “a multiyear program of research, publication, and network-building designed to generate policy ideas for promoting positive change and countering the spread of extremism in the Middle East.” According to the Israel lobby-created think tank, its Project Fikra is:

“A bold effort to counter the spread of extremism in the Middle East, the program seeks to inject creativity and new thinking into America’s engagement with youths, media, educators, and other key actors struggling for openness and tolerance in Arab and Muslim societies.

Among “the talents of Washington Institute scholars and associates” that Project Fikra brings together is David Pollock, whom it describes as “an expert on Middle Eastern public opinion and polling who worked as a leader on regional democratization and women’s rights.”

Apart from Pollock, a substantial number of Fikra Forum contributors are current or former WINEP fellows, including Ahmed Ali, Jon Alterman, Hassan Barari, Soner Cagaptay, J. Scott Carpenter, Steven Cook, Andrew Engel, Daniel Green, Dina Guirguis, Simon Henderson, David Makovsky, Joshua Muravchik, Magnus Norell, Michael Rubin, Robert Satloff, David Schenker, Michael Singh, Andrew Tabler, Eric Trager, and Margaret Weiss.

The rest of the contributors are from other pro-Israel think tanks, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the American Enterprise Institute; Soros-funded groups such as Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, and the Center for American Progress; various “democracy-promotion” organizations led by the National Endowment for Democracy and its affiliates; and an abundance of pro-democracy activists, bloggers and journalists they “helped nurture,” fomenting the wave of uprisings known as the “Arab Spring.”

While Pollock and many of the other Fikra contributors work for Israel’s U.S. lobby, perhaps the most interesting contributor to an online forum supposedly dedicated to Arab democracy is the aforementioned Josef Olmert. Although his Fikra Forum profile does acknowledge that the Israeli analyst was a director of the Government Press Office and advisor to former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and later served as policy advisor to former Defense Minister Moshe Arens, it emphasizes his role as a “peace negotiator.” Fikra Forum readers are not informed, however, that Dr. Olmert is the brother of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or that both of their parents belonged to the terrorist Irgun organization.

Although Josef Olmert predicted elsewhere a “chaotic transition” in which “the violence that will unfold in Syria will dwarf everything that we have witnessed until now,” he assures Fikra Forum readers that “all support that could enable the FSA to continue and intensify its operations, alongside the continuing popular resistance, will help shorten the days of the dictatorship and save the lives of many innocent Syrians.”

- Maidhc � Cathail has written extensively on Israel's push for regime change in Syria. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

Withered Hands � A Poem

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:42:55 -0500

By Eugene Sigaloff

'Jewish life is going on here in Hebron, and there's
Nothing you, or anybody, can do about it!'
A settler's words,
Pugnacious words,
Stiff-necked words,
Words behind a gun,
Words holding all the cards,
Mean words,
Hostile words,
Full of spite,
Full of spittle,
Streaming from a poisoned well.

“Jewish life” is
More than observant piety,
More than roots and identity,
More than kosher kitchens and circumcisions,
More than selective humanitarianism;
“Jewish life” is also
Suffering crystallized as malice, and
Malice warranted through the presumption of suffering,
Past suffering become a blinding alibi,
Righteousness become self-righteousness;
“And the crooked shall be made straight”:
The potter’s wheel of the human mind
Turns its cup,
The cup from which to sip
Its very own self-serving narrative.

Taunting the helpless,
Mocking the persecuted,
Justifying theft through folklore,
Sucking an entire people dry and
Accusing the victims of their wrongdoing,
The pretense of eternal abuse and suffering,
Playing the dumbfounded innocent when
The injured rise up to strike back:
This too is “Jewish life”.

“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither.”
Words that flood the mind,
Repeated for generations,
A river of discontent,
A fouled flow of resentment,
Displacing reason,
Displacing truth,
Displacing adaptation,
Displacing understanding;
Can one forget what one has never known?

“These are your memories,” say enshrouded voices,
“These and no others.”
Memories swilled down like hurried morning coffee,
Memories stuffed into schoolbooks,
Memories forged day after day after day,
Memory as artifact,
Memory as product,
Memory as myth,
Memory as swindle.
Memory that never was.

“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither.”
Would not a withered hand be better than such ill-starred fixation?
Would not a withered hand be better than collective dementia?
Would not a withered hand be better than a withered soul?

Israel must become “an iron wall of Jewish bayonets,” said Jabotinsky,
Honest Jabotinsky,
And his dream came true!
Israel:
An iron wall of Jewish conceit,
An iron wall of Jewish self-deception,
An iron wall of tempered ignorance,
An iron wall of Jewish intransigence.

Think of mendacity: think of Israel.
Think of injustice: think of Israel.
Think of cruelty: think of Israel.
Think of arrogance: think of Israel.
Think of obduracy: think of Israel.
Think of delirium: think of Israel.

Israel: an avatar of egotism,
Following nature’s redneck politics,
Empathy nullified,
Generosity nullified,
Compassion nullified.

“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither.”
What is real? What is fantasy?
Where to go?
What to do?
Let hands wither,
What is there to hold
When all of value is lost?
Listen to the other,
Hear the other,
Pray for forgetfulness,
Pray to forget the chains to the past—
Chains that, after all, are nothing but
Spun bitterness,
Spun venom,
Pray to forget the trap of endless retribution,
Sleep, and dream of being at peace,
Dream of being forgiven,
Dream of being reborn.

- Eugene Sigaloff contributed this poem to PalestineChronicle.com.

Iran Crisis: 10 Questions Hague Won't Answer

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:29:54 -0500

By Stuart Littlewood

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph Britain's Foreign Secretary, William Hague, claims that Iran is threatening to spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East which could be more dangerous than the original East-West Cold War.

"It is a crisis coming down the tracks,” he says. “Because they are clearly continuing their nuclear weapons programme… If they obtain nuclear weapons capability, then I think other nations across the Middle East will want to develop nuclear weapons.

“And so, the most serious round of nuclear proliferation since nuclear weapons were invented would have begun with all the de-stabilising effects in the Middle East.

“We are very clear to all concerned that we are not advocating military action,” he assures us. “We support a twin-track strategy of sanctions and pressure and negotiations on the other hand. We are not favouring the idea of anybody attacking Iran at the moment.”

But, says Mr Hague, “all options must remain on the table.”

That same day Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Sarkozy signed a "landmark agreement" committing their two countries to a shared programme of civil nuclear power and setting out a shared long term vision of safe, secure, sustainable and affordable energy.

"We are working together... to stop a nuclear weapon in the hands of Iran," said Cameron. “As two great civil nuclear nations, we will combine our expertise to strengthen industrial partnership, improve nuclear safety and create jobs at home. The deals signed today will create more than 1500 jobs in the UK but they are just the beginning. My goal is clear. I want the vast majority of the content of our new nuclear plants to be constructed, manufactured and engineered by British companies. And we will choose the partners and technologies to maximise the economic benefits to the UK."

Such freedom of action or benefits must not be enjoyed by Iran, of course.

Some 3 weeks earlier Mr Hague was clamouring for an "unprecedented" package of measures including an oil embargo and financial sanctions “to increase the peaceful, legitimate pressure on the Iranian government". It’s tempting to add “as punishment for their peaceful and (so far) legitimate civil nuclear activities”. Such measures are no doubt intended to bring ruin and terror in a way that bombing couldn’t.

Most of us remember only too well how the Iraq sanctions devastated that country’s economy and resulted in widespread hunger and disease among Iraqi people. John Pilger reported in the Guardian, March 4, 2000: “This is a war against the children of Iraq on two fronts: bombing, which in the last year cost the British taxpayer £60 million. And the most ruthless embargo in modern history. According to Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund, the death rate of children under five is more than 4,000 a month - that is 4,000 more than would have died before sanctions. That is half a million children dead in eight years. If this statistic is difficult to grasp, consider, on the day you read this, up to 200 Iraqi children may die needlessly.”

With this evil still quite fresh in people’s minds Hague successfully obtained his "unprecedented" measures, meaning worse than those taken against Iraq presumably, to inflict on Iranian women and children.

“A Mad Dog too Dangerous to Bother”?

There are a number of issues raised by Hague's extraordinary antics.

Why does he say the Iranians "are clearly continuing their nuclear weapons programme" when there's no proof?

Why does he say "Iran is threatening to spark a nuclear arms race" when Israel has already de-stabilised the region with its nuclear arsenal?

And even if Iran really does have a weapons programme his claim that the present situation is "the most serious round of nuclear proliferation since nuclear weapons were invented" is rubbish. The BBC reported recently that back in 2009 the IAEA expressed concern about Israel’s nuclear capabilities and called on it to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, open its nuclear facilities to inspection and place them under comprehensive IAEA safeguards. "Israel refuses to join the NPT or allow inspections. It is reckoned to have up to 400 warheads but refuses to confirm or deny this."

Actually, Israel is the third or fourth largest nuclear force in the world and the only one in the Middle East. But our brave politicians dare not even whisper this fact let alone criticize it. According to a 2006/7 report by the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission most unofficial estimates put Israel’s nuclear arsenal in the hundreds, possibly larger than the British stockpile. “Israel... has an unsafeguarded plutonium production reactor and reprocessing capability and possibly some uranium enrichment capability, along with various other uranium-processing facilities."

It is the only state in the region that is not a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (Iran is). It has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. As regards biological and chemical weapons, Israel has not signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. It has signed but not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Israel just doesn’t care. Who can forget that much-quoted remark by former Israeli Defense Minister, General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother"?

And is anyone surprised at reports that European cities are targeted?

Against this background it is difficult to understand how Hague’s aggressive escalation against Iran is in the British national interest - or anyone’s interest except Israel’s. Do the British people want it? If Mr Hague's purpose is to help preserve the imbalance of power in the Middle East so that a rogue regime, Israel, remains the dominant military force, he must be called on to explain the wisdom of it.

Hague and Cameron both voted enthusiastically for the Iraq war, and we know the consequence in lives and irreversible damage to the country, its heritage, its social fabric and infrastructure and its survivors... and of course to Britain's reputation. We want no repetition, surely.

William Hague, according to the Jewish Chronicle, told David Cameron when he became Conservative party leader in 2005 that a deep understanding of the Middle East would be crucial if he wished to be taken seriously as a statesman… "because you can't understand it without the history. That's been one of the failings sometimes with the Western governments."

The pair’s support for Israel and its Zionist ambitions is such that no sane world would allow them anywhere near the levers of international power. Besides, Hague seems to have jettisoned his history. In March 1951 the Iranian Majlis and Senate voted to nationalise Anglo-Iranian Oil, in which the British government had a majority interest and which had controlled Iran's oil industry since 1913 under terms that were disadvantageous to Iran. Dr Mohammad Mossadeq, the newly elected prime minister, carried out his government's wish to cancel Anglo-Iranian’s oil concession, which was not due to expire for another 42 years, and take over its assets.

In a speech in June 1951 (M. Fateh, Panjah Sal-e Naft-e Iran, p. 525) he explained: “The Iranian state prefers to take over the production of petroleum itself. The company should do nothing else but return its property to the rightful owners. The nationalization law provides that 25% of the net profits on oil be set aside to meet all the legitimate claims of the company for compensation…

“It has been asserted abroad that Iran intends to expel the foreign oil experts from the country and then shut down oil installations. Not only is this allegation absurd; it is utter invention…”

Considering Britain paid Iran only 16% of the profits during the inter-war years and treated Iranian oil workers abominably, while profiting hugely herself, these were generous terms.

History Repeats Itself

Faced with nationalisation the British government went mad and imposed a blockade and vicious sanctions, quickly bringing Iran to its knees. Mossadeq, popular and highly regarded, was removed in a coup by MI5 and the CIA, imprisoned for 3 years then put under house arrest until his death. The Iranians were condemned to suffer the re-imposition of the hated Shah and his secret police for another 25 years. The Islamist Revolution of 1979 was the inevitable consequence.

And Iran has not forgotten...

Perhaps Mr Hague, before pressing the ‘History Repeat’ button too many times, should pause to reflect and answer just ten questions:

(1) Have we so easily forgotten the cruel and devastating effect of economic sanctions on civil society, especially children?

(2) Would the Foreign Secretary kindly explain the reasons for his hostility towards Iran?

(3) What concrete proof is there of Iran's military application of nuclear technology?

(4) Why is he not more concerned about Israel's nuclear arsenal, the threat it poses to the region and beyond, and the mental attitude of the Israeli regime?

(5) Why is he not seeking sanctions against Israel for its refusal to sign up to the NPT or engage constructively on the issue of its nuclear and other WMD?

(6) How many times has a British foreign secretary visited Tehran in the 32 years since the Islamic Revolution?

(7) Did Mr Hague make an effort to go and talk before embarking on his punitive sanctions programme?

(8) Britain's conduct towards the Iranians in 1951-53 when a previous Conservative government, in cahoots with the USA, snuffed out Iran's democracy and reinstated a cruel dictatorship, was largely responsible for bringing about the Islamic Revolution and setting the pattern of future relationships. Is it not shameful that this Conservative government is spoiling for another fight? Shouldn’t the Foreign Office focus on exerting influence through trade and co-operation?

(9) Iran's present administration, like others, may not be to our liking but nor was Dr Mossadeq’s democracy 60 years ago. Similarly the Israel-leaning administrations of the US and Britain are not much to the liking of the rest of the world. In any event, what threat is Iran to Britain? And why is Mr Hague leading the charge?

(10) By pulling our people out of Tehran and kicking Iran's people out of London Mr Hague has shut the door on diplomacy. How can he now communicate effectively with a nation he seems determined to goad into becoming an implacable enemy?

On this last point I hear that Baroness Ashton, the EU’s ‘foreign minister’, is handling contact with Iran on behalf of the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany. So much for Hague’s talk of negotiations alongside sanctions. While playing the role of chief bully he has shut himself out of any direct conversation. As for Ashton, she hasn’t made the slightest impact on the crisis in Palestine, even with the clout of 500 million citizens behind her, so is anyone holding their breath?

Most of those questions were put to Mr Hague through my MP (who happens to be one of Hague's junior ministers) two-and-a-half months ago and repeated early January, but Mr Hague isn't replying.

Until he does, the Foreign Secretary ought to be made to stand in the parliamentary 'naughty corner'.

- Stuart Littlewood's book ‘Radio Free Palestine’ can now be read on the internet by visiting www.radiofreepalestine.org.uk .He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

Jordan Is Not Palestine, Neither Is Qatar

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:46:36 -0500

By Sam Bahour

Hamas, the Palestinian 'Islamic Resistance Movement,' is on the move. Hamas is leaving Syria, where it has been based until now, making a pit stop in Jordan to mend affairs with King Abdullah II, declaring non-violent resistance as the preferred mode of struggle against Israeli occupation, signing (yet another) reconciliation agreement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and lastly, planning to relocate its headquarters to the State of Qatar. All of this has happened in the span of a few weeks.

In the information-scarce, investigative reporting-light Middle East, one takes note of every word said and action taken at each high-level meeting—many times, these gestures and nuggets of information are the only insights available to construct the puzzle of the current state of affairs.

Following multiple victories in recent elections across the Arab world, Islamist movements are boasting that there political time has arrived. The “Arab Spring,” as it has been coined, may be morphing into an “Islamic Winter,” as recently noted by Galilaean Palestinian attorney Sabri Jiryis. It is very possible that Hamas’ decision to act now on so many fronts can be attributed to the broader Islamic political waves that are moving across the region.

Syria

The events in Syria are nothing less than horrendous war crimes.

For decades, Syria has provided a safe haven for Palestinian factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Hamas, though not yet a member of the PLO, was given the same cover from the Syrian regime after they were evicted from Jordan.

It is still far too early to fully understand the dynamics motivating so much killing and destruction across Syria, but one thing is for sure: Hamas has calculated that the outcome of the current fighting will create an unfavorable state of affairs for it to remain headquartered there.

Stepping Down, Changing Gears

Khaled Meshaal, who has led Hamas’ political bureau since 1996, recently announced that he plans to step down from his position when elections for the leadership of the organization take place in the next few months.

Anyone who knows anything about Middle East leadership understands that stepping down is actually a synonym for aiming higher. More on that in a second.

In this dramatic stepping down move, Meshaal has been saying something else that is much more interesting: he is promoting a strategic departure from armed struggle to popular non-violent resistance, in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings and the success of Islamist parties in elections in Egypt and elsewhere.

Jordan Is Not Palestine

During an official visit to Jordan after being expelled 12 years ago, Meshaal was reported on Jordan’s state news agency, Petra, as calling the meetings he held with Jordan’s King Abdullah II “a new opening,” noting that Hamas respects “Jordan's security, stability and interests.” He went on to say, “Hamas stands firm against Israel’s schemes to turn Jordan into a substitute homeland. Jordan is Jordan and Palestine is Palestine. We insist on restoring Palestinian rights.”

A few months prior to this meeting, King Abdullah II made public statements to the same affect, after being flabbergasted by voices emerging from the Israeli government calling for the Palestinian issue to be resolved within Jordanian borders.

This is no joking matter, and in politics, such statements do not come from nowhere.

History will surely record the Palestinian struggle for statehood for what it is—a genuine attempt of historical reconciliation to correct a series of gross injustices that can be summarized as dispossession, discrimination, and military occupation. However, historians are bound to scratch their heads when they repeatedly come across references such as the notion that Palestine exists, but not between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River—rather, in Jordan, an independent country east of the Jordan River.

What will baffle historians even more is that this talk of Jordan is Palestine comes after the decades-long political assumption that an independent Palestinian state would be part and parcel of any future peace agreement. At one point, Palestinian statehood seemed a common realization, one that even the U.S. and Israel finally came to terms with. Now, U.S. and Israeli leaders, many of them elected officials or holding senior government positions, openly make public statements not only dismissing Palestinians’ right to Palestine, but even their right to exist as a people. When U.S. and Israeli politicians make such nonsensical claims, one has learned to tune them out, but when Palestinian and Jordanian politicians find a need to reiterate the real location of Palestine, one is forced to take note.

And What’s with Qatar?

Then comes Qatar. This tiny, monarchy-ruled, petroleum-rich country is home to two irreconcilable extremes, or so it seems. Qatar hosts the state-owned Al Jazeera News Network, which has been praised for circumventing censorship and contributing to the free exchange of information in the Arab world, and, seemingly in contradicting fashion, Qatar has opened its borders to be the location of the U.S. Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center.

When Qatar enters inter-Arab disputes, it usually only does so when success is at hand. No doubt that such success costs them dearly. Of late, they have bridged an agreement between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas—a possible reconciliation agreement that ends Palestinian internal division. Simultaneously, Qatar welcomed Hamas to relocate to it from Syria.

What does all this movement mean? Well, it depends on whom you ask. Islamists will say that Hamas is getting renewed energy by indications that the Arab Spring is really turning into an “Islamic Winter.” Palestinians in leadership today will say Hamas feels the heat in Syria and on Iran, and although it may have found another location to base its operations, it ultimately knows that without entering into an operational political system, it cannot maintain control on an Israeli-siege Gaza forever.

Something much more dangerous is in process. Both Hamas and Palestinian President Abbas’ Fateh movements are in dire need to unite to save themselves, after totally decimating anything resembling a national liberation movement or an operating political system. The average Palestinian in Jerusalem, Haifa, Shatila, and Santiago is without voice, without representation, and further away from freedom, return and independence than they have ever been. Hamas’ Khaled Meshaal looks more like someone preparing to enter and take over the secular PLO than someone begging to take over a Palestinian Authority that has been emptied of any serious authority (if it ever had any).

Israel may be laughing away at all this, proud that they destroyed all remnants of a peace process, but history has lessons for he who laughs last.

- Sam Bahour is a management consultant and entrepreneur living in Ramallah; he is co-editor of “Homeland: Oral History of Palestine and Palestinians,” and blogs at epalestine.blogspot.com. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact him at: sbahour@palnet.com.

When Netanyahu Crossed the Line

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:41:58 -0500

By Deepak Tripathi

The bombing of an Israeli embassy car in Delhi threatens India's diplomatic maneuvers between Israel and Iran, and has put India's discreetly nurtured ties with Israel since 1992 through a severe test. Those who are attracted to Israel’s depiction of Iran as a terrorist threat to world peace would do well to read historian Mark Perry’s account, revealing that Israel is recruiting, and collaborating with, terrorist groups in a secret war with Iran. That low-level conflict is spreading. Israel’s latest reaction should be seen in the light of Perry’s revelations.

The Israeli government’s hasty and aggressive posture following the Delhi bombing has caused offense in the Indian capital. Officials in Delhi have made plain that India will not be recruited into the anti-Iran alliance under Israeli–U.S. pressure. India will not allow “Washington, the Jewish lobby and much of Europe to push the country into a corner” over Iran. How India conducts its ties with that country dating back to ancient times is its business. Furthermore, police investigations into the bombing cannot be rushed to suit external interests. The law of the land must take its course.

What particularly irked Indian officials was that immediately after the Delhi bomb (another device was defused by Georgian police in Tbilisi on the same day), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel sought to upstage India’s police investigations into the incident. Netanyahu described the Iranian government as the world’s “largest terror exporter” and Hezbollah in Lebanon as Iran’s “protégé.” Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman went further saying, “We know exactly who is responsible for the attack and who planned it, and we’re not going to take it lying down.”

As if that was not enough. Israel’s Energy and Water Resources Minister Uri Landau intervened with his own comment, calling “India’s support for the Palestinians at the UN a mistake,” and that he intended to “persuade” the Indians to change their stand. And Israel reportedly asked India to help sponsor a resolution against Iran in the UN Security Council, of which India is an elected member at present.

A full-scale Israeli offensive to force a complete overhaul of Indian foreign policy was under way. In the unlikely scenario of it happening, such an event would be a geopolitical earthquake. India’s reliance on oil producers who are firmly in the U.S. camp would be dangerously high. There would be other consequences in the short run. An audacious attack by Israel on Iran, with or without U.S. support, could be nearer, and so would the prospects of a wider Middle East conflict. For these reasons, India now stands between the present and the worst case scenario.

Police investigations were only beginning in Delhi when Israeli ministers spoke with such shocking certainly––the worst kind of megaphone diplomacy. For those sitting in the Indian capital, certain inferences were difficult to avoid. India had recently announced that it would abide by the UN sanctions against Iran, but would not obey additional sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union. India would continue to buy oil from Iran, and an Indian trade delegation would visit Tehran in coming weeks.

Delhi was by no means alone in asserting an independent stance. Other countries, too, have been resisting what they consider to be strong-arm tactics by the anti-Iran bloc of nations to force reluctant governments to toe the line. The United States, the European Union and Israel are far from happy about this.

That the affair threatened India’s massive trade with Iran, and could derail India’s capacity to formulate its foreign policy, was not lost in Delhi. A number of Indian politicians and senior officials made the government’s position clear. Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said that terrorism and trade were “separate issues,” and that business with Iran would continue. A former diplomat of India and now a leading commentator, M. K. Bhadrakumar, described the Israeli offensive as a “smear campaign” that “Tehran’s agents had been going about placing bombs in New Delhi, Tbilisi and Bangkok.”

Meanwhile, police investigations, and a visit by an Israeli Mossad team to Delhi, were continuing. Indian officials insisted that there was no “conclusive evidence” to link the attack to any particular group or country. And a senior police officer was categorical in saying that there was no link between the Delhi bomb and explosions that occurred in Bangkok the day after.

The Indians are normally too polite to engage in crude public diplomacy. But when ministers of a country of under 8 million, albeit advanced and heavily militarized, try to dictate policy to a nation of 1.2 billion people, it is perhaps too much for the Indian sensitivities.

I am on record as saying that, in the challenging 1990s decade when the Soviet Union collapsed, India was hasty and ill-advised to build a “flyover” to Israel, and from Israel straight on to the United States. Over the years, Israel’s multi-billion dollar sales of weapons based on American and Russian technologies, and intelligence sharing, have given India easy access to arms bazaar. But there is a cost. India can be vulnerable to pressure, and has ignored its interests in the Muslim world. Simply put, successive Indian governments put too many eggs in the (Israeli–U.S.) basket.

Now that India asserts its strategic interests independent of the United States and Israel, with the other members of the group called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), it faces a trial of strength. The outcome will depend on whether Delhi can establish its capacity to turn away from what look like instant gains, and promises for future, to secure its long-term interests that are essential for India’s place on the world stage.

- Deepak Tripathi is the author of “Breeding Ground: Afghanistan and the Origins of Islamist Terrorism” (Potomac Books, Inc., Washington, D.C., 2011) and “Overcoming the Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan” (Potomac, 2010). He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.