Campaign to Crush Muslim Civil Society Organizations in the U.S. Escalates

Posted on Feb 15, 2017

By Sarah Lazare / AlterNet



President Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz reportedly are in alignment when it comes to targeting Muslim groups in the United States. Fox Business

A new initiative advanced by right-wing Republicans in Congress and reportedly backed by the Trump administration puts American Muslim civil society groups in the government’s crosshairs. Without the same outraged protests or condemnatory press conferences inspired by Trump’s travel ban targeting visitors and dual citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, the lesser-known effort is aimed at crushing robust Muslim civil society organizing in the United States, using the framework of the war on terror.

The initiative aims to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, a designation that in practice, is likely to provide a vehicle for a network of anti-Muslim crusaders to hound unaffiliated, mainstream Muslim organizations and potentially criminalize their leadership.

The effort emanates from fringe conspiracy theorists who, backed by a well-heeled Islamophobia industry, espouse the unfounded claim that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the far reaches of the U.S. government. These fringe figures charge that prominent political players, from Huma Abedin to Grover Norquist to Keith Ellison, are operating as secret agents of the organization.

Arjun Singh Sethi, a civil rights lawyer and professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told AlterNet that this effort represents “version 2.0 of the Muslim ban and will be used as a vehicle to attack and smear Muslim civic and political organizations in the United States. The $57 million Islamophobia industry will do anything in its power to arbitrarily and erroneously link groups in the United States to the Muslim Brotherhood. These accusations alone can destroy reputations and tarnish organizations forever.”

Today, this fringe theory has a direct line to the White House.

This January, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and Sen. Ted Cruz introduced the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act in both congressional chambers. The bill also demands the designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, a longstanding goal of neoconservative and pro-Israel elements in Washington.

In a press release championing the legislation, Cruz invoked a supposed clash of civilizations. “I am proud to reintroduce these bills that would codify needed reforms in America’s war against radical Islamic terrorism,” he said. “This potent threat to our civilization has intensified under the Obama administration due to the willful blindness of politically correct policies that hamper our safety and security.”

Alongside this legislative push, advisers to Trump are reportedly weighing an executive order to declare the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization.

Conspiracy theory backed by Islamophobia industry

“One of the favorite smear tactics of the Islamophobia industry for years has been to accuse individuals and institutions in the U.S. of supporting the mythical Muslim Brotherhood bogeyman,” said Sethi, the civil rights lawyer. “If the Muslim Brotherhood is designated a foreign terrorist organization, this industry will double down on the tactic. This designation could spark a witch hunt similar to what we saw during the red scare. Innocent institutions and individuals could be tarnished and impugned. In addition, the government could invoke expansive material support laws and seek to prosecute individuals and institutions, forfeiting their assets.”

Sethi underscored that this political campaign comes despite the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood does not have a known presence in the United States.

In a report released in 2011, the Center for American Progress determined that seven foundations shelled out $42.6 million between 2001 and 2009 to think tanks advancing anti-Muslim policies. In a separate study published in 2015, CAP identified what it called a $57 million industry that is predicated on the spreading of anti-Muslim sentiment. This industry directly supports concrete policy measures targeting Muslim communities in the United States, including the NYPD’s invasive surveillance system and the more than 100 anti-Sharia bills that have been introduced at the state level across the country.

The unfounded claim that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the U.S. government plays a key role in this industry and is espoused by major figureheads. Among them is Frank Gaffney Jr., who founded the Center for Security Policy, the think tank that produced the shoddy research behind Trump’s campaign pledge to ban Muslims. A prominent anti-Muslim activist and conspiracy theorist, Gaffney served as an adviser to Cruz’s failed presidential campaign and is close colleagues with many in Trump’s cabinet, including Steve Bannon.

Without producing any evidence, Gaffney has repeatedly claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the U.S. government, levying accusations that numerous officials are agents of the organization, including Hillary Clinton’s longtime aide Huma Abedin. In 2011, Gaffney was temporarily barred from the Conservative Political Action Conference for accusing the right-wing activist Grover Norquist of being an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood. Citing the supposed Muslim Brotherhood takeover, Gaffney has repeatedly called for McCarthy-ite investigations targeting Muslim-Americans. “So pervasive now is the MB’s [Muslim Brotherhood’s] ‘civilization jihad’ within the U.S. government and civil institutions that a serious, sustained and rigorous investigation of the phenomenon by the legislative branch is in order,” he argued at the Center for Security Policy in October 2011.

Notably, this is not the only conspiracy theory Gaffney clings to. He has also argued that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim who was not born in the United States and that Saddam Hussein was likely behind the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings.

Gaffney is not alone. Steven Emerson, a notoriously Islamophobic author and pundit, has played a key role in perpetuating the notion that the Obama administration was infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Emerson has spread baseless propaganda for years, alleging in 1995, for instance, that the Oklahoma City Federal Building had been bombed by Arab “terrorists.” Moments later, the bomber was revealed as white nationalist Timothy McVeigh. Two decades later, Emerson appeared on Fox News to make bogus claims about the existence of Muslim no-go zones in the U.K. Fox was forced to issue numerous corrections and apologies for Emerson’s statements, which then-London Mayor Boris Johnson dismissed as “total nonsense.”

While both Gaffney and Emerson are designated anti-Muslim extremists by the Southern Poverty Law Center, their views have been espoused by those in the highest echelons of power. A decade ago, Bannon proposed a documentary-style movie blaming a coalition of liberal Jewish groups and Muslim civil rights organizations for importing terror into America, The Washington Post recently revealed.

Two other former contributors to the white nationalist publication Breitbart—Sebastian Gorka and Katharine Gorka—have recently joined Trump’s cabinet. The pair have built their careers fear-mongering over Muslims. Gorka, who now serves as deputy national security assistant, has previously argued that the United States is a Christian nation. “We don’t know where the refugees from war zones are living in America,” he said in a July 15 appearance on Fox News. “We’re a Christian nation; we should be charitable to those in need. But charity is not an excuse for suicide.” Katharine Gorka has previously supported far-reaching legislation to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

“You have these right-wing fringe theorists who think every Muslim has links to the Muslim Brotherhood, and that’s reason to distrust them,” Faiza Patel, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, told AlterNet. “But now they are close to the center of power and able to push conspiracy theories out there. This could be really used as a way to clamp down on Muslim groups as well as prominent activists.”

Brant Rosen, the founder of the Rabbinical Council of Jewish Voice for Peace, told AlterNet, “As a Jew, I would say this is the targeting of people because of their religion and identity. Jews know all about that. This would be the Muslim registry. This would give the government the opportunity to carry through formally on what it’s threatened to do.”

Muslim civil society is the real target

Anti-Muslim extremists have repeatedly and without evidence targeted Muslim civil society organizations as supposed agents of the Muslim Brotherhood, with Breitbart providing a key mouthpiece. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a major target of this campaign, with Breitbart running articles titled, “FBI Chart and Documents Portray CAIR as Hamas-Related Organization” and “10 Reasons to Be Suspicious of CAIR.” Breitbart has also repeatedly targeted the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Students Association. Breitbart has even accused the New York Times of generating Muslim Brotherhood propaganda.

In 2014, Rep. Michele Bachmann introduced legislation to “impose sanctions against persons who knowingly provide material support or resources to the Muslim Brotherhood or its affiliates, associated groups, or agents, and for other purposes.” The legislation named key Muslim civil society organizations, including ISNA and CAIR.

Fear-mongering over the Muslim Brotherhood has also provided fodder for targeting Palestinian human rights organizations. “Israel advocacy groups in the U.S. have been at the forefront of efforts to label Muslim, Arab and other groups that advocate for Palestinian rights as ‘terrorist’ with the scantest of evidence and the thinnest threads of association,” Dima Khalidi, the director of Palestine Legal, told AlterNet over email. “David Horowitz, for example, has gone after the student groups the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) together for alleged association with the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“Notably, Black Lives Matter, which was severely attacked by Israel advocacy groups for its expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian freedom movement, has also been called ‘terrorist,’ with calls to designate it as a terrorist organization,” Khalidi continued. “The slope is ever steeper and more slippery with an administration that has a blatantly anti-Muslim and anti-black agenda.”

Despite previous political efforts to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, both the Bush and Obama administrations declined. As journalist Waqas Mirza recently noted, the “British government had also rebuked such calls and a report published by the U.K. House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee last year concluded that the Muslim Brotherhood did not engage in ‘terrorism.’”

Yet, authoritarian governments have continued to exert pressure on the United States to impose the designation, among them the UAE and Egypt. In 2013, Egypt’s determination that the Muslim Brotherhood was a terrorist organization was used to justify a violent and large-scale crackdown on dissent, including mass torture, disappearances and the unfounded arrests of tens of thousands of people. The crackdown followed the massacres of over 2,000 protesters in the Cairo suburb of Rabaa.

Human Rights Watch cited this Egyptian precedent in condemning the political campaign in the U.S. “If the U.S. government designates the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist group, then not only its members, but anyone either in the United States or abroad suspected of providing support or resources to the group would be at risk of removal from the U.S. if they are non-citizens and having their assets frozen,” the organization stated. “They would also risk unfairly being targeted for prosecution under various laws, including those banning material support for terrorism.”

Arun Kundnani is the author of “The Muslims Are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror” and an adjunct professor at New York University. He told AlterNet, “We can have a debate about the Muslim Brotherhood and what the nature of the organization is, but the proposed designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood. It’s a paranoid fantasy.”

“The effect would be to criminalize many of the leading figures leading the protests against Trump,” Kundnani continued. “It would effectively criminalize Muslim organizations that constitute the main opposition to the wider Trump agenda, in terms of the Muslim ban and civil rights. Primarily, it would remove opposition to the wider Islamophobic agenda.”

“This is more terrifying than the Muslim ban,” said Hoda Katebi, an organizer and artist with For The People Artists Collective and communications coordinator for the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “When you add the word ‘terrorist’ to anything, you have been branded by the state and everyone is too afraid to help. Unlike a blanket ban on Muslims that is easy to identify as wrong and rally support against, being called a terrorist as a Muslim essentially erases you and alienates you from support.”

“This is particularly important to be rallying against, particularly important to show up as allies, because this is where most allies will drop off. This is the point where allies will be too afraid and unsure about what to do. Let me tell you now: You must show up and do everything in your power to support Muslims and Muslim civil rights organizations who will be isolated and shut down unjustly by this racialized designation. Never let the state define your enemies.”

Israel interferes in our politics all the time, and it’s never a scandal

from mondoweiss

Israel interferes in our politics all the time, and it’s never a scandal
Philip Weiss on February 15, 2017

I completely believe that Donald Trump was in bed with the Russians before the election and the campaign may well have intrigued with Vladimir Putin with respect to Wikileaks and that helped defeat Hillary Clinton. I believe that because that’s how the world works; because a lot of very smart people in the liberal establishment believe it; and because the New York Times and Washington Post are documenting some of it, with the fervor of Watergate.

Maybe it will bring the liar in chief down some day and end this short national nightmare. I certainly hope so.

But there are two large exceptions to the Russian conspiracy. The first is that it is good policy for the United States to be talking to Russia. If Clinton were president today, there might be dogfights over Damascus. Her gang was all for regime change in Syria, and for confrontation over the Ukraine. That’s bad policy. I’m glad they’re not running the show– though they are certainly running this story. Before you get too upset about Russia winking at the sanctions, the scandal that brought down Michael Flynn, please recall that in 2012, President Obama sent secret signals to Iran to ignore congressional sanctions, we’ll be talking to you once I’m reelected. Obama got reelected; and his deal with Iran is one of the greatest achievements of a very good presidency. Again, this is how the world works.

Which brings up the second exception. Israel tried to interfere in that 2012 election, as Chris Matthews sensibly reminded his audience recently: Benjamin Netanyahu tried to help Mitt Romney beat Obama. Sheldon Adelson held a fundraiser in Jerusalem for Romney.

Netanyahu didn’t stop there. After Romney lost, Netanyahu came to Congress to tell the Congress to reject President Obama’s nuclear deal. That was an unprecedented interference of a foreign leader in our policy-making, enabled by the Israel lobby; but there were never any investigations about that. Subsequently Chuck Schumer said he was torn between a Jewish interest and the American interest, before voting against the president, and he paid no political/reputational price for it; while President Obama said that it would be an “abrogation” of his constitutional duty if he considered Israel’s interest ahead of the U.S.; for which Obama was called an anti-semite.

Throughout those negotiations, Obama could never address the fact that Israel has nukes. This lie is honored by the press, in a way that it would never honor Trump’s lies. And the manner in which Israel got nukes, including thefts from an American company with the complicity of the White House, is only investigated by peripheral figures.

The Israeli interference in our politics is the conspiracy in plain sight that no one in the media talks about because they’re too implicated themselves. The two top executives at the largest media company, Comcast, are pro-Israel; one of them, David Cohen, raised money for the Israeli army. Netanyahu’s speeches to Congress were written by Gary Ginsberg, an executive at another media company, Time Warner, but hey, that’s not an issue. Four New York Times reporters have had children serve in the Israeli army. One of them is columnist David Brooks, who says that he gets gooey-eyed when he visits Israel. He is one of several Zionists with columns at the Times. Tom Friedman justified the Iraq War because suicide bombers were going into Tel Aviv pizza parlors. (Huh?) Yesterday Martin Indyk said on National Public Radio that Jared Kushner’s strong Jewish background was an asset for his being a Middle East mediator, a job that Aaron David Miller, who also has a strong Jewish background, defined as being Israel’s lawyer. Indyk, himself a mediator, started a pro-Israel thinktank with Haim Saban, an Israeli-American who was Clinton’s biggest funder and who lately smeared Keith Ellison at a giant gathering at Brookings, which he also helps fund, as “clearly an anti-semite” and “anti-Israel;” and Jake Tapper of CNN moved on to the next question, presumably because smearing a public official in that manner is not news. Saban is also chummy with Jeffrey Goldberg, one of whose qualifications for being the best journalist in his generation, according to the Atlantic’s publisher, is that he served in the Israeli Defense Forces, because he felt that America was unsafe for Jews. One of Goldberg’s first hires as editor at the Atlantic is Julia Ioffe, who hates Russia, and who told a synagogue audience last year after she was attacked as a Jew by Trump supporters: “Personally I was kind of glad to see the outpouring of antisemitism” because people had forgotten that Jews and Israel are the “underdog.” At another NY synagogue, believing that he was speaking off the record, Dennis Ross, the longtime White House “mediator” of the peace process, said that American Jews must be “advocates” for Israel, not for Palestinians. Again, not a scandal. But when Rashid Khalidi, who wrote a book about the U.S. being imbalanced in the peace process, warned that neoconservatives would “infest” the Trump administration, he was smeared up and down as an anti-semite.

I could go on and on. I can’t because Netanyahu is in the White House today, and I need to get on the news. Netanyahu who President Obama met with countless times, Netanyahu who John Kerry talked to as secretary of state four times as often as he spoke to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Which is hardly surprising, because as Kerry complained to Jeffrey Goldberg, we give Israel more military aid than we give the rest of the world combined, and meantime they ignore our warnings. They can ignore us because of the Israel lobby, including AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which doesn’t have to register as a foreign agent because of sleight-of-hand they pulled back in the 60s, defying Senator Fulbright. AIPAC never gets called for this because the two countries are viewed to have completely congruent interests– when we don’t. So Phil Gordon leaves the State Department and goes to a conference in Israel just like Super Bowl winners going to Disneyland; all the Israeli ambassadors grew up in the States; and Benjamin Netanyahu came of age here, a subject that is never considered problematic; because we have a political discourse in which a leading liberal journalist, Eric Alterman, brags: “I was raised dually loyal my whole life.”

Alterman told a Jewish audience in New York he was alright with that because the U.S. can take a hit but Israel can’t. He then conceded that “bin Laden and 9/11 were to some degree inspired by U.S. support of Israel,” and so are the “pool of potential terrorists who want to attack the United States.” Though: “Dammit, if that’s the price we have to pay, then I’m willing to pay it.”

Other Americans may make a different calculation of U.S. interests. But let’s talk about Russia.

Thanks to Annie Robbins for guidance on this story, particularly the 2012 Iran/Obama detail.

- See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2017/02/interferes-politics-scandal/?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=61f11190a8-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b86bace129-61f11190a8-309260894&mc_cid=61f11190a8&mc_eid=b1e0e2d3d7#sthash.nFvJOrXN.dpuf

The ACLU Explains Why They're Supporting The Rights Of Milo Yiannopoulos

February 12, 20177:45 AM ET
Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday
The American Civil Liberties Union defends free speech, even if it's hateful. That has some of their supporters upset. Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks to Lee Rowland, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU.

LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Now we're going to turn to another issue on a lot of people's minds, free speech. The American Civil Liberties Union has raised a lot of money, $24 million in donations in just one weekend in fact, after President Trump announced his executive order on immigration. Hundreds of thousands of people were motivated by the organization's work to defend people who were detained at airports. And then this week, the ACLU expressed support for a free speech case. This one involves Milo Yiannopoulos. He's the divisive editor of the far-right website Breitbart News, and he's said things like feminism is a cancer.

He was recently supposed to speak at UC Berkeley, but intense protests led the school to cancel the event last minute. The ACLU says no matter how much you might dislike what he has to say, it's protected free speech, and that makes some of its newest supporters upset. Joining me now to talk about this is Lee Rowland. She's a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.

Welcome to the program.

LEE ROWLAND: Hi. Thanks for having me.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So what's the case for defending Mr. Yiannopoulos in your view?

ROWLAND: Well, the case for Mr. Yiannopoulos is the same as it would be for any speaker, no matter how despicable or offensive we might find them, which is the First Amendment protects our right to speak out on matters of public concern, to talk about things that are as offensive as the things that Mr. Yiannopoulos says without censorship by the government. And ideally, as in his case, without people physically preventing him from speaking at a place where he had every right to speak.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So the ACLU and you specifically, actually, have received criticism on social media about this. Does the ACLU need to do a better job explaining why it's defending him and other cases like this, where someone is committing what some would consider hate speech?

ROWLAND: Well, look, I certainly understand that, especially for many of our new members, they may be surprised by the ACLU's robust First Amendment positions, but it's certainly not new. Indeed, one of our most high-profile and controversial moments in the ACLU's history was defending the rights of literal self-proclaimed Nazis to march through the streets of Skokie, a town made up largely of Holocaust survivors. What's amazing about the First Amendment is it protects us, regardless of our viewpoints, regardless of the causes we hold dear.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But isn't hate speech different?

ROWLAND: There's no question that the things that Mr. Yiannopoulos says are unbelievably hateful in nature. But the phrase hate speech is a form of free speech. Again, in defending the rights of others to speak, whether or not we agree with them, we must all reach out and protect the speech that we most disagree with or else the First Amendment is just reduced to a popularity contest and has no meaning.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: At a time like this, when the country's so divided, many see the ACLU as a check on the Trump administration. You've been at the forefront of several important battles. Are you worried that taking controversial positions like this will erode your support, especially among new members?

ROWLAND: Well, I certainly hope not. I mean, as our - as my colleagues' incredible work as of late has shown, we at the ACLU consider ourselves the first responders for the Constitution. That's a core part of our identity here at the ACLU. And look, we often say - if you disagree with us 20 percent of the time, it means you're a thinking person. If you disagree with us 50 percent of the time, you should consider coming to work for us.

So we respect diversity. No one has to fall in line with all of the ACLU's positions. But I do believe that our defense of the First Amendment is an integral part of our fight for civil rights, for equality and liberty for all.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Lee Rowland, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU, thanks so much for being with us.

ROWLAND: Thank you very much.

Israel fumbles goodwill visit of NFL players

By ARON HELLER
Feb. 15, 2017 11:37 AM EST

JERUSALEM (AP) — It was supposed to be a feel-good visit by a group of professional football players to give a boost to image-conscious Israel.

But in an embarrassing fumble by the Israeli government, only five of 11 NFL players in the delegation showed up after being blitzed by Palestinian activists opposed to the visit.

Israel's ministry for strategic affairs and public diplomacy issued a press release after the Super Bowl boasting that the visit would bring "influencers" who would serve as "goodwill ambassadors" when they returned home.

The announcement led Seattle Seahawks defense lineman Michael Bennett to pull out. In a lengthy Twitter post, he accused the government of trying to use him for PR purposes and cited sympathy for the Palestinians.

"I will not be used in such a manner," he wrote, adding that he still intends to visit Israel, but only on a trip that includes stops in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to meet Palestinians.

Citing the example of Muhammad Ali, and the late boxing legend's support for the Palestinians, Bennett said he too wants to be a "voice for the voiceless."

"I cannot do that by going on this kind of trip to Israel," he said.

Several others players followed suit, and at the delegation's first official stop on Tuesday at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, only five players were present, said hospital spokesman David Ratner. He said the players were given a tour of the hospital and shown a presentation of a device developed by one of Rambam's researchers that detects concussions in real time.

Among those who also dropped out were Bennett's brother Martellus, of the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, Miami Dolphins receiver Kenny Stills, Seahawks' Cliff Avril, San Francisco 49er Carlos Hyde and Justin Forsett of the Denver Broncos.

Public Diplomacy Minister Gilad Erdan, whose office spearheaded the visit, had enthusiastically promoted it, saying the NFL players would help boost Israel's image and counter the influence of an international boycott movement.

"I hope that, through their visit, they will get a balanced picture of Israel, the opposite from the false incitement campaign that is being waged against Israel around the world," he said. "I hope that the players will present the beautiful face of Israel to their tens of millions of fans in the United States."

But since Bennett's post on Saturday, the ministry has gone silent. After promising various updates on the delegation, Revital Yakin-Karkovsky, the executive director for communications and strategy in the ministry, said Wednesday it would not comment on the visit. The Tourism Ministry and the nonprofit America's Voices in Israel organization, which were also involved in the planning, have also distanced themselves.

The five players who did make the trip — Delanie Walker of the Tennessee Titans, Mychal Kendricks of the Philadelphia Eagles, Cameron Jordan of the New Orleans Saints, Calais Campbell of the Arizona Cardinals and Dan Williams of the Oakland Raiders — have also noticeably kept quiet on social media.

The only evidence of the visit is an Instagram video of Kendricks from a local restaurant, where he sings along to Marvin Gaye's "Let's get it on" and asks locals to say hello to the camera in Hebrew.

An open letter published in The Nation that was signed by pro-Palestinian activists and supporters such as Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover and Alice Walker had urged the players to skip the trip.

"The Israeli government sought to use these NFL players, who have tremendous platforms due to their popularity, in an effort to whitewash Israel's ongoing denial of Palestinian rights," said Yousef Munayyer, director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, who initiated the open letter. "It was heartening to see so many players choose not to sit on the sidelines but instead to stand on the right side of history."

____

Israel's masters of war set their sights on Gaza - again

Gaza cries out, but the warmongers don't listen. For them, the Strip is just an opportunity to advance their careers.

By Gideon Levy | Feb. 12, 2017 | 12:30 PM | 3


“Come you masters of war, … I can see through your masks… You lie and deceive, a world war can be won, you want me to believe, but I see through your eyes, and I see through your brain. … You’ve thrown the worst fear that can ever be hurled, fear to bring children in to the world.” (From Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War”)
And look, they’re back, our masters of war. Here they come, those warmongers. They don’t pass up a single chance to grab a microphone and threaten to push toward another war. Yet no one asks them: Why? What for? The north is quiet, as is the south, relatively speaking.
But it’s been two and a half years since the last war in Gaza and the Israeli DNA demands another round of bloodshed. And their current jobs – construction minister or education minister – are also boring for those with a mind for it. Encouraging high school students to take advanced math or building new public housing is deadly dull. They need another war, after which they may get the positions they covet.
The Gaza Strip is dying. Its inhabitants have just three years to live, according to a United Nations report that predicted that in 2020, Gaza will cease to be a place fit for human life. It has long ago become a cage unfit for life. But when they’re not shooting at Israel from Gaza, no one takes an interest in its fate. Hamas is holding its fire, but it’s enough for two rebel rockets to be fired to prompt 19 (!) Israeli aerial attacks and to extract all of our warmongers from their holes.
Construction and Housing Minister Yoav Galant’s eyes lit up and the color seemed to return to his face when he talked about Gaza. “I believe we should be prepared by spring,” determines this master of war, who dreams of returning to Gaza and killing more, as he did so well in Operation Cast Lead eight year ago. Why in the spring? Don’t ask. There’s a reason you don’t know. Maybe it’s because Charles Aznavour sang about returning in the spring.
Last week, Galant didn’t pass up a single media opportunity anywhere but on the Kol Hamusica classical music station to fan the flames and push for a war. And who would bother interviewing this failing, boring construction minister whose party colleague Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon also detests him if it were not about Gaza? Since he has not chalked up accomplishments in building, Galant, a former military man is trying to get back to destroying. The Likud party is waiting for him.
The Defense Ministry is also coveted by Education Minister Naftali Bennett. Getting there, however, requires fanning the flames. No official report about the failure to deal with Hamas tunnels in Gaza will suffice, so Bennett is also dreaming about another war. “The next round of war is approaching,” he said, making a prediction that always comes true in Israel. He hasn’t concealed the extent to which he is in a hurry to return to the killing fields of Shujaiyeh and the confidential briefings with army officers.
And then, of course, there is the current defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who even in his new temporary role as a moderate, also won’t pass up a chance. “Until the other side cries gevalt, we’re not stopping,” said the minister of arrogance. Again came the hollow promises of decisive victory that will never come about and yet again everyone is willing to buy the argument. Again everyone is waiting for the next war, as if it were fate handed down by the almighty when it isn’t even handed down from Gaza.
Gaza actually is crying gevalt, but none of the warmongers are listening. Gaza for them is an opportunity to advance their careers, to get the forces moving and to conceptualize a war against an enemy that is nothing but an army of hooligans, nothing but an assault on the powerless. Gaza would bring the warmongers back into the headlines, back into their glory, the return of the good old days of combat jackets. Otherwise, there would be no reason to embark on another attack on Gaza.
The deterioration could be quick. Just another few declarations of war, another few disproportionate responses by the Israel Defense Forces for every cap gun or kite fired from Gaza and we’re there. Israel also pushed for the wars in Gaza in 2008 and 2014 more than Gaza did. Before you can say “cigars and champagne,” the IDF is in Gaza.
And there is no one to yell “stop,” no one to say that those who don’t want war in Gaza should open it rather than destroy it a third, fourth and fifth time. But saying so requires courage, which is the quality most lacking among our masters of war, whom, as Dylan’s lyrics state, will never be forgiven.

After Mega-Lies by Trump Adviser Stephen Miller, It’s Time to Rev Up the Reality-Based Community

from Truthdig

Posted on Feb 13, 2017

By Juan Cole / Informed Comment


Stephen Miller a snot-nosed kid with a bad attitude, advertised as White House senior policy adviser, delivered himself of some stern jeremiads on Sunday on Meet the Press, along with many Big Lies of which Joseph Goebbels would be jealous.

It is dreary to see a Republican White House once again fall into the clutches of grandiose fantasists and drooling conspiracy theorists. We saw this with Karl Rove and Irv “Scooter” Libby in the Bush years. The arrogance, the big globe-straddling ambitions, the spit in the face of average people, and above all the Big Lie. What is it about today’s Republican Party that drives it into the arms of high-end hucksters and confidence men? Maybe it’s the cognitive dissonance of being a servant to the .01% but pretending to want to help average folks.

After denouncing the third branch of government, given powers of legislative review by the Constitution, Miller said:

“our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.”

We have seen these unimaginative scenarios so many times. The media as the enemy (you can’t outdo tricky Dick Nixon on that one). The whole world having to be impressed. Have you *met* any French people? Believe me, Stephen, they aren’t impressed. They can’t get past those ears, and wonder what happened to your hair. And we haven’t even gotten to your boss. And, then, sigh, the unquestioned power of the president. What’s the matter, “unitary executive” too hard for you to say?

Then there were Miller’s Giga-lies about undocumented people voting in the millions. Or maybe they are tera-lies. A lot of bytes go into a lie that huuuje.

But it is banal and ennui-inducing by now. We’ve been there, done that. We had to form a whole new internet group the last time, the “Reality-Based Community.” I guess it is time to dust back off that blogger.com comment section from 2004.

The key quote that kicked off the Community appeared in an article by Ron Suskind on October 17, 2004 in the New York Times entitled, “Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush.” It is said that the Bush administration official who delivered himself of this famous quote was strategist Karl Rove, who connived at a Permanent Republican Majority and urged a war on Iraq as a way to make sure George W. Bush got to be a two-term president (the longer in office, the more money to be made). So this is what is attributed to him:

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Rove did not mean to admit that he is detached from reality, any more than Kellyanne Conway intended to admit that she maintains a whole warehouse of alternative facts. Rove meant to say that George W. Bush had a big ol’ reality-creation machine on the back of his flatbed truck, and when you ran it, why it tinkered with dimensional space and made things turn out right for rich old cranky white men.

As for being an empire, no. The days of empire are over with. The “natives” or “wily oriental gentleman” as the Victorians called them all seem to have C4 plastic explosives now, if not, as with Pakistan and India and China, hundreds of nuclear warheads. Sticky wicket, old man, wot? Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf in Iraq, an elderly Iranian gentleman, pushed you and George around like the paper tigers you were, and he even did it nonviolently. Other impudent imperial subjects regularly blew up the poor 18-year-olds you sent over there to do God knows what. Since you were so big on turning Iraq into a shining beacon on the hill, I hear they need a good electoral consultant in Falluja these days, and maybe you’d be so kind as to volunteer?

In other words, that reality creation machine on W’s flatbed truck was on the blink. So it got Rove and Bush into an Iraq War that is still going on and will cost us $6 trillion and which even other Republicans won’t stand behind. It deregulated the hell out of Wall Street and so sent the big investment banks right to hell, along with millions of mortgages, leaving average people so impoverished that a lot of them are still drinking themselves to death or hanging themselves in the closet over it. And then your attempt to punish Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame for questioning your phony cover story of Iraqi nuclear weapons (“WMD”) got your aide Scooter Libby in big doodoo. Very judicious doo doo. And your climate denialism will drown your great grandchildren, or give them heat stroke. See if you can please re-set that particular reality you created with 5-6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year from our one country.

So yes, Karl, I get to study what you wrought to the universe, and the resets and the twists and turns. I even wrote a whole book, Engaging the Muslim World, about what you got wrong in one part of the globe. There are lots of such books to be written. We writers will write them for a long time. But alas reality is a harsh mistress and doesn’t like to be fucked with. Guess what happens to people who try to create an alternate reality?

I don’t even understand the ambition. Reality is all we have to hold on to. We shouldn’t want to mess with it. But it is just as well, since even “empires” can’t. Especially when the whole idea of empire is past its expiration date and smells like a pile of two-week-old corpses.

And I see your whippersnapper of a protegé, Mr. Miller, out before the cameras just like you were 13 years ago, strutting like a meerkat that caught a cobra by the tail, and lying his bony ass off. Brings a tear to my eye. Not nostalgia. It’s just, I know how this movie ends.

NFL players pull out of Israel propaganda tour

from the electric intifada
Michael F. Brown Activism and BDS Beat 11 February 2017


Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett, left, talks to San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, following a 37-18 Seattle victory at CenturyLink Field in Seattle, 25 September 2016. In solidarity with Palestinians, Bennett this week pulled out of an Israeli-government backed propaganda junket for NFL players. Joe Nicholson USA TODAY Sports
Immediately after contributing to his team’s Super Bowl victory last Sunday, Martellus Bennett of the New England Patriots was asked what he thought about an upcoming visit to Mexico to represent the National Football League (NFL).

“Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall! That’s what I think about going to Mexico,” he cried.

Bennett then became the first of a number of Patriots players who confirmed they would skip a visit with President Donald Trump at the White House.

Hasbara tour
But The Forward reported that Bennett would be taking a different trip. Along with 11 other NFL players he would be “heading to Israel after the team’s historic win on a hasbara, or Israeli public relations tour for American football players.”

The headline even quoted Bennett purportedly declaring, “I’m going to Israel.”

Palestinians living under a system Human Rights Watch has labeled “separate and unequal,” would surely wonder how Bennett could oppose Trump’s plans to extend the wall on the US-Mexico border, but be unconcerned about the impact of Israel’s wall on occupied Palestinian land. Trump has explicitly praised Israel’s wall-building as his model.

But in a week of sudden reversals, Dave Zirin reported for The Nation that despite media reports that Bennett would go to Israel, he had “confirmed that this is not the case.”

Zirin noted that other players named in a Times of Israel report on the planned junket “are reevaluating whether they will attend.”

By Friday night three of the players named as potential participants – Martellus Bennett, his brother Michael Bennett of the Seattle Seahawks and Kenny Stills of the Miami Dolphins – had repudiated the trip.

Players pull out
In an open letter published by The Nation on Thursday afternoon, activists, writers and athletes, including Angela Davis, Alice Walker, John Carlos and Craig Hodges, appealed to the NFL players to reconsider participation in the trip. Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover later signed the letter.

They praised the athletes for using their celebrity “to shed light about and support various struggles including Black Lives Matter,” and lauded those who had announced they would not go to the White House.

They urged the players not to allow themselves to be used as part of a propaganda campaign “to help the Israeli government normalize and whitewash its ongoing denial of Palestinian rights.”

The same day, NFL player and rights activist Michael Bennett tweeted he would not be going.

In a fuller statement released on Twitter and Instagram Friday night, Michael Bennett said he would “not be used” by Israel’s government. He recalled that the late Muhammad Ali, one of his heroes, “always stood strongly with the Palestinian people.”

“I want to be a ‘voice for the voiceless,’” Bennett added, “and I cannot do that by going on this kind of trip to Israel.”


The Dolphins’ Kenny Stills retweeted Bennett’s statement, adding, “Couldn’t have said it better myself. I’m in!” – indicating he was also bowing out of the trip.


Martellus Bennett also retweeted his brother’s statement.

The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) thanked Michael Bennett “for standing on the right side of history, for justice and equality.”


San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick who is not going, but has been in the public eye due to his decision not to stand for the national anthem in support of Black Lives Matter activists, retweeted to his one million followers a tweet stating that anyone protesting Trump’s Muslim ban, would surely also have to be “livid about the apartheid tactics Israel forces on Palestinian Muslims.”

Denver Broncos running back Justin Forsett also announced on Saturday via Twitter that he would not be going on the trip, and shared Michael Bennett’s statement. But Forsett added that “we made the decision before all this info came out” – an apparent reference to the Israeli government’s propaganda goals.



Other players named as participants in the junket are Cliff Avril, Delanie Walker, Mychal Kendricks, Cameron Jordan, Calais Campbell, Carlos Hyde, Dan Williams. Former NFL linebacker Kirk Morrison is also expected to participate.

Damaged brand
Several days ago the Israeli parliament passed legislation retroactively legalizing the theft of large tracts of private Palestinian land for Israeli colonization.

This generated a storm of international protests, even from Israel’s closest allies such as the European Union, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Israel’s propaganda officials hope the American football players’ visit will be a welcome distraction and a chance to burnish Israel’s badly damaged brand.

“I see great importance in the arrival of this delegation of NFL stars to Israel,” Gilad Erdan, Israel’s strategic affairs minister who is in charge of combating the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, said.

The junket is an initiative of Erdan’s own ministry along with the tourism ministry and America’s Voice in Israel, a group whose mission is “to bolster Israel’s image in the United States by bringing media and radio personalities” to the country.

Erdan confirmed the overtly propagandistic intent of the visit, stating that the NFL players would “present the beautiful face of Israel to their tens of millions of fans in the United States,” to help offset the impact of BDS.

Israel has allocated a huge budget to this effort with little effect. In a recent strategic document, the Anti-Defamation League and the Reut Institute, two key organizations that oppose Palestinian rights, reportedly conclude that the fight against BDS has failed.

Meanwhile, despite a multi-million dollar advertising campaign by the tourism ministry – including celebrity junkets – the number of visitors to Israel has continued to fall.

Commenting on Israel’s faltering strategy, Clayton Swisher observed, “You’re losing when your country legalizes apartheid and then invites a mishmash of NFL players to try and make it look normal.”


Swisher, an investigative reporter for Al Jazeera, recently presented a four-part film called The Lobby shedding light on Israel’s covert efforts in the UK to win friends and punish perceived enemies.

Imbruglia cancels
Activists hoping that there is still time to persuade more NFL players to bow out will be encouraged by what looks like another victory.

BDS campaigners have been urging Australian singer Natalie Imbruglia to cancel a 1 March concert in Israel.

The Tel Aviv date appears to have been recently removed from her official tour schedule and is marked as “canceled” on her Facebook page.

This article has been updated since initial publication.




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