U.S. controlled IMF installs one of its own as leader of Ivory Coast
Posted by PC Latest news, World news Sunday, December 19th, 2010
Tensions in the African country Ivory Coast are escalating and many countries are advising their people to leave the country. The U.S. and Canadian media are blaming the tensions on the refusal of its leader, Laurent Gbagbo, to concede defeat in an election that was plagued with vote tampering and outright fraud. The U.S., Canada, the IMF, the UN and other states and international organization all recogize the UN declared winner Alassane Dramane Ouattara. Europe and the US is now working to strangle Laurent Gbagbo financially to force him to quit as Côte d’Ivoire’s president after an election they claim was won by his rival Alassane Ouattara. On December 2, 2010, after a series of delays, the Independent Electoral Commission of Côte d’Ivoire (CEI) declared Alassane Ouattara winner of the second round of the country’s presidential elections without presenting the results to the Constitutional Council for confirmation and validation. The CEI claimed without providing any proof that Alassane Ouattara was the new leader of Ivory Coast. Why call an election without providing proof of claim? It all has to do with who Alassane Ouattara is and who he works for and the U.S.’s insatiable need for oil. A major crude oil-induced border dispute has been going on for over a year now between Ivory Coast and its eastern neighbor Ghana. The election is being used to distract the World from what is really happening in Ivory Coast – another dispute over oil rights.
Who is Alassane Ouattara? To make a long story short Alassane Ouattara works for the IMF which works for the United States. Say what?
Ouattara was born on January 1, 1942, in Dimbokro, Ivory Coast. He received a bachelor’s of science degree in 1965 from the Drexel Institute of Technology, which is now called Drexel University, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.. Ouattara then obtained both his master’s degree in economics in 1967 and a doctorate in economics in 1972 from the University of Pennsylvania.
He was an economist for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C. from 1968 to 1973, and afterwards he was the BCEAO’s (Central Bank of West African States) Chargé de Mission in Paris from 1973 to 1975. With the BCEAO, he was then Special Advisor to the Governor and Director of Research from February 1975 to December 1982 and Vice Governor from January 1983 to October 1984. From November 1984 to October 1988 he was Director of the African Department at the IMF, and in May 1987 he additionally became Counsellor to the Managing Director at the IMF. On October 28, 1988 he was appointed as Governor of the BCEAO (Central Bank of West African States), and he was sworn in on December 22, 1988.
In April 1990, Ivorian President Félix Houphouët-Boigny appointed Ouattara as Chairman of the Interministerial Committee for Coordination of the Stabilization and Economic Recovery Programme of Côte d’Ivoire; while holding that position, Ouattara also remained in his post as BCEAO Governor. He subsequently became Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire on November 7, 1990. While serving as Prime Minister, Ouattara also carried out presidential duties for a total of 18 months, including the period from March 1993 to December 1993, when Houphouët-Boigny was ill. Houphouët-Boigny died on December 7, 1993, and Ouattara announced his death to the nation, saying that “Côte d’Ivoire is orphaned”. A brief power struggle ensued between Ouattara and Henri Konan Bédié, the President of the National Assembly, over the presidential succession; Bédié prevailed and Ouattara resigned as Prime Minister on December 9. Ouattara then returned to the IMF as Deputy Managing Director, holding that post from July 1, 1994 to July 31, 1999.
Prior to the October 1995 presidential election, in a move that was viewed as being intended to prevent Ouattara’s potential presidential candidacy, the National Assembly of Côte d’Ivoire approved an electoral code which barred candidates if either of their parents were of a foreign nationality and if they had not lived in Côte d’Ivoire for the preceding five years. The Rally of the Republicans (RDR), an opposition party formed as a split from the ruling Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI) in 1994, sought for Ouattara to be its presidential candidate contrary to electoral law. The government would not change the electoral code and Ouattara withdrew the nomination.
While serving as Deputy Managing Director at the IMF, in March 1998 Ouattara expressed his intention to return to Côte d’Ivoire and take part in politics again. After leaving the IMF in July 1999, he was elected President of the RDR on August 1, 1999 at an extraordinary congress of the party, as well as being chosen as its candidate for the next presidential election. Ouattara’s nationality certificate, issued in late September 1999, was annulled by a court on October 27. An arrest warrant for Ouattara was issued on November 29, although he was out of the country at the time. Ouattara wasn’t arrested because on December 24, the military seized power in a U.S. backed coup. Ouattara returned to Côte d’Ivoire after three months in France on December 29, hailing Bédié’s ouster as “not a coup d’état”, but “a revolution supported by all the Ivorian people”.
A new constitution, approved by referendum in July 2000, again barred presidential candidates unless both of their parents were Ivorian, disqulaifying Ouattara from the 2000 presidential election. The issues surrounding this electoral law were major factors in the Civil war in Côte d’Ivoire, which broke out in 2002.
On December 2, 2010, after a series of delays, the Independent Electoral Commission of Côte d’Ivoire (CEI) declared Alassane Ouattara the winner of the second round of the country’s presidential elections without presenting the results to the Constitutional Council for confirmation and validation. The head of the Constitutional Council (contradicted the CEI claim that Alassane Ouattara had won the election. Mr Gbagbo was sworn in at a midday ceremony by the President of the Constitutional Council (the highest constitutional authority in Ivory Coast whose duty is to ensure that the principles and rules of the constitution are upheld) on Saturday December 4, 2010. Hours later, IMF groomed Ouattara simply declared himself to be president of Ivory Coast. Since then foreign organizations have been meddling into and violating the sovereignty of Ivory Coast by rejecting Gbagbo’s presidency and endorsing one of their own as president. The African Union, the European Union, ECOWAS, the United Nations, the United States, and France are among the nations and international organizations that rejected Gbagbo’s presidency. The U.S. controlled International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated they would only work with a government recognized by the U.S. created and controlled United Nations which was assigned by the United States government the duty of certifying presidential results as part of a 2007 peace deal. On 8 December, the U.S. controlled United Nations Security Council formally recognized Ouattara as the winner, and, in a statement, asked “all stakeholders to respect the outcome of the election.”
Without ever seeing the election results and contrary to Ivory Coast election law that barred presidential candidates unless both of their parents were Ivorian (years earlier an investigation determined Ouattara’s nationality certificate as invalid and even issued an arrest warrant for Ouattara), a U.S. created and controlled organization declared an agent of the United States government as president of Ivory Coast. Why? Again it is all about oil.
In May of 2010 Global Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE:GNR) announced another big oil discovery offshore Cote d’Ivoire in West Africa. In May of 2003 Tullow Oil plc announced an oil discovery on the Acajou prospect in Ivory Coast, confirming the hydrocarbon potential of the area, southeast of the Espoir field.
The well on licence CI-26 was drilled on the Acajou South prospect approximately 24 km off the coast of Côte d’Ivoire in a water depth of 3,050ft. The well is located some 9km from the Espoir facilities.
Well Acajou-1x was operated by Canadian Natural Resources (“CNR”) using the Sovereign Explorer rig. It reached a total depth of 8,027ft and encountered a gross oil column of over 250ft. A 45ft interval of sands at the top of the oil column was tested at an average rate of 3,500 bopd oil. The oil was of good quality 33° API, similar to that found in the Espoir field.
Brian O’Cathain, Managing Director of Tullow Oil International Ltd., commented, “We are pleased with the success of this exploration well, as it underlines the potential of the Acajou area. The test rate is encouraging for the economic development of the discovery. The well also encountered a significant sand section below the oil water contact, which holds potential in the northern part of the structure.
In September of 2010 Tullow made another discovery off the coast of Ivory Coast and Ghana. Tullow said it had found what could be among the largest recent oil discoveries in Africa off the coast of Ivory Coast and Ghana, with the field holding a potential 550 million barrels. The recent oil discovery has however sparked a row between Ivory Coast and Ghana over the maritime border. Last year, Ghana appealed to the United Nations to extend its maritime boundary by 200 nautical miles. Ivory Coast also has made a submission to the United Nations laying claim to portions of Ghana’s oil find that they say is in Ivory Coast waters. It is this conflict over oil that the United States controlled IMF installed one of their own to be president of Ivory Coast. 1.8 billion barrels of crude is at stake and the U.S. wants control of iallt . What could be the outcome? Just look at what happened in Afghanistan when the Taliban gave the Trans-Afghan natural gas and oil pipeline contract to a non-U.S. company.
Oil and control of oil rights always = war. Oil was the reason for the United States war of aggression against Iraq. Oil and natural gas was the reason for the United States war of aggression aginst Afghanistan. Oil is the reason why the United States is imposing unilateral sanctions against Iran in prparation for a war there. Oil was the spark that ignited the Nigerian Civil War. Oil is sparking an IMF sponsored civil war in Ivory Coast.
“The policies of the U.S. , since the end of the Cold War are complicated and vast. They involve an intent to dominate and the use of international organizations to advance U.S. economic and geopolitical interests. They also include the conversion of NATO into a surrogate military police force for globalization and U.S. world economic domination.” – Ramsey Clark, 66th United States Attorney-General (October 6, 2000) The UN, the IMF, NATO and the WHO are the international organizations that advance U.S. economic and geopolitical interests.
Short URL: http://presscore.ca/2011/?p=676
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Racism and Physical Attacks on Palestinians Run Rampant in the "Only Democracy in the Mideast."
Never again? Elderly Palestinian women called ‘whores’ on Yad Vashem tour, while racism explodes across Israel
Dec 30, 2010 05:52 am | Max Blumenthal
This week, a group of elderly Palestinian women were escorted to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance musuem to learn about the Jewish genocide in Europe. At the entrance of the museum, they were surrounded by a group of Jewish Israeli youth who recognized them as Arabs. “Sharmouta!” the young Israelis shouted at them again and again, using the Arabic slang term for whores, or sluts.
The Palestinians had been invited to attend a tour arranged by the Israeli Bereaved Families Forum, an organization founded by an Israeli whose son was killed in combat by Palestinians. They were joined by a group of Jewish Israeli women who, like them, had lost family members to violence related to the conflict. Presumably, both parties went on the tour in good faith, hoping to gain insight into the suffering of women on the other side of the conflict.
Unfortunately, the Palestinian members (who unlike the Israelis live under occupation and almost certainly had to obtain special permits just to go to Yad Vashem) learned an unusual lesson of the Holocaust: A society that places the Holocaust at the center of its historical narrative — that stops traffic for two minutes each year on the national holiday known as Yom Ha’Shoah — could also raise up a generation of little fascists goose-stepping into the future full of irrational hatred.
“In Palestinian culture, older women are most honored and they could not believe their ears,” said Sami Abu Awwad, a Palestinian coordinator of the tour. “We never talk like this to older women. The Palestinians, who were all grandmothers, were very shocked and offended.”
The report on this outburst of Jewish Israeli racism comes from the Israeli news website Walla! For some reason, I could not find reporting on it anywhere in English.
Perhaps the story was lost in the flood of reports about the anti-Arab racism that poured through the streets of Israel this week. Besides the publication of a series of rabbinical letters forbidding renting to Arabs and condemning relationships between Jews and Arabs, a school principal in Jaffa prohibited Palestinian-Israeli students from speaking Arabic to one another. In Bat Yam, a mostly Russian suburb just south of Jaffa, Jewish residents demonstrated against the presence their Arab neighbors. “Any Jewish woman who goes with an Arab should be killed; any Jew who sells his home to an Arab should be killed,” one protester reportedly shouted. And in Tel Aviv, locals rallied for the expulsion of foreign workers.
The Jerusalem Post reported:
On Saturday, three teenage girls born to African migrant parents were attacked and severely beaten by a mob of teenagers while walking to their homes in the Hatikva neighborhood.
That same night, someone tried to torch an apartment in Ashdod housing seven Sudanese citizens. The assailants set a blazing tire outside the front door of the apartment, and five of the seven residents were lightly hurt by smoke inhalation before they managed to break the burglar bars and flee through a window.
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, a gang of Jewish youths was arrested after staging several random attacks on young Palestinian men with weapons including tear gas, which would be hard to acquire from anywhere except the army. Ynet reported:
The gang of teens was allegedly headed by a 14-year-old boy, and used a girl their age to seduce Arab youths.
The girl would then lead the young men to a meeting point in the city’s Independence Park, where they were allegedly brutally attacked by the teens with stones, glass bottles and tear gas. Police suspect the girl took part in three of the assaults.
Daniel Bar-Tal, a renowned Israeli political psychologist who has conducted some of the most comprehensive surveys of Israeli attitudes since Operation Cast Lead, found that the racist, authoritarian trends that are increasingly pronounced in Israeli society are products of a “psycho-social infrastructure” dedicated to promoting “a sense of victimization, a siege mentality, blind patriotism, belligerence, self-righteousness, dehumanization of the Palestinians and insensitivity to their suffering.”
This infrastructure is comprised of institutions like the Zionist education system, the Israeli Defense Forces, and even Yad Vashem, which explicitly links the Palestinian national struggle to Nazism.
Indeed, the only image of a Palestinian in all of Yad Vashem (at least that I am aware of) is of the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, who was forced by the British to flee to Germany, where he became a (not very successful) Nazi collaborator. In recent years, the Mufti has become a key fixture of Israeli propaganda efforts against the Palestinians. As such, a photo is featured prominently on a wall in Yad Vashem depicting him sig heiling a group of Nazi troops. However, there is no mention anywhere in Yad Vashem of the 9000 Palestinian Arabs the British recruited to fight the Nazis, or of the 233,000 North African volunteers who fought and died while battling the Nazis in the French Liberation Army (and whose heroic efforts were dramatized in the excellent film, “Days of Glory”).
According to Peter Novick, the author of “The Holocaust in American Life,” though the Mufti played no significant part in the Holocaust, he plays a “starring role” in Yad Vashem’s Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. “The article on the Mufti is more than twice as long as the articles on Goebbels and Goring, longer than the articles on Himmler and Heydrich combined, longer than the article on Eichmann — of all the biographical articles, it is exceeded in length, but only slightly, by the entry for Hitler.” [Novick, p. 158]
Not only has Yad Vashem attempted through propagandistic means to link the Palestinian struggle to Nazism, it has promoted an exclusivist view of the Holocaust. In April 2009, Yad Vashem fired a docent, Itamar Shapira, because he had discussed the massacre of Palestinians in Deir Yassin with a group of students from the settlement of Efrat. “All I was trying to say is that there were people who lived here before the Holocaust survivors arrived, that they suffered a terrible trauma too, and that we shouldn’t hide the facts,” Shapira told me a month after his firing. “Yad Vashem carefully selected what facts it wanted to present, but deliberately avoided things like Deir Yassin, even though its ruins were just a thousand meters from the museum.”
Iris Rosenberg, a Yad Vashem administrator who was involved in Shapira’s firing, said of the verbal assault against Palestinian women at the museum this week: “Despite the regrettable incident at the entrance to the museum, the team’s visit to the Holocaust History Museum was conducted in a dignified manner which was significant and important.”
Tamara Rabinovitch, the Israeli leader of the Bereaved Families tour, told Walla! that her Palestinian counterparts “were very excited by the visit. Some of them approached me and told me they heard details of the Holocaust but did not know how painful it was. In two weeks we plan to visit an abandoned Arab village so that the Palestinian narrative is represented.”
This post originally appeared on Max Blumenthal's website.
Dec 30, 2010 05:52 am | Max Blumenthal
This week, a group of elderly Palestinian women were escorted to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance musuem to learn about the Jewish genocide in Europe. At the entrance of the museum, they were surrounded by a group of Jewish Israeli youth who recognized them as Arabs. “Sharmouta!” the young Israelis shouted at them again and again, using the Arabic slang term for whores, or sluts.
The Palestinians had been invited to attend a tour arranged by the Israeli Bereaved Families Forum, an organization founded by an Israeli whose son was killed in combat by Palestinians. They were joined by a group of Jewish Israeli women who, like them, had lost family members to violence related to the conflict. Presumably, both parties went on the tour in good faith, hoping to gain insight into the suffering of women on the other side of the conflict.
Unfortunately, the Palestinian members (who unlike the Israelis live under occupation and almost certainly had to obtain special permits just to go to Yad Vashem) learned an unusual lesson of the Holocaust: A society that places the Holocaust at the center of its historical narrative — that stops traffic for two minutes each year on the national holiday known as Yom Ha’Shoah — could also raise up a generation of little fascists goose-stepping into the future full of irrational hatred.
“In Palestinian culture, older women are most honored and they could not believe their ears,” said Sami Abu Awwad, a Palestinian coordinator of the tour. “We never talk like this to older women. The Palestinians, who were all grandmothers, were very shocked and offended.”
The report on this outburst of Jewish Israeli racism comes from the Israeli news website Walla! For some reason, I could not find reporting on it anywhere in English.
Perhaps the story was lost in the flood of reports about the anti-Arab racism that poured through the streets of Israel this week. Besides the publication of a series of rabbinical letters forbidding renting to Arabs and condemning relationships between Jews and Arabs, a school principal in Jaffa prohibited Palestinian-Israeli students from speaking Arabic to one another. In Bat Yam, a mostly Russian suburb just south of Jaffa, Jewish residents demonstrated against the presence their Arab neighbors. “Any Jewish woman who goes with an Arab should be killed; any Jew who sells his home to an Arab should be killed,” one protester reportedly shouted. And in Tel Aviv, locals rallied for the expulsion of foreign workers.
The Jerusalem Post reported:
On Saturday, three teenage girls born to African migrant parents were attacked and severely beaten by a mob of teenagers while walking to their homes in the Hatikva neighborhood.
That same night, someone tried to torch an apartment in Ashdod housing seven Sudanese citizens. The assailants set a blazing tire outside the front door of the apartment, and five of the seven residents were lightly hurt by smoke inhalation before they managed to break the burglar bars and flee through a window.
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, a gang of Jewish youths was arrested after staging several random attacks on young Palestinian men with weapons including tear gas, which would be hard to acquire from anywhere except the army. Ynet reported:
The gang of teens was allegedly headed by a 14-year-old boy, and used a girl their age to seduce Arab youths.
The girl would then lead the young men to a meeting point in the city’s Independence Park, where they were allegedly brutally attacked by the teens with stones, glass bottles and tear gas. Police suspect the girl took part in three of the assaults.
Daniel Bar-Tal, a renowned Israeli political psychologist who has conducted some of the most comprehensive surveys of Israeli attitudes since Operation Cast Lead, found that the racist, authoritarian trends that are increasingly pronounced in Israeli society are products of a “psycho-social infrastructure” dedicated to promoting “a sense of victimization, a siege mentality, blind patriotism, belligerence, self-righteousness, dehumanization of the Palestinians and insensitivity to their suffering.”
This infrastructure is comprised of institutions like the Zionist education system, the Israeli Defense Forces, and even Yad Vashem, which explicitly links the Palestinian national struggle to Nazism.
Indeed, the only image of a Palestinian in all of Yad Vashem (at least that I am aware of) is of the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, who was forced by the British to flee to Germany, where he became a (not very successful) Nazi collaborator. In recent years, the Mufti has become a key fixture of Israeli propaganda efforts against the Palestinians. As such, a photo is featured prominently on a wall in Yad Vashem depicting him sig heiling a group of Nazi troops. However, there is no mention anywhere in Yad Vashem of the 9000 Palestinian Arabs the British recruited to fight the Nazis, or of the 233,000 North African volunteers who fought and died while battling the Nazis in the French Liberation Army (and whose heroic efforts were dramatized in the excellent film, “Days of Glory”).
According to Peter Novick, the author of “The Holocaust in American Life,” though the Mufti played no significant part in the Holocaust, he plays a “starring role” in Yad Vashem’s Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. “The article on the Mufti is more than twice as long as the articles on Goebbels and Goring, longer than the articles on Himmler and Heydrich combined, longer than the article on Eichmann — of all the biographical articles, it is exceeded in length, but only slightly, by the entry for Hitler.” [Novick, p. 158]
Not only has Yad Vashem attempted through propagandistic means to link the Palestinian struggle to Nazism, it has promoted an exclusivist view of the Holocaust. In April 2009, Yad Vashem fired a docent, Itamar Shapira, because he had discussed the massacre of Palestinians in Deir Yassin with a group of students from the settlement of Efrat. “All I was trying to say is that there were people who lived here before the Holocaust survivors arrived, that they suffered a terrible trauma too, and that we shouldn’t hide the facts,” Shapira told me a month after his firing. “Yad Vashem carefully selected what facts it wanted to present, but deliberately avoided things like Deir Yassin, even though its ruins were just a thousand meters from the museum.”
Iris Rosenberg, a Yad Vashem administrator who was involved in Shapira’s firing, said of the verbal assault against Palestinian women at the museum this week: “Despite the regrettable incident at the entrance to the museum, the team’s visit to the Holocaust History Museum was conducted in a dignified manner which was significant and important.”
Tamara Rabinovitch, the Israeli leader of the Bereaved Families tour, told Walla! that her Palestinian counterparts “were very excited by the visit. Some of them approached me and told me they heard details of the Holocaust but did not know how painful it was. In two weeks we plan to visit an abandoned Arab village so that the Palestinian narrative is represented.”
This post originally appeared on Max Blumenthal's website.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
2010 in review: In haiku
2010: The Year In Review – In HAIKU
--r. cong
have any good haikus? send them in for posting
A bright shining lie
the audacity of hope
you tired of it yet?
Read the New York Times
all the news print that will fit
high class low rent drivel
Jerry Nadler's game
zion's liberal boot lick
rancid tub of lard
A soft summer day
green grass blue sky puffy clouds
unmanned drone kills kids
Jobless rate goes up
wall street bonuses up too
it is raining shit
Good ethnic cleansing:
Mexican immigrants chase
red necks from Arizona
worst math scores ever
USA is number one
we are special, right?
Mavi Marmara
braver than Israel's death squads
nine heroes, free Gaza
don't ask don't tell gone
gays now can commit war crimes
the world rejoices
FBI brings terror
with phony entrapment schemes
adios free speech
--r. cong
have any good haikus? send them in for posting
A bright shining lie
the audacity of hope
you tired of it yet?
Read the New York Times
all the news print that will fit
high class low rent drivel
Jerry Nadler's game
zion's liberal boot lick
rancid tub of lard
A soft summer day
green grass blue sky puffy clouds
unmanned drone kills kids
Jobless rate goes up
wall street bonuses up too
it is raining shit
Good ethnic cleansing:
Mexican immigrants chase
red necks from Arizona
worst math scores ever
USA is number one
we are special, right?
Mavi Marmara
braver than Israel's death squads
nine heroes, free Gaza
don't ask don't tell gone
gays now can commit war crimes
the world rejoices
FBI brings terror
with phony entrapment schemes
adios free speech
The Tragedy of the Two-State Solution
I can't believe I'm actually posting something from the Washingtion Times (of Moonie ownership). But this is really good and would never be in the NYT.
TIBI: The tragedy of a two-state solution
Settling for a single nation may soon prove the only road to peace
By Ahmad Tibi
-The Washington Times
6:55 p.m., Monday, December 27, 20
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is toying with the Obama administration, professing an interest in peace while doing his utmost to stymie a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is no way for Israel to treat its leading ally. Nearly two years into office, Mr. Netanyahu is running circles around President Obama and encircling Jerusalem with still more illegal settlements.
Palestinians are rapidly abandoning hope for a viable and independent state. Mr. Netanyahu's requirements are calculated to be impossible for Palestinian leaders to accept. The Israeli prime minister is always prepared to put in place another demand - such as the self-effacing requirement that the Palestine Liberation Organization recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Meanwhile, he uses delay to further colonize the West Bank and East Jerusalem, disregarding international concerns, the 2003 road map and the feeble requests of his American ally.
But American and Palestinian leaders have seen this game previously from Mr. Netanyahu. This time, they ought to call him on his antics. Instead, the U.S. seems prepared to make the same mistakes as President Clinton - with Dennis B. Ross playing the same central role as "Israel's lawyer" - and Palestinians in the occupied territories are terrified that if they don't play along with the charade they'll be unfairly blamed again for ruining negotiations (going nowhere).
But time is not on Israel's side. The two-state solution is the optimal solution proposed by the international community for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet each passing day of occupation and deepening settlement activity on the land intended for a Palestinian state makes it more difficult to implement the two-state vision. Instead, another possibility is emerging: one state adhering to the democratic principle of one person, one vote for all citizens between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Israel should decide either to end the occupation and accept an independent Palestinian state on the land it occupied in 1967 or face a movement backing one democratic state for all.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton implicitly acknowledged the emerging possibility of one state earlier this month at the Brookings Institution. "The long-term trends that result from the occupation are endangering the Zionist vision of a Jewish and democratic state in the historic homeland of the Jewish people. Israelis should not have to choose between preserving both elements of their dream. But that day is approaching."
Of course that day is approaching, and of course Israel will have to choose between limiting its territory and apartheid. But the matter is more difficult than Mrs. Clinton suggests because we Palestinian citizens of Israel - living in our historic homeland - will not accept a Jewish state that limits our rights. A democratic state, yes, but a Jewish state that is by definition discriminatory, no.
Democratically elected by half the population and led by politicians, many of whom are immigrants whose leading credential for office is that they are Jewish, the Israeli government does not represent a huge segment of the state. The 20 percent of Israelis who are Palestinians increasingly face racist legislation, while the millions of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation do so without equal rights, citizenship or the ability to choose those who make the decisions that ultimately control their lives.
For Palestinians and Israelis alike, it is time to change direction and stop focusing on extending a moribund and mislabeled 19-year-old "peace process" while Israel is relentlessly colonizing the land of the second state. Support for fundamental principles such as civil rights, equality and tolerance of all religions is the key to progress, not enormous American gift packages rewarding Israel for decades of law-breaking. So long as Israel advances laws that promote segregation - and at a record pace under Mr. Netanyahu's coalition government - it should be clear to American negotiators that the prime minister is not serious about peace.
Instead, American leaders must exert concerted pressure on Israel to embrace equality and be prepared to call out Israeli political leaders who thwart such sensible ideals.
This new path forward is one that shifts the dialogue away from unachievable negotiated solutions and focuses on reforming civil society - the revolutionary change of legalizing equality and civil rights. Nonviolent revolutions transformed the American South and apartheid South Africa and can do the same for Israelis and Palestinians.
Civil society reform - or a virtual revolution in the standing and rights of Palestinians - would mean ending the near-impunity for Israeli soldiers who use young Palestinian children as human shields because they see them as lesser beings, punishing landlords and the rabbis egging them on for discrimination in refusing to rent to Palestinians and ending practices denying building permits to Palestinians while accelerating those to Jews. In short, we are calling for equality. Israel should be defined as a state of all its nationalities instead of as a "Jewish state."
The Obama administration could help by changing its role from enabler and funder of Israeli segregation within the 1948 borders and Israeli apartheid in the occupied territories of 1967 to one of helping strengthen civil society by clearly backing a non-racial society based on equality and freedom. If not, our situation could still be transformed if European governments suddenly were seized by concern for the oppressed Palestinian minority in Israel and insisted on basic rights for Palestinians that have been suppressed for decades by Israel.
Efforts are shifting in this direction as the international community is beginning to question Israel's segregationist and apartheid policies. BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) gains momentum each day with the recognition that the "peace process" has been replaced by a discriminatory Israeli government intent on further expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Only by providing equal rights and freedom to all of its citizens and to all those under its rule will Israelis find long-sought security, peace and strength. When we invest in all our people - and not segregationist settlement housing and ever more arms - we will be on the right path forward rather than the current dangerous one that overlooks basic investments such as firefighting and thereby imperils Jews and Palestinians alike.
Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton should get on this path of equal rights and freedom, one that has worked wonders for the United States and South Africa, instead of investing more fruitless hours trying to protect an exclusivist state still determined to secure superior rights for Jews and inferior rights for Palestinians.
Ahmad Tibi is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and deputy speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament.
TIBI: The tragedy of a two-state solution
Settling for a single nation may soon prove the only road to peace
By Ahmad Tibi
-The Washington Times
6:55 p.m., Monday, December 27, 20
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is toying with the Obama administration, professing an interest in peace while doing his utmost to stymie a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is no way for Israel to treat its leading ally. Nearly two years into office, Mr. Netanyahu is running circles around President Obama and encircling Jerusalem with still more illegal settlements.
Palestinians are rapidly abandoning hope for a viable and independent state. Mr. Netanyahu's requirements are calculated to be impossible for Palestinian leaders to accept. The Israeli prime minister is always prepared to put in place another demand - such as the self-effacing requirement that the Palestine Liberation Organization recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Meanwhile, he uses delay to further colonize the West Bank and East Jerusalem, disregarding international concerns, the 2003 road map and the feeble requests of his American ally.
But American and Palestinian leaders have seen this game previously from Mr. Netanyahu. This time, they ought to call him on his antics. Instead, the U.S. seems prepared to make the same mistakes as President Clinton - with Dennis B. Ross playing the same central role as "Israel's lawyer" - and Palestinians in the occupied territories are terrified that if they don't play along with the charade they'll be unfairly blamed again for ruining negotiations (going nowhere).
But time is not on Israel's side. The two-state solution is the optimal solution proposed by the international community for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet each passing day of occupation and deepening settlement activity on the land intended for a Palestinian state makes it more difficult to implement the two-state vision. Instead, another possibility is emerging: one state adhering to the democratic principle of one person, one vote for all citizens between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Israel should decide either to end the occupation and accept an independent Palestinian state on the land it occupied in 1967 or face a movement backing one democratic state for all.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton implicitly acknowledged the emerging possibility of one state earlier this month at the Brookings Institution. "The long-term trends that result from the occupation are endangering the Zionist vision of a Jewish and democratic state in the historic homeland of the Jewish people. Israelis should not have to choose between preserving both elements of their dream. But that day is approaching."
Of course that day is approaching, and of course Israel will have to choose between limiting its territory and apartheid. But the matter is more difficult than Mrs. Clinton suggests because we Palestinian citizens of Israel - living in our historic homeland - will not accept a Jewish state that limits our rights. A democratic state, yes, but a Jewish state that is by definition discriminatory, no.
Democratically elected by half the population and led by politicians, many of whom are immigrants whose leading credential for office is that they are Jewish, the Israeli government does not represent a huge segment of the state. The 20 percent of Israelis who are Palestinians increasingly face racist legislation, while the millions of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation do so without equal rights, citizenship or the ability to choose those who make the decisions that ultimately control their lives.
For Palestinians and Israelis alike, it is time to change direction and stop focusing on extending a moribund and mislabeled 19-year-old "peace process" while Israel is relentlessly colonizing the land of the second state. Support for fundamental principles such as civil rights, equality and tolerance of all religions is the key to progress, not enormous American gift packages rewarding Israel for decades of law-breaking. So long as Israel advances laws that promote segregation - and at a record pace under Mr. Netanyahu's coalition government - it should be clear to American negotiators that the prime minister is not serious about peace.
Instead, American leaders must exert concerted pressure on Israel to embrace equality and be prepared to call out Israeli political leaders who thwart such sensible ideals.
This new path forward is one that shifts the dialogue away from unachievable negotiated solutions and focuses on reforming civil society - the revolutionary change of legalizing equality and civil rights. Nonviolent revolutions transformed the American South and apartheid South Africa and can do the same for Israelis and Palestinians.
Civil society reform - or a virtual revolution in the standing and rights of Palestinians - would mean ending the near-impunity for Israeli soldiers who use young Palestinian children as human shields because they see them as lesser beings, punishing landlords and the rabbis egging them on for discrimination in refusing to rent to Palestinians and ending practices denying building permits to Palestinians while accelerating those to Jews. In short, we are calling for equality. Israel should be defined as a state of all its nationalities instead of as a "Jewish state."
The Obama administration could help by changing its role from enabler and funder of Israeli segregation within the 1948 borders and Israeli apartheid in the occupied territories of 1967 to one of helping strengthen civil society by clearly backing a non-racial society based on equality and freedom. If not, our situation could still be transformed if European governments suddenly were seized by concern for the oppressed Palestinian minority in Israel and insisted on basic rights for Palestinians that have been suppressed for decades by Israel.
Efforts are shifting in this direction as the international community is beginning to question Israel's segregationist and apartheid policies. BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) gains momentum each day with the recognition that the "peace process" has been replaced by a discriminatory Israeli government intent on further expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Only by providing equal rights and freedom to all of its citizens and to all those under its rule will Israelis find long-sought security, peace and strength. When we invest in all our people - and not segregationist settlement housing and ever more arms - we will be on the right path forward rather than the current dangerous one that overlooks basic investments such as firefighting and thereby imperils Jews and Palestinians alike.
Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton should get on this path of equal rights and freedom, one that has worked wonders for the United States and South Africa, instead of investing more fruitless hours trying to protect an exclusivist state still determined to secure superior rights for Jews and inferior rights for Palestinians.
Ahmad Tibi is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and deputy speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Shamelessly Pirated from Phil Weiss' Blog
This is a good summary of the US doctrine of global hegemony & why mainstream media and liberal critiques of the US role in the world are nonsense. One reservation I have is that the concept of "National Interest" is fiction. There is no single national interest shared by all citizens of the USA. National Interest means the interests of a handful of people who own most of the nation (and some other nations as well).
R. Cong
In a big antiwar piece, Mearsheimer dares to say ‘why they hate us’
Dec 21, 2010 08:53 pm | Philip Weiss
The reason I like Realists is that they have made the most forceful, full-throated arguments against war. Period. I know, some lefties have done so too. But liberal interventionism and Israel lobbyism have traction even inside the Democratic center-left, and this has spavined the antiwar effort. Liberals have done nothing to make neoconservatism a dirty word, they seem far more concerned about Tea Partiers. Here is John Mearsheimer at the National Interest:
The results [of neoconservative worldview] have been disastrous. The United States has been at war for a startling two out of every three years since 1989, and there is no end in sight. As anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of world events knows, countries that continuously fight wars invariably build powerful national-security bureaucracies that undermine civil liberties and make it difficult to hold leaders accountable for their behavior; and they invariably end up adopting ruthless policies normally associated with brutal dictators. The Founding Fathers understood this problem, as is clear from James Madison’s observation that “no nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” Washington’s pursuit of policies like assassination, rendition and torture over the past decade, not to mention the weakening of the rule of law at home, shows that their fears were justified.
To make matters worse, the United States is now engaged in protracted wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have so far cost well over a trillion dollars and resulted in around forty-seven thousand American casualties. The pain and suffering inflicted on Iraq has been enormous. Since the war began in March 2003, more than one hundred thousand Iraqi civilians have been killed, roughly 2 million Iraqis have left the country and 1.7 million more have been internally displaced. Moreover, the American military is not going to win either one of these conflicts, despite all the phony talk about how the “surge” has worked in Iraq and how a similar strategy can produce another miracle in Afghanistan. We may well be stuck in both quagmires for years to come, in fruitless pursuit of victory
The title of Mearsheimer's long essay is "Imperial by Design." And here's the design. Notice that leftwingers can sign on to Mearsheimer's anti-imperial thrust:
The root cause of America’s troubles is that it adopted a flawed grand strategy after the Cold War. From the Clinton administration on, the United States rejected all these other avenues, instead pursuing global dominance, or what might alternatively be called global hegemony, which was not just doomed to fail, but likely to backfire in dangerous ways if it relied too heavily on military force to achieve its ambitious agenda.
Again, some political values I share-- Mearsheimer dismisses the fear that underlies the GWOT:
Finally, the ability of terrorists to strike the American homeland has been blown out of all proportion. In the nine years since 9/11, government officials and terrorist experts have issued countless warnings that another major attack on American soil is probable—even imminent. But this is simply not the case. The only attempts we have seen are a few failed solo attacks by individuals with links to al-Qaeda like the “shoe bomber,” who attempted to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001, and the “underwear bomber,” who tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit in December 2009. So, we do have a terrorism problem, but it is hardly an existential threat. In fact, it is a minor threat.
Midway through the piece, here comes my big enchilada. Again, how many Democratic congressmen say any of this?
TO DEAL effectively with terrorism, it is imperative to understand what motivates al-Qaeda to target the United States in the first place. One also wants to know why large numbers of people in the Arab and Muslim world are so angry with America that they support, or at least sympathize with, these types of terrorist groups. Simply put, why do they hate us?
And this clarity about chickens coming home to roost-- which Chris Hedges has praised in Jeremiah Wright. Two more lefties.
Anger and hatred toward the United States among Arabs and Muslims is largely driven by Washington’s policies, not by any deep-seated antipathy toward the West. The policies that have generated the most anti-Americanism include Washington’s support for Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians; the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia after the 1991 Gulf War; U.S. support for repressive regimes in countries like Egypt; American sanctions on Baghdad after the First Gulf War, which are estimated to have caused the deaths of about five hundred thousand Iraqi civilians; and the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Not surprisingly, President Bush and his advisers rejected this explanation of 9/11, because accepting it would effectively have been an admission that the United States bore considerable responsibility for the events of that tragic day. We would be acknowledging that it was our Middle East policies that were at the heart of it all.
Mearsheimer says that Obama has followed the Clinton path of liberal interventionism and is failing to see the virtues of-- his Realist Rx--offshore-balancing. Staying out of most foreign issues, concentrating on the American interest in the Gulf, Europe, and northeast Asia.
Next is to address the other causes, like Washington’s unyielding support for Israel’s policies in the occupied territories. Indeed, Bill Clinton recently speculated that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is responsible for about half of the terrorism we face. Of course, this is why the Obama administration says it wants to achieve a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians. But given the lack of progress in solving that problem, and the fact that it is going to take at least a few years to get all of the American troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, we will be dealing with al-Qaeda for the foreseeable future....
Yes I know a lot of my leftwing friends don't like Realists, don't like talk of national interest, but how can you argue with this analysis of civil liberties and human rights?
Perhaps most importantly, moving toward a strategy of offshore balancing would help us tame our fearsome national-security state, which has grown alarmingly powerful since 9/11. Core civil liberties are now under threat on the home front and the United States routinely engages in unlawful behavior abroad.
R. Cong
In a big antiwar piece, Mearsheimer dares to say ‘why they hate us’
Dec 21, 2010 08:53 pm | Philip Weiss
The reason I like Realists is that they have made the most forceful, full-throated arguments against war. Period. I know, some lefties have done so too. But liberal interventionism and Israel lobbyism have traction even inside the Democratic center-left, and this has spavined the antiwar effort. Liberals have done nothing to make neoconservatism a dirty word, they seem far more concerned about Tea Partiers. Here is John Mearsheimer at the National Interest:
The results [of neoconservative worldview] have been disastrous. The United States has been at war for a startling two out of every three years since 1989, and there is no end in sight. As anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of world events knows, countries that continuously fight wars invariably build powerful national-security bureaucracies that undermine civil liberties and make it difficult to hold leaders accountable for their behavior; and they invariably end up adopting ruthless policies normally associated with brutal dictators. The Founding Fathers understood this problem, as is clear from James Madison’s observation that “no nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” Washington’s pursuit of policies like assassination, rendition and torture over the past decade, not to mention the weakening of the rule of law at home, shows that their fears were justified.
To make matters worse, the United States is now engaged in protracted wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have so far cost well over a trillion dollars and resulted in around forty-seven thousand American casualties. The pain and suffering inflicted on Iraq has been enormous. Since the war began in March 2003, more than one hundred thousand Iraqi civilians have been killed, roughly 2 million Iraqis have left the country and 1.7 million more have been internally displaced. Moreover, the American military is not going to win either one of these conflicts, despite all the phony talk about how the “surge” has worked in Iraq and how a similar strategy can produce another miracle in Afghanistan. We may well be stuck in both quagmires for years to come, in fruitless pursuit of victory
The title of Mearsheimer's long essay is "Imperial by Design." And here's the design. Notice that leftwingers can sign on to Mearsheimer's anti-imperial thrust:
The root cause of America’s troubles is that it adopted a flawed grand strategy after the Cold War. From the Clinton administration on, the United States rejected all these other avenues, instead pursuing global dominance, or what might alternatively be called global hegemony, which was not just doomed to fail, but likely to backfire in dangerous ways if it relied too heavily on military force to achieve its ambitious agenda.
Again, some political values I share-- Mearsheimer dismisses the fear that underlies the GWOT:
Finally, the ability of terrorists to strike the American homeland has been blown out of all proportion. In the nine years since 9/11, government officials and terrorist experts have issued countless warnings that another major attack on American soil is probable—even imminent. But this is simply not the case. The only attempts we have seen are a few failed solo attacks by individuals with links to al-Qaeda like the “shoe bomber,” who attempted to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001, and the “underwear bomber,” who tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit in December 2009. So, we do have a terrorism problem, but it is hardly an existential threat. In fact, it is a minor threat.
Midway through the piece, here comes my big enchilada. Again, how many Democratic congressmen say any of this?
TO DEAL effectively with terrorism, it is imperative to understand what motivates al-Qaeda to target the United States in the first place. One also wants to know why large numbers of people in the Arab and Muslim world are so angry with America that they support, or at least sympathize with, these types of terrorist groups. Simply put, why do they hate us?
And this clarity about chickens coming home to roost-- which Chris Hedges has praised in Jeremiah Wright. Two more lefties.
Anger and hatred toward the United States among Arabs and Muslims is largely driven by Washington’s policies, not by any deep-seated antipathy toward the West. The policies that have generated the most anti-Americanism include Washington’s support for Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians; the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia after the 1991 Gulf War; U.S. support for repressive regimes in countries like Egypt; American sanctions on Baghdad after the First Gulf War, which are estimated to have caused the deaths of about five hundred thousand Iraqi civilians; and the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Not surprisingly, President Bush and his advisers rejected this explanation of 9/11, because accepting it would effectively have been an admission that the United States bore considerable responsibility for the events of that tragic day. We would be acknowledging that it was our Middle East policies that were at the heart of it all.
Mearsheimer says that Obama has followed the Clinton path of liberal interventionism and is failing to see the virtues of-- his Realist Rx--offshore-balancing. Staying out of most foreign issues, concentrating on the American interest in the Gulf, Europe, and northeast Asia.
Next is to address the other causes, like Washington’s unyielding support for Israel’s policies in the occupied territories. Indeed, Bill Clinton recently speculated that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is responsible for about half of the terrorism we face. Of course, this is why the Obama administration says it wants to achieve a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians. But given the lack of progress in solving that problem, and the fact that it is going to take at least a few years to get all of the American troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, we will be dealing with al-Qaeda for the foreseeable future....
Yes I know a lot of my leftwing friends don't like Realists, don't like talk of national interest, but how can you argue with this analysis of civil liberties and human rights?
Perhaps most importantly, moving toward a strategy of offshore balancing would help us tame our fearsome national-security state, which has grown alarmingly powerful since 9/11. Core civil liberties are now under threat on the home front and the United States routinely engages in unlawful behavior abroad.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Don't ask, don't tell abolished in the military, what about the other Don't ask, Don't tell?
R. Congress
The anti-gay "don't ask don't tell" policy in the U.S. military has been abolished leading to no restrictions against gays serving openly in the armed forces. Any extension of basic democratic and human rights in U.S. society is in general a good thing. No one should be forced to deny what he or she is in order to have a job or function legally in an organization or society.
Gender and sexual orientation discrimination needs to be outlawed the same as policies against black, latinos and women have been over the last decades (once discrimination is no longer legal it doesn't mean everything is suddenly great, real enforcement has to be struggled for).
But when it comes to the U.S. military I think there's some room for skepticism, or limits to any victory celebration.
There's another "Don't ask, don't tell" policy still in effect.
This is the one where the U.S. government doesn't ask the people of a given country, say, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen (or Vietnam, Grenada, Panama...etc) if they want to be invaded, bombed, killed, have their infrastructure destroyed, have the U.S. military govern them, or maybe use puppets that they choose, and when things settle down, have their natural resources and labor crudely exploited by U.S. corporations.
The "don't tell" part is when the U.S. and the servile "news" media don't tell the truth about why we invade, blockade, randomly bomb and loot other countries.
The claim is always that the military is responding to threat of terrorism and protecting national security. The reality is the U.S.A. is a predatory, imperialist empire that increasingly relies on massive violence and the establishment of military bases and military assets (as in Israel) around the world.
Is it really a great thing that gays can now fully participate in U.S. military campaigns of slaughter and domination of underdeveloped countries? Is it a good thing that anyone joins and or supports our imperial military?
I don't think all U.S. soldiers are heroes as portrayed by media and government propaganda. They are mostly cannon fodder whose lives are being cynically thrown away for the greater glory of the petrochemical, arms, financial industries and other parts of corporate America. Some others, as was super-schmuck John McCain, are consciously (and some unconsciously) racist and xenophobic.
A gay or lesbian soldier, the same as a black, latino, female, or ordinary white guy...all of them, as fellow citizens, should think about the institution of the U.S. military and how it's used around the world...all soldiers would be better off if the U.S. was no longer the imperial dominator of the world.
The anti-gay "don't ask don't tell" policy in the U.S. military has been abolished leading to no restrictions against gays serving openly in the armed forces. Any extension of basic democratic and human rights in U.S. society is in general a good thing. No one should be forced to deny what he or she is in order to have a job or function legally in an organization or society.
Gender and sexual orientation discrimination needs to be outlawed the same as policies against black, latinos and women have been over the last decades (once discrimination is no longer legal it doesn't mean everything is suddenly great, real enforcement has to be struggled for).
But when it comes to the U.S. military I think there's some room for skepticism, or limits to any victory celebration.
There's another "Don't ask, don't tell" policy still in effect.
This is the one where the U.S. government doesn't ask the people of a given country, say, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen (or Vietnam, Grenada, Panama...etc) if they want to be invaded, bombed, killed, have their infrastructure destroyed, have the U.S. military govern them, or maybe use puppets that they choose, and when things settle down, have their natural resources and labor crudely exploited by U.S. corporations.
The "don't tell" part is when the U.S. and the servile "news" media don't tell the truth about why we invade, blockade, randomly bomb and loot other countries.
The claim is always that the military is responding to threat of terrorism and protecting national security. The reality is the U.S.A. is a predatory, imperialist empire that increasingly relies on massive violence and the establishment of military bases and military assets (as in Israel) around the world.
Is it really a great thing that gays can now fully participate in U.S. military campaigns of slaughter and domination of underdeveloped countries? Is it a good thing that anyone joins and or supports our imperial military?
I don't think all U.S. soldiers are heroes as portrayed by media and government propaganda. They are mostly cannon fodder whose lives are being cynically thrown away for the greater glory of the petrochemical, arms, financial industries and other parts of corporate America. Some others, as was super-schmuck John McCain, are consciously (and some unconsciously) racist and xenophobic.
A gay or lesbian soldier, the same as a black, latino, female, or ordinary white guy...all of them, as fellow citizens, should think about the institution of the U.S. military and how it's used around the world...all soldiers would be better off if the U.S. was no longer the imperial dominator of the world.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Powerful Interview with Israeli Historian Israel Shahak in 1994 is even more compelling today
It's well worth watching this video to gain insights into how history has been falsified to support the Zionist mythology of the past 3,000 years.
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