Dr Ibrahim Mousawi speaking at the World Against War international peace conference in London, December 2007 (10:13)

McCarthyism comes to Europe and the Levant: The Zionist Targeting of Lebanon’s Dr. Ibrahim Mousawi

by Franklin Lamb in Beirut and Ann El Khoury in Sydney

You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?
– Joseph Welch to Senator Joseph McCarthy, April 1954

In a US Senate hearing just over fifty years ago, Boston lawyer Joseph Welch famously rebuked Senator Joseph McCarthy with these now immortal words. They have been immortalized because they have helped furnish what we understand McCarthyism to mean: extreme, mean and unreasonable persecution of people by means of witch-hunts and other tactics including guilt by association or through simple prejudice. This is done in order to achieve a political objective of silencing dissent and preventing the public from learning inconvenient truths. Read the rest of this entry »

Al Jazeera English has recently produced a 4 part series entitled Walls of Shame; this part examines the most controversial wall in the world today– the Israeli apartheid wall.  The economic strangulation, loss of land, environmental damage, displacement and plight of ordinary Palestinians is highlighted, as well as the real intentions of those whose planned the wall.

Part One (12.29)

Part Two (9.24)

Back in the press and making news again is speculation about the possible US airbase in northern Lebanon, renewed by the Lebanese daily As-Safir (Arabic). Only this time, there’s more. In English, the idea was best enunciated by Franklin Lamb in Its The Airbase, Stupid (see also ‘Does “Loving” Lebanon Mean the Bush Administration Never Has To Say Its Sorry?’), and he is cited again in the article from Al-Manar below.

The Daily Star also carries an article on the issue, and how this week’s visit to Lebanon by US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman has renewed speculation that Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s government has plans to turn the country into a forward base from which the Pentagon can counter what it sees as resurgent Russian influence in Syria, as claimed in Y-Net. Is the Cold War making a comeback?

All this would involve a string of bases in Lebanon: one in the Christian region of Bsharri; one in the Bekaa; and one in the plains of Damour south of Beirut. This would be in addition to the airstrip at Kleiaat being used as an airbase, two naval bases near Tripoli, and a wish-list for radar stations in Qornet Sawda, Barouk and Dahr al-Baidar. This is denied by US Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman. What we can be more sure of is that what is being pushed for is a less neutral stance towards the resistance (namely, Hezbollah) and Syria — and a reassessment of Lebanese relations towards Israel—that’s right, let’s forget the willful invasion and nefarious destruction of the country by Israel’s hafrada regime last year ever happened.

See also Iran’s Press TV; Israel’s Ha’aretz carries AP’s Hezbollah slams U.S. call for ‘partnership’ with Lebanon army and the International Herald Tribune also carries the AP piece: US to build “strategic partnership” with Lebanese army, says Pentagon official. In the blogosphere have a look at Zentor’s In the Middle of the East blog with The Mother of all Sparks and Mustapha’s Beirut Spring blog with A US Military Base in Lebanon? On a different but related topic, see Robert Fisk’s Secret armies pose sinister new threat to Lebanon.

Lebanon US base to counter Qaeda, Hezbollah or Russia?

Mohamad Shmaysani

18 Oct 2007 Al Manar

The issue of building a US airbase in northern Lebanon has resurfaced. Senior US political and military officials have been flocking into Lebanon since the Israeli war against Lebanon in 2006, the last of whom is Eric Edelman, the US Undersecretary of Defense for policy, heading a Pentagon delegation. The Lebanese daily Assafir raised speculations of a likelihood to build US military bases in Lebanon and alter the Lebanese army’s creed. “It is perceived that the US is focusing on the army’s directive which includes the fundamental national policy adopted by the army, particularly article five which stresses on the brotherly and special ties between Lebanon and Syria and article eight which underscores supporting the resistance,” Assafir said.In the report which the daily said is based on “reliable sources”, the Eric Edelman delegation met with the head of the unconstitutional government Fouad Saniora, Defense Minister Elias el-Murr and Army General Michel Suleiman and tackled four issues: the military situation in Lebanon, security and intelligence, the situation of the Lebanese Army and Lebanese state policy.

US Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffery Feltman, who reportedly attended the Pentagon delegation meeting dismissed Assafir daily report as insulting to the Lebanese army. Sources closed to Saniora’s unconstitutional government brushed aside as fabricated reports that the US had proposed building military bases.

Earlier reports revealed that a US airbase in the north of Lebanon would be built in the model of El-Udeid base in Qatar, for covert operations against the Syrian regime and to safeguard the oil pipelines of Baku-Tiflis-Ceyhan and Mosul-Kirkuk-Ceyhan. Read the rest of this entry »

Gazan children are being denied the right to learn — the Israeli government is currently obstructing shipments of textbooks and printing paper (along with foodstuffs, trading, aid, money, resources and other items). While the shameful starvation and economic strangulation of Gaza weighs in most heavily, the denial of textbooks to schoolchildren is one denial of a basic human right that is being addressed in a campaign by The Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI).

IPCRI are one of several grassroots examples of joint Palestinian-Israeli peace initiatives, successfully working together while some of their government official counterparts woefully bluster. The small but significant successes are often achieved within and despite the overwhelming structural violence of the Israeli occupation; they offer hope and a way forward at the important community and grassroots level. Groups are variously collaborations by profession, cultural and interfaith exchanges, women, youth, sporting, dialogue and confidence-building based, and are both one and two state advocates.

In this particular case, ICPRI are a two-state proponent think-tank tasked with helping to develop practical solutions to the conflict, with Palestinian and Israeli experts working together to produce detailed proposals about security, borders, Jerusalem, refugees, water, and, significantly, peace education textbooks.

As they write in their dispatches: “In light of the lack of confidence in peace on both sides of the conflict, we asked Israelis and Palestinians what would convince them that the other side was really interested in peace, the #1 answer was: when they begin teaching peace in their classrooms“.

Others include the PRIME curriculum project by the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME). PRIME are history teachers—West Bank Palestinians and Israeli Jews—who develop texts for students presenting the Palestinian and Israeli narratives. 1948 is described both as the Israelis’ year of “independence” and the Palestinians’ “catastrophe,” or Naqba. This is a welcome improvement upon the fact that despite Israel having illegally occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem (in violation of international law) for 40 years, maps in its school textbooks show these as part of Israel.

Peace education is an important part of meaningful peace initiatives. While it is not a substitute for the work to be done at the level of “high politics” and statecraft, it is a crucial foundation to it.

***I very highly recommend this powerful piece by Nurit Peled-Elhanan: For the children: Education or mind infection? and invite you to consider contributing to these worthwhile actions listed below.

1. From IPCRI:

IPCRI LAUNCHES PUBLIC AND DIPLOMATIC CAMPAIGN TO ALLOW THE CHILDREN OF GAZA TO HAVE SCHOOL BOOKS

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

To the Ambassadors, Consul Generals and Representatives to Israel and to the Palestinian Authority

Dear Friends,

Since the Hamas takeover of Gaza most goods heading to Gaza from Israel or from abroad have been blocked as part of the policy of pressuring Hamas. One of the goods being blocked by the IDF is paper for the printing of text books for UNRWA schools in Gaza.

In the coming days the children of Gaza will return to school and they will not have text books in their school bags. Five truck loads of paper have been waiting for the Israeli Minister of Defense himself to decide that paper for the printing of text books for UNRWA schools is a “humanitarian need”.

Just imagine if it were your children who would be going to schools without text books! Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to Agent 99 for pointing out the updated link, the first location of which had lapsed (also updated on audio page). I’ve taken the opportunity to upload this talk again by Johan Galtung which I attended last year. His hybrid-but-mostly-Norwegian accent may make him sound like Inspector Clousseau as our friend notes, but his reflections are always worthwhile and enriching. (RT 81 m)

Galtung talks about enacting a positive peace through meaningful dialogue, about spiritual syncretism and an alliance of civilisations, with reference to the Danish cartoon controversy and other topical conflicts. This elder spokesman and founder of peace studies delivered this address at the Brisbane Festival of Ideas on the 31 March 2006.

Original .mp3 url

Relevant links:

• TRANSCEND Peace and Development Network
• International Peace Research Institute
• Wiki entry Johan Galtung
  

Further links: Conflict transformation

• Berghof Handbook for Conflict Transformation
• Beyond Intractability
• Conflict Resolution Information
• Peace Library Sri Linka and conflict related
• Transnational Perspectives

Tariq Ali addressed a Sydney Ideas audience this week, with a lecture on lessons for the Middle East from Latin America, entitled Latin America and the Arab World: Resistance and Occupation. While one region serves to some degree as a good model of regional autonomy and has broken away from becoming a laboratory of neoliberalism, the other is struggling less successfully, so far, against the designs of neoconservatism.

RT: 1h 36 m, Tariq Ali starts 6 minutes in after short introduction; Q and A follows the initial 50 minute address.

Howard Zinn interviewed on the Riz Khan program.

Part One (7m)

Part Two (7:23)

1. Press picks:

• Mike Whitney, Pack Up and Leave or Stay Home and Die: Bush’s New Middle East
• Eliza Ernshire, Inside Bedawi Camp: Refugees Forever
• Rami Zurayk, Hizbullah Move To Aid Nahr el Bared Controversial
• Dan Murphy, Israel, US, and Egypt back Fatah’s fight against Hamas

2. Video clips (2):

2.1. An Al Jazeera panel on the Riz Khan program discuss their takes on the current crisis, comprising Dr Fawaz Gerges and Mark Perry of the Conflicts Forum (RT: 16 mins)

2.2 This ten minute video clip is from last Thursday’s Democracy Now interview with Seymour Hersh by phone (transcript here). See also related posts: Hersh: Lebanon violence US-Saudi-Lebanese government blowback and
Who’s Behind the Fighting in North Lebanon: the Welch Club?

You may have read that the Chagos Islanders have won the legal right to go home, a victory delayed but a victory nevertheless.

In the 1960s and 70s, this placid Creole populace of 2000 were forced to leave their idyllic (and strategically located) homeland in the Indian Ocean to make way for a US military air and naval base on the largest atoll of this British colony, Diego Garcia, arranged in a secret US-UK government agreement.

This forcible depopulation occurred so that the US military could use it as a military base and then also to operate the Global Positioning System (GPS). The air base on the island of Diego Garcia has since also been used to bomb Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Appeal Court in London has upheld the previous High Court declaration that the expulsion of the people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean by the British government was “repugnant, illegal and irrational”. The Chagos Islanders are now free to go home upon arrangement of transport.

Olivier Bancoult, chairman of the Chagos Refugees Group (pictured), has lead the campaign to win the right to return. With a beam and a victory sign outside the Court, he said his priority was to go home as soon as possible and tend the graves of his ancestors.

The British Foreign Office had lodged an appeal against their return after they were twice granted legal right of return. In 2000, the courts ruled that Chagossians could return to their homes in 65 of the tiny islands, but not to Diego Garcia. Robin Cook, the then Foreign Secretary, had said the government would not appeal.

In 2004, however, the British government used the royal prerogative to effectively nullify the Court’s decision.

Last year the High Court in turn overturned the royal prerogative order in this case. It rejected the government argument that the royal prerogative, exercised by ministers in the Queen’s name, was immune from scrutiny. (The government had invoked security and argued on the basis that it would hamper its discretion to operate).

In handing down their decision the Court averred on Wednesday that the right to go home was “one of the most fundamental liberties known to human beings”. Read the rest of this entry »

• Monte Asbury, And Now, About That Iraqi Oil and Power Manipulates, heres its antodote (May 20 Sermon)
  
• M. Idrees Ahmad, The Nahr al-Bared Tragedy, Guardian Declares War on Iran and Those Violent Palestinians Again
• Moussa Bachir, Lebanese bloggers react to refugee camp siege
• Sophie/ Les Politiques, Unpopular and failed governments in Israel and Lebanon and the sacrifice of Palestinian civilians
• Tabula Gaza, Sderot created the Gaza Strip

and check out the Press Picks page

Presented by Josh Rushing, formerly a veteran Marine Corps media spokesman, “SPIN: The Art of Selling War” looks at the standard justification for going to war by American administrations, past and present.

Josh Rushing is a former Marine and spokesperson for US Central Command. In his first special for Al Jazeera (English), where Josh is the military and current affairs correspondent, he examines the US Government’s formula for selling war.

Notably, Rushing was one of General Tommy Franks’ former spokespeople for the war in Iraq, and provides something of an insider’s look at the spin machine during the US invasion of Iraq.

Also available at Googlevideo

Part One (11 minutes)

Part Two (11 minutes)

Uri Avnery provides a peace and Israeli perspective on the consequences and failings of Israel’s Winograd Inquiry Report into last year’s war on Lebanon.

He is none too optimistic about what the findings bode for the region and this is reflective in the Report in part by how it frames a political problem in misguidedly militaristic terms.

The Report for him bespeaks of likely further belligerency against its neighbours in the near future, and the further militarisation of Israeli society and the rank corruption in the IDF.

The Report is also damning in its glaring omissions — hardly anything about the impact on Lebanon itself — and for what it says about US involvement and the Bush administration’s enablement of these monstrous events.

This is how he reads the findings; boldface emphasis is mine:

THE WINOGRAD committee of inquiry is not a part of the solution. It is a part of the problem.

Now, after the first excitement caused by the publication of the partial report has died down, it is possible to evaluate it. The conclusion is that it has done much more harm than good.

The positive side is well known. The committee has accused the three directors of the war - the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense and the Chief-of-Staff - of many faults. The committee’s favorite word is “failure”.

It is worthwhile to ponder this word. What does it say? A person “fails” when he does not fulfill his task. The nature of the task itself is not considered, but only the fact that it has not been accomplished.

The use of the word “failure” all over the report is by itself a failure of the committee. The new Hebrew word invented by the protest groups - something like “ineptocrats” - fits all of the five committee members.

IN WHAT did the three musketeers of the war leadership fail, according to the committee?

The decision to go to war was taken in haste. The war aims proclaimed by the Prime Minister were unrealistic. There was no detailed and finalized military plan. There was no orderly staff-work. The government adopted the improvised proposal of the Chief-of-Staff at it was, without alternatives being offered or requested. The Chief-of-Staff thought that he would win by bombing and shelling alone. No ground attack was planned. The reserves were not called up in time. The ground campaign got off very late. In the years before the war, the forces were not properly trained. Much equipment was missing from the emergency stores. The big ground attack, which cost the lives of so many soldiers, started only when the terms of the cease-fire were already agreed upon in the UN.

Strong medicine. What is the conclusion? That we must learn these lessons and improve our performance quickly, before we start the next war. Read the rest of this entry »

A few days ago, Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire and fellow peace activists made headlines when teargassed and shot by rubber bullets as they engaged in a peaceful protest at Bil’in.

While this is a not uncommon occurrence, Maguire’s courageous presence and participation has helped draw greater attention to the cause of justice against the violent occupation and the wall.

Ms Maguire had been invited to open an international conference in the village of Bil’lin which closed with a press conference at which many international journalists were present.

Monte Asbury has posted a very moving video of Maguire voicing her solidarity with the Palestinian people even as she awaited the ambulance to treat her, saying, “I’m very proud to be here … This is where we, the peace movement, have to be.”

A longer statement follows the video.

See also:

• Sami Awad’s recent post on Non-violent Activism in Southern Bethlehem
• Mel Frykberg, Israel’s Lab in Palestine, Al Ahram ( 26 April - 2 May 2007) on the disturbing use of experimental weapons by the IOF. This is an issue which has also cropped up before; here, here and here. See also documentary evidence in the video Gaza Strip, and in Star Wars in Iraq, about the use of experimental weapons by the US in Iraq
• Terry Walz, Why Isn’t Israel Talking to Hamas? Electronic Intifada, 27 April 2007

3:49

REPORT FROM MAIREAD AND ANN PATTERSON

“On Friday 20th April, 2007, Ann P