From Ha'aretz:

Israel [with the implicit approval of the United States] is to begin gradually reducing the power supply to the Gaza Strip on December 2, in response to the ongoing Qassam rocket fire at Israeli communities along the Strip, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz told the High Court of Justice yesterday.

Israel intends to cut diesel fuel supplies for transportation purposes from 1.4 million liters per week to 1.2 million, and diesel fuel supplies for power stations from 2.2 liters per week to 1.75 liters.

Please remember the 4th Geneva Convention, article 33:

No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

So this shows the commitment to 'peace' that Israel are demonstrating before the much-ballyhooed Annapolis Conference: violation of the Geneva conventions and collective punishment of the whole population of Gaza.

In this context, i should mention that the US Campaign to end the Israeli Occupation is raising funds for Palestinian farmers by making available Fair Trade Olive Oil grown and processed in Palestine. Purchasing the olive oil is one way to support the Palestinian struggle for independence and self-determination.

From Reuters:

Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa said Washington must let him open a military base in Miami if the United States wants to keep using an air base on Ecuador's Pacific coast.

Correa has refused to renew Washington's lease on the Manta air base, set to expire in 2009. U.S. officials say it is vital for counter-narcotics surveillance operations on Pacific drug-running routes.

"We'll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami -- an Ecuadorean base," Correa said in an interview during a trip to Italy.

"If there's no problem having foreign soldiers on a country's soil, surely they'll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States."

Well Said!!!

The U.S. embassy to Ecuador offers a fact-sheet on the base here.

You can get more information about the empire of US military bases at the National Priorities Project

Oggi sul NYTimes c'e' un articolo sulla disputa che si sta sviluppando tra l'ENI e il governo del Kazakistan (qui c'e' il rapport di Amnesty International su questo paese).

In sostanza, l'ENI sta facendo miliardi grazie a un accordo firmato anni fa, e il Kazakistan vuole rinegoziare il contratto per ottenere condizioni piu' favorevoli.

Rtengoche sia perfettamente legittimo per il Kazakistan fare richieste del gener. Ma non  posso fare a meno di pensare che il governo Kazako sia meno che liberale e che sarebbe meglio se l'Italia (e il mondo) prendessero misure ben piu' drastiche per eliminare la propria dipendenza dal petrolio.

In buona sostanza, troppi regimi repressivi si sostengono grazie ai profitti che ricevono per "fortuna" (o sfortuna, a seconda dei punti di vista) geologica. Non ultimo di questi paesi e' la Birmania, sotto scrutinio in questi giorni, che si mantiene al potere grazie ai soldi che riceve dalla statunitense Chevron e dalla francese Total.

From the NY Times

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 — The United States maintained its role as the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world in 2006, followed by Russia and Britain, according to a Congressional study to be released Monday. Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia were the top buyers.

The study makes clear also that the United States has signed weapons-sales agreements with nations whose records on democracy and human rights are subject to official criticism.

In 2006, the United States agreed to sell $10.3 billion in weapons to the developing world, or 35.8 percent of these deals worldwide, according to the study. Russia was second with $8.1 billion, or 28.1 percent, and Britain was third with $3.1 billion, or 10.8 percent.

there can be no doubt that the united states is a major source of instability in the Middle East: our government is the prime supplier of weapons to nearly all the states in the region. It is last week's news that the US is preparing an arms sals deal to the Gulf States (primarily Saudi Arabia) for around $20 BILLION.

In the same deal, Israel will receive $30 billion in U.S. military aid over the next decade, averaging $3 billion a year.

Where to begin? Perhaps with this quote from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: "We understand the United States' need to assist the moderate Arab states, which are standing in one front with the United States and us in the struggle against Iran,"

Ahhh, the irony of it all. Saudi Arabia is a moderate Arab State? Let us never forget that Saudi Arabia is the most extreme islamist theocracy in the world, with an atrocious human rights record. It is particularly useful to remember this fact when we hear the fearmorngers talk about the "clash of civilizations." The United States sells billions of dollars of weapons to the most fundamentalist islamic state in the world.

Then we ought to talk about the "special relationship" between the US and Israel. Let's forget about everything else for a moment and discuss Israel's settlement policy. Israel - eveyone agrees - is occupying the West Bank, and is therefore subject to the Fourth Geneva convention (section III, article 49), which states unambiguously that "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."

And yet Israel has been undertaking a MASSIVE settlement operation in the West Bank. The construction of their "separation wall" is in large part intended to protect the settlements - and was thus judged unlawful by the Interational Court of Justice.

The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem does a fantastic job of documenting the awful impact of Israel's colonial plans - as does the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which ought to be read carefully by any US citizen who wishes to gain a clearer perspective on the issue.

These two news items prove my point:

1) the Israeli Supreme court rejected petitions against the route of the West Bank separation fence in the area of Efrat, saying the route of the fence was determined to defend the settlement, located in Gush Etzion. (in other words, the Israeli Supreme court has decided that it is imperative to defend the illegal settlement despite the ICJs decision, international law be damned)

2) some of the people who live in the settlements routinely commit barbaric acts of violence against Palestinians, which very rarely get reported in the US press, but occasionally they also attack United Nations employees.

Now, if only the New York Times and the other papers had a headline that said:

US SUPPORTS RADICAL ISLAMIC THEOCRACY AND IMPLICITLY ENDORSES ISRAEL'S VIOLATIONS OF GENEVA CONVENTIONS, CREATING INSTABILITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

To the Times:

Re: "The Hamas Conundrum"

Imagine this sentence:

"If Israel wants American aid restored (all $2 billion of it) it must begin to meet three conditions: ending violence against Palestinians, recognizing and negotiating with the elected leadership of the Palestinians, and respecting UN Security Council resolutions and the Geneva Conventions as they apply to the occupied territories."

It is impossible to even utter such a sentence in our political discourse without being subjected to vicious attacks from the defenders of political orthodoxy. And this sadly assures that our country cannot be part of a "just and lasting" settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Today I also got an email from Assaf, a former Israeli reservist who became a concientious objector. He forwarded this article, which has to do with maps. For some good ones, check here.

Without Borders
 
Uri Avnery 24.03.07
 
INCREDIBLE! In Palestinian schoolbooks, there is no trace of the Green Line! They do not recognize the existence of Israel even in the 1967 borders! They say that the "Zionist gangs" stole the country from the Arabs! That's how they poison the minds of their children!  
 
These blood-curdling revelations were published this week in Israel and around the world. The conclusion is self-evident: the Palestinian Authority, which is responsible for the schoolbooks, cannot be a partner in peace negotiations.
 
What a shock!
 
Truth is, there is nothing new here. Every few years, when all the other arguments for refusing to speak with the Palestinian leadership wear thin, the ultimate argument pops up again: Palestinian schoolbooks call for the destruction of Israel!
 
The ammunition is always provided by one of the "professional" institutions that deal with this matter. These are foundations of the far-right, disguised as "scientific" bodies, which are lavishly funded by Jewish-American multi-millionaires. Teams of salaried employees apply a fine-tooth comb to every word of the Arab media and schoolbooks, with a pre-ordained objective: to prove that they are anti-Semitic, preach hatred of Israel and call for the killing of Jews. In the sea of words, it is not too difficult to find suitable quotes, while ignoring everything else.
 
So now it is again perfectly clear: Palestinian schoolbooks preach hatred of Israel! They are breeding a new generation of terrorists! Therefore, of course, there can be no question of Israel and the world ending the blockade on the Palestinian Authority!
 
WELL, WHAT about our side? What do our schoolbooks look like?
 
Does the Green Line appear in them? Do they recognize the right of the Palestinians to establish a state on the other side of our 1967 borders? Do they teach love for the Palestinian people (or even the existence of the Palestinian people), or respect for the Arabs in general, or a knowledge of Islam?
 
The answer to all these questions: Absolutely not!
 
Recently, Minister of Education Yuli Tamir came out with a bombastic announcement saying that she intends to mark the Green Line in the schoolbooks, from which it was removed almost 40 years ago. The Right reacted angrily, and nothing more was heard about it.
 
From kindergarten to the last day of high school, the Israeli pupil does not learn that the Arabs have any right at all to any of this land. On the contrary, it is clear that the land belongs to us alone, that God has personally given it to us, that we were indeed driven out by the Romans after the destruction of our Temple in the year 70 (a myth) but that we returned at the beginning of the Zionist movement. Since then, the Arabs have tried again and again to annihilate us, as the Goyim have done in every generation. In 1936, the "gangs" (the official Israeli term for the fighters of the Arab Revolt) attacked and murdered us. And so on, up to this very day.
 
When he comes out of the pedagogic mill, the Jewish-Israeli pupil "knows" that the Arabs are a primitive people with a murderous religion and a miserable culture. He brings this view with him when he (or she) joins the army a few weeks later. There, it is reinforced almost automatically. The daily humiliation of old people and women - not to mention everybody else - at the checkpoints would not be possible otherwise.
 
THE QUESTION is, of course, whether schoolbooks really have that much influence on the pupils.
 
From earliest childhood, children absorb the atmosphere of their surroundings. The conversations at home, the sights on television, the happenings in the street, the opinions of classmates at school - all these influence them far more than the written texts of the books, which in any case are interpreted by teachers who themselves have been subject to these influences.
 
An Arab child sees on TV an old woman lamenting the demolition of her home. He sees on the walls in the street the photos of the martyred heroes, sons of his neighborhood, who have sacrificed their lives for their people and country. He hears what has happened to his cousin who was murdered by the evil Jews. He hears from his father that he cannot buy meat or eggs, because the Jews are not allowing him to work and put food on the table. At home there is no water for most of the day. Mother tells about grandpa and grandma, who have been languishing for 60 years in a miserable refugee camp in Lebanon. He knows that his family were driven out from their village in what became Israel and that the Jews are living there now. The hero of his class is the boy who jumped on a passing Israeli tank, or who dared to throw a stone from a distance of 10 meters at a soldier who was pointing a gun at him.
 
[...]

What can schoolbooks change here?
 
And on the Jewish Israeli side? From the earliest age, the child sees the pictures of suicide attacks on TV, bodies scattered around, the injured being taken away in ambulances with blood-curdling shrieks from their sirens. He hears that the Nazis slaughtered his mother's entire family in Poland, and in his consciousness Nazis and Arabs become one. On every day's news he hears bad things about what the Arabs are doing, that they want to destroy the state and throw us into the sea. He knows that the Arabs want to kill his brother, the soldier, without any reason, just because they are such murderers. Nothing about life in "the territories", perhaps just a few kilometers away, reaches him. Until he is called up, the only Arabs he meets are Israeli Arab workers doing menial work. When he joins the army, he sees them only through gun sights, every one of them of them a potential "terrorist".
 
For a change in the schoolbooks to have any value, reality on the ground must change first.
 
DOES THAT mean that schoolbooks have no importance? It should not be underestimated.
 
[...]
 
Forty years have passed, and the name "Israel" does not appear in Palestinian schoolbooks, nor, I assume, on any school map from Morocco to Iraq. And the name "Palestine" does not appear, of course, on any Israeli school map. Only when the young Israeli joins the army, does he see a map of "the territories", with its crazy puzzle of Zones A, B and C, settlement blocs and apartheid roads.
 
A map is a weapon. From my childhood in Germany between the two World Wars I remember a map that was hanging on the wall of my classroom. On it, Germany had two borders. One (green, if I remember correctly) was the existing border, that was imposed by the treaty of Versailles after the (first) World War. The other, marked in glowing red, was the border from before the war. In thousands of classrooms all over Germany (then governed by Social-Democrats) the pupils saw every day before their eyes the terrible injustice done to Germany, when pieces were "torn" from her on every side. Thus was bred the generation which filled the ranks of the Nazi war machine in World War II.
 
(By the way, some fifty years later I was taken on a courtesy visit to that school. I asked the principal about that map. Within minutes, it was brought out from the archive.)
 
NO, I do not make light of maps. Especially not of maps in schools.
 
I repeat what I said then: the aim must be that the child in Ramallah sees before his eyes, on the wall of his classroom, a map on which the State of Israel is marked. And that the child in Rishon-le-Zion sees before his eyes, on the wall of his classroom, a map on which the State of Palestine is marked. Not by compulsion, but by agreement.
 
That is, of course, impossible as long as Israel has no borders. How can one mark on the map a state which, from its first day, has refused, consciously and adamantly, to define its borders? Can we really demand that the Palestinian ministry of education publish a map on which all the territory of Palestine lies inside Israel?
 
And on the other hand, how can one mark on the map the name "Palestine", when there is no Palestinian state? After all, even most of those Israeli politicians who profess - at least pro forma - to support the "two-states solution" will go to great lengths to avoid saying where the border
between the two state should run. Tzipi Livni, the Foreign Minister, is totally opposed to the announced intention of her colleague, Minister of Education Yuli Tamir, to mark the Green Line, lest it be seen as a border.
 
Peace means a border. A border fixed by agreement. Without a border, there can be no peace. And without peace, it is the height of chutzpa to demand something from the other side that we totally refuse to do ourselves.

From Reuters:

Chiquita Brands International Inc. said on Wednesday that it would plead guilty to one count of doing business with a terrorist group, ending a three-year U.S. government probe into payments made by the banana company's former Colombian unit. [...]

The Justice Department filed in federal court in Washington a document detailing the payments made to a group called the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a violent right-wing group that has been designated by the U.S. government as a foreign terrorist organization. [...]

The payments were approved by senior executives at the Cincinnati-based company, according to the court documents. [...]

Chiquita said the groups made threats against its workers and that it made the payments only to protect its employees. [...]

The government of President Alvaro Uribe has been rocked by a scandal in which eight of his congressional allies and his former intelligence chief have been jailed for financing or otherwise supporting the paramilitaries.

The story continues:

Colombian prosecutors will determine if an extradition request should be made against company executives

Let's be clear: Multinational corporations in the United States LIKE right-wing death squads. The US-instigate coup in Guatemala, which led to a genocidal campaign against indigenous people that killed hundredsof thousands of people, was carried out for the benefit of the United Fruit Company - later renamed CHIQUITA. Other examples are too numerous to count.

Let's also be clear about Colombia: the worst human rights violator in the hemisphere and (not surprisingly) the leading recipient of US military aid (apart from Israel and Egypt). It is the most dangerous country in the world to be a labor unionist - people there get KILLED for trying to organize unions. Killed by right-wing paramilitaries, operating with high-level government support, on the pay of foreign owned companies. So the idea that Chiquita paid the AUC to "protect" it's workers is quite ironic.

Learn some more (along with connections to Coca-Cola and Nestle) at the website of the SINALTRAINAL (a Colombian union), the international Labor Rights Fund, and the Colombia Action Network

Prima le frivolezze: sul New York Times oggi e' apparsa una storia sul teatrino politico fatto dalla coppia Berlusconi.

Poi Le cose serie: c'e' anche un articolo sul  fatto che in Germania sono stati emessi dei mandati di cattura per gli agenti della CIA coinvolti nella "extraordinary rendition" (normalmente sono contrario agli inglesismi, ma manca proprio il termine, a meno di non usare semplicemente 'rapimento') di un cittadino tedesco, Khaled el Masri (portato in Afghanistan e la' torturato). L'articolo meziona anche l'analogo caso dei giudici italiani nel caso Abu Omar, che a dire il vero e' gia' apparso piu' volte sul Times.

Di questi giorni e' anche la notizia che il governo Canadese ha concesso un risarcimento di vari milioni di dollari a Maher Arar, cittadino Canadese rapito mentre era in transito a New York, trasportato da agenti statunitensi in Siria dove e' stato torturato e poi rilasciato.

L'articolo serve anche per ricordare un altro motivo per cui non ci dovrebbero essere basi militari statunitensi nel nostro paese: perche' servono anche ai fini di questi rapimenti-con-tortura che violano la nostra Costituzione, i diritti umani, e qualsiasi minimo senso di decenza. Quindi FIRMIAMO LA PETIZIONE CONTRO UN AULTERIORE BASE MILITARE DEGLI STATI UNITI A VICENZA. Per ulteriori informazioni Visitate il sito di AltraVicenza.

"400,000 people massacred.

You won't be able to say that you didn't know."

signs like this were EVERYWHERE in the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport when i went through it to go to Italy during winter break..

While i remain unconvinced by the arguments that a military force would be useful in Darfur (as the interventions in Somalia and the Balkans would seem to indicate), i AM convinced that one thing our government could constructively do would be to finally join the International Criminal Court and then swiftly move to prosecute the leaders in Sudan. (of course, that would mean exposing Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush to an overdue prosecution for war crimes, a welcome and intended side effect).

Questa pubblicita' era OVUNQUE nell'aereoporto Charles de Gaulle a Parigi...

There is an interesting article in Haaretz about the new settlement being planned by the Israeli government in the West Bank:

the Americans had been informed of the Israeli intention to expand the community [called Maskiot] and to build a settlement there to absorb dozens of families formerly from Gush Katif. The news upset the U.S. State Department and even the White House. The European Union also demanded explanations from Israel, and EU countries urged their ambassadors in Israel to check where in heaven's name the remote settlement is located. They discovered that Defense Minister Amir Peretz had personally signed the building permits for 30 residential units there. This was the first time in almost a decade that Israel had established a settlement in the territories.

[...] The heads of the Maskiot program understood that something bad was about to happen. Although they had received all the necessary permits and even flaunted the signature of the defense minister, expansion work on the premises has come to a standstill, and the area that was prepared for the construction of new residential units has been abandoned. The heavy machinery has disappeared. Attempts to contact the Defense Ministry and other ministries were met with an embarrassing silence.

[The rabbi of the pre-army program, Azualos at Makiot] has managed to learn that the first Zionist rule is to establish facts on the ground; the second rule is to ignore the protests of the world. "They'll shout and we'll continue to instill pride in the young men who come here," he said. "We will give them spiritual strength, we will teach them halakhot (religious laws), we will deepen their faith and their knowledge of the Jewish heritage."

[...] Now the Americans and the Europeans are threatening to put an end to the party. But nobody in Maskiot gets upset by the foreign intervention. Between lessons the 52 students are busy with building, plowing, gardening, setting up an animal corner, cooking and fixing up the place. They are certain that once the diplomatic uproar subsides the trucks and bulldozers will return, and that it won't be long before Maskiot becomes a milestone of renewed settlement momentum in the territories.

It is interesting to read that the work has stopped because the US has done nothing more than to voice its displeasure - they certainly haven't cut the $2 billion aid program, which has no parallel with any other country in the world. It suggests that the US could do MUCH MORE to curb Israeli expansionism in the West Bank, not to mention all of the numerous other Israeli violations of teh Geneva Conventions and UN security council resolutions.

It remains to be seen whether the rabbis of Maskiot are correct - and whether the media in the US will beforced to recognize the two rules of Zionism described above.

La Nazione ha pubblicato una lunga retrospettiva su Saddam, ma si dimenticano un dettagli. Questo:

In otto pagine e oltre quattordici immagini che dedicate all’impiccagione di Saddam Hussein, manca un elemento cruciale: la foto di Saddam che stringe la mano a Donald Rumsfeld nel 1983.

Si studia e si discute la storia per non ripetere gli errori del passato Ed è particolarmente importante, quando si discute dei crimini di Saddam (l’uso di gas nervino contro i curdi ad Halabja ad esempio), ricordare che quei crimini in larga parte sono stati compiuti con il sostegno attivo degli Stati Uniti – delle stesse persone che sono al potere negli Stati Uniti adesso.

(Lo stesso paese che ha reinstallato il tirannico scià Reza Pahlavi in Iran, la cui brutalità ha dato luogo alla rivoluzione degli Ayatollah nel 79.)

Le stesse persone che, armando fino ai denti i Mujaheddin in Afghanistan in funzione antisovietica negli anni 80, hanno dato origine ad Al Qaeda.

È importante ricordarsene per temperare il l’atlantismo che sembra diventato il senso comune della discussione pubblica in Italia, e del vostro giornale.

Ce ne sarebbero da dire altre. ma cerco di mantenermi sotto le 140 parole.

From Haaretz and the Times:

WASHINGTON - Israel's plan to settle 30 Jewish families on a former army base in the occupied West Bank would violate terms of a U.S.-backed Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, a U.S. official said yesterday.

Notice that the US doesn't say that placing settlements violates the 'road map' - they DON'T say that it would violate international law, particularly the fourth Geneva Convention, Section 3, article 49, which says clearly: The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

The Reuters article that appeared in Ha'aretz has some information that (unremarkably) was absent in the Times article:

Some 260,000 settlers live in the West Bank, among 2.5 million Palestinians. The World Court has branded Israeli settlements on land captured in the 1967 Middle East war as illegal. Israel disputes this.

Israel and the US BOTH dismiss international law.

And the US backs these violations with its unparallelled aid package to Israel - $2 billion a year, with fabulous and umatched conditions for Israel. When any "condemnation" of Israeli policy come sfrom Washington, we should understand (as the Isaraeli government surely does) that it is purely symbolic, unless some material reduction of aid is used to back up the condemnation.

Mi hanno risposto! L'autore dell'editoriale della Nazione che ho criticato stamattina mi ha risposto. Qui sotto c'è la mia risposta interposta alla sua.

Signor Canè:

apprezzo la sua risposta. Ho scritto più volte alla redazione della Nazione e lei è il primo a rispondermi personalmente.

Il tono polemico era voluto proprio perché non mi aspettavo una risposta, ma immaginavo che l’unico esito della mia lettera sarebbe stata una eventuale pubblicazione.

Nel merito:

> Gentile signor Tamburini,  non so se questa risposta le arriverà perchè

non sono certo dell'indirizzo elettronico che mi ha girato al segreteria.

Comunque,le volevo chiarire che una più attenta lettura del mio breve

pezzo le avrebbe consentito di evitare alcune osservazioni inesatte

1)Delle migliaia di vittime irachene paralo ancora prima di quelle

occidentali alla terzultima riga del breve commento

Ho controllato, e ha ragione. Mi scuso per questo.

> 2) ho scritto senza mezzi termini che ritengo la guerra all'Iraq <una

drammatica sciocchezza> ( riga 9 delle 15 totali)

non sono sicuro che ‘una drammatica sciocchezza’ sia il giudizio più pertinente che si possa dare alla Guerra all’Iraq. In ogni caso, la mia risposta non ruota intorno a un giudizio della guerra in se, ma della sua asserzione che essa “nasce non dalla follia di Bush, ma dal delirio di Osama” Di cui sotto.

> 3) Lei pensa che ci sia lo zampino di Bush nell'attentato alle torri gemelle per avere la scusa buona per attaccare l'Iraq? Credo che tutta l'umanità fornita di buon senso ritenga questa idea una visione patologica della realtà.

Ritengo che riguardo all’11 settembre al massimo si possa accusare l’amministrazione Bush di scarsa attenzione al rischio posto dal terrorismo, e di una tendenza perniciosa alla segretezza – peggiore di tutte le altre recenti amministrazioni statunitensi.

Concordo che coloro che cercano a tutti i costi di incriminare Bush per l’attentato abbiano una visione ‘patologica’ della realtà, come dice lei.

Ma che persone nell’amministrazione Bush volessero invadere l’Iraq da anni, non credo sia in discussione. http://www.newamericancentury.org/

È inoltre fuori discussione che immediatamente dopo l’11 settembre Rumsfeld in particolare, e tutta l’amministrazione in generale fossero concentrati su una possibile invasione dell’Iraq (basti a questo proposito la testimonianza dell’ex capo dell’antiterrorismo di entrambi i Bush e di Clinton, Richard Clarke nel suo libro, Against All Enemies).

Infine, una delle false pretese con le quali la guerra all’Iraq è stata giustificata era un presunto – e completamente fasullo – collegamento tra Saddam e Osama.

Quindi direi che chiamare gli attentati dell’11 settembre un “pretesto” mi sembra abbastanza accurato.

> Detto questo, libero ovviamente di giudicare il mio articolo come vuole.

Ma credo che 15 modeste righe possano essere lette con maggiore, serena

attenzione.

un caro saluto

> gabriele canè

In conclusione: ho scritto la mia risposta al suo commento in qualità di cittadino italiano e statunitense. Credo nell’elementare principio morale che sono responsabile delle mie azioni e delle azioni dei miei governi, e che dare le responsabilità agli altri prima di assumermi le mie è la definizione di ipocrisia. Incidentalmente, è la definizione di ipocrisia che dà anche Gesù, con la parabola della pagliuzza e della trave.

Alla prossima,

Matteo Tamburini

I read Ha'aretz (the main Israeli newspaper) pretty frequently, and I consistently find great insight on the situation in the region. For example:

A delegation of U.S. senators, led by the Senator John McCain, a possible Republican presidential candidate for 2008, and the self described "Independent Democrat" Joseph Lieberman, met on Monday with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. McCain and Lieberman urged Israel not to be tempted by Syria's recent overtures regarding negotiations. [yet we are to believe that the US and Israel want 'peace?]

According to the press release issued by the prime minister's bureau, the senators expressed vehement opposition to talks with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. They told Olmert that the Baker-Hamilton report, which recommended U.S. talks with Syuria and Iran, has not been adopted by the U.S. administration, which continues to oppose contacts with Tehran and Damascus.

McCain said the issue of the Golan Heights is completely unrelated to U.S.-Syrian relations. [Israel has been occupying Syrian territory and building settlements there since 1967 in violation of international law. The US gives Israel $2 billion a year - more than any other country in the world - despite the ongoing violation] He said the real question is whether Syria wants a genuine peace [Syria has recently said that they would be interested in peace negotiations without preconditions. So who exactly is seeking peace?] and is willing to abandon Hezbollah. McCain said he has seen little indication that this was indeed the case.

In the meanwhile inside the country that is courted and encouraged in its unilateralism by two major power brokers in the US senate, this is happening:

The Knesset Education and Culture Committee decided on Monday to summon Education Minister Yuli Tamir to answer questions about her decision to include Israel's pre-1967 border in textbook maps.

During the session, Kadima party and right-wing MKs lashed out at Tamir for her decision made two weeks ago to include the so-called Green Line border which excludes the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights from Israel.

National Religious Party Chairman MK Zevulun Orlev presented the committee with the 1967 Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee decision to remove the Green line -as well as the pre-1948 British Mandate border- from all but historical maps.

"Tamir's decision is blatantly political," Orlev said. "It has no educational, instructive or scientific basis. As far back as 1967 the government decided that the Green Line had ceased to exist."

In other words, Israeli politicians are operating on the assumption (which is encouraged and enabled by US aid) that they have a right to set the borders of Israel based on what they can conquer and what they decide they are going to keep - to hell with international law.

The other key fact about this is that we should understand that Israeli students do not learn that there is Israeli-controlled territory which is not a part of Israel - which in fact under international law belongs to somebody else. Imagine what effect this has on those students' perception of Palestinans in the Occupied Territories, without understanding the context: that Israel occupies Palestinian land, and exercises a tremendous and arbitrary amount of control on Palestinian lives.

In today's Star Ledger there was an op-ed by a Robert Kagan, in which he describes a debate as to whether the United States is "too idealistic" in the conduct of its foreign policy. This was my reply:

Robert Kagan's article about America's 'Messianic Urge' is

long on ideas and short on facts. 


 

Was our government being 'too aggressive and self-righteous in 

promoting our principles' when it helped to overthrow 

Salvador Allende in Chile, Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran, 
Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, and Getulio Vargas in Brazil?


 

Was it part of our nation's 'pivotal role in the improvement of the world' to provide military and economic 

aid to the Shah of Iran, to Saddam Hussein,  to Suharto in Indonesia, to the departed Augusto Pinochet, 
and to the nucleus of Islamic fighters who became Al Qaeda?
 

Or is our government defending 'the ideal of democracy in other countries' with our weapons sales to 

 

Saudi Arabia (the most extreme example of Islamist theocracy in the 
world), to the government of Uzbekistan (which boils people  alive,
according to a former British diplomat), and other nefarious characters?


I think not.

From Ha'aretz:

Israeli officials were shocked by Robert Gates' statement to Congress that Israel has nuclear weapons, and they are worrying over why the U.S. secretary of defense-designate made this statement.

Israeli officials were also shocked by Gates' expression of understanding for Iran's desire to obtain nuclear weapons: He listed all the states near Iran that do have nuclear weapons - Pakistan, India and Israel - and noted that not long ago, Saddam Hussein's Iraq also attempted to acquire the bomb. Furthermore, he said, the United States is a nuclear power, and its forces are deployed in Iran's vicinity throughout the Middle East, and Russia, another nuclear power, is also nearby.

It could be that Gates, a former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, was simply analyzing the situation like an intelligence officer. However, he was not testifying to Congress as an intelligence officer, but rather as a candidate for defense secretary - in which capacity he is supposed to adopt policy positions.

If this amounts to anything, if the sentence Israeli nuclear weapons becomes acceptable in Washington, and they are discusses in the same breath as we talk about Iran's nuclear programs (still only a civilian program) then for that reason alone Robert Gates is a welcome candidate as Secretary of War.

Leggendo Ha'aretz (il principale quotidiano in Israele) ho trovato alcuni commenti del PM Olmert, che "e' a favore di una proposta italiana di mandare una forza multilaterale a Gaza."

Il governo di Israele (indipendentemente dal partito al potere) si e' sempre opposto ad una presenza internazionale a Gaza. Tra l'altro, gli Stati Uniti hanno posto il veto a una risoluzione del 2001 che chiedeva la presenza di una folza multilaterale nei territori occupati. Incuriosito, ho continuato a leggere, e ho scoperto che Olmert favorisce una forza multilaterale se "l'esercito italiano si impegnera' a combattere ogni giorno il terrorismo di Hamas, a sacrificare i suoi uomini."

In altre parole, Olmert e' a favore di una forza multilaterale se la forza multilaterale perpetuera' l'occupazione di Gaza. Mi sembra una barzelletta.

Voglio sperare che la proposta di Dalema non sia di usare forze internazionali per ripetere quello che fa l'esercito di Israele fa quotidianamente. Mi auguro che Dalema stia proponendo una forza internazionale il cui ruolo sia in primo luogo impedire l'estrema violenza usata dal quarto esercito piu' potente della terra contro una popolazione largamente civile imprigionata e abusata da decenni. Un altro ruolo per una forza internazionale potrebbe essere un monitoraggio equo dei confini tra Gaza e Israele e tra Gaza e l'Egitto.

Certo, e' anche necessario che una forza multilaterale cerchi di eliminare gli attachi contro i civili in Israele - i razzi contro Sderot, e gli attacchi suicidi. Ma in quanto a "sacrificare i nostri uomini per combattere il terrorismo di Hamas"... 

l'articolo di Haaretz dice che Dalema vuole una operazione con la benedizione del consiglio di sicurezza dell'ONU - che mi lascia ben sperare.

In un altro articolo di Haaretz, si parla di un'altra dimensione di questa questione: Amnesty International sta chiedendo la presenza di persone il cui incarico e' di monitorare le violazioni dei diritti umani nei territori occupati. Non sorprende che Olmert non sia favorevole...

I continue to advocate the reading of Ha'aretz, the leading israeli daily - primarily because in the fanatical islamophobic and anti-arab sentiments of almost all of the press, items such as this just don't make it through:

Chairman of the National Union-National Religious Party Zevulun Orlev criticized Education Minister Yuli Tamir on Tuesday saying she was imposing her "Peace Now" ideology on the ministry.

Orlev was referring to the instructions Tamir issued to reinstate the Green Line in all the new editions of textbooks featuring maps of Israel.

Tamir said Israel could not demand of its Arab neighbors to mark the June 4, 1967 borders, while the Israeli education system erased them from its textbooks and from children's awareness.

Two years ago Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan, a lecturer in language and education at Hebrew University, published research on six study books that had been published after the Oslo agreement. Some of these books were officially endorsed by the Education Ministry. Many teachers adopted other books even without the ministry's approval.

Her main findings included the disappearance of the Green Line and Arab cities in Israel from the maps in these books, and their presentation of sites and settlements in "Judea and Samaria," rather than in the "West Bank," as an integral part of Israel.

I applaud Minister Tamir's effort to eliminate a blatant degree of hypocrisy from Israeli public discourse. And i will remember to include this little fact - that in Israeli textbooks there is no such thing as an Arab Palestinian State, and that the settlements are considered an integral part of Israel, the next time that i read a racist screed about how the Arabs are rejecting peace and they deny Israel's right to exist.

Gaza Humanitarian Crisis:
A Joint Statement by Israel's Leading Human Rights Organizations

 
Nine Israeli human rights organizations issued an unprecedented joint call to the international community to ensure human rights in the Gaza Strip. The statement comes in light of the dire humanitarian situation there:

·        Some 80% of the population is extremely poor, living on less than $2 a day. A majority of the population is dependant on food aid from international donors.
·         In the past four months, the Israeli military has killed over 300 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Over half of those killed were unarmed civilians who did not participate in the fighting. Among the
dead, 61 were children.
·         About 70% of Gaza’s potential workforce is out of work or without pay.
·         On 28 June, Israel bombed Gaza's only independent power station, which produced 43% of the electricity needed by the residents in Gaza. Since then, most of the population has electricity between 6 and 8 hours each day, with disastrous consequences on water supply, sewage treatment, food storage, hospital functioning and public health.
·         The Gaza Strip is almost entirely sealed off from the outside world, with virtually no way for Palestinians to get in or out.  Exports have been reduced to a trickle; imports are limited to essential
humanitarian supplies.

Israel cannot shirk its responsibility for this growing crisis. Even after its Disengagement in 2005, Israel continues to hold decisive control over central elements of Palestinian life in the Gaza Strip:
1.      Israel continues to maintain complete control over the air space and territorial waters.
2.      Israel continues to control the joint Gaza Strip-West Bank population registry, preventing relocation between the West Bank and Gaza, and family unification.
3.      Israel controls all movement in and out of Gaza, with exclusive control over all crossing points between Gaza and Israel, and the ability to shut down the Rafah crossing to Egypt.
4.      Israeli ground troops conduct frequent military operations inside Gaza.
5.      Israel continues to exercise almost complete control over imports and exports from the Gaza Strip.
6.      Israel controls most elements of the taxation system of the Gaza Strip, and since February has withheld tax monies legally owed to the PA, and amounting to half of the total PA budget.

The broad scope of Israeli control in the Gaza Strip creates a strong case for the claim that Israel's occupation of the Gaza Strip continues, along with an obligation to ensure the welfare of the civilian
population. Regardless of the legal definition of the Gaza Strip, Israel bears legal obligations regarding those spheres that it continues to control. Israel has the right to defend itself. However, all military
measures taken by Israel must respect the provisions of international humanitarian law.

The following Israeli human rights organizations call on the international community to ensure that Israel respects the basic human rights of residents of the Gaza Strip, and that all parties respect
international humanitarian law:

B'Tselem: the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories * Association for Civil Rights in the Israel *Amnesty International–Israel Section * Bimkom: Planners for Planning Rights *
HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual * Gisha: Center for the Legal Protection of Freedom of Movement * Physicians for Human Rights-Israel * Public Committee Against Torture in Israel * Rabbis for Human Rights

For the full three-page statement, see http://www.btselem.org/