Settlements First

By Yacov Ben Efrat

09 July, 2009
Challenge-mag.com

Ever since the speech by US President Barack Obama at Cairo University on June 4, 2009, construction in the West Bank settlements has become the focus of political attention in both Israel and the world. The clear, even blunt position of Obama is: "Freeze it!" This has been received in Israel with astonishment, as if a freeze were totally illogical. The Netanyahu government answered by unsheathing the "understandings" that Ariel Sharon had achieved, supposedly, with the Bush administration, but US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied there had been any. Israel then responded by claiming that construction was needed to accommodate "natural growth"; here the expansion of the settlements was presented as a humanitarian act, meeting the basic needs of the residents: living quarters, day-care centers, synagogues and other public buildings. But this time, in contrast with days of yore, the Americans did not back off. They knew the long history of Israeli subterfuges that had served as cover for the enormous settlement expansion since the signing of the Oslo Accords.

Taking the American side, the leader of the parliamentary opposition, Tzipi Livni, was quick to accuse Netanyahu of superfluously creating an impediment in US-Israel relations. In April, we recall, when Netanyahu asked Livni and her party to join his government, she rejected his bid because he had refused to commit to the principle of "two states for two peoples." She took the position that the border between the states, as agreed to by the Palestinians in their talks with her, would anyhow leave the settlement blocs in Israel’s hands. Yet without commitment to a two-state solution, construction in those blocs would be hard to justify.

Netanyahu understood the message. In his Bar Ilan speech, intended as his answer to Obama, he came out for a Palestinian state. However, he took pains to present certain principles that eliminated any real possibility for its coming into existence: Palestine, he said, must recognize Israel as a Jewish state; it must be demilitarized (this implies not only the lack of an army, but also lack of control over borders and air space, and no possibility of forging alliances); and, finally, the dropping of all demands that the refugees be permitted to return to Israel. He pledged to expropriate no further lands for settlements, but he pointedly omitted any mention of a construction freeze. It is no wonder that the Palestinians rejected these conditions. The Americans, however, tried to make the best of the speech, while continuing to push for an Israeli commitment to stop construction in the settlements.

As expected, Netanyahu's Bar Ilan speech did not get anything started. On the contrary, Foreign Secretary Avigdor Lieberman, in a press conference with Hillary Clinton, enunciated Israel's outright refusal to freeze construction. The result followed quickly: a scheduled meeting with America's special envoy to the region, George Mitchell, was canceled.

After the Israeli Foreign Secretary had burned his bridges with the US (and not only with the US: consider French President Nicolas Sarkozy's recommendation to Netanyahu that he fire Lieberman), Defense Minister Ehud Barak was sent to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. This journey led to negotiations on a temporary freeze. Yet once again, Israeli preconditions torpedo any chance that this will happen. In return for the temporary freeze, according to the local press (Yediyot Aharonot and Haaretz, week of July 2, 2009), Israel demands a commitment by the Arab states to normalize relations; Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state; and the promise that a future Palestinian state will be demilitarized. In short, the Palestinians are to forfeit all their bargaining chips in return for a temporary freeze on Israeli settlement construction, and with no commitment on Israel's part to withdraw to the 1967 borders or dismantle even one illegal outpost.

For the American administration, an Israeli commitment to a construction freeze in the settlements would enable Washington to jumpstart a political process within the Palestinian Authority (PA), aimed at bolstering the shaky position of its president, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). The radical elements in the Arab world, and especially Hamas (which has ruled the Gaza Strip since its bloody ejection of Abbas supporters in 2007) see no reason for concessions as long as Israel's right-wing government abides by its refusal. True, both Arab extremists and moderates welcomed Obama's Cairo speech, but they raised questions about his ability to influence, saying, in effect, Let's see you translate words into action.

A commitment to freeze construction in the settlements could result in the breakup of the present Netanyahu government; meanwhile, the PA is already divided, leaving Abbas no authority to reach binding agreements. Recently the reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah, conducted in Cairo under Egyptian mediation, collapsed for the umpteenth time. With American assent, Abbas avoids renewing the negotiations with Israel because of its refusal to stop settlement construction, and at the same time he hardens his positions toward Hamas. For its part, Hamas demands liberty for 800 of its supporters imprisoned by the PA in the West Bank, as a condition for an agreement that will enable new presidential and parliamentary elections in January 2010.

Obama is operating on two fronts. On one he presents Netanyahu with hard choices, and on the other, he exerts enormous pressure on Hamas, demanding that it forgo armed struggle and accept the Oslo agreements. In this context we may understand the green light given by Washington to the establishment of a new Palestinian government under Salam Fayyad, whom it trusts (and whom Hamas detests). Likewise, we can understand why Washington exerts no pressure on Israel to lighten the siege of Gaza.

The intention is clear: America seeks to prevent, at all costs, a (likely) Hamas victory in the next elections. It doesn't want to repeat the mistake of 2006, when Hamas won – and instead of moderating its positions, used the victory as a springboard for taking over Gaza and strengthening itself in the West Bank. If Hamas desires new elections, it will have to recognize the legal framework on which the PA is based. One plays by the rules or one does not play.

But Obama stands before two leaders who refuse to play by the rules. One refuses to recognize Israel, the other refuses to recognize Palestine. The first is Khaled Mashal, head of Hamas, and the second is Binyamin Netanyahu. Both would endanger their political futures by accepting the American conditions. Thus we find a strange common interest between the two, each using the other's existence to justify non-entry into a process aimed at ending the conflict.

Obama too has a lot to lose. The Republican opposition is waiting for him to slip. But let us suppose that his plan were to work: Hamas agrees to forgo armed struggle and play by the rules, and Israel freezes construction in the settlements – what then? Now arises the question: what does Obama have in mind when he says "two states"? He has indeed proclaimed his commitment to a Palestinian state, but he is also committed – and this above all – to Israel's security. If so, then what kind of Palestinian state are we talking about? What kind of sovereignty will it have? Will it enjoy territorial contiguity? What will be done with Jerusalem? What will be the fate of the refugees? Given America's strategic commitments to Israel – and given Obama's silence concerning these questions – we cannot but worry that he basically accepts the Israeli version of a Palestinian state, a version that empties it of all content.

Obama's basic problem when it comes to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the same as his problem when it comes to America's economic issues: he is trying to bring about far-reaching change within a failed framework. His apparent inability to go outside the box – global capitalism on the one hand, and the Oslo agreement on the other – is likely to be his nemesis. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires a solution within a new strategic framework. Here Israel must no longer be the dominant player, rather one among the nations of the region. It must no longer occupy the land of others, but must gain acceptance on the basis of its readiness to respect the sovereignty of its neighbors, including Palestine.

The Two-State Solution, Israeli-Style

By Jonathan Cook

09 July, 2009

Ramallah: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has been much criticised in Israel, as well as abroad, for failing to present his own diplomatic initiative on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to forestall US intervention.
Mr Netanyahu may have huffed and puffed before giving voice to the phrase “two states for two peoples” at Sunday’s cabinet meeting, but the contours of just such a Palestinian state -- or states -- have been emerging undisturbed for some time.
In fact, Mr Netanyahu appears every bit as committed as his predecessors to creating the facts of an Israeli-imposed two-state solution, one he and others in Israel’s leadership doubtless hope will eventually be adopted by the White House as the “pragmatic” -- if far from ideal -- option.
While Israel has been buying yet more time with Washington in bickering over a paltry settlement freeze, it has been forging ahead with the process of creating two Palestinian territories, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, that, despite supposedly emerging from occupation, are in reality sinking ever deeper into chronic dependency on Israeli goodwill.
This is creating a culture of absolute Israeli control and absolute Palestinian dependency, enforced by proxy Palestinian rulers acting as mini-dictatorships.
For a growing number of Palestinians, the conditions of bare subsistence and even survival are Israeli gifts that few can afford to spurn through political activity, let alone civil disobedience or armed resistance. The Palestinian will to organise and resist as their land is seized for settlements is being inexorably sapped.
It is little mentioned but Israel all but abandoned completing its massive separation wall in the West Bank some time ago. There are significant gaps waiting to be filled, but, with things having grown so quiet and the cost of each kilometre of wall so high, the sense of political and military urgency has evaporated.
Suicide bombers, had they the determination, could still slip into Israel. But increasingly Palestinians view such attacks as futile, if not counterproductive: Israel simply wins greater international sympathy and has the pretext to turn the screw yet tighter on Palestinian life.
None of this has been lost on Israel’s leaders of either the so-called Left or Right.
Rather than being an aberration in response to rocket attacks, the blockade of Gaza has become Israel’s template for Palestinian statehood. The West Bank is rapidly undergoing its own version of disengagement and besiegement, with similar predictable results.
Gaza’s blockade -- and the savage battering it took in December and January -- has suggested even to Mr Netanyahu that the Israeli version of the carrot-and-stick approach works.
The stick – a devastated Gaza unable to rise from the rubble because aid and basic goods are kept out – has transformed most of the population into a nation dependent on handouts, borrowing where possible to buy necessities smuggled through the tunnels, and concentrating on the lonely art of survival.
As the normally restrained International Committee of the Red Cross reported last month: “Most of the very poor have exhausted their coping mechanisms. Many have no savings left. They have sold private belongings such as jewellery and furniture and started to sell productive assets including farm animals, land, fishing boats or cars used as taxis.”
The carrot -- if it can be called that -- is directed towards Gaza’s leaders, Hamas, rather than its ordinary inhabitants. The message is simple: keep the rocket fire in check and we won’t attack again. We will allow you to rule over the remnants of Gaza.
In the West Bank, the carrot for the leadership is even more tantalisingly visible. The Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas is colluding in the creation of a series of mini-fiefdoms based on the main cities.
Trained by the US military, Palestinian security forces with light weapons are taking back control of Jenin, Nablus, Jericho, Qalqilya, Ramallah and so on, while the PA is encouraged by promises of economic charity to prop up its legitimacy.
The leader of a Palestinian non-governmental organisation in Ramallah confided at the weekend that what is being created are “City Leagues” -- a mocking reference to the Palestinian regional militias known as the Village Leagues armed by Israel in the early 1980s to stamp out Palestinian nationalism by threatening and attacking local political activists. Those were a dismal failure; this time Palestinians are less sure Israel will not succeed.
Palestinian prisons are starting to fill not only with those suspected of belonging to Hamas but those who dissent from Fatah rule. The ground is being carefully tended by Israel to create a brutal client state.
The stick, as in Gaza, is directed at the ordinary population. The news headlines are of the easing of movement restrictions at the checkpoints. That may be true at a few places deep in the West Bank. But at the big checkpoints that separate Israel from what is left of the West Bank, such as the one at Qalandiya between Ramallah and Jerusalem, the monitoring of Palestinian movement is becoming fearsomely sophisticated.
These checkpoints are now more like small airport terminals, with limited numbers of “trusted” Palestinians entitled to pass through. To escape the poverty of the West Bank each day to reach manual work inside Israel, they must have a magnetic ID card storing biometric data and a special permit. Cards are denied by Israel not only to those with a record of political activity but also to those who have distant relatives deemed to be politically engaged.
The same NGO leader concluded, again with bitter irony: “Our leaders are declaring victory: the victory of defeat.”
Should Mr Abbas and his PA functionaries sign up to this Israeli vision of statehood, the defeat for the Palestinians will be greater still.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.
A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.

Forget The Headlines: Iraqi Freedom Deferred

By Ramzy Baroud

09 July, 2009
Countercurrents.org

As US combat troops redeployed to the outskirts of Iraqi cities on June 30, well-staged celebrations commenced. The pro-US Iraqi government declared “independence day” as police vehicles roamed the streets of war-weary Iraq in an unpersuasive show of national rejoicing. US mainstream media joined the chorus, as if commemorating the end of an era.

Meanwhile, top US administration and army officials cautioned Iraqis of their own recklessness. “Biden Warns Iraq About Reverting to Sectarian Violence,” read a New York Times headline. “What will it take to make a good exit from Iraq?” inquired a Kansas City Star analysis. But missing from news headlines and commentary was any indication of direct US responsibility for the genocide that has befallen Iraq.

How can one claim that US ambitions in Iraq have altered if the ongoing legacy in Iraq is being perceived as a strategic mistake, rather than a moral one?

One thing remains the same, for sure: and that is the arrogance that has long permeated US relations with Iraq. “The president and I appreciate that Iraq has traveled a great distance over the past year, but there is a hard road ahead if Iraq is going to find lasting peace and stability,” said Vice President Biden during a visit to Baghdad on July 3rd. Biden’s remarks were saturated with the same hubris that defined the former administration’s attitude towards Iraq for years: ‘we did our share, that of liberating you, and now its your turn to take charge of your own security’, type of rhetoric. “It’s not over yet,” Biden said. Ironically, he is right, since that could only mean the complete withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, the end of foreign meddling in the country’s affairs, and the removal of corrupt politicians that have destroyed the country’s national identity in favour of sectarian camps endlessly fighting for dominance and privilege. Indeed, it’s anything but over.

It’s true that the majority of Americans now accept the once rebuked claim that the Iraq war was predicated on a lie, and readily blame former President Bush for drawing the country into a costly war that should have never happened. President Obama’s arrival has seemingly ushered in a new discourse of honesty and national introspection.

Although one wants to believe that the new administration is sincere in seeking an exit strategy from Iraq, one is hardly sure that the US is ready to divorce itself from the war-scarred country. There is little reason, aside from tactical redeployment, that should compel antiwar sentiments to weaken, or self-respecting commentators to halt their questioning of US intentions.

The terms “exit” and “exit strategy” are now dominating media discourse regarding Iraq. Some attribute this new language to the new administration. The odd fact is that the recent US army redeployment is not the brainchild of the Obama administration, but a provision of a November 2008 agreement signed between the Iraqi government of Nouri Al Maliki and the Bush administration. Talk of exiting Iraq indeed preceded the entrance of Obama. The new US administration simply honoured previous commitments. As per official statements, following the June 30 redeployment, the US is expected to reduce its forces by 50,000 troops by August 2010, and then many of those remaining by the end of 2011.

So, 2012 will witness a fully independent Iraq, right? Wrong. “Many studying Iraq believe the US will end up negotiating with Baghdad to establish a couple of permanent military bases,” writes Matt Schofield. “Those could be essential to leaving behind a stable government, a military loyal to the nation and capable of defending it, and a country that has the backing of the people.” Those who wish to decipher such deceptive language should comprehend the permanent US military presence as permanent occupation. Indeed, the US doesn’t have to be present on every Iraqi street corner to officially occupy the country. The sectarian Iraqi army and police - US armed and trained - should be enough to carry out US wishes in Iraq (under the guise of fighting terrorists), while the US will “stand ready, if asked and if helpful, to help in that process,” as explained by Biden.

Iraq headlines will eventually fade away, making space for the new escalation in Afghanistan, also in the name of fighting terror, bringing democracy and all the rest.

The faces of the victims will be hidden so as not to harm our sensibilities, and causality figures will be manipulated, contested and at times blamed on the coward terrorists who hide among civilians. In other words, the US will take the spirit of its Iraq war to Afghanistan, remain in Iraq - as inconspicuous as possible - so as to hold onto its strategic military achievement, and, if necessary, blame both nations for their growing misfortunes.

However, before we take our eyes off Iraq, Americans must remember their own culpabilities in what transpired there. Antiwar activists and people of conscience must not forget that 130,000 US soldiers remain in the country; that the US has complete control over Iraqi airspace and territorial water; that there is not yet a reason to celebrate and move on. Even if one is trusting enough to believe the administration and army’s own account of its future in Iraq, one should recall comments made by Admiral Mike Mullen last February: “Mr. Obama plans to leave behind a ‘residual force’ of tens of thousands of troops to continue training Iraqi security forces, hunt down terrorist cells and guard American institutions.”

One may be truly eager to see a sovereign, democratic and stable Iraq, but such hopes must not occur at the expense of truth and common sense.

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London), and his forthcoming book is, “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London)

Afghan Genocide: An Open Letter

By Dr Gideon Polya

09 July, 2009
Countercurrents.org

An Open Letter sent out to Anti-war groups and Anti-war folks around the world

Dear Sir/Madam,

I applaud your protests over the Bush (now Obama) wars in Occupied Afghanistan and Occupied Iraq.

A 5 decade research career biological scientist, I have been reporting estimates of how many people have died in Occupied Afghanistan since the US-led invasion using UN Population Division data. My recent estimates (2009) are outlined below. For details of methodology see “Obama’s Afghan War”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/29546/42/ .

In Occupied Afghanistan post-invasion non-violent excess deaths (avoidable deaths from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease) total 3 million; post-invasion violent excess deaths (assuming the same ratio of post-invasion violent/non-violent excess deaths as in Occupied Iraq of 1.3) total 4 million; post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths total 3-7 million; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 2.3 million; post-invasion avoidable under- 5 infant deaths (90% are avoidable) total 2.1 million; 3-4 million refugees have been generated plus a further 2.5 million Pashtun refugees from the NW Province of Pakistan under Obama war policies – an Afghan Holocaust and an Afghan Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention
(see: http://www.edwebproject.org
/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ).

Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org
/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ) states “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Much of this carnage is due to US Alliance violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War which demands that an Occupier must provide life –sustaining food and medical requisites to the conquered population ”to the fullest extent of the means available to it” (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ) – yet the “total annual per capita health expenditure” permitted by the Occupiers in Occupied Afghanistan is merely $29 as compared tot $6,714 in the Occupier country the USA (see WHO: http://www.who.int/countries/en/ ).

The carnage does not stop there – we must also note the 0.7 million global opiate drug-related deaths since 2001 (circa 3,000 in the UK ) due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan industry from about 6% of world market share in 2001 to about 93% at present (see UN ODC World Drug Report 2007: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/
data-and-analysis/WDR-2007.html ) .

Appallingly, there are only a couple of scholars currently identifying this continuing catastrophe as an Afghan Genocide, notably myself (on the basis of the above data) and top humanitarian US lawyer Professor Ali Khan (on the basis of the US Alliance policy of attempted extermination of an Indigenous religious group, the Taliban) (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya080208.htm ).

A final damning statistic: the “annual death rate” is 7% for Occupied Afghanistan under-5 year old infants - as compared to 3% for inmates of the Nazi Buchenwald Concentration Camp and 10% for Australian prisoners of war of the Japanese in World War 2 (for which crimes Axis generals were tried and hanged) (see: http://gpolya.newsvine.com/_news/2009/06/08/2907231-obama-
holocaust-denial-in-buchenwald-cairo-speeches-?groupId=1350 ).

Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Please tell everyone you can.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Gideon Polya, Melbourne, Australia

Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has recently published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/
ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ). He has just published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/
bengalfamine_programme.html ). When words fail one can say it in pictures - for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see “Truth , Beauty & Saving the World – Science, Art & Nuclear, Greenhouse & Poverty Threats”: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeacepl
anetmotherchild/truth-beauty-saving-the-world .

Are Afghan Lives Worth Anything?

By Tom Engelhardt

07 July, 2009
TomDispatch.com

It was a blast. I'm talking about my daughter's wedding. You don't often see a child of yours quite that happy. I'm no party animal, but I danced my 64-year-old legs off. And I can't claim that, as I walked my daughter to the ceremony, or ate, or talked with friends, or simply sat back and watched the young and energetic enjoy themselves, I thought about those Afghan wedding celebrations where the "blast" isn't metaphorical, where the bride, the groom, the partygoers in the midst of revelry die.

In the two weeks since, however, that's been on my mind -- or rather the lack of interest our world shows in dead civilians from a distant imperial war -- and all because of a passage I stumbled upon in a striking article by journalist Anand Gopal. In "Uprooting an Afghan Village" in the June issue of the Progressive magazine, he writes about Garloch, an Afghan village he visited in the eastern province of Laghman. After destructive American raids, Gopal tells us, many of its desperate inhabitants simply packed up and left for exile in Afghan or Pakistani refugee camps.

One early dawn in August 2008, writes Gopal, American helicopters first descended on Garloch for a six-hour raid:
"The Americans claim there were gunshots as they left. The villagers deny it. Regardless, American bombers swooped by the village just after the soldiers left and dropped a payload on one house. It belonged to Haiji Qadir, a pole-thin, wizened old man who was hosting more than forty relatives for a wedding party. The bomb split the house in two, killing sixteen, including twelve from Qadir's family, and wounding scores more... The malek [chief] went to the province's governor and delivered a stern warning: protect our villagers or we will turn against the Americans."

That passage caught my eye because, to the best of my knowledge, I'm the only person in the U.S. who has tried to keep track of the wedding parties wiped out, in whole or part, by American military action since the Bush administration invaded Afghanistan in November 2001. With Gopal's report from Garloch, that number, by my count, has reached five (only three of which are well documented in print).

The first occurred in December of that invasion year when a B-52 and two B-1B bombers, wielding precision-guided weapons, managed, according to reports, to wipe out 110 out of 112 revelers in another small Afghan village. At least one Iraqi wedding party near the Syrian border was also eviscerated -- by U.S. planes back in 2004. Soon after that slaughter, responding to media inquiries, an American general asked: "How many people go to the middle of the desert... to hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilization?" Later, in what passed for an acknowledgment of the incident, another American general said: "Could there have been a celebration of some type going on?... Certainly. Bad guys have celebrations." Case closed.

Perhaps over the course of an almost eight-year war in Afghanistan, the toll in wedding parties may seem modest: not even one a year! But before we settle for that figure, evidently so low it's not worth a headline in this country, let's keep in mind that there's no reason to believe:

* I've seen every article in English that, in passing, happens to mention an Afghan wedding slaughter -- the one Gopal notes, for instance, seems to have gotten no other coverage; or

* that other wedding slaughters haven't been recorded in languages I can't read; or

* that, in the rural Pashtun backlands, some U.S. attacks on wedding celebrants might not have made it into news reports anywhere.

In fact, no one knows how many weddings -- rare celebratory moments in an Afghan world that, for three decades, has had little to celebrate -- have been taken out by U.S. planes or raids, or a combination of the two.

Turning the Page on the Past

After the Obama administration took office and the new president doubled down the American bet on the Afghan War, there was a certain amount of anxious chatter in the punditocracy (and even in the military) about Afghanistan being "the graveyard of empires." Of course, no one in Washington was going to admit that the U.S. is just such an empire, only that we may suffer the fate of empires past.

When it comes to wedding parties, though, there turn out to be some similarities to the empire under the last Afghan gravestone. The Soviet Union was, of course, defeated in Afghanistan by some of the very jihadists the U.S. is now fighting, thanks to generous support from the CIA, the Saudis, and Pakistan's intelligence services. It withdrew from that country in defeat in 1989, and went over its own cliff in 1991. As it happens, the Russians, too, evidently made it a habit to knock off Afghan wedding parties, though we have no tally of how many or how regularly.

Reviewing a book on the Soviet-Afghan War for the Washington Monthly, Christian Caryl wrote recently:
"One Soviet soldier recalls an instance in 1987 when his unit opened fire on what they took to be a 'mujaheddin caravan.' The Russians soon discovered that they had slaughtered a roving wedding party on its way from one village to another -- a blunder that soon, all too predictably, inspired a series of revenge attacks on the Red Army troops in the area. This undoubtedly sounds wearily familiar to U.S. and NATO planners (and Afghan government officials) struggling to contain the effects from the 'collateral damage' that is often cited today as one of the major sources of the West's political problems in the country."

And, by the way, don't get me started on that gloomy companion rite to the wedding celebration: the funeral. Even I haven't been counting those, but that doesn't mean the U.S. and its allies haven't been knocking off funeral parties in Afghanistan (and recently, via a CIA drone aircraft, in Pakistan as well).

Following almost two weeks in which the U.S. (and global) media went berserk over the death of one man, in which NBC, for instance, devoted all but about five minutes of one of its prime-time half-hour news broadcasts to nothing -- and I mean nothing -- but the death of Michael Jackson, in which the President of the United States sent a condolence letter to the Jackson family (and was faulted for not having moved more quickly), in which 1.6 million people registered for a chance to get one of 17,500 free tickets to his memorial service... well, why go on? Unless you've been competing in isolation in the next round of Survivor, or are somehow without a TV, or possibly any modern means of communication, you simply can't avoid knowing the rest.

You'd have to make a desperate effort not to know that Michael Jackson (until recently excoriated by the media) had died, and you'd have to make a similarly desperate effort to know that we've knocked off one wedding party after another these last years in Afghanistan. One of these deaths -- Jackson's -- really has little to do with us; the others are, or should be, our responsibility, part of an endless war the American people have either supported or not stopped from continuing. And yet one is a screaming global headline; the others go unnoticed.

You'd think there might, in fact, be room for a small headline somewhere. Didn't those brides, grooms, relatives, and revelers deserve at least one modest, collective corner of some front-page or a story on some prime-time news show in return for their needless suffering? You'd think that some president or high official in Washington might have sent a note of condolence to someone, that there might have been a rising tide of criticism about the slow response here in expressing regrets to the families of Afghans who died under our bombs and missiles.

Here's the truth of it, though: When it comes to Afghan lives -- especially if we think, correctly or not, that our safety is involved -- it doesn't matter whether five wedding parties or 50 go down, two funerals or 25. Our media isn't about to focus real attention on the particular form of barbarity involved -- the American air war over Afghanistan which has been a war of and for, not on, terror.

Now, we're embarked on a new moment -- the Obama moment -- in Afghanistan. More than seven-and-a-half years into the war, in a truly American fashion, we're ready to turn the page on the past, to pretend that none of it really happened, to do it "right" this time around. We're finally going to bring the Afghans over to our side.

We're ready to light out for the territories and start all over again. American troops are now moving south in force, deep into the Pashtun (and Taliban) areas of Afghanistan, and their commanders -- a passel of new generals -- are speaking as one from a new script. It's all about conducting a "holistic counterinsurgency campaign," as new Afghan commander General Stanley A. McChrystal put it in Congressional testimony recently. It's all about "hearts and minds"(though that old Vietnam-era phrase has yet to be resuscitated). It's all about, they say, "protecting civilians" rather than killing Taliban guerrillas; it's all about shaping, clearing, holding, building, not just landing, kicking in doors, and taking off again; it's all about new "rules of engagement" in which the air war will be limited, and attacks on the Taliban curbed or called off if it appears that they might endanger civilians (even if that means the guerrillas get away); it's all about reversing the tide of the war so far, about the fact that civilian casualties caused by air attacks and raids have turned large numbers of Afghans against American and NATO troops.

The commander of the Marines just now heading south, Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, typically said this:
"We need to make sure we understand that the reason we're here is not necessarily the enemy. The reason we're here is the people. What won the war in al-Anbar province [Iraq] and what changed the war in al-Anbar was not that the enemy eventually got tired of fighting. It's that the people chose a side, and they chose us... We'll surround that house and we'll wait. And here's the reason: If you drop that house and there's one woman, one child, one family in that house -- you may have killed 20 Taliban, but by killing that woman or that child in that house, you have lost that community. You are dead to them. You are done."

The Value of a Life

As it happens, however, the past matters -- and keep this in mind (it's what the wedding-party-obliteration record tells us): To Americans, an Afghan life isn't worth a red cent, not when the chips are down.

Back in the Vietnam era, General William Westmoreland, interviewed by movie director Peter Davis for his Oscar-winning film Hearts and Minds, famously said: "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient."

In those years, there were many in the U.S., including Davis, who insisted very publicly that a Vietnamese life had the same value as an American one. In the years of the Afghan War, Americans -- our media and, by its relative silence, the public as well -- turned Westmoreland's statement into a way of life as well as a way of war. As one perk of that way of life, most Americans have been able to pretend that our war in Afghanistan has nothing to do with us -- and Michael Jackson's death, everything.

So he dies and our world goes mad. An Afghan wedding party, or five of them, are wiped off the face of the Earth and even a shrug is too much effort.

Here's a question then: Will what we don't know (or don't care to know) hurt us? I'm unsure whether the more depressing answer is yes or no. As it happens, I have no answer to that question anyway, only a bit of advice -- not for us, but for Afghans: If, as General McChrystal and other top military figures expect, the Afghan War and its cross-border sibling in Pakistan go on for another three or four or five years or more, no matter what script we're going by, no matter what we say, believe me, we'll call in the planes. So if I were you, I wouldn't celebrate another marriage, not in a group, not in public, and I'd bury my dead very, very privately.

If you gather, after all, we will come.

Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is the co-founder of the American Empire Project and, most recently, the author of Mission Unaccomplished: Tomdispatch Interviews with American Iconoclasts and Dissenters (Nation Books), the first collection of Tomdispatch interviews. His book, The End of Victory Culture (University of Massachusetts Press), has been thoroughly updated in a newly issued edition that deals with victory culture's crash-and-burn sequel in Iraq. He is the editor of the recently released The World According to TomDispatc: America and the Age of Empire.

© 2009 Tom Engelhardt

Why Jerusalem? Israel’s Hidden Agenda

By Dan Lieberman

06 July, 2009

Three huge granite stones rest comfortably on the top of Midbar Sinai Street, in Givat Havatzim, Jerusalem’s northernmost district. Cut to specification, the imposing stones represent one of several preparations by the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement to erect a Third Temple on the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount. Since the Islamic Wafq owns and controls all the property on the Haram al-Sharif, these stones cannot be legally transferred to the Temple Mount nor can a Temple be constructed there? The provocation, represented by the stones, which the Israel government refuses to curtail, lead to a belief that an eventual Muslim reaction to the increasing provocations will give Israel an excuse to seize total control of the Holy Basin – the ultimate of the properties that Israel intends to incorporate into a greater Jerusalem.

For decades, Israeli authorities have spoken of a united Jerusalem - suggesting a spiritual quality to its message – as if Israel wants the home for the three monotheistic faiths to be solid and stable. By being guided from one central authority, a united Jerusalem also offers a preservation of a common and ancient heritage. However, Israel disguises the lack of a sufficiently supporting and verifiable historical narrative that could bolster its thrust to incorporate all of an artificially created greater Jerusalem into its boundaries. Coupled with inconsistencies and contradictions, Israel’s eagerness to create a greater Jerusalem under its total control becomes suspect. The intensive concentration on a ‘united’ Jerusalem reveals a hidden agenda that debases Jerusalem’s religious ingathering and heightens division, hatred and strife.

Examine the Holy Basin. The Holy Basin contains well marked Christian and Muslim institutions and holy places that have had historical placement for millenniums. Although people of the Jewish faith had major presence in Jerusalem during the centuries of Biblical Jerusalem, which included rule by King Hezekiah and control by the Hasmonean dynasties, their control and presence were interrupted for two millennia. Extensive commentary has enabled the two thousand years of lack of control and presence to seem as if it never happened and that today is only a short interval from the ancient years of Hezekiah. Almost one thousand years of Christian and Crusader rule and more than one thousand years of Muslim rule are politely ignored, while their tremendous constructions and creation are not credited. Almost everything becomes nothing and a minor something becomes everything. Myth replaces reality. Spiritual quality replaces actual presence.

Some remains of Jewish dwellings and ritual baths can be found, but few if any major Jewish monuments, buildings or institutions from the Biblical era exist in the “Old City” of today’s Jerusalem. The often cited Western Wall is the supporting wall for Herod’s platform and is not directly related to the Second Temple. No remains of the Jewish Temple have been located in Jerusalem.

According to Karen Armstrong, in her book Jerusalem, Jews did not pray at the Western Wall until the Mamluks in the 15th century allowed them to move their congregations from a dangerous Mount of Olives and pray daily at the Wall. At that time she estimates that there may have been no more than 70 Jewish families in Jerusalem. After the Ottomans replaced the Mamluks, Suleiman the Magnificent issued a formal edict in the 16th century that permitted Jews to have a place of prayer at the Western Wall

The only remaining major symbol of Jewish presence in Jerusalem’s Holy City is the Jewish quarter, which Israel cleared of Arabs and rebuilt after 1967. During its clearing operations, Israel demolished the Maghribi Quarter adjacent to the Western Wall, destroyed the al-Buraq Mosque and the Tomb of the Sheikh al-Afdhaliyyah, and displaced about 175 Arab families. Although the Jewish population in previous centuries comprised a large segment of the Old City (estimates have 7000 Jews during the mid-19th century), the Jews gradually left the Old City and migrated to new neighborhoods in West Jerusalem, leaving only about 2000 Jews in the Old City. Jordanian control after the 1948 war reduced the number to nil. By 2009, the population of the Jewish quarter in the Old City had grown to 3000, or nine percent of the Old City population. The Christian, Armenian and Muslim populations are the principal constituents and their quarters contain almost the entire Old City commerce.

In an attempt to attach ancient Israel to present day Jerusalem, Israeli authorities continue the attachment of spurious labels to Holy Basin landmarks, while claiming the falsification is due to the Byzantines, who got it all wrong.

King David’s Tower’s earliest remains were constructed several hundred years after the Bible dates David’s reign. It is a now an obvious Islamic minaret.
King David’s Citadel earliest remains are from the Hasmonean period (200 B.C.). The Citadel was entirely rebuilt by the Ottomans between 1537 and 1541 AD.
King David’s tomb, located in the Dormition Abbey, is a cloth-covered cenotaph (no remains) that honors King David. It has not been verified that the casket relates to David.
The Pools of Solomon, located in a village near Bethlehem, are considered to be part of a Roman construction during the reign of Herod the Great. The pools supplied water to an aqueduct that carried water to Bethlehem and to Jerusalem.

The Stables of Solomon, under the Temple Mount, are more likely a construction of vaults that King Herod built in order to extend the Temple Mount platform.
Absalom’s Tomb is an obvious Greek sculptured edifice and therefore cannot be the tomb of David’s son.

The City of David contains artifacts that date before and during king David’s time. Some archaeologists maintain there is an insufficient number of artifacts to conclude any Israelite presence before David. In any case any Israelite presence must have been in a small and unfortified settlement

The Jerusalem Archaeological Park within the Old City, together with the Davidson Exhibition and Virtual Reconstruction Center also tell the story. Promising to reveal much of a Hebrew civilization, the museums shed little light on its subject. The Davidson Center highlights a coin exhibition, Jerusalem bowls and stone vessels. The Archeological Park in the Old City contains among many artifacts, Herodian structures, ritual baths, a floor of an Umayyad palace, a Roman road, Ottoman gates, and the façade of what is termed Robinson’s arch, an assumed Herodian entryway to the Temple Mount.. The exhibitions don’t reveal many, if any, ancient Hebrew structures or institutions of special significance.

Well known archaeologists, after examining excavations that contain pottery shards and buildings, concluded that finds don't substantiate the biblical history of Jerusalem and its importance during the eras of a united Jewish kingdom under David and Solomon.

Margaret Steiner in an article titled It's Not There: Archaeology Proves a Negative in the Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August, 1998, states

“...from the tenth century B.C.E. there is no archaeological evidence that many people actually lived in Jerusalem, only that it was some kind of public administrative center...We are left with nothing that indicates a city was here during their supposed reigns (of David and Solomon)...It seems unlikely, however, that this Jerusalem was the capital of a large state, the United monarchy, as described in Biblical texts.”

West Jerusalem is another matter. With banditry prolific and Old City gates being closed before nightfall, living outside the city gates did not appeal to the population. Philanthropist Moses Montefiore wanted to attract the Jewish population to new surroundings and constructed the first Jewish community outside of the Old City. Yemin Moshe’s first houses were completed in 1860. From that time Jewish presence played a critical role in creating a West Jerusalem. Other institutions, Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Russian Orthodox and Muslim soon ventured forth and acquired much property in the evolving West Jerusalem.

In 1948, After the Israeli army seized absolute control of West Jerusalem, the new Israeli government confiscated all West Jerusalem property owned by Muslim institutions. Reason – enemy property. Few Muslims and no mosques remain in today’s West Jerusalem.

One contradiction. By attacking and ethnically cleansing the Christian Arab communities of Deir Yassin and Ein Kerem, Israeli forces characterized Christian Palestinians as an enemy. Nevertheless, Israel did not confiscate all Christian properties, many of which are apparent in West Jerusalem. The Greek Orthodox Church owns extensive properties in West Jerusalem, many marked by its Tau + Phi symbol, which translates to ‘Sepulchre.’

Another contradiction. Israel has cared for the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives and expanded it as a heritage site. Part of the famous Muslim Mamilla cemetery in West Jerusalem has been classified as refugee property and is being prepared to be demolished for the new Museum of Tolerance.

East Jerusalem reveals more contradictions. The desire to incorporate East Jerusalem into Israel contradicts the repeated warning by Israeli leaders that co-existence is not feasible and that it is necessary to separate the Jewish and Palestinian communities. Incorporation means accepting somewhere between 160,000 and 225,000 Palestinians into a Jewish state. Or does it? Whereas the older historical Jewish neighborhoods in West Jerusalem have their characters maintained or are rebuilt in their original style, the older Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem are entirely neglected (all of Arab East Jerusalem is neglected) or destroyed. How much deterioration and destruction can Palestinians absorb before they decide to leave?

Construction of Jewish homes in East Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods proceeds and destruction of Arab homes, either declared illegally constructed or illegally purchased, continues. On 44 dunums of lands that previously belonged to Palestinian families, a private company has constructed the gated community of Nof Zion and conveniently separated Palestinian Jabal Al Mukabir from other parts of East Jerusalem. No Arabs need apply. The million dollar condominiums are advertised for American investors.

The Israeli ministry of Interior has approved a plan to demolish a kindergarten and wholesale market in East Jerusalem’s Wadi Joz neighborhood in order to construct a new hotel close to the Old City and near the Rockefeller Museum. The result will be the destruction of an Arab neighborhood and its replacement by Jewish interests, which will one day join with other Jewish interests.

These are only two examples of a master plan to replace the centuries old Arab presence in East Jerusalem with a modern Jewish presence. The ancient Arab presence in an ancient land is further divided by the Separation Wall, which runs through the East Jerusalem landscape and detaches East Jerusalem from the West Bank, making it unlikely for a Palestinian state to have its capital in East Jerusalem. The master plan extends the boundaries of Jerusalem to include the large Israeli settlement (city) of Maale Adumim. Between Maale Adumim and East Jerusalem, Israel proposes to construct the E1 corridor, which joins settlements in a ring and adds to the separation of East Jerusalem from the West Bank. The E1 corridor will divide the northern and southern West Bank and will impede direct transit between Palestine Bethlehem, which is south of E1 and Palestine Ramallah, which is north of E1. Construction of the E1 corridor, portions of which are owned by Palestinians, could prevent the formation of a viable Palestinian state.

So, if Israel is destroying Jerusalem’s heritage and subjugating its spiritual meaning, why does Israel want to unify Jerusalem?

Israel's Hidden Agenda

Israel is a physically small and relatively new country with an eager population and big ambitions. It needs more prestige and wants to be viewed as a power broker on the world stage. To gain those perspectives Israel needs a capital city that commands respect, contains ancient traditions and is recognized as one of the world's most important and leading cities. Almost all of the world's principal nations, from Egypt to Germany to Great Britain, have capitals that are great cities of the world. To assure its objectives, Israel wants an oversized Jerusalem that contains the Holy City. That's not all.

Jerusalem has significant tourism that can be expanded and provide new commercial opportunities as an entry to all of the Mid-East. An indivisible Jerusalem under Israeli control is worth a lot of shekels.

Israel competes with the United States as the focus of the Jewish people. It needs a unique Jerusalem to gain recognition as the home of Judaism.

By controlling all of the holy sites, Israel commands attention from Moslem and Christian leaders. These leaders will be forced to talk with Israel and Israel will have a bargaining advantage in disputes.

Whatever Israel gains the Palestinians are denied. Even if Israel agrees to the establishment of a Palestinian state, it will direct its policies to limit the effectiveness of that state. Since East Jerusalem and its holy sites greatly benefit a Palestinian economy and increase Palestine legitimacy, Israel will do everything to prevent East Jerusalem being ceded to the new state of Palestine.

West Jerusalem only gives Israel a North/South capital. An indivisible Jerusalem gives Israel a forward look towards an East/West capital or a centralized capital of the land of previous biblical Jewish tribes.

The Zionist socialist ideals and the cooperative Kibbutzim received support and sympathy from idealistic world peoples for many years. Israel's attachment to the Holocaust tragedy extended that sympathy and support to more of the world. With the end of the Zionist dream, the decline of kibbutz life and the over-popularizing of the Holocaust, Israel needs a new symbol of identity that captures world attention.

If Israel has legitimate claims to Jerusalem, then those claims should be heard and discussed in a proper forum. However, that is not the process forthcoming. The Israeli government is using illegal and illegitimate procedures, as well as deceitful and hypocritical methods to force its agenda. Israel is not presenting its case but is exerting its powers to trample all legal, moral and historical considerations.

The Museum of the Citadel of David has an inscription: The land of Israel is in the center of the world and Jerusalem is the center of the land of Israel.

This self praise was echoed at a West Jerusalem coffee house in a conversation with several Israelis, A youthful Israeli abruptly sat at the table and entered the conversation with the words: “All the world looks to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the center of the world and Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Everyone needs Jerusalem and they will need to talk with Israel.’

And that is why Israel desperately wants its greater Jerusalem.

Dan Lieberman is the editor of Alternative Insight, a monthly web based newsletter. Dan has written many articles on the Middle East conflict, which have circulated on websites and media throughout the world.

He can be reached at alternativeinsight@earthlink.net

President Obama, My Response To Your Fourth of July Letter

Published on Sunday, July 5, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

by Linda Milazzo

Yesterday morning I received the following letter from President Barack Obama:

"Linda --

This weekend, our family will join millions of others in celebrating America. We will enjoy the glow of fireworks, the taste of barbeque, and the company of good friends. As we all celebrate this weekend, let's also remember the remarkable story that led to this day.

Two hundred and thirty-three years ago, our nation was born when a courageous group of patriots pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the proposition that all of us were created equal.

Our country began as a unique experiment in liberty -- a bold, evolving quest to achieve a more perfect union. And in every generation, another courageous group of patriots has taken us one step closer to fully realizing the dream our founders enshrined on that great day.

Today, all Americans have a hard-fought birthright to a freedom which enables each of us, no matter our views or background, to help set our nation's course. America's greatness has always depended on her citizens embracing that freedom -- and fulfilling the duty that comes with it.

As free people, we must each take the challenges and opportunities that face this nation as our own. As long as some Americans still must struggle, none of us can be fully content. And as America comes ever closer to achieving the perfect Union our founders dreamed, that triumph -- that pride -- belongs to all of us.

So today is a day to reflect on our independence, and the sacrifice of our troops standing in harm's way to preserve and protect it. It is a day to celebrate all that America is. And today is a time to aspire toward all we can still become.

With very best wishes,

President Barack Obama

July 4th, 2009

P.S. -- Our nation's birthday is also an ideal time to consider serving in your local community. You can find many great ideas for service opportunities near you at http://www.serve.gov."

One part in particular screamed out at me:

"As free people, we must each take the challenges and opportunities that face this nation as our own. As long as some Americans still must struggle, none of us can be fully content."

As an active participant in our democracy who works to lessen the burdens of the oppressed, I take the President's challenge seriously - and personally. I view it as his encouragement of my activism. In return, I request that the President provide we who participate in our democracy every protection granted by our Constitution to challenge those policies with which we disagree.

I also ask the President to stand with us to end our government's collusion with war profiteers who create weapons of destruction and fill their coffers with our money. I ask the President to replace the obscenity of war with the audacity of peace. I ask the President to stand with us to put public interest above corporate greed, and to put our health above all else.

Mr. President, on this Fourth of July when you write to Americans and ask us to "take the challenges and opportunities that face this nation as our own," I remind you of a quote by Thomas Jefferson:

"Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society."

Mr. President, without health, Americans can't enjoy their liberty. Without health, our teachers can't teach and our learners can't learn. Without health, our parents can't parent. Without health, our builders can't build. Without health, our health practitioners can't practice. Without health, our society can't thrive.

Mr. President, since your primary responsibility is to protect the American people, as President you must be aware that private insurers place money values above human values. Our government has long sanctioned this practice, which Mr. President, should not be the American way. Private insurers and self-interested pharmaceutical companies are more a danger to Americans than the foreign governments and individuals our military engage. Americans who can't seek medical treatment because of lack of insurance battle the war of untended illness. Many die. This, Sir, should not be the American way.

Thomas Jefferson also said:

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories."

I accept your challenge, Mr. President, to participate in my democracy and to be as Mr. Jefferson said, a "safe depository" for our democracy. I will work hard to bring about much needed change and I expect the same of you.

If you stand with me, Mr. President, I will gladly stand with you. If you stand with our corporate oppressors -- then, Sir, you must be challenged.

Linda Milazzo (pimbalina@mac.com) is a Los Angeles based writer, educator and activist.