Editor's note: I am moving to posting at the primary blog(also see new articles below and some of yesterday's at the secondary blog).
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Last update - 07:50 13/04/2007
Haaretz
By Bradley Burston
If Azmi Bishara had never existed, the right would have had to invent him.
There is the irresistible juxtaposition of the good suits and the revolutionary rhetoric, the erudite professor of philosophy seated alongside Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah at a memorial in Syria for Hafez Assad, the Christian from Nazareth praising Hezbollah as a heroic example of Islamic resistance which has "lifted the spirit of the Arab people."
The right can't afford to lose Bishara. He is subversive beyond its wildest dreams. As the first Arab to run for prime minister of the Jewish state, his brilliance, his flamboyance, his refusal to compromise, have allowed the right to milk the word treason for all its worth.
Bishara always made too good a target. For people like Avigdor Lieberman, Bishara is an electoral secret weapon, fuel for the fire of any campaign that trades on fear of Arabs, hatred of Arabs, suspicion of Arabs, revulsion at the fact that they live here among us, well over than a million of them. One of them for every four of us.
Bishara, however, is not our real problem. We are our problem.
There is something deep down in many of us, which causes us to takes a quiet satisfaction in the notion that if push came to shove, the Arab citizens of Israel would prove themselves disloyal.
Too many of us want our Arabs to be traitors. Too many of us see Israeli Arabs, as a group, as hypocrites, parasites, their dual-loyalty a thin disguise for support of terror in the service of Palestine.
There is a quiet sense among many of us, that Israeli Arabs are fleecing the state, even as they grouse about inequality and nurse plans to de-Judaize the national home of the Jewish People.
It is, in many ways, a form of classical anti-Semitism in which the Semites in question happen to be Israeli Arabs.
We complain that they live off the rest of us, that they flaunt our zoning laws and evade the taxes we pay, that they are happy to take our welfare while spurning the notion of defending the country.
It makes us feel somehow more secure in our own identity as Jews in a Jewish state. It makes our dislike of them, our educational, economic, and social discrimination against them, seem more of a reasoned response than what it actually is, which is institutional racism.
Consider an article currently making its viral rounds on the e-mail circuit among Israeli Jews.
"They're so 'downtrodden' that tax collection in the Arab sector is a joke, and statistics on this are known to all those who care to know them," the article states. "Not only national levies like income and value-added taxes, but they can't really be bothered to pay their own municipal taxes, all the while expecting the government to cover the deficits they themselves created."
A fascinating condemnation, proving, perhaps more than anything, that Israeli Arabs have learned remarkably well to become as Israeli as the next guy.
The article goes on to paint a picture of the Israeli Arab as posing as a victim of crushing racism and poverty while actually living a life of luxury far beyond the means of the average Israeli Jew.
"They're so 'discriminated against,' that this entire [Arab] sector lives in single-family houses, that is to say, villas, which are, in fact, huge castles."
According to the anonymous author, "Every one of them lives on a jabel [hillock] of his own, as though land were an unlimited resource in this land.
"Residents of [the Israeli Arab village of] Sahnin complain of 'confiscation of lands.' But they forget that in Sahnin, 20,000 residents live on 8,000 dunams, while in Ramat Gan, for example, upwards of 150,000 people live on a total area of 12,000 dunams, a quarter of which is taken up by parks."
The real relish, however, is reserved for the blend of treachery and hypocrisy which the author finds endemic among Israeli Arabs.
"They're so 'oppressed,' that that they can openly identify with the worst of our enemies, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, the Islamic Jihad and they rest of the scum, and no one even seriously considers demanding the least loyalty to their own state."
At the same time, the author notes, Israeli Arabs have no interest in moving to a future Palestinian state. In a reference to a Lieberman proposal, he concludes, "They're not even prepared to remain in place and have the border fence be moved ? leaving them in 'Palestine' without their having to leave their homes."
Finally, we can all begin to sleep well at night, knowing that we can make our Arabs fit any misconceptions we choose. We can convince ourselves, in the space of an inbox, that Israeli Arabs enjoy unparalleled freedoms and prosperity. We can even accuse them of treason and, at the same time, console ourselves with their lack of true political conviction.
They live here among us. We can look right at them, and not see them at all.
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Friday, April 13, 2007
Club Democracy Says Iraq Isn't Worthy of Invite
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 13, 2007; A15
Four years after Iraq's Saddam Hussein was deposed by U.S.-led troops, an international panel charged with recommending invitations for an exclusive meeting of the world's democracies has rendered its verdict on Iraq's fledging democracy.
Not good enough.
The announcement by the advisory committee of the Community of Democracies marked a step back for Iraq. Two years ago, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attended the group's biannual meeting in Santiago, Chile, and lauded Iraq's recent elections, Iraq was granted observer status. Under the committee's plan, it would now have the same status as when Hussein ruled Iraq: "not invited."
Afghanistan was a participant two years ago, but the committee said it should only be offered observer status for the body's meeting in Mali in November. Russia also was knocked off the invitation list. The committee said Russian President Vladimir Putin has consolidated power through "decidedly undemocratic measures."
Two key U.S. allies that the administration has praised for progress on democracy -- Egypt and Jordan -- were also downgraded.
The committee said 100 governments could participate, 18 could be observers and 54 should be rejected. The committee took no position on the 16 nations, including the United States, that will make the final decisions on invitations by July.
Ted Piccone, executive director of the Democracy Coalition Project, said an advisory committee was formed to help craft the invitation list because some countries felt previous invitations had been inappropriately altered for political reasons. He said his contacts in the State Department were not happy about the downgrading of Iraq and Afghanistan, but the committee is trying hard to make it as difficult as possible for its recommendations to be rejected.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States "has some differences" with the committee, but "no one will agree to lower the bar for democracies attending this meeting."
Questions for Time magazine
Friday, April 13, 2007
(This is an expanded version of an earlier post called "Questions for Time magazine"; the material relating to Time is down in the second half of this).
The Islamic State of Iraq has posted claims of responsibility for the Green Zone bombing, (thanks to veteran chat-site navigator Abu Aardvark for calling attention to that) which the ISI says was carried out by a suicide bomber. These claims, which can be found among other places on the "news" forum of muslm.net, are signed by something called the Fajr Media Center, and there isn't any question they have been issued by the ISI organization. The following comments have to do with a different question: Assuming ISI responsibility, there are reports about a relationship between the attack and the emerging dispute between AlQaeda/ISI on the one side and the domestic resistance groups apparently led by Islamic Army in Iraq on the other.
Al-Hayat says there was a video announcement yesterday by someone known as Abu Suleiman al-Atibi who calls himself the "lawful judge of the Islamic State of Iraq", and the paper has this to say about it, after describing the events of the bombing:
In any event, if the statement by the "judicial officer" cited by Al-Hayat this morning is authentic, and the paper's acceptance of it suggests it is, then apparently the the hard-line domestic resistance represented by Qalamji wasn't the only group alarmed by even this conditional suggestion of negotiations.
Still, there is something considerably fishy about what Time magazine is reporting on its website about this.
In its article yesterday on the Green Zone bombing, Time said this:
But notice the light blue strip at the top, right above the yellow exclamation point. In an authentic posting, that light blue strip is a little wider, and serves as the background for a couple of important pieces of information printed in black. At the right-hand side, there is always the screen-name of the poster, and a button next to that name, triggering a pull-down menu with two items: You can look at all of the postings of this particular individual (even if you are not a registered user); or you can look at his personal information (for which you have to be registered). And at the left-hand side, also against the background of the light-blue bar, there is the date of the poster's registration as a user, and the number of his "participations", which means either postings or postings and comments. This obviously serves as a rudimentary or entry-level check on reliability, because it shows how long the person has been posting, and what he has been posting.
Anyone with the expertise to find a posting like this would obviously first check the name of the poster and his posting history, to see if he is a known quantity or not. Iraqslogger said it wasn't taking this as necessarily an Al-Qaeda message. "The statements" of the Islamic State of Iraq, it said, "are usually more detailed with more verifiable information, often containing florid prose and multiple references to the Quran." But really, the first question is where Iraqslogger got this screenshot, because it would seem if they went to the muslm.net site and saw it there themselves, the light-blue bar would in fact be the background for the name of the poster and the other information to be found there. And if they got it from Time, then the same question: Where exactly did Time find it, and where is the basic information one looks for printed on that light-blue bar?
The solution, of course, is to go to the site and find the posting ourselves. But I do not see it there, and as far as I am aware, no one else has found it there either.
This is not just a question of the authenticity of a posted message, if in fact there was one, because unless there is some explanation, this would be a question of Time magazine relying on an obvious, clearly recognizable forgery to anchor a news story. The lead to its story yesterday went like this: "In an assault apparently aimed at chilling negotiations between the Iraqi government and a faction of the insurgency, the Iraqi Parliament, located in Baghdad's high-security Green Zone, suffered a bomb attack." The phrase "apparently aimed at chilling negotiations..." refers to the supposed posting in question.
The Islamic State of Iraq has posted claims of responsibility for the Green Zone bombing, (thanks to veteran chat-site navigator Abu Aardvark for calling attention to that) which the ISI says was carried out by a suicide bomber. These claims, which can be found among other places on the "news" forum of muslm.net, are signed by something called the Fajr Media Center, and there isn't any question they have been issued by the ISI organization. The following comments have to do with a different question: Assuming ISI responsibility, there are reports about a relationship between the attack and the emerging dispute between AlQaeda/ISI on the one side and the domestic resistance groups apparently led by Islamic Army in Iraq on the other.
Al-Hayat says there was a video announcement yesterday by someone known as Abu Suleiman al-Atibi who calls himself the "lawful judge of the Islamic State of Iraq", and the paper has this to say about it, after describing the events of the bombing:
The AlQaeda organization had threatened yesterday to "cut off the head of those who resist [us], and [he said] in a video message, "I warn the tribe of those among the proprietors of party and politics, who make a weapon of double-dealing..." and he added, tacitly referring the differences that have widened recently between AlQaeda and Iraqi armed groups, "we will cut off their hands and we will strike them in the neck".The Al-Hayat reporter then refers to recent interview statements by the head of the Islamic Army in Iraq that have been taken loosely to mean a degree of openness to the idea of negotiating with the occupation. But at least for English-speaking readers it is worth noting what the Islamic Army person actually said (in an Al-Jazeera interview), because the reports in English having passed from hand to hand, have gotten a little distorted. Here's the relevant quote from the interview:
We do not reject in principle talks with the Americans or others, and we have laid out many times in official and other media our conditions for such talks, and we have emphasized that there are two conditions for successful talks, first that the American congress issue a binding decision announcing a complete withdrawal by a fixed date, and second, recognition that the resistance is the legitimate and sole representative of the Iraqi people.(This interview was published April 10, so the Awni Qalamji piece in Al-Quds al-Arabi, summarized in the prior post, was probably at least partly a reply to this, warning against thinking there is any possibility of any voluntary American withdrawal. Qalamji is associated with the domestic resistance. I'm sorry I'm reporting these out of chronological order).
In any event, if the statement by the "judicial officer" cited by Al-Hayat this morning is authentic, and the paper's acceptance of it suggests it is, then apparently the the hard-line domestic resistance represented by Qalamji wasn't the only group alarmed by even this conditional suggestion of negotiations.
Still, there is something considerably fishy about what Time magazine is reporting on its website about this.
In its article yesterday on the Green Zone bombing, Time said this:
Within an hour of the explosion, a message from the al-Qaeda-controlled Islamic State in Iraq was posted on a prominent militant website, muslm.net, calling the blast a "message" to anyone who cooperates with "the occupier and its agents." It said ominously, "We will reach you wherever you are"And Iraqslogger printed what it said was a screenshot of the item referred to, which you can see here. The text in red says: "This (referring to the GZ bombing) is a message of the Islamic State of Iraq to the Islamic Army: Anyone who is going to negotiate with the occupiers and their agents, we will find them wherever they are".
But notice the light blue strip at the top, right above the yellow exclamation point. In an authentic posting, that light blue strip is a little wider, and serves as the background for a couple of important pieces of information printed in black. At the right-hand side, there is always the screen-name of the poster, and a button next to that name, triggering a pull-down menu with two items: You can look at all of the postings of this particular individual (even if you are not a registered user); or you can look at his personal information (for which you have to be registered). And at the left-hand side, also against the background of the light-blue bar, there is the date of the poster's registration as a user, and the number of his "participations", which means either postings or postings and comments. This obviously serves as a rudimentary or entry-level check on reliability, because it shows how long the person has been posting, and what he has been posting.
Anyone with the expertise to find a posting like this would obviously first check the name of the poster and his posting history, to see if he is a known quantity or not. Iraqslogger said it wasn't taking this as necessarily an Al-Qaeda message. "The statements" of the Islamic State of Iraq, it said, "are usually more detailed with more verifiable information, often containing florid prose and multiple references to the Quran." But really, the first question is where Iraqslogger got this screenshot, because it would seem if they went to the muslm.net site and saw it there themselves, the light-blue bar would in fact be the background for the name of the poster and the other information to be found there. And if they got it from Time, then the same question: Where exactly did Time find it, and where is the basic information one looks for printed on that light-blue bar?
The solution, of course, is to go to the site and find the posting ourselves. But I do not see it there, and as far as I am aware, no one else has found it there either.
This is not just a question of the authenticity of a posted message, if in fact there was one, because unless there is some explanation, this would be a question of Time magazine relying on an obvious, clearly recognizable forgery to anchor a news story. The lead to its story yesterday went like this: "In an assault apparently aimed at chilling negotiations between the Iraqi government and a faction of the insurgency, the Iraqi Parliament, located in Baghdad's high-security Green Zone, suffered a bomb attack." The phrase "apparently aimed at chilling negotiations..." refers to the supposed posting in question.
Israel turning into cruel occupation machine
Haaretz
Last update - 03:08 13/04/2007
The nightmare on the worshippers' route
By Nehemia Shtrasler
If we had a serious defense minister, the house in Hebron would not have turned into such a complicated affair. The minister would not have fallen asleep on the job. He would have intervened on the first night, three weeks ago.
That same night he would have brought in large military forces and acted quickly, before the settlers could bed down at the site and bring in 80 people, before they had transferred even one mattress there. The army would have received one clear order: immediate eviction. Without hesitation. Without delay. Without papers. Without petitions. Without Meni Mazuz. After all, the defense minister is sovereign in the area. He has exclusive authority.
But instead of a serious defense minister there is Amir Peretz. A coward. A hesitator. A manipulator.
And thus the matter is becoming increasingly complicated. The legal experts are sharpening the explanations, the politicians are celebrating, and the attorney general is clouding the situation even further. Mazuz is allowing Peretz to evict, but not immediately. He has time. So do the settlers, and time is on their side.
And then comes the height of absurdity: The same army that should have evicted them on the first night is now allocating large forces to protect them. Without the army they won't last for even one day. The army is in effect their implementations contractor.
And the competition among the ministers in the coalition is beginning: Who will provide more support to the settlers? Rafi Eitan (Pensioners' Party) says the house must be left in Jewish hands. Eli Yishai (Shas) says this is an entirely legal Jewish purchase, and Roni Bar-On (Kadima) says they have a clear right of purchase. It is quite funny to hear the legal chicanery regarding the settlers' legal right of purchase, in the context of acts of occupation that are all illegal. After all, Israel is the occupier. It has the power, and it is the law. Would anyone dream of allowing a Palestinian family to purchase a house "with a clear right of purchase" in Ariel?
The Hebron settlers have a clear plan: to expand the settlement in the heart of Hebron by creating territorial contiguity between Beit Hadassah and Kiryat Arba, and the house is situated right on the main road, the so-called worshippers' route. We are talking about several dozen extremists who have taken control of the heart of the city, thrown out the legal owners, humiliated the neighbors and made them miserable, causing the closing of 1,500 businesses and the desertion of 15,000 people. That is their Judaism, a lunatic and messianist Judaism, which sanctifies the land and causes misery to human beings.
Their plan also has a Stage 2: When the humiliation and the hatred reach the point of explosion, the major war will break out, the war of Armageddon, which will "cleanse" all the territories of Arabs, and thus the entire Palestinian problem will be solved.
Although Peretz has given orders to evict the settlers, it is now already impossible because he didn't act in time. First we must wait 15 days so they will "evacuate voluntarily," and then they have to be given another 15 days. Why? So that during those 30 days they will bring equipment, additional families, volunteers, sympathizers and yeshiva students from all over the country, as well as ministers and MKs who will visit and express support. And thus, in another 30 days, hundreds of people will be living there, the High Court of Justice will be inundated with requests, and it will be impossible to move anything.
All this should not surprise anyone, because this is the same Peretz who promised to evacuate dozens of illegal outposts, but has not evacuated anything. The same will happen to the house in Hebron. There will be talk, arguments and legal advisers; there will be compromise proposals until May 28, the date of the Labor Party primaries. After that all will be forgotten, and the disputed house in Hebron will become another Beit Hadassah.
And the public, which sees how Israel is turning into a cruel occupation machine, has become totally apathetic. It closes its eyes and hopes that this entire nightmare will pass and disappear.
Last update - 03:08 13/04/2007
The nightmare on the worshippers' route
By Nehemia Shtrasler
If we had a serious defense minister, the house in Hebron would not have turned into such a complicated affair. The minister would not have fallen asleep on the job. He would have intervened on the first night, three weeks ago.
That same night he would have brought in large military forces and acted quickly, before the settlers could bed down at the site and bring in 80 people, before they had transferred even one mattress there. The army would have received one clear order: immediate eviction. Without hesitation. Without delay. Without papers. Without petitions. Without Meni Mazuz. After all, the defense minister is sovereign in the area. He has exclusive authority.
But instead of a serious defense minister there is Amir Peretz. A coward. A hesitator. A manipulator.
And thus the matter is becoming increasingly complicated. The legal experts are sharpening the explanations, the politicians are celebrating, and the attorney general is clouding the situation even further. Mazuz is allowing Peretz to evict, but not immediately. He has time. So do the settlers, and time is on their side.
And then comes the height of absurdity: The same army that should have evicted them on the first night is now allocating large forces to protect them. Without the army they won't last for even one day. The army is in effect their implementations contractor.
And the competition among the ministers in the coalition is beginning: Who will provide more support to the settlers? Rafi Eitan (Pensioners' Party) says the house must be left in Jewish hands. Eli Yishai (Shas) says this is an entirely legal Jewish purchase, and Roni Bar-On (Kadima) says they have a clear right of purchase. It is quite funny to hear the legal chicanery regarding the settlers' legal right of purchase, in the context of acts of occupation that are all illegal. After all, Israel is the occupier. It has the power, and it is the law. Would anyone dream of allowing a Palestinian family to purchase a house "with a clear right of purchase" in Ariel?
The Hebron settlers have a clear plan: to expand the settlement in the heart of Hebron by creating territorial contiguity between Beit Hadassah and Kiryat Arba, and the house is situated right on the main road, the so-called worshippers' route. We are talking about several dozen extremists who have taken control of the heart of the city, thrown out the legal owners, humiliated the neighbors and made them miserable, causing the closing of 1,500 businesses and the desertion of 15,000 people. That is their Judaism, a lunatic and messianist Judaism, which sanctifies the land and causes misery to human beings.
Their plan also has a Stage 2: When the humiliation and the hatred reach the point of explosion, the major war will break out, the war of Armageddon, which will "cleanse" all the territories of Arabs, and thus the entire Palestinian problem will be solved.
Although Peretz has given orders to evict the settlers, it is now already impossible because he didn't act in time. First we must wait 15 days so they will "evacuate voluntarily," and then they have to be given another 15 days. Why? So that during those 30 days they will bring equipment, additional families, volunteers, sympathizers and yeshiva students from all over the country, as well as ministers and MKs who will visit and express support. And thus, in another 30 days, hundreds of people will be living there, the High Court of Justice will be inundated with requests, and it will be impossible to move anything.
All this should not surprise anyone, because this is the same Peretz who promised to evacuate dozens of illegal outposts, but has not evacuated anything. The same will happen to the house in Hebron. There will be talk, arguments and legal advisers; there will be compromise proposals until May 28, the date of the Labor Party primaries. After that all will be forgotten, and the disputed house in Hebron will become another Beit Hadassah.
And the public, which sees how Israel is turning into a cruel occupation machine, has become totally apathetic. It closes its eyes and hopes that this entire nightmare will pass and disappear.
Israeli secret police may have set up missing Israeli-Arab lawmaker
Related
A very thin slice of earth
Israeli-Arab lawmaker disappears
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""Bishara is being persecuted because of his political and ideological views, and because of his national and democratic opinions. Former minister Shulamit Aloni has already told the media recently that she thought Shin Bet would try to set him up and this is what we think has happened. We wish to remove the uncertainty, we have a lot to say, if we were only allowed," he said."
Related
Don't slam Carter; Israel's grip is real | Wake Up From Your Slumber
By Shulamit Aloni
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A very thin slice of earth
Israeli-Arab lawmaker disappears
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""Bishara is being persecuted because of his political and ideological views, and because of his national and democratic opinions. Former minister Shulamit Aloni has already told the media recently that she thought Shin Bet would try to set him up and this is what we think has happened. We wish to remove the uncertainty, we have a lot to say, if we were only allowed," he said."
Related
Don't slam Carter; Israel's grip is real | Wake Up From Your Slumber
By Shulamit Aloni
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Balad demands removal of gag order
Following rumors about circumstances leading to party head MK Azmi Bishara's disappearance, members plan serious PR campaign, threaten to turn to High Court for right to defend Balad Roee Nahmias
Published: 04.12.07, 20:52 / Israel News
| Harmed by rumors surrounding the disappearance of Balad Chairman Azmi Bishara, faction chairman MK Jamal Zahalka said the party would turn to the High Court of Justice if the gag order on the affair was not lifted. "We find ourselves at a dead end since we cannot talk…We have nothing to hide, on the contrary, we have someone to blame. If the court does not order the gag order to be removed on Sunday, we will go to the High Court of Justice," Zahalka told Ynet on Thursday. "We will go all the way to the High Court to realize our right to respond to the fabricated accusations against us, and refute the malicious rumors that are being published through the media," added Zahalka. "Bishara is being persecuted because of his political and ideological views, and because of his national and democratic opinions. Former minister Shulamit Aloni has already told the media recently that she thought Shin Bet would try to set him up and this is what we think has happened. We wish to remove the uncertainty, we have a lot to say, if we were only allowed," he said. When asked if Bishara plans to return to Israel next week, Zahalka said he does not know of such plans. "His return could be sooner, or later. As of yet there is no date." Either way, Balad is serious about the PR attack it plans to launch once the gag order is removed.
Joining forces On Thursday the party heads met with their Hadash party colleagues to discuss strategy. Present at the meeting were Zahalka himself, MK Wasil Taha (Balad) the party's secretary-general Awad Abdel Fattah and Hanan Zoabi. Hadash was represented by its chairman Mohammad Barakeh, MK Dov Khenin, former MK Issam Makhoul and Ayman Odeh. Zahalka said that this meeting was part of a series of meetings with all Israeli-Arab political figures. "We met with the northern and southern branches of the Islamic Movement, the Arab Democratic Party and all the rest… In meetings with Hadash, it was agreed that we are facing a difficult period and we must join forces to prevent a blow to the right to political activity among the Arab public. We will plan techniques, either under the frame of a monitoring committee, or under another frame," said Zahalka. After the meeting, Hadash Chairman Muhammad Barakeh attempted to get a message across to the general public in Israel, telling Ynet that "there is cynical use of what is called legal restrictions or a gag order in order to slander the whole Arab population." "The fact that we sit in Knesset means that we accept the rules applying to the State of Israel and every attempt to push the Arab public or its elected out of legitimacy is a racist, fascist attempt," he added. "We cannot comment on MK Bishara's affair but we can say that since October 2000, 30 investigations against Arab MKs have been opened," ended Barakeh. |
The spectre of Saigon looms over Baghdad
Related
A bloody message from Iraq: nowhere is safe...
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Leading article
Published: 13 April 2007
The exact death toll had still to be established last night, but the symbolic significance of the attack was instantly clear. A suicide bomber had successfully penetrated the fortified "green zone" in Baghdad and blown himself up inside the cafeteria of the Iraqi parliament. Three MPs were among the eight or more dead; at least 30 people were injured.
For several weeks now, the US military authorities have argued that an upsurge in violence was only to be expected as the new "surge" tactics started to bite. The enemy, they reasoned, would fight ever more desperately until it was finally overcome. The possibility that there might be a different explanation - that the "surge" might simply not be having the desired effect - was not entertained, at least in public pronouncements.
Yesterday's bombing constitutes a direct challenge to the US strategy in Iraq. The last time bombers successfully penetrated the "green zone" was in October 2004. Since then, the only violence had been at the outermost edges; its formidable security had held. That someone was able to pass through the security checks yesterday with explosives sufficient to inflict so much death and destruction means that the "green zone" can no longer be considered impregnable.
It hardly matters whether, as is suspected, the bomber was a security guard to an MP. The fact is that US forces are responsible for making the zone safe, and its security has now been compromised. All the elaborate fortifications and entry procedures will have to be reviewed.
That it was the Iraqi parliament that was targeted conveys an especially dispiriting message. The Parliament represents the last vestige of US (and British) hopes of planting something even faintly recognisable as democracy. The elections in December 2005 were, in retrospect, the high point of optimism for Iraq's future. Iraqis defied the threat of violence to cast their votes with quite extraordinary heroism. Already, though, their ministers and legislators seem estranged from them. If the Parliament is no longer able to meet, or if so many MPs fear for their security that they stop attending, the last chance for an orderly Iraq governed by Iraqis would seem to be gone for good.
The other risk is that any remaining confidence that the Americans are able to keep their allies safe will be undermined. Inside the "green zone" are not just the Iraqi parliament and many US military and diplomatic facilities. The "zone" is also home to many Iraq government offices and foreign representations; several thousand Iraqis live there. If the "zone" is seen to be vulnerable, all trust in the possibility of order spreading out from there to the rest of Baghdad will evaporate. The spectre of a Saigon-style retreat from Baghdad will be harder and harder to dispel.
This is the ninth week of the US "surge". More and more American and Iraqi soldiers are to be seen on Baghdad streets, as the attempt to crack down on the violence gains pace. The greater visibility of US troops, which is an integral part of the strategy, automatically makes them more vulnerable. It is probably inevitable that, even as the number of violent incidents has declined, US military casualties have increased.
For the strategy to work, it must do much more than multiply armed patrols. It must convince Iraqis that law and order can be restored, not just now but in the longer term. It is not just about deterring gunmen and bombers; it is about instilling confidence in the authorities' prospects of success and reducing support for militant sectarianism. The US "surge" already seemed to be in trouble; yesterday's bombing showed that the citadel could be breached. If and when the US abandons Iraq, this day will mark the beginning of that end.
A bloody message from Iraq: nowhere is safe...
---
Leading article
Published: 13 April 2007
The exact death toll had still to be established last night, but the symbolic significance of the attack was instantly clear. A suicide bomber had successfully penetrated the fortified "green zone" in Baghdad and blown himself up inside the cafeteria of the Iraqi parliament. Three MPs were among the eight or more dead; at least 30 people were injured.
For several weeks now, the US military authorities have argued that an upsurge in violence was only to be expected as the new "surge" tactics started to bite. The enemy, they reasoned, would fight ever more desperately until it was finally overcome. The possibility that there might be a different explanation - that the "surge" might simply not be having the desired effect - was not entertained, at least in public pronouncements.
Yesterday's bombing constitutes a direct challenge to the US strategy in Iraq. The last time bombers successfully penetrated the "green zone" was in October 2004. Since then, the only violence had been at the outermost edges; its formidable security had held. That someone was able to pass through the security checks yesterday with explosives sufficient to inflict so much death and destruction means that the "green zone" can no longer be considered impregnable.
It hardly matters whether, as is suspected, the bomber was a security guard to an MP. The fact is that US forces are responsible for making the zone safe, and its security has now been compromised. All the elaborate fortifications and entry procedures will have to be reviewed.
That it was the Iraqi parliament that was targeted conveys an especially dispiriting message. The Parliament represents the last vestige of US (and British) hopes of planting something even faintly recognisable as democracy. The elections in December 2005 were, in retrospect, the high point of optimism for Iraq's future. Iraqis defied the threat of violence to cast their votes with quite extraordinary heroism. Already, though, their ministers and legislators seem estranged from them. If the Parliament is no longer able to meet, or if so many MPs fear for their security that they stop attending, the last chance for an orderly Iraq governed by Iraqis would seem to be gone for good.
The other risk is that any remaining confidence that the Americans are able to keep their allies safe will be undermined. Inside the "green zone" are not just the Iraqi parliament and many US military and diplomatic facilities. The "zone" is also home to many Iraq government offices and foreign representations; several thousand Iraqis live there. If the "zone" is seen to be vulnerable, all trust in the possibility of order spreading out from there to the rest of Baghdad will evaporate. The spectre of a Saigon-style retreat from Baghdad will be harder and harder to dispel.
This is the ninth week of the US "surge". More and more American and Iraqi soldiers are to be seen on Baghdad streets, as the attempt to crack down on the violence gains pace. The greater visibility of US troops, which is an integral part of the strategy, automatically makes them more vulnerable. It is probably inevitable that, even as the number of violent incidents has declined, US military casualties have increased.
For the strategy to work, it must do much more than multiply armed patrols. It must convince Iraqis that law and order can be restored, not just now but in the longer term. It is not just about deterring gunmen and bombers; it is about instilling confidence in the authorities' prospects of success and reducing support for militant sectarianism. The US "surge" already seemed to be in trouble; yesterday's bombing showed that the citadel could be breached. If and when the US abandons Iraq, this day will mark the beginning of that end.
A very thin slice of earth
Related
Israeli-Arab lawmaker disappears
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Interview: Azmi Bishara
A very thin slice of earth
29 minutes
Head of the National Democratic Assembly political party, Azmi Bashara was born in Nazareth to Christian parents. He is a Palestinian and a citizen of Israel. He represents Israel's Palestinian minority in the Knesset. Bishara studies at Humboldt University in Germany, is head of the philosophy department at Bir Zeit University, and is senior researcher at the Van-Leer Institute in Jerusalem. He was one of the founders of the National Democratic Assembly, or Balad. He describes himself as a humanist, a democrat, a liberal, and a neo-nasserite. In this interview Bishara examines turning Israel into a state of all of its citizens, opposing the institutionalized inequality that exists now between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel. Producer: Ed Sweed (2004)
Produced by Alternate Focus
Based in San Diego, California, Alternate Focus is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational media group promoting an alternative view of Middle East issues. They use the web, cable and satellite television, and DVDs to showcase media not usually seen by American audiences.
Azmi Bishara
Azmi Bishara is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a member of the Knesset. He was born in Nazareth to a Christian family in 1956. He studied at Humboldt University in East Germany. He was senior lecturer and head of the Philosophy Department at Bir-Zeit University, and senior researcher at the Van-Leer Institute in Jerusalem. He is also a published novelist.
Bishara started his political activity in 1974 as chairman of the National Committee of Arab High-School Pupils. He was active in the establishment of the students committee and Arab campus organizations at Haifa University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was also active in the Committee for the Protection of Lands, established in 1976, and against the Israeli occupation of the territories.
Bishara was one of the founders and heads the National Democratic Alliance (Balad), that ran in the elections to the 14th Knesset together with Hadash, and a member of the 14th Knesset. He defines himself as a humanist, democrat, liberal and Neo-Nasserite. He advocates turning the State of Israel into a state of all its citizens and the granting of cultural autonomy to the Arabs in Israel, and a bi-national solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem.
His brother, Marwan Bishara, also appears in this database of writers on the situation in Palestine/Israel.
Depending on availability of the US National Public Radio archives, you may be able to hear an interview with Azmi Bishara which was broadcast on US National Public Radio on 20 June 2001, on All Things Considered. The interview was about a visit that Bishara made to Syria, a visit that caused controversy in Israel and has led to his parliamentary immunity being removed, so that he could be placed on trial. This controversy led to the estabishment of an International Committee for the Protection of Azmi Bishara, comprised of politicians, intellectuals and academics from many countries around the world.
You may also be able to hear an interview with Azmi Bishara which was broadcast on US National Public Radio on 10 October 2000, on All Things Considered. The interview was about an attempt by Israeli Jews to burn down his home in Nazareth.
Israeli-Arab lawmaker disappears
---
Interview: Azmi Bishara
A very thin slice of earth
29 minutes
Head of the National Democratic Assembly political party, Azmi Bashara was born in Nazareth to Christian parents. He is a Palestinian and a citizen of Israel. He represents Israel's Palestinian minority in the Knesset. Bishara studies at Humboldt University in Germany, is head of the philosophy department at Bir Zeit University, and is senior researcher at the Van-Leer Institute in Jerusalem. He was one of the founders of the National Democratic Assembly, or Balad. He describes himself as a humanist, a democrat, a liberal, and a neo-nasserite. In this interview Bishara examines turning Israel into a state of all of its citizens, opposing the institutionalized inequality that exists now between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel. Producer: Ed Sweed (2004)
Produced by Alternate Focus
Based in San Diego, California, Alternate Focus is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational media group promoting an alternative view of Middle East issues. They use the web, cable and satellite television, and DVDs to showcase media not usually seen by American audiences.
Azmi Bishara
Azmi Bishara is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a member of the Knesset. He was born in Nazareth to a Christian family in 1956. He studied at Humboldt University in East Germany. He was senior lecturer and head of the Philosophy Department at Bir-Zeit University, and senior researcher at the Van-Leer Institute in Jerusalem. He is also a published novelist.
Bishara started his political activity in 1974 as chairman of the National Committee of Arab High-School Pupils. He was active in the establishment of the students committee and Arab campus organizations at Haifa University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was also active in the Committee for the Protection of Lands, established in 1976, and against the Israeli occupation of the territories.
Bishara was one of the founders and heads the National Democratic Alliance (Balad), that ran in the elections to the 14th Knesset together with Hadash, and a member of the 14th Knesset. He defines himself as a humanist, democrat, liberal and Neo-Nasserite. He advocates turning the State of Israel into a state of all its citizens and the granting of cultural autonomy to the Arabs in Israel, and a bi-national solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem.
His brother, Marwan Bishara, also appears in this database of writers on the situation in Palestine/Israel.
Depending on availability of the US National Public Radio archives, you may be able to hear an interview with Azmi Bishara which was broadcast on US National Public Radio on 20 June 2001, on All Things Considered. The interview was about a visit that Bishara made to Syria, a visit that caused controversy in Israel and has led to his parliamentary immunity being removed, so that he could be placed on trial. This controversy led to the estabishment of an International Committee for the Protection of Azmi Bishara, comprised of politicians, intellectuals and academics from many countries around the world.
You may also be able to hear an interview with Azmi Bishara which was broadcast on US National Public Radio on 10 October 2000, on All Things Considered. The interview was about an attempt by Israeli Jews to burn down his home in Nazareth.
Israeli-Arab lawmaker disappears
Analysis
Joshua BrilliantUPI Israel Correspondent
April 13, 2007
TEL AVIV -- An Arab member of Israel's Knesset who is abroad while security authorities investigate his alleged offenses symbolizes the deep division and suspicions between the country's Jewish majority and Arab minority.
Azmi Bishara, 51, heads Balad - the National Democratic Assembly that has three seats in Israel's 120-member legislature. He spent the Easter holiday with his family in Amman, met Jordan's foreign minister - and disappeared.
Rumors abound: He requested asylum in Qatar, he decided to quit the Knesset (Parliament) and not return to Israel; he is going to Spain, France, Egypt, and India; or he is still in Jordan, keeping a low profile and not granting interviews. The chairman of Balad's Knesset faction, Jamal Zahalka, said in a telephone interview that he had not talked to Bishara in the past two days and did not know his whereabouts.
Bishara "will return shortly or not [so] shortly," said his aide, Badran Ezz Al Dinh.
According to daily Yedioth Ahronoth, Bishara said in Amman that if he would return to Israel he would be detained "immediately."
Government and Knesset spokesmen said that they did not know what Bishara is suspected of having done. Israeli media has been talking of "legal obstacles" to reporting the facts. The Palestinian Maan news agency, which is not subject to Israeli law, gave a reason for this approach: a gag order.
Two prominent politicians nevertheless hinted suspicions.
"Long ago he crossed the boundary lines" of what a Knesset member may do while fulfilling his duties, said education minister Yuli Tamir.
Bishara made several trips to Syria and Lebanon and met officials including Syrian President Bashar Al Assad. Israeli law bans unauthorized trips to enemy states but Bishara said that he was fulfilling his duties as a member of the Knesset and therefore had full parliamentary immunity.
The Knesset then amended the law, also banning legislators' trips to enemy states - and Bishara went again.
Knesset Member Danny Yatom, a former head of the Mossad spy service, said that Bishara demonstrated "a pattern of behavior that might be worse than anything we've known."
Bishara's trips to enemy states would obviously arouse suspicions that he met foreign agents and passed information. That would certainly be a good reason to stay away.
Israeli security officials who have experience fighting hostile organizations are known to have examined their finances to try to plug their sources. Balad seemed to have a lot of money during the 2006 election campaign, and the state comptroller said in a report that its accounts presented to him "were not complete."
Zahalka denied "all the accusations" and accused the authorities of a "frame-up."
"They are trying to control the political activities of Palestinians in Israel and to oppress any national dimension of [our] politics," he charged.
Bishara has been "one of the most successful intellectual, charismatic politicians" that local Arabs have had, observed Adel Manaa, director of the Center for the Study of the Arab Society in Israel at Jerusalem's Van Leer Institute.
Born in Nazareth in 1956, he received a Ph.D. in philosophy in Berlin, headed the philosophy department at Birzeit University in the West Bank, helped establishing Balad in 1995, and joined the Knesset the following year.
He is an Arab nationalist, an advocate of Pan-Arabism and as such kept hammering at the Jewish state. "Israel is the biggest robbery of the century ... Return Palestine to us and take your democracy with you. We, the Arabs, are not interested," he reportedly said.
To some Israelis he was a person who ruined efforts at a dialogue. His success was ominous.
Yoel Hasson, a former deputy head of the Shabak security service and now a member of the hawkish Israel Beitenu Knesset faction, noted that seven years ago Balad was just a group of some 200 intellectuals. However, in last year's Knesset elections Balad won 72,066 votes. Some Arabs boycotted the elections. According to As'ad Ghanem of Haifa University's School of Political Science, Arab participation in Israeli elections has been dropping at a faster rate than Jewish turnout, and the most common reason was "political protest against the situation of the Palestinians in Israel."
Documents that Arab intellectuals published in recent months have been demanding changes in Israel's character from being a Jewish state to a bi-national entity, "cultural autonomy," and giving the Arabs, who are almost 20 percent of the population, a right to veto laws.
A recent public-opinion poll by Haifa University's Dean of Social Sciences Professor Sammy Smooha showed that Jews and Arabs felt threatened.
The Arabs fear that the Jews would deny them civil rights, confiscate their lands, and transfer some of them to the Palestinian Authority. The Jews feared that the Arabs would outnumber them and join the violent struggle that the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians have been waging.
The Shabak security service reportedly warned of a "rise of subversive elements," and according to Ma'ariv some Shabak officials described Israeli Arabs as "a real strategic threat." Smooha found that 48 percent of the Arabs justified Hezbollah bombings of Israel during the last war.
And thus Uri Dromi, of the Israel Democracy Institute, recalled having warned an Arab interlocutor that Bishara and the leader of the militant wing of the Israeli Islamic movement, Sheikh Raed Salah, would bring upon Israeli Arabs a second Nakba (catastrophe). The first one was in the 1948 war when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee.
"The majority is not going to commit suicide," Dromi said.
He criticized Bishara for going to Lebanon during the Second Lebanon War and expressing support for Hezbollah. "He sits in Syria and talks to the heads of the terrorist organizations. He is stretching freedom of expression with a chutzpah ... and a democracy has a right to defend itself," Dromi argued.
Azmi Bishara, 51, heads Balad - the National Democratic Assembly that has three seats in Israel's 120-member legislature. He spent the Easter holiday with his family in Amman, met Jordan's foreign minister - and disappeared.
Rumors abound: He requested asylum in Qatar, he decided to quit the Knesset (Parliament) and not return to Israel; he is going to Spain, France, Egypt, and India; or he is still in Jordan, keeping a low profile and not granting interviews. The chairman of Balad's Knesset faction, Jamal Zahalka, said in a telephone interview that he had not talked to Bishara in the past two days and did not know his whereabouts.
Bishara "will return shortly or not [so] shortly," said his aide, Badran Ezz Al Dinh.
According to daily Yedioth Ahronoth, Bishara said in Amman that if he would return to Israel he would be detained "immediately."
Government and Knesset spokesmen said that they did not know what Bishara is suspected of having done. Israeli media has been talking of "legal obstacles" to reporting the facts. The Palestinian Maan news agency, which is not subject to Israeli law, gave a reason for this approach: a gag order.
Two prominent politicians nevertheless hinted suspicions.
"Long ago he crossed the boundary lines" of what a Knesset member may do while fulfilling his duties, said education minister Yuli Tamir.
Bishara made several trips to Syria and Lebanon and met officials including Syrian President Bashar Al Assad. Israeli law bans unauthorized trips to enemy states but Bishara said that he was fulfilling his duties as a member of the Knesset and therefore had full parliamentary immunity.
The Knesset then amended the law, also banning legislators' trips to enemy states - and Bishara went again.
Knesset Member Danny Yatom, a former head of the Mossad spy service, said that Bishara demonstrated "a pattern of behavior that might be worse than anything we've known."
Bishara's trips to enemy states would obviously arouse suspicions that he met foreign agents and passed information. That would certainly be a good reason to stay away.
Israeli security officials who have experience fighting hostile organizations are known to have examined their finances to try to plug their sources. Balad seemed to have a lot of money during the 2006 election campaign, and the state comptroller said in a report that its accounts presented to him "were not complete."
Zahalka denied "all the accusations" and accused the authorities of a "frame-up."
"They are trying to control the political activities of Palestinians in Israel and to oppress any national dimension of [our] politics," he charged.
Bishara has been "one of the most successful intellectual, charismatic politicians" that local Arabs have had, observed Adel Manaa, director of the Center for the Study of the Arab Society in Israel at Jerusalem's Van Leer Institute.
Born in Nazareth in 1956, he received a Ph.D. in philosophy in Berlin, headed the philosophy department at Birzeit University in the West Bank, helped establishing Balad in 1995, and joined the Knesset the following year.
He is an Arab nationalist, an advocate of Pan-Arabism and as such kept hammering at the Jewish state. "Israel is the biggest robbery of the century ... Return Palestine to us and take your democracy with you. We, the Arabs, are not interested," he reportedly said.
To some Israelis he was a person who ruined efforts at a dialogue. His success was ominous.
Yoel Hasson, a former deputy head of the Shabak security service and now a member of the hawkish Israel Beitenu Knesset faction, noted that seven years ago Balad was just a group of some 200 intellectuals. However, in last year's Knesset elections Balad won 72,066 votes. Some Arabs boycotted the elections. According to As'ad Ghanem of Haifa University's School of Political Science, Arab participation in Israeli elections has been dropping at a faster rate than Jewish turnout, and the most common reason was "political protest against the situation of the Palestinians in Israel."
Documents that Arab intellectuals published in recent months have been demanding changes in Israel's character from being a Jewish state to a bi-national entity, "cultural autonomy," and giving the Arabs, who are almost 20 percent of the population, a right to veto laws.
A recent public-opinion poll by Haifa University's Dean of Social Sciences Professor Sammy Smooha showed that Jews and Arabs felt threatened.
The Arabs fear that the Jews would deny them civil rights, confiscate their lands, and transfer some of them to the Palestinian Authority. The Jews feared that the Arabs would outnumber them and join the violent struggle that the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians have been waging.
The Shabak security service reportedly warned of a "rise of subversive elements," and according to Ma'ariv some Shabak officials described Israeli Arabs as "a real strategic threat." Smooha found that 48 percent of the Arabs justified Hezbollah bombings of Israel during the last war.
And thus Uri Dromi, of the Israel Democracy Institute, recalled having warned an Arab interlocutor that Bishara and the leader of the militant wing of the Israeli Islamic movement, Sheikh Raed Salah, would bring upon Israeli Arabs a second Nakba (catastrophe). The first one was in the 1948 war when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee.
"The majority is not going to commit suicide," Dromi said.
He criticized Bishara for going to Lebanon during the Second Lebanon War and expressing support for Hezbollah. "He sits in Syria and talks to the heads of the terrorist organizations. He is stretching freedom of expression with a chutzpah ... and a democracy has a right to defend itself," Dromi argued.
For God’s Sake: PAUL KRUGMAN
THE COMPLETE ARTICLE
THE NEW YORK TIMES
THE NEW YORK TIMES
OP-ED COLUMNIST
For God’s Sake
By PAUL KRUGMANPublished: April 13, 2007
The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda is one of the most important stories of the last six years.
In 1981, Gary North, a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement — the openly theocratic wing of the Christian right — suggested that the movement could achieve power by stealth. “Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure,” he wrote, “and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order.”
Today, Regent University, founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson to provide “Christian leadership to change the world,” boasts that it has 150 graduates working in the Bush administration.
Unfortunately for the image of the school, where Mr. Robertson is chancellor and president, the most famous of those graduates is Monica Goodling, a product of the university’s law school. She’s the former top aide to Alberto Gonzales who appears central to the scandal of the fired U.S. attorneys and has declared that she will take the Fifth rather than testify to Congress on the matter.
The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda — which is very different from simply being people of faith — is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It’s also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists.
But this conspiracy is no theory. The official platform of the Texas Republican Party pledges to “dispel the myth of the separation of church and state.” And the Texas Republicans now running the country are doing their best to fulfill that pledge. . .
And there’s another thing most reporting fails to convey: the sheer extremism of these people.
You see, Regent isn’t a religious university the way Loyola or Yeshiva are religious universities. It’s run by someone whose first reaction to 9/11 was to brand it God’s punishment for America’s sins. . .
Next week Rudy Giuliani will be speaking at Regent’s Executive Leadership Series.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Emergency meeting probes alleged RCMP cover-up
Emergency meeting probes alleged RCMP cover-up
Canadian Press
OTTAWA — A Liberal MP is calling for a public inquiry into what he calls a “culture of corruption” in senior RCMP ranks amid allegations of obstruction and cover-up and the resignation of one senior Mountie.
Borys Wrzesnewskyj, a member of the Commons public accounts committee, says a full probe is needed after RCMP officers alleged fraud and abuse in the management of their pension and insurance plans.
A senior Mountie has stepped down and the committee was holding an emergency meeting away from public eyes on Thursday morning to plan its next steps.
RCMP Sergeant Natalie Deschenes said the deputy commissioner in charge of human resources, Barb George, offered to quit her post and the resignation was accepted. Ms. George had yet to be reassigned.
Related to this article
Enlarge Image
A House of Commons committee will consider a motion Thursday to force ex-RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli and other former senior and current RCMP officers to testify after some of their colleagues alleged fraud Wednesday in the management of their pension plans.
The hard-hitting accusations came in testimony before the committee Wednesday, as serving and retired officers alleged that senior Mounties tried to block probes into management of the RCMP's pension and insurance plans.
In a scathing report last fall, Auditor General Sheila Fraser found millions in inappropriate charges to the pension and insurance plans.
Conservative MP and public accounts committee member John Williams said the panel expects former commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli to testify within a week.
Mr. Wrzesnewskyj said Thursday “the lid's off” now and more meetings must be held to set the stage for a full public inquiry into the matter.
“And then hopefully a public inquiry will do the digging that's required,” he said.
“This culture of corruption at the top echelons of the RCMP has to be addressed.”
Mr. Zaccardelli resigned as commissioner in December after delivering contradictory testimony to another Commons committee about the Maher Arar affair.
The former top Mountie was harshly criticized before the public accounts committee Wednesday.
“While trying to expose these wrongdoings, which were both criminal and code-of-conduct violations, I had face-to-face meetings and complaints up to and including Commissioner Zaccardelli,” Ron Lewis, a retired RCMP staff sergeant told the MPs.
“I was met with inaction, delays, roadblocks, obstruction and lies. The person who orchestrated most of this cover-up was Commissioner Zaccardelli.”
Mr. Zaccardelli told CBC News that the allegations were baseless, and that no money was missing from the RCMP funds.
The Mounties had asked Ottawa municipal police to conduct a criminal investigation of possible fraud, but Crown attorneys concluded in 2005 there was no point in laying charges because the evidence was likely too weak to obtain convictions.
Ms. Fraser said she was assured by the municipal police that there was no interference from the RCMP. But she also observed that the lead investigator reported directly to a senior RCMP officer, raising a potential public perception of bias.
At the public accounts committee, several officers testified they were stonewalled by more than one senior executive, including Mr. Zaccardelli, when they tried to raise questions about the pension and insurance plans with RCMP leadership.
“The RCMP has had a small groups of managers who, through their actions and inactions, are responsible for serious breaches in our core values, the RCMP code of conduct and even the criminal code,” said Chief Superintendent Fraser Macaulay.
He testified that he was transferred to work with the Defence Department for two years after he asked too many questions.
Sergeant Steve Walker said: “Every core value and rule of ethical conduct that I held to be true and dear as a rank-and-file member of the RCMP has been decimated and defiled by employees at the highest levels of the RCMP.”
Members of the committee appeared shocked by the allegations against the high-ranking members of the force.
“I'm a lawyer and I tell you they would be in court if it was anyone else, and packing a tooth brush for prison,” said Conservative MP Brian Fitzpatrick.
Said Liberal Shawn Murphy: “The cover-up is worse than the crime.”
Canadian Press
OTTAWA — A Liberal MP is calling for a public inquiry into what he calls a “culture of corruption” in senior RCMP ranks amid allegations of obstruction and cover-up and the resignation of one senior Mountie.
Borys Wrzesnewskyj, a member of the Commons public accounts committee, says a full probe is needed after RCMP officers alleged fraud and abuse in the management of their pension and insurance plans.
A senior Mountie has stepped down and the committee was holding an emergency meeting away from public eyes on Thursday morning to plan its next steps.
RCMP Sergeant Natalie Deschenes said the deputy commissioner in charge of human resources, Barb George, offered to quit her post and the resignation was accepted. Ms. George had yet to be reassigned.
Related to this article
Enlarge Image
A House of Commons committee will consider a motion Thursday to force ex-RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli and other former senior and current RCMP officers to testify after some of their colleagues alleged fraud Wednesday in the management of their pension plans.
The hard-hitting accusations came in testimony before the committee Wednesday, as serving and retired officers alleged that senior Mounties tried to block probes into management of the RCMP's pension and insurance plans.
In a scathing report last fall, Auditor General Sheila Fraser found millions in inappropriate charges to the pension and insurance plans.
Conservative MP and public accounts committee member John Williams said the panel expects former commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli to testify within a week.
Mr. Wrzesnewskyj said Thursday “the lid's off” now and more meetings must be held to set the stage for a full public inquiry into the matter.
“And then hopefully a public inquiry will do the digging that's required,” he said.
“This culture of corruption at the top echelons of the RCMP has to be addressed.”
Mr. Zaccardelli resigned as commissioner in December after delivering contradictory testimony to another Commons committee about the Maher Arar affair.
The former top Mountie was harshly criticized before the public accounts committee Wednesday.
“While trying to expose these wrongdoings, which were both criminal and code-of-conduct violations, I had face-to-face meetings and complaints up to and including Commissioner Zaccardelli,” Ron Lewis, a retired RCMP staff sergeant told the MPs.
“I was met with inaction, delays, roadblocks, obstruction and lies. The person who orchestrated most of this cover-up was Commissioner Zaccardelli.”
Mr. Zaccardelli told CBC News that the allegations were baseless, and that no money was missing from the RCMP funds.
The Mounties had asked Ottawa municipal police to conduct a criminal investigation of possible fraud, but Crown attorneys concluded in 2005 there was no point in laying charges because the evidence was likely too weak to obtain convictions.
Ms. Fraser said she was assured by the municipal police that there was no interference from the RCMP. But she also observed that the lead investigator reported directly to a senior RCMP officer, raising a potential public perception of bias.
At the public accounts committee, several officers testified they were stonewalled by more than one senior executive, including Mr. Zaccardelli, when they tried to raise questions about the pension and insurance plans with RCMP leadership.
“The RCMP has had a small groups of managers who, through their actions and inactions, are responsible for serious breaches in our core values, the RCMP code of conduct and even the criminal code,” said Chief Superintendent Fraser Macaulay.
He testified that he was transferred to work with the Defence Department for two years after he asked too many questions.
Sergeant Steve Walker said: “Every core value and rule of ethical conduct that I held to be true and dear as a rank-and-file member of the RCMP has been decimated and defiled by employees at the highest levels of the RCMP.”
Members of the committee appeared shocked by the allegations against the high-ranking members of the force.
“I'm a lawyer and I tell you they would be in court if it was anyone else, and packing a tooth brush for prison,” said Conservative MP Brian Fitzpatrick.
Said Liberal Shawn Murphy: “The cover-up is worse than the crime.”
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Inside the Secretive Plan to Gut the Endangered Species Act
Inside the Secretive Plan to Gut the Endangered Species Act
"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is maneuvering to fundamentally weaken the Endangered Species Act, its strategy laid out in an internal 117-page draft proposal obtained by Salon. The proposed changes limit the number of species that can be protected and curtail the acres of wildlife habitat to be preserved." (Salon.com)
"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is maneuvering to fundamentally weaken the Endangered Species Act, its strategy laid out in an internal 117-page draft proposal obtained by Salon. The proposed changes limit the number of species that can be protected and curtail the acres of wildlife habitat to be preserved." (Salon.com)
AG calls investigative evidence against Israeli President 'grave'
Last update - 15:46 27/03/2007
AG Mazuz calls investigative evidence against Katsav 'grave'
By Haaretz Service
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz indicated in remarks broadcast Tuesday that the evidence compiled in the criminal investigation of President Moshe Katsav was "grave," and that Katsav had made untrue statements in an impassioned television address in January.
Turning to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Mazuz said that there was "significance" to the number of alleged graft affairs to which Olmert has been linked.
On January 23, Mazuz announced that he was considering indictment of Katsav on a range of charges including rape, sexual harassment, breach of trust, witness tampering, and fraud. Mazuz is to make the decision after holding a hearing for the president.
The next day, Katsav addressed the nation in a prime-time speech, in which he hinted that Mazuz had leaked information from a conversation between the two, violating a prior agreement to keep the content of the talk confidential.
"The statements are not true, untrue and inexact," Mazuz said in remarks broadcast on Israel Radio. "During that famous speech, the president said things which were untrue, on that subject and on other subjects."
Mazuz was speaking to Israel Channel 1 television's Politica program, which is to be aired on Tuesday night. Asked if was saying that Katsav was a liar, Mazuz responded:
"The investigative evidence is much graver than this remark or that, in this speech or that. Therefore, we wouldn't need to base our case on some comment or other in a speech."
As for Olmert, whom press reports have tied to a number of alleged affairs involving cronyism in job appointments and possible financial irregularities, Mazuz said "There is no doubts that there is significance to the quantity [of allegations], certainly when we are speaking of events of the same type, because they give a certain overall picture."
Katsav to be summoned for new questioning
Lawyers for Katsav, currently on a leave of absence while the investigation proceeds, have said that he would resign if a decision were made to bring him to trial.
Katsav will be summoned by police for additional questioning on Thursday, after a new complaint of sexual harassment was recently filed against him.
It appears that one of the women who had complained against the president in the past has recently complained of another harassment incident, which had not previously been made known to the police.
Mazuz approved the police request to summon Katsav for further questioning, although the complaint had been filed after a hearing was scheduled for the president on May 2.
Following the hearing, Mazuz will make a final decision on whether or not to indict the president.
The police investigation team notified Katsav's attorney Zion Amir of the additional interview yesterday and of the nature of the complaint, but did not provide details.
The president refused the police's demand to interview him at the police station or in a "neutral place." Mazuz then permitted the police to interview Katsav at the President's Residence in Jerusalem.
"This is very strange," Amir said yesterday. "The complainant will have to explain why she remembered now, close to the president's hearing, and whether anyone is behind this new complaint of hers."
Last week, Katsav petitioned the High Court of Justice, demanding that the state provide all materials collected in the investigation against him on suspicion of rape and other sexual assault charges.
Katsav's attorneys are questioning the legality of the president's investigation, claiming that all the material against him was illegally obtained.
AG Mazuz calls investigative evidence against Katsav 'grave'
By Haaretz Service
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz indicated in remarks broadcast Tuesday that the evidence compiled in the criminal investigation of President Moshe Katsav was "grave," and that Katsav had made untrue statements in an impassioned television address in January.
Turning to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Mazuz said that there was "significance" to the number of alleged graft affairs to which Olmert has been linked.
On January 23, Mazuz announced that he was considering indictment of Katsav on a range of charges including rape, sexual harassment, breach of trust, witness tampering, and fraud. Mazuz is to make the decision after holding a hearing for the president.
The next day, Katsav addressed the nation in a prime-time speech, in which he hinted that Mazuz had leaked information from a conversation between the two, violating a prior agreement to keep the content of the talk confidential.
"The statements are not true, untrue and inexact," Mazuz said in remarks broadcast on Israel Radio. "During that famous speech, the president said things which were untrue, on that subject and on other subjects."
Mazuz was speaking to Israel Channel 1 television's Politica program, which is to be aired on Tuesday night. Asked if was saying that Katsav was a liar, Mazuz responded:
"The investigative evidence is much graver than this remark or that, in this speech or that. Therefore, we wouldn't need to base our case on some comment or other in a speech."
As for Olmert, whom press reports have tied to a number of alleged affairs involving cronyism in job appointments and possible financial irregularities, Mazuz said "There is no doubts that there is significance to the quantity [of allegations], certainly when we are speaking of events of the same type, because they give a certain overall picture."
Katsav to be summoned for new questioning
Lawyers for Katsav, currently on a leave of absence while the investigation proceeds, have said that he would resign if a decision were made to bring him to trial.
Katsav will be summoned by police for additional questioning on Thursday, after a new complaint of sexual harassment was recently filed against him.
It appears that one of the women who had complained against the president in the past has recently complained of another harassment incident, which had not previously been made known to the police.
Mazuz approved the police request to summon Katsav for further questioning, although the complaint had been filed after a hearing was scheduled for the president on May 2.
Following the hearing, Mazuz will make a final decision on whether or not to indict the president.
The police investigation team notified Katsav's attorney Zion Amir of the additional interview yesterday and of the nature of the complaint, but did not provide details.
The president refused the police's demand to interview him at the police station or in a "neutral place." Mazuz then permitted the police to interview Katsav at the President's Residence in Jerusalem.
"This is very strange," Amir said yesterday. "The complainant will have to explain why she remembered now, close to the president's hearing, and whether anyone is behind this new complaint of hers."
Last week, Katsav petitioned the High Court of Justice, demanding that the state provide all materials collected in the investigation against him on suspicion of rape and other sexual assault charges.
Katsav's attorneys are questioning the legality of the president's investigation, claiming that all the material against him was illegally obtained.
Questions
Monday, March 26, 2007
Al-Quds al-Arabi reported on Friday in a very definitive way the demise of Allawi's attempt to put together a coalition what would represent an alternative to the Maliki administration, based on statements of non-support by a key member of the Islamic Party of Iraq (part of the big Sunni coalition); by a spokesman for the Kurdish parties; and by the head of the Fadhila party, which had most recently been in talks with Allawi. The Al-Quds story was on page three, under its own by-line. Then on Saturday, the Shiite news-site Karbalanews.net reported the same story verbatim, attributing it to "international news agencies". The story is unusually solidly-sourced, but to me at least it's not entirely clear where it originated. Western media haven't mentioned it, which may or may not mean anything.
In any event, it is worth highlighting a remark attributed to a leader of Allawi's own group, Izzat Shabandar, who said that in spite of Allawi's efforts, the initiative "lacked American support." This comes as Khalilzad is being replaced as US ambassador, suggesting (to me, that is) the possibility that what these reports reflect is an American decision to fold the Allawi initiative and replace it with something else. But what?
Meanwhile, Al-Hayat continues to talk up the idea of cooperation between tribes, armed groups, and the government in fighting the AlQaeda organizations. (Sorry for a missing link here. The latest I cited was here, but there has been at least another item along the same lines in Al-Hayat since then). Some of this at least is undoubtedly wishful thinking, but it is worth underlining the fact that from Al-Hayat's Sunni perspective, it makes sense to talk about cooperation between some armed groups and the Maliki administration, at least in this tactical way. I don't think anyone knows the relative strength, within the resistance, of the AlQaeda affiliated international jihadis on the one side, and the domestic nationalist resistance on the other. But the point here is merely that Al-Hayat, for its part, sees the threat from AlQaeda as having triggered talk of government cooperation with some of the domestic groups. Whether this will prove to be at all meaningful remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, Condoleeza Rice met in Aswan on the weekend, not only with the foreign ministers of the so-called "Arab quartet" (Saudi, Egypt, Jordan and UAE), but also, separately, with the heads of the Mukhabarat (national-security/intelligence) of those countries, including Omar Suleiman of Egypt and Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia. (She had a similar meeting with the Mukhabarat chiefs in Amman last month.) The Aswan meeting with the Mukhabarat chiefs wasn't elaborated on in any of the Western accounts, but Abdulbari Atwan, writing in Al-Quds al-Arabi, explained that for instance in Egypt, the foreign minister handles things like economic cooperation with Sri Lanka, while the Palestinian file is in the hands of Suleiman, and the same in Saudi Arabia, where Bandar is the person in charge of the Lebanon and Iran files. Atwan, who is well-connected, didn't say specifically what was talked about in those Rice-Mukhabarat meetings, suggesting he doesn't know. Did they talk about Iraq?
His overall point is that the Rice verbiage about "horizons" and "active diplomacy" and so on, refer to US pressure to get the Arab states to water down their 2002 Israel-Palestine peace proposal by dropping the Palestinian "right of return" and by front-ending Arab recognition of Israel. In today's column, Atwan calls attention to Thomas Friedman's Saturday op-ed in the NYT (recommending the Saudi King re-launch the peace initiative with a surprise visit to Israel and Palestine right after the Riyadh summit) as another piece of this scheme for a watered-down peace-proposal with front-ended recognition of Israel. Atwan said he regrets to have to say it, but the fact is Friedman is not just blowing bubbles; the King might actually do it. After all, he notes, the original 2002 proposal involved collusion between Friedman and the King, so this might be the same type of thing.
In any event, it is worth highlighting a remark attributed to a leader of Allawi's own group, Izzat Shabandar, who said that in spite of Allawi's efforts, the initiative "lacked American support." This comes as Khalilzad is being replaced as US ambassador, suggesting (to me, that is) the possibility that what these reports reflect is an American decision to fold the Allawi initiative and replace it with something else. But what?
Meanwhile, Al-Hayat continues to talk up the idea of cooperation between tribes, armed groups, and the government in fighting the AlQaeda organizations. (Sorry for a missing link here. The latest I cited was here, but there has been at least another item along the same lines in Al-Hayat since then). Some of this at least is undoubtedly wishful thinking, but it is worth underlining the fact that from Al-Hayat's Sunni perspective, it makes sense to talk about cooperation between some armed groups and the Maliki administration, at least in this tactical way. I don't think anyone knows the relative strength, within the resistance, of the AlQaeda affiliated international jihadis on the one side, and the domestic nationalist resistance on the other. But the point here is merely that Al-Hayat, for its part, sees the threat from AlQaeda as having triggered talk of government cooperation with some of the domestic groups. Whether this will prove to be at all meaningful remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, Condoleeza Rice met in Aswan on the weekend, not only with the foreign ministers of the so-called "Arab quartet" (Saudi, Egypt, Jordan and UAE), but also, separately, with the heads of the Mukhabarat (national-security/intelligence) of those countries, including Omar Suleiman of Egypt and Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia. (She had a similar meeting with the Mukhabarat chiefs in Amman last month.) The Aswan meeting with the Mukhabarat chiefs wasn't elaborated on in any of the Western accounts, but Abdulbari Atwan, writing in Al-Quds al-Arabi, explained that for instance in Egypt, the foreign minister handles things like economic cooperation with Sri Lanka, while the Palestinian file is in the hands of Suleiman, and the same in Saudi Arabia, where Bandar is the person in charge of the Lebanon and Iran files. Atwan, who is well-connected, didn't say specifically what was talked about in those Rice-Mukhabarat meetings, suggesting he doesn't know. Did they talk about Iraq?
His overall point is that the Rice verbiage about "horizons" and "active diplomacy" and so on, refer to US pressure to get the Arab states to water down their 2002 Israel-Palestine peace proposal by dropping the Palestinian "right of return" and by front-ending Arab recognition of Israel. In today's column, Atwan calls attention to Thomas Friedman's Saturday op-ed in the NYT (recommending the Saudi King re-launch the peace initiative with a surprise visit to Israel and Palestine right after the Riyadh summit) as another piece of this scheme for a watered-down peace-proposal with front-ended recognition of Israel. Atwan said he regrets to have to say it, but the fact is Friedman is not just blowing bubbles; the King might actually do it. After all, he notes, the original 2002 proposal involved collusion between Friedman and the King, so this might be the same type of thing.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Post-modern corruption in Israel
Haaertz
Israel
Last update - 09:00 23/03/2007
Post-modern corruption
By Gideon Samet
The crime stories at the top echelons are becoming totally bizarre. The record to date, a president suspected of rape, now seems to have been taken over by the story of Abraham Hirchson. The sins of Aryeh Deri, who only a few years ago occupied a strong place at the top of the hit parade, are nothing compared to his. The investigation of the finance minister looks like a late installment in a series where the scriptwriter goes crazy so that bored viewers won't leave. The fear is that in this situation the people in their living rooms won't get excited even if in the next installment the police commissioner is accused of pedophilia.
This is a penetration of post-modernism into the arena of corruption. As in the theory that rejects a distinction between high and low culture, it seems the criterion for examining the sins of senior officials is becoming blurred. Money in envelopes that, according to the suspicions, are transferred by an emissary to a Filipina worker in the finance minister's residence. The theft
of of tens of millions of shekels in the course of more than a decade. A suitcase of dollars for funding "Marches of the Living" to the death camps is seized on the way out of Poland. Is there no limit to the vulgarity of the scriptwriter?
Everything is presumed until proven. But until then, it is definitely becoming conceivable to investigators and to viewers of the cheap crime series that such things are possible. In a legendary anecdote from 40 years ago, an MK showed the education minister a police confirmation that he had emerged clean in an investigation. It's interesting that I don't have such a confirmation, said Zalman Aran, sarcastically.
Now anything goes. Crime reporters tell of the chairman of the Knesset Labor faction, Yoram Marciano, who is suspected of assault in a nightclub, that he doesn't know what they want from him and is threatening them even before receiving a note from the police. Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman removed himself from office in 1996 the moment the attorney general informed him of an investigation on the matter of false testimony to the police. Jackie Matza and Shula Zaken, the head of the Tax Authority and the prime minister's bureau chief, have been suspended from their jobs. Maybe because they don't have a bloc of supporters in the ruling party at a time when the prime minister himself, who is sitting on a cardboard chair, is stuck in investigations.
What has happened to allow the finance minister to remain in his job during a shocking investigation? Perhaps what has happened is that these investigations are no longer so shocking.
There is also a stench of post-modernism because this influential thesis despises what it has called the "super-text." It rejects unequivocal statements that try to dictate norms and decide what is permitted and what is forbidden. So that during the overly long period in which it has been flourishing at universities in the West, philosophy departments have removed Plato and Aristotle from the curriculum, for example, because they are considered white and arrogant tyrants of thought.
Although the criminal law is clear, the climate in Israel still favors blurred rules when it comes to people at the top. So that the question of whether Moshe Katsav has to leave the President's Residence during the course of the investigation remains hanging in the compressed air. And now the finance minister.
Of course he has to leave immediately. By the conclusion of the investigation. What, is there no life without Hirchson? This week Amnon Strashnov, the former district court judge and judge advocate general, proposed that no investigative proceedings take place against the prime minister ("by all the Lindenstrausses, the Yoav Yitzhakis") until he is out of office. This is folly
that is trying to turn the vagueness surrounding the status of VIPs under investigation into law. By nature, it is itself wrapped in amazing post-modernism. And will a finance minister under investigation continue? And a president?
So many people have been dragged into the investigation rooms that it seems as though we are really doing well. The opposite is the case. We are not doing at
all well if such a long line is forming there. Those who are panicking should take a valium. This matter has to be taken to the clear end, whether or not it is bitter.
Israel
Last update - 09:00 23/03/2007
Post-modern corruption
By Gideon Samet
The crime stories at the top echelons are becoming totally bizarre. The record to date, a president suspected of rape, now seems to have been taken over by the story of Abraham Hirchson. The sins of Aryeh Deri, who only a few years ago occupied a strong place at the top of the hit parade, are nothing compared to his. The investigation of the finance minister looks like a late installment in a series where the scriptwriter goes crazy so that bored viewers won't leave. The fear is that in this situation the people in their living rooms won't get excited even if in the next installment the police commissioner is accused of pedophilia.
This is a penetration of post-modernism into the arena of corruption. As in the theory that rejects a distinction between high and low culture, it seems the criterion for examining the sins of senior officials is becoming blurred. Money in envelopes that, according to the suspicions, are transferred by an emissary to a Filipina worker in the finance minister's residence. The theft
of of tens of millions of shekels in the course of more than a decade. A suitcase of dollars for funding "Marches of the Living" to the death camps is seized on the way out of Poland. Is there no limit to the vulgarity of the scriptwriter?
Everything is presumed until proven. But until then, it is definitely becoming conceivable to investigators and to viewers of the cheap crime series that such things are possible. In a legendary anecdote from 40 years ago, an MK showed the education minister a police confirmation that he had emerged clean in an investigation. It's interesting that I don't have such a confirmation, said Zalman Aran, sarcastically.
Now anything goes. Crime reporters tell of the chairman of the Knesset Labor faction, Yoram Marciano, who is suspected of assault in a nightclub, that he doesn't know what they want from him and is threatening them even before receiving a note from the police. Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman removed himself from office in 1996 the moment the attorney general informed him of an investigation on the matter of false testimony to the police. Jackie Matza and Shula Zaken, the head of the Tax Authority and the prime minister's bureau chief, have been suspended from their jobs. Maybe because they don't have a bloc of supporters in the ruling party at a time when the prime minister himself, who is sitting on a cardboard chair, is stuck in investigations.
What has happened to allow the finance minister to remain in his job during a shocking investigation? Perhaps what has happened is that these investigations are no longer so shocking.
There is also a stench of post-modernism because this influential thesis despises what it has called the "super-text." It rejects unequivocal statements that try to dictate norms and decide what is permitted and what is forbidden. So that during the overly long period in which it has been flourishing at universities in the West, philosophy departments have removed Plato and Aristotle from the curriculum, for example, because they are considered white and arrogant tyrants of thought.
Although the criminal law is clear, the climate in Israel still favors blurred rules when it comes to people at the top. So that the question of whether Moshe Katsav has to leave the President's Residence during the course of the investigation remains hanging in the compressed air. And now the finance minister.
Of course he has to leave immediately. By the conclusion of the investigation. What, is there no life without Hirchson? This week Amnon Strashnov, the former district court judge and judge advocate general, proposed that no investigative proceedings take place against the prime minister ("by all the Lindenstrausses, the Yoav Yitzhakis") until he is out of office. This is folly
that is trying to turn the vagueness surrounding the status of VIPs under investigation into law. By nature, it is itself wrapped in amazing post-modernism. And will a finance minister under investigation continue? And a president?
So many people have been dragged into the investigation rooms that it seems as though we are really doing well. The opposite is the case. We are not doing at
all well if such a long line is forming there. Those who are panicking should take a valium. This matter has to be taken to the clear end, whether or not it is bitter.
AIPAC Senators ask Rice to hold the line on aid to the Palestinian government
Senators ask Rice to hold the line on aid to the P.A.
With Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heading back to the Middle East and rifts developing between Washington and its European allies over diplomacy with the new Palestinian unity government, Congress appears determined to hold the line on limiting aid to a Palestinian Authority still dominated by terrorists.
But many lawmakers also appear nervous about attempts to shut down all contacts with the new government.
That was the subject of a political tempest surrounding a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by two pro-Israel senators.
Senators John Ensign (R-Nev.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) circulated a letter last week urging Rice to maintain and expand sanctions against the Palesztinian Authority, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — the pro-Israel lobby — pulled out all the stops in urging other lawmakers to sign on.
The letter noted new American attempts to “reinvigorate the peace process,” and warned that such efforts must not deviate from the three demands imposed on the Palestinian Authority by the international Quartet as a precondition of resumed aid: recognizing Israel’s right to exist, renouncing terrorism, and accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
But Ensign and Nelson went further, urging Rice to insist on “no direct aid and no contacts with any members” of a Palestinian Authority that does not meet international conditions.
That, according to groups like Americans for Peace Now, would have barred official contacts even with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, a major change in U.S. policy in the region.
APN, backed by Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, activated its political network and urged senators not to sign the Ensign-Nelson letter; delegates to last week’s AIPAC policy conference supported the letter during their March 13 congressional visits.
But when APN brought the controversial language to the attention of key Senate staffers, “there was a lot of concern that this letter went further than current U.S. policy,” said a top congressional source. “The letter attempted to get members on record before the situation was clarified, before briefings by the State Department, before hearings.”
This aide described the controversial phrase as a “preemptive strike” that made many lawmakers “nervous.”
This week the letter’s authors agreed to change that language; the new letter urges Rice only to “maintain current U.S. policy with respect to the Palestinian government until it recognizes Israel’s right to exist, renounce terror, and accept previous agreements.”
Nelson staffers, in a memo to other Senate offices, indicated that the changes were meant to “clear up any misperception concerning a change in U.S. policy. The letter reaffirms and urges maintaining current U.S. policy with respect to the Palestinian government.”
AIPAC officials denied that the original letter called for ending contacts with Abbas.
House letter warns EU
Also circulating in the House: a letter urging the Europeans to stick to the demand that the Palestinian Authority meet certain conditions before economic aid is resumed.
The letter, which had gathered almost 100 signatures by the weekend, was authored by Reps. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), Gary Ackerman (D-NY), and Mike Pence (R-Ind.), among others.
That comes as some European leaders say they may resume contacts with the new Palestinian “unity” government while still withholding aid.
“We have deep reservations and ongoing concerns about the intentions of a government led by a hostile Hamas which rejects the basic premise under which diplomatic relations could be concluded and remains committed to the destruction of Israel,” the lawmakers wrote.
Concerns arise on Iran
Last week a group of Jewish legislators successfully blocked language in an Iraq war-appropriations bill that would have required the administration to get congressional authorization before using military force against Iran.
But the issue is far from dead, as antiwar lawmakers worry that President Bush, bogged down in Iraq, may be planning military action against Iran as well.
Last week’s action involved a Democratic amendment to an emergency spending bill for the Iraq war. That amendment would have required a U.S. pullout from Iraq by next year, a compromise measure that enjoys strong support from the House Democratic Caucus.
Partly to attract liberals angry that the Iraq amendment didn’t go further and partly because of concerns that the administration might be ill prepared for another war, some Democrats wanted to add language requiring specific congressional authorization before any military action against Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Responding to pressure from some pro-Israel Democrats who said the provision would tie the administration’s hands and send the wrong message to Tehran, Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chair of the Appropriations Committee, barred the Iran language from the Iraq amendment.
But Pelosi has reportedly promised supporters of the provision that she will allow its introduction as a separate bill.
Some opponents said they would continue to fight what they say would be a dangerous message to leaders in Tehran.
“I do feel any president needs to come to Congress before any sustained military action,” said Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), who first raised objections to the Iran provision. “But there are instances where a president needs the flexibility to react.”
Engel said the administration is “doing the right thing” by focusing on sanctions and international pressure in its response to Iran, but added that such nonmilitary tactics lose their power if Congress limits the administration’s authority to use force.
“If you take the credible threat of force off the table, it gives Iran less incentive to negotiate,” he said.
Engel said that adding the Iran language was just a sop to liberal lawmakers who were unhappy that the Democratic Iraq package did not go far enough in limiting the administration’s ability to continue the war in Iraq.
Engel conceded that the Bush administration’s performance in Iraq does not bode well for any Iran attack, but said that “what worries me more than that is a nuclear Iran. Having a nuclear Iran is simply unacceptable; I hope the international community will understand that.”
Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) also opposed the Iran provision, arguing that it could have doomed the Democratic package aimed at ending the Iraq conflict.
“Including that provision brought us none of the liberals who want to get out Iraq immediately, but it risked losing the conservatives,” he said. “So it wasn’t going to work.”
And he said the provision was irrelevant because “our position is that the Constitution already says that the administration would have to come to Congress” before attacking Iran.
But Ackerman, too, said that maintaining the threat of military action is necessary to give the diplomatic and economic strategy a chance of success.
New antiwar group has plan
Most Jewish groups are in hiding as the debate over the Iraq war rages in Congress — a silence that has spurred the creation of a new Jewish antiwar group dedicated to “ending the Iraq war and preventing one with Iran.”
Leaders of Jews Against the War say that they, not major Jewish organizations that have refused to speak out, reflect the views of a community that is overwhelmingly opposed to current U.S. policy.
In a statement announcing the group, Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater, leader of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center in California and a leader of the left-of-center Tikkun Community, said that many pulpit rabbis refuse to speak up out of fear of being divisive.
“But, like the prophets of Israel, I can no longer take the ‘safe’ road,” he said. “This war is wrong and it needs to end. Our country’s moral voice in the world has vanished under the weight of torture, secret tribunals, and occupation; our beloved Israel is in greater danger now, with Iran emboldened; and our nation’s budget has been sacked.”
Aryeh Cohen, a professor of rabbinic literature at the University of Judaism, said in an interview that the group plans to lobby Congress, organize “vigils and protests” at synagogues, and orchestrate antiwar letters by rabbis and other Jewish leaders.
He said some Jews concerned about the war have been turned off by antiwar groups like International ANSWER with a strongly anti-Israel agenda.
“The ANSWER coalition is problematic — but it doesn’t define the antiwar movement,” he said. “The reason we are starting this organization is to articulate our own message. We do know that there is a very strong antiwar sentiment in the Jewish community that is not being reflected by the community’s leadership.”
He praised the Union for Reform Judaism, the only major Jewish group to publicly challenge administration policy, as “ahead of the game,” but said many Jews “don’t even know the Reform movement made a statement. There is some organizing going on, but not for stakeholders at the center of the community. There needs to be a vehicle for lay leaders whose voices on Iraq are not being heard.”
He blasted Jewish lawmakers who acted last week to keep a provision requiring congressional approval before any attack on Iran out of an amendment laying out a Democratic plan for ending the Iraq war.
“The Jewish congressmen are held hostage to what they think the American Jewish community’s position is on relating to Israel,” he said. “And they are misguided.”
Former Deputy Interior Secretary will plead guilty to one count of obstruction of justice in the Jack Abramoff corruption investigation
Ex-Interior No. 2 to plead guilty in Abramoff probe
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles will plead guilty to one count of obstruction of justice in the Jack Abramoff corruption investigation, The Associated Press has learned.
Griles, an oil and gas lobbyist who became an architect of President Bush's energy policies while at the Interior Department between July 2001 and July 2005, is the highest ranking Bush administration official implicated in the Washington lobbying scandal.
The former No. 2 official at the Interior Department has agreed to a felony plea admitting that he lied five times to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and its investigators about his relationship with Abramoff, people involved in the case told the AP.
Griles will admit in federal court Friday that he concealed that he had a unique relationship with Abramoff, people involved in the case said on condition of anonymity, because a federal judge had not yet approved the plea deal. Griles and Abramoff met on March 1, 2001, through Italia Federici, a Republican environmental activist whom Griles had been dating.
That was just one week before Griles, who had been serving on Bush's transition team for Interior, was nominated by the president as deputy to Interior Secretary Gale Norton. Second in rank only to Norton, Griles effectively was Interior's chief operating officer and its top representative on Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force.
Prosecutors dropped earlier allegations that Griles did anything improper to help Abramoff or gained anything of value from the former Republican lobbyist, the AP was told. The agreement does not require Griles to help investigators with their grand jury probe.
In exchange for the plea, federal prosecutors will seek no more than a 10-month prison sentence for Griles — the minimum they could seek under sentencing guidelines — but they will agree to let him serve half that in home confinement, according to one person involved in the case.
Griles lives in Virginia with Sue Ellen Wooldridge, who until January was an assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's environmental division.
The AP reported in February that Wooldridge, as the nation's environmental prosecutor, bought a $980,000 vacation home last year with Griles and Donald R. Duncan, the top Washington lobbyist for ConocoPhillips. Nine months later, she signed an agreement giving the company more time to clean up air pollution at some of its refineries.
The Justice Department planned to file papers proposing the plea deal with Griles. He was scheduled to appear before U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle in a Washington at 11 a.m. ET Friday. Huvelle will decide Friday whether to accept or reject the plea, but her decision on sentencing is likely to come two to three months later.
In government papers, Griles acknowledges he obstructed the Senate committee's investigation into Abramoff and his associates' dealings with Indian casino clients. Griles admits he testified falsely four times to the committee on Nov. 2, 2005, and once to the panel's investigators two weeks earlier.
Abramoff persuaded his Indian clients to pay him tens of millions of dollars to influence decisions coming out of Congress and the Interior Department. Part of his pitch to clients was that he had serious pull at the department, especially with Griles.
Awaiting sentencing in the bribery scandal, Abramoff already is serving six years in prison for a bogus Florida casino deal. A congressman, several congressional aides and the administration's top procurement official also have either pleaded guilty or been convicted in the case.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Iraq's Sunni deputy PM hurt in bombing
12 minutes ago
Iraq's Sunni deputy prime minister was wounded Friday in a suicide bombing at a mosque in the courtyard of his home that killed six people, including one of his advisers, authorities said.
The bomber blew himself up as Salam al-Zubaie, one of two deputies to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and other worshippers were leaving the mosque near the heavily fortified Green Zone , according to police and a Sunni politician.
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said al-Zubaie was in a hospital run by the U.S. in the Green Zone but would not comment on his condition.
Ziad al-Ani, a top official of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, said al-Zubaie was slightly wounded in his leg.
Police said six people were killed, including an adviser, and 10 others were wounded, including five of al-Zubaie's bodyguards. The adviser, Mufeed Abdul-Zahra, was wounded in the attack and died later at the hospital.
Police said the attack occurred as worshippers were leaving, while al-Ani said the bomber blew himself up inside the mosque during the traditional weekly prayer service.
Baghdad authorities have imposed a weekly four-hour vehicle ban on Fridays to protect the services from suicide car bombers.
The mosque was built inside the courtyard of al-Zubaie's compound in a residential area behind the Foreign Ministry, but worshippers can access it from the street outside, al-Ani said. The compound is near the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. and British embassies and the Iraqi government headquarters.
Friday's bombing came a day after a rocket exploded 50 yards from the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during a news conference in the Green Zone, causing him to cringe and duck just minutes after Iraq's prime minister said the visit showed the city was "on the road to stability."
Thursday, March 22, 2007
The rape of Iraq's oil
The Baghdad government has caved in to a damaging plan that will enrich western companies.
The recent cabinet agreement in Baghdad on the new draft oil law was hailed as a landmark deal bringing together the warring factions in the allocation of the country's oil wealth. What was concealed was that this is being forced through by relentless pressure from the US and will sow the seeds of intense future conflict, with serious knock-on impacts on the world economy.
The draft law, now before the Iraqi parliament, sets up "production sharing partnerships" to allow the US and British oil majors to extract Iraqi oil for up to 30 years. While Iraq would retain legal ownership of its oil, companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP that invest in the infrastructure and refineries would get a large share of the profits.
No other Middle Eastern oil producer has ever offered such a hugely lucrative concession to the big oil companies, since Opec has always run its oil business through tightly-controlled state companies. Only Iraq in its present dire condition, dependent on US troops for the survival of the government, lacks the bargaining capacity to resist.
This is not a new plan. According to documents obtained from the US State Department by BBC Newsnight under the US Freedom of Information Act, the US oil industry plan drafted early in 2001 for takeover of the Iraqi oilfields (after the removal of Saddam) was pushed aside by a secret plan, drafted just before the invasion in 2003, calling for the sell-off of all of Iraq's oilfields.
This secret plan was crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the Opec cartel through massive increases in production above Opec quotas. However, Philip Carroll, the former CEO of Shell Oil USA, who took control of Iraq's oil production for the US government a month after the invasion, stalled the sell-off scheme. As Ariel Cohen of the neo-conservative Heritage Foundation later told Newsnight, an opportunity had been missed to privatise Iraq's oilfields.
Now the plan is being revisited, or as much of it as can be salvaged after the fading of American power on the battlefield made enforced sell-off impossible. This revision of the original plan has been drafted by BearingPoint, a US consultancy firm, at the request of the US government. Significantly, it was checked first with Big Oil and the IMF and is only now being presented to the Iraqi parliament. But if accepted by the Iraqis under intense pressure, it will lock the country into weakness and dependence for decades. The neo-cons may have lost the war, but they are still manipulating to win the most substantial chunk of the peace when and if it ever comes.
It isn't difficult to see why. The super-giant oilfields of south-eastern Iraq, particularly the Majnoon and West Qurna, together with the East Baghdad field, are the largest concentration to be found anywhere in the world. Oil exploration costs are among the cheapest globally, with the current cost estimated at around 50c per barrel compared with the current retail price of about $60 a barrel. Petroleum geologists have discovered 73 major fields and identified some 239 as having a high degree of certainty. Yet only 30 fields have been partially developed and only 12 are actually on stream. Undrilled structures and undeveloped fields could represent the largest untapped hydrocarbon resource anywhere in the world. While most other Middle East countries are fully exploiting their reserves, large parts of Iraq are still virgin.
This prize is cast in even greater relief by recent assessments of the looming imminence of global peak oil production. The International Energy Agency now estimates that world production outside Opec has already peaked and that world production overall will peak between 2010 and 2020. Optimists who project large reserves remaining of over 1 trillion barrels base their figures on three illusory premises - inclusion of heavy oil and tar sands whose exploitation would entail colossal economic and environmental costs, exaggeration by Opec countries lobbying for higher production quotas within the cartel, or new drilling technologies which may accelerate production but are unlikely to expand reserves. In contrast, the pessimists are steadily gaining ground, and against this background Iraq remains potentially the last remaining major breakthrough.
Nevertheless, on every count the latest US plan to get control of Iraqi oil at almost any cost is profoundly misconceived. Even from the point of view of America's own self-interest, its security is imperilled more by the failure to develop alternative energy options than by the lack of capabilities of its weapons systems. Yet the US government continues to spend about 20 times more R&D money on the latter problem than on the former. It is still the case that funding the import of oil represents about 40% of the current US trade deficit, yet no vigorous programme in renewable technologies is being supported.
As Senator Richard Lugar and James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, said prophetically in 1999 about growing US dependence on increasingly scarce Middle Eastern oil, "our losses may come suddenly through war, steadily through price increases, agonisingly through developing nation poverty, relentlessly through climate change - or through all of them".
Secondly, in neo-conservative eyes Iraq was also required as an alternative to Saudi Arabia to provide a military base for the US to police the whole of Gulf oil. It was no longer possible for the US to maintain troops in Saudi Arabia for that purpose without risking the collapse of the dictatorial Saudi regime and its giant oil assets falling into the hands of Islamic extremists. The removal of US troops from Saudi Arabia was the principal demand contained in Osama bin Laden's fatwa of 1996. This was why, shortly after invading Iraq, the US announced that it was pulling its combat troops out of Saudi Arabia, thereby meeting Bin Laden's principal pre-9/11 political demand. But unfortunately for the US, al-Qaida is now seeking the removal of US troops from Iraq as well.
Above all, the policy is flawed by its extreme short-sightedness. Even if the US were to win its war in Iraq, which now looks virtually impossible, its incremental gain before the oil runs out would be short-term, while its exposure to intensified and unending insurgency because of perceived US seizure of Iraqi oil rights, especially if extended to Iran, would be disproportionately enormous both in the Middle East and maybe also at home. It is diametrically the opposite of the policy to which the whole world will be forced ineluctably by the accelerating onset of climate change. Perhaps the single greatest gain of the west learning this lesson of weaning itself off its oil addiction is that it would end this interference in the internal affairs of Muslim countries simply because they happen to have oil - the central cause of world conflict today.
Michael Meacher is the Labour MP for Oldham West and Royton, and was environment minister from 1997-2003. His pamphlet The Politics of Conviction: Visions of a Socialist or Social Democratic Society was published earlier this year by Catalyst.
Going to the dogs
An Israeli taxi driver's lament.
Staggering along the road, I managed to utilise the last of my strength and flag down a passing taxi. Collapsing into the seat, I was immediately told: "Shut up - the news is starting". Happy to oblige, I fell silent and watched the driver's face contort in ever-deepening rage.
Switching off the stereo, he turned to me and spat: "They're all thieves, the lot of them." Assuming he was referring to the collective mass of Jerusalem cabbies, notorious for skinning tourists and immigrants like they were buffalo carcasses, I concurred, and waited for him to go on.
But no. Instead, his ire was aimed at the cabinet, parliament and state machine in general. Following the recent scandals engulfing the hierarchy, from the rape charges against the president to the S+M ambassador, and beyond, the public have been quick to condemn the ruling elite for their alleged misdemeanours. On top of that, yet another public strike yesterday - in protest at misuse of government funds and non-payment of salaries - brought home to roost once more the true extent of the corruption endemic in the system.
I was treated to an early-morning lecture from Ami the driver who, over the course of our 10-minute drive, proved once more that taxi drivers round here are - for better or worse - bang on the zeitgeist when given the opportunity to speak.
I told him that my mother shared his concern at the current state of affairs, even though she was all the way back in London. "She's a wise woman", said Ami. "I wish we could turn the clock back 50 years - there was a different spirit in this country back then. Today's society doesn't even compare".
"Look at us these days", he urged. "We've got no one decent to vote for any more. Instead we have MKs [Members of the Knesset] committing every crime under the sun. You name it, we've got it - rape, theft, harassment, bribery, and so the list goes on".
I interjected to ask if he though the level of corruption was worse here than in any other country.
"Of course there's sleaze outside Israel", said Ami. "But we hold the number one spot on the charts." With a rueful smile, he told me that the best on offer now is "to vote for the one who's committed the fewest crimes. There's no black and white any more, only different shades of black."
I suggested that maybe it's because we're all too worried about the security situation, and thus let other issues slide when really they ought to be of equal importance to the public.
"Yeah", said Ami, "maybe. But it's not as if we can even fight a war properly these days, is it?" - reflecting the general opinion that we had got a seriously rude awakening in last summer's war with Hizbullah.
Pulling up outside City Hall, where I was headed, he stopped the meter and continued his speech.
"What we need is a new generation. My one's finished, it's impotent. We need your generation to say 'we've had enough', and go back to socialist values". I nodded in agreement, though the chances of that happening are slim to none, in my opinion.
As I opened the door to get out, he grabbed my arm. "Look at the Ethiopians", he said. Here we go, I thought, the de rigeur cabbie racism ... But instead he directed his hostility to the Israelis who've "corrupted the poor Ethiopians".
"When they came here, they were all such good kids", he maintained. "But we've given them the wrong values - now they run around in miniskirts, getting drunk and imitating the worst of Israeli youth".
And with that, he flicked his dying cigarette into the street, and sped off to find the next punter upon whom to unload his woes.
Seth Freedman is a freelance writer and journalist based in Jerusalem. He grew up in London and worked as a stockbroker in the City for six years, before moving to Israel. He writes for falsedichotomies.com
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