Israel’s royal welcomeUKWatch.net - 26 Mar 2008On April 7, Prince Philip will be hosting a dinner at Windsor Castle organised by the Jewish National Fund. They will be marking the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Israeli state. However this is not a private dinner. Nor is the JNF an ordinary organisation. The JNF was established in 1901 as the land settlement wing of the World Zionist Organisation. It became one of the primary instruments involved in planning for the dispossession and expulsion of the Palestinians. Up until 1948 it purchased land for settlement, often from absentee landlords, and then evicted the peasants from that land. Unlike the normal practice under colonial rule, the Palestinians were not re-employed as wage labourers but excluded from the land altogether. This was the concept of Jewish land. But even by 1947 less than 7% of the land of Palestine had been bought up. The JNF played a crucial role in planning for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. In the years leading up to the establishment of the state of Israel, the JNF was a key voice in establishing a consensus in the Zionist leadership for “transfer”. Although not discussed openly, among the Zionist leaders it was accepted that a Jewish state could only come into being if the Arabs were transferred out of the state. Palestine was a land where barely one-third of the inhabitants were Jewish, and even in the area allotted by the United Nations to a Jewish state, barely half of the inhabitants were Jewish. As the head of its Land Settlement Department, Joseff Weitz, wrote in his diary in 1940: The only solution is to transfer the Arabs from here to neighbouring countries. Not a single village or a single tribe must be let off. [Ilan Pappe: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, page 62] Weitz later formed, with the authority of David Ben Gurion, a Transfer Committee. And between 1947 and 1949 an opportunity arose to put these ideas into practice. As Tom Segev recalled in Ha’aretz, a meeting was held in Haifa on March 27, 1948, concerning the fate of the Bedouin of Arab al-Ghawarina in the Haifa area. “They must be removed from there, so that they, too, will not add to our troubles,” Yosef Weitz, of the Keren Kayemeth (Jewish National Fund), wrote in his personal diary. The JNF occupies a unique position in Israel. It is nominally an independent organisation but in reality it is a contracted-out section of the state, controlled by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, carrying out functions that the state itself cannot be seen to do openly. The JNF functions as an ideological outpost of the Greater Israel movement and when the Israeli army razed to the ground the Palestinian villages of the Imwas, Yalu and Beit Nuba villages in 1967 and expelled their inhabitants, the JNF took over the construction of the Canada National Park on the ruins. The JNF’s position was formalised by the 1953 KKL Law whereby its memorandum of association had to be approved by the minister of justice. In November 1961 a covenant was signed between the state of Israel and the JNF which accorded the latter effective control of the land allocation policies of the state of Israel, which together with the Israeli Lands Administration, controlled 93% of Israeli land. According to Article 3a of its constitution, the JNF was established “for the purpose of settling Jews on such lands and properties” as it could obtain. The British royal family have a constitutional role greater than their private prejudices. They are seen as the representatives of British society and their invitation to the JNF will inevitably be seen as giving a royal seal of approval to the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe. Britain’s role in arming the Zionist militias who fell like wolves on largely defenceless villagers, while suppressing the 1936 Palestinian national uprising, is infamous enough without the monarchy celebrating the consequences of Britain’s perfidy. Not that the association between royalty and the most barbaric aspects of colonialism is anything new. Today’s royals may hold gala dinners in celebration of the abolition of the slave trade and Wilberforce, but when slavery was a going concern, its most ardent supporters were royalty. Elizabeth I went into business as a partner of slave trader John Hawkins, Charles II was a major shareholder in the Royal African Company and William IV, then Duke of Clarence, spoke out strongly against the abolition of the slave trade and emancipation in the House of Lords. With the solitary exception of Princess Diana and her campaign against landmines, the royals have been associated with the most atavistic and bloody aspects of British imperial rule. From the Indian Mutiny and the Amritsar massacre to the Hola death camp in Kenya, the royals have always been associated with militarism and empire. Prince Harry’s role in Afghanistan is a continuation of this inglorious history. In 1995 an Arab couple, the Kadans, tried to buy an apartment in Katzir. For 10 years the JNF and the Israeli Lands Authority tried to prevent the leasing of “Jewish” land to non-Jews. Eventually the supreme court ruled that state land could not be sold to Jews only. This caused huge embarrassment among Jews worldwide. How could Jews protest against anti-Semitism when condoning blatantly racist practices in Israel? America’s Reform movement, to which most Jews adhere, condemned the practice unequivocally. The JNF itself, though, was anything but embarrassed. It began a campaign to reverse the court’s decision and last summer a JNF Bill was introduced into the Knesset, where it was passed on the first reading by 64-16 votes. Under the headline “KKL-JNF – Trustee for the Jewish People on its Land” it noted that: A survey commissioned by KKL-JNF reveals that over 70% of the Jewish population in Israel opposes allocating KKL-JNF land to non-Jews, while over 80% prefer the definition of Israel as a Jewish state, rather than as the state of all its citizens. The implications are quite clear. If Israel is a Jewish state then it cannot be a state of its own citizens, still less a democratic state. This prompted Israel’s liberal newspaper, Ha’aretz, to publish an outspoken editorial, “A racist Jewish state”, in which it wrote: “Every day the Knesset has the option of passing laws that will advance Israel as a democratic Jewish state or turn it into a racist Jewish state. There is a very thin line between the two. This week, the line was crossed.” Even the staid old Jewish Chronicle ran a debate: “Is it racist to set aside Israeli land for Jews only?” Yet this is part of a wider debate about the “demographic problem”, which is shorthand for there being too many Arabs. Academics such as Professor Arnon Sofer, of Haifa University, are quite blatant about this “problem”: “You should remember that on the same day as the Israel Defense Forces is investing efforts and succeeding in eliminating one terrorist or another, on that very same day, as on every day of the year, within the territories of western Israel, about 400 children are being born, some of whom will become new suicide terrorists.” The JNF sits on the opposite side of the fence from those who wish to see Israel as a state of all its citizens as opposed to just its Jewish ones. It is bad enough that our prime minister, Gordon Brown, is a patron of the JNF. But for the royal family to have as their guests those who are dedicated to maintaining Israel as a state of only a part of its citizens is a disgrace. A letter from Brigadier Sir Miles Hunt Davies, private secretary to the Duke of Edinburgh, seeks to excuse the royal hosting of the JNF by stating that “the proceeds from the dinner are going to a number of charities, one of which will be the Israeli Youth Award for Young People, which is the Israeli branch of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. This charity plays a significant part in attempting to bridge the gap between young people of all faiths and backgrounds, in amongst other places, Israel and Jordan.” So, according to this logic, the royal family will be hosting a dinner for an organisation which explicitly discriminates against Palestinians and non-Jews because the proceeds will be going to a charity which apparently does the complete opposite. You couldn’t make it up.
Why is the National Union of Students planning a vote to abolish itself?UKWatch.net - 26 Mar 2008A key vote at next week?s annual conference of the National Union of Students (NUS) could see the organisation transformed from a campaigning body into a ?professional lobbying group?. Over 1,000 delegates will vote on whether to ratify a ?governance review? that will abolish the union?s annual conference and national executive ? replacing them with a congress that ?celebrates the year? and a senate that will rarely meet. This would leave power solely in the hands of full-time ?professionals?. The review is being promoted by NUS national executive members who describe themselves as ?organised independents?. It is also backed by the Labour Students organisation. They believe that in order to influence government policy and future reviews of higher education funding, the NUS must drop its campaigning and become something more akin to a think-tank. Many among the organised independents and Labour Students feel that demonstrations and protests are old fashioned and that they present ?unrealistic demands? upon the government. Unattainable The NUS has even declared that the demand for free education is unattainable, and therefore must be dropped. They argue that all that has to go in order for the NUS to be taken seriously by the heads of Britain?s universities and top politicians. Conferences involving elected delegates and an executive that includes a few left activists are regarded as an obstacle to the transformation. In case the proposed changes fail to put a stop to the left, the review will create a new NUS board empowered to veto any decision passed at the congress or senate that could ?put the organisation in legal or financial peril?. Though the board is supposed to be student-led, 40 percent of its members will be appointed rather than elected. Some supporters of the review believe that these changes to the NUS?s structure are just the first step. For them the final goal should be the eradication of politics from student unions, turning them into multi-million pound businesses. The governance review will face opposition at NUS conference from those who are determined that the union should be transformed into an organisation that coordinates student struggles against rising tuition fees, racism and Islamophobia, the ?war on terror? and climate change. Reflection ?The stakes are incredibly high,? says Rob Owen, a Student Respect supporter on the NUS national executive. ?If these changes go through, the ability of student activists in colleges to have an impact on the policy of their union will be so curtailed that democracy will be almost non-existent in the NUS.? Rob sees the attempt to change NUS as a reflection of the depoliticised way in which many local student unions are being run. He says, ?A student union should be a place where people can come together and find resources that will help them campaign, that informs and educates people, and is somewhere good to socialise. ?But many student unions are now just a commercial venture. ?In many ways the unions are travelling in the opposite direction to students themselves. ?Growing radicalism is leading to healthy activism on a lot of campuses ? particularly in opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. ?Where student unions attempt to situate themselves in that activism, they become popular and democratic institutions. ?In these places people think of the student union as ?their? union, not just a bar.?
Anti-war marches: who goes and whyUKWatch.net - 26 Mar 2008The media has recently been marking the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq ? and of the massive anti-war demonstrations that preceded it. One minor hobby horse throughout the coverage has been the supposed dwindling of the anti-war movement since then. At the same time, the mainstream media has waxed lyrical over the role played by new technologies such as the internet in organising political action, especially among the young. In neither case does the media?s arguments rest on much evidence. While it?s undoubtedly true that the Stop the War demonstration on 15 March this year was a fraction of the size of that on 15 February 2003, it does not necessarily follow that the anti-war movement has shrunk to a ?hardcore of protestors?. Similarly, although you will be hard pressed to find a political group or campaign without some sort of a web presence, it does not necessarily follow that the internet is the essential ingredient for mobilising young people politically. Myself and a colleague set out to do some research into who is marching against the war and how they are mobilising. We surveyed protesters at three national Stop the War demonstrations ? Manchester in September 2006, London in February 2007, and most recently London last month. Is it just a hardcore of activists left marching? The evidence suggests not. About 22 percent of the marchers we surveyed at these demonstrations were on their first anti-war demonstration since 9/11. This shows that even five years on from 15 February 2003 the anti-war movement is attracting new supporters. Another 22 percent had been on just one or two other demonstrations, 21 percent had been on three to five, leaving 35 percent of demonstrators who had been on six or more anti-war demonstrations since 9/11. In other words the ?hardcore? makes up about a third of current anti-war demonstrators. Notably a higher proportion of ?first timers? were found on the Manchester demonstration than on either of the two demonstrations held in London. It might be imagined that ?first time? demonstrators are overwhelmingly those too young to have been politically active five or six years ago. Indeed, some 47 percent of ?first timers? are 25 or less. But that still means over half the ?first timers? are older adults. There were more surprises when we examined what role the internet played in mobilising demonstrators. About 24 percent of protesters found out about the demonstration through a website, with the national Stop the War site being the most common source of information. But it is not the ?internet-savvy kids? who rely most on the web, but older age groups ? 36 to 50 year olds in particular. Young people were less likely than others to have found out about the demonstration through an email from someone outside of their immediate social circle. Just 3 percent of the under 18s and 7 percent of those aged 18 to 25 mentioned this, compared to 22 percent of the over 50s. This suggests it is the older activists who make the best use of internet and email communication. Online communication was also used more by activists who had already participated in several demonstrations. The most frequently mentioned information source for the demonstrations was neither the web nor email, but personal networks ? friends, family members or colleagues. About half of respondents found out about the demonstration in this manner, and it was especially important for younger people (the under 18s) and for first time demonstrators. Posters and leaflets, a more traditional form of mobilisation, were mentioned by about a quarter of demonstrators. They were especially important for demonstrators of university age (18 to 25 year olds). In contrast, public meetings were a source of information for about 20 percent but were mentioned more often by older protestors and by those who had been on six or more demonstrations already. The news media ? TV, radio, or newspapers ? provided information for about 13 percent of the demonstrators, with men mentioning it more than women. The media was much more important for informing participants at the Manchester than the two London protests, perhaps because national Stop the War events are rare occurrences outside of the capital and generate more interest. What does this mean for future organising? The first thing to focus on is the good news ? new people are still getting involved in the Stop the War, and not just the young. Our research also shows that the Internet and email are seen by demonstrators as useful information sources and are especially important for informing and maintaining contact with existing activists. But personal relationships between friends, work colleagues and families continue to be central to the effectiveness of the movement. A friend or family member is more likely to motivate people to join a demo for the first time than a website posting or chain email. Posters and leaflets seem to be effective in attracting students, while public meetings are useful for motivating older people and existing activists. Online communication is important ? but it does not act as a replacement for traditional means of mobilising. Rachel Cohen and Natalie Pitimson surveyed 446 randomly selected protesters. For more information on their results go to www.go.warwick.ac.uk/antiwar
Basra on FireAlterNet: War on Iraq - 26 Mar 2008Muqtada al-Sadr called for a campaign of civil disobedience in which shops, businesses, schools and universities would close down.
A Century in Iraq, Replacing UN with “League of Democracies,” Rogue State Rollback? A Look at John McCain’s Foreign Policy VisionDemocracy Now - 26 Mar 2008We speak with investigative reporter Robert Dreyfuss about Senator John McCain’s vision for foreign policy. “McCain is drawing up plans for a new set of global institutions,” Dreyfuss writes, “from a potent covert operations unit to a ‘League of Democracies’ that can bypass the balky United Nations, from an expanded NATO that will bump up against Russian interests in Central Asia and the Caucasus to a revived US unilateralism that will engage in ‘rogue state rollback’ against his version of the ‘axis of evil.’ In all, it’s a new apparatus designed to carry the ‘war on terror’ deep into the twenty-first century.” [includes rush transcript]
Headlines for March 26, 2008Democracy Now - 26 Mar 2008Iraqi Crackdown on Sadr Militia in Basra Spreads to Other Shiite Areas, Workers Sue KBR for Toxic Exposure in Iraq, Supreme Court Weighs Plight of US Prisoners Challenging Iraqi Sentences, Palestinian Authority Denies Israeli Influence over Security Force, US Suggests Ending Public Debate on Israel-Palestine at UN, Charities: Afghan Donor Money Wasted on Salaries, Profits, US Says Nuclear Parts Mistakenly Sent to Taiwan, Defense Minister?s Comments Re-Ignite Colombia-Ecuador Row, Lebanon to Boycott Arab League Summit, Chavez: McCain a ?Man of War?, Supreme Court Rejects World Court Jurisdiction, Scientists: Global Warming Behind Massive Antartic Ice Collapse, Tobacco Company Funded Lung Cancer Study
Gaza’s sewage system in crisisElectronic Intifada - 26 Mar 2008rr r r r rr r rr r rr r rr rr rrr rJERUSALEM/GAZA, 25 March (IRIN) – Design errors, a fast growing population, the halting in recent years of development projects, and Israeli restrictions on imports have rendered the Gaza Strip’s sewage system incapable of handling the enclave’s waste, experts said. The result is the pumping of partially treated or untreated sewage directly into the sea, and the seepage of dirty water into the ground and groundwater.
Deaths of four “terrorists”Electronic Intifada - 26 Mar 2008rr r r r rr r rr r rr r rr rr rrr rFew other words shut down critical thought as completely as the word “terrorist.” Few other labels are so morally loaded, so totalizing, so antithetical to reasoned, measured debate. Almost no other term evokes such facile, muddled thinking. Thus, when a local leader of Islamic Jihad and three other Palestinian “terrorists” were killed by Israeli special forces in Bethlehem on Wednesday night, few outside of Palestine will mourn their deaths. JR Malsin writes from Bethlehem.
McQaedaCampaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) - 26 Mar 2008Summary: Commander Jeff HuberDespite the best efforts of Dick Cheney?s Iranian Directorate, the most compelling proof that Iran has backed and financed and armed any Iraqi extremists the administration has come up with so far is that handful of photographs in a PowerPoint presentation that for all any of us know could have been taken in Lindsey Graham?s closet. source: Pen and Swordread more
