Mideast Just Peace

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation Condemns H.Res.951 March 6, 2008
On March 5, the House of Representative passed by a vote of 404-1 H.Res.951, a biased, one-sided resolution on the situation in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian Gaza Strip. Read the US Campaign’s analysis of this resolution, learn more about what we did to­ protest it, and how you can take action.Read More »

A defeated policy, not a defeated people
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 7 March 2008 Here
The fallacy that lies behind the differential concern for the lives of innocent Israelis and Palestinians is thatthe massacre in Jerusalem and the massacres in Gaza can be separated. Israeli deaths are “terrorism,” while Palestinian deaths are merely an unfortunate consequence of the fight against “terrorism.” But the two are intricately linked, and what happened in Jerusalem is a direct consequence of what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians for decades.

THE MEGA PRISON OF PALESTINE
By Ilan Pappe, The Electronic Intifada, 5 March 2008 Here
In several articles published by The Electronic Intifada, I claimed that Israel is pursuing a genocidal policy against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The argument was that since Israel does not know how to deal with the Gaza Strip, they opted for a knee-jerk reaction in the form of massive killings whenever the Palestinians in the Strip dared to protest their strangulation and imprisonment. The end result so far is the escalation of the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians — unfortunately validating the adjective “genocidal” I and
others attached to these policies.

Rights Group: More than 50% of Gaza casulties weren’t militants by Haaretz Service Here
The human rights organization B’Tselem on Monday said in a statement that more than half of the Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip in Israel Defense Forces operations in recent days did not take an active part in the fighting. This statement came after the IDF Chief of Staff issued a statement saying that 90 percent of those killed were in fact armed militants.

Need another reason to drink Higher Grounds coffee instead of Starbucks?

You might be more inclined after you read how “Every latte and macchiato you drink at Starbucks is a contribution to the close alliance between the United States and Israel,” in a spoof letter written by Andrew Winkler at ZioPedia. He wrote the letter using past quotes by Starbukcs chairman Howard Schultz.

Tomgram: The Theater of the Imperially Absurd

How the Bush Administration Destabilized the “Arc of Instability by Tom Engelhardt. And, on any given day, you can see the evidence of this on a case by case basis in your local paper or on the TV news. You can check out the Iraqi, or Somali, or Lebanese, or Iranian, or Pakistani disasters, or impending disasters. But what you never see is all those crises and potential crises discussed in one place – without which the magnitude of the present disaster and the dangers in our future are hard to grasp.

“Moral Clarity” or “Morally Reprehensible”? Cheney’s New Rationale for the Iraq War

Remarks of Ellis Boal at Bart Stupak’s Town Meeting in Petoskey, Michigan, March 16, 2007

Thank you Congressman Stupak for coming to Petoskey today. I also appreciate that you have never crossed a union picket line, a remarkable achievement in this day and age.

The New War Rationale

Eight days ago on March 12, Vice-President Dick Cheney provided a new rationale for continuing US involvement in the war in Iraq. In a speech to the pro-Israel lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) he said:

Progress and the cause of security and long-term peace never comes easily — if the United States and Israel persevere in that cause, we understand, as Ariel Sharon put it, the right and responsibility of every democracy if it wishes to survive, to protect itself and its values. Doing so requires moral clarity, the courage of our convictions, a willingness to act when action is necessary and a refusal to submit to any form of intimidation ever.

These qualities are a credit to the American and Israeli people and these qualities are tested everyday as we wage the War on Terror…. We are the prime targets of the terror movement that is global in nature, and yes global in its ambitions.

…

Friends owe it to friends to be as candid as possible; so let me say that a precipitous American withdrawal from Iraq would be a disaster for the United States and the entire Middle East…. If Iran’s allies prevailed the regime in Tehran’s own designs for the Middle East would be advanced and the threat to our friends in the region would only be magnified.

My friends is it simply not consistent for anyone to demand aggressive action against the menace posed by the Iranian regime while at the same time acquiescing in a retreat from Iraq that would leave our worst enemies dramatically emboldened and Israel’s best friend, the United States dangerously weakened.

(Emphasis added)

In other words, one of the reasons for the US to stay in Iraq is to protect Israel from Iran.

AIPAC has taken no position on the Iraq war or on the supplemental war funding bill about to come before the House. But according to The Hill last Tuesday, an AIPAC crowd of over 5000 at the same meeting stood and applauded House Minority Leader John Boehner loudly when he said “the US had no choice but to win in Iraq.”

The mood at the AIPAC conference does not reflect the thinking of American Jews. According to a Gallup poll, of all religious groups including those with no religious affiliation, Jewish Americans most strongly oppose the war.

Nevertheless, even assertedly antiwar Democrats acquiesce in tipping their hats to Israel. Worrying about the possible effect on that country, last week they stripped from a war spending bill the requirement that President Bush gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran.

Reprehensible Clarity

Vice-President Cheney premised his reasoning on an appeal to “moral clarity,” said to be a credit to the American and Israeli people. That makes an evaluation of Israel’s morality, and that of the US, appropriate for discussion of the war. So much has been said and written on our own country that there is little to add about that. I will focus my remarks on Israel.

Last week I sent you general background in two articles I wrote in 2004. (On request I will send annotated versions of both.) Here are some figures from the one that appeared in the Petoskey News-Review. I don’t think anyone disputes that:

Israel’s history includes the initial conquest of 38 percent more land than the UN allotted to it in 1947, the expulsion of 700,000 Arab refugees in 1948, creation of 350,000 more refugees in 1967, the 1982 killings of 1000-2000 unarmed civilians in the Israeli-controlled refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, the 1985 Israeli attack on [PLO leader Yasser] Arafat’s compound in Tunisia, the movement of 430,000 settlers into conquered Palestinian land, and the ongoing housing and other discrimination against the 1.2 million Israeli Arabs countenanced by Israeli law.

The other article appeared in Guild Notes, the organ of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) which sponsored my two trips to the West Bank. Discussing Israel’s war of independence I wrote:

In November 1947 the United Nations recommended a partition plan, dividing Palestine non-contiguously into Jewish and Arab states. The plan gave the Jewish state a majority of the land, though Jews were only 30% of Palestine’s people. Arab leaders decided to oppose it, and irregular forces entered the country in January 1948.

But in the following twelve months, over 700,000 Arabs fled or were ejected from the country. At first the refugees tended to be well-to-do. Terrorist tactics of extreme Z

ionist groups were a major factor but not the only factor in their departures. That changed with the massacre at Deir Yassin.

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, said in an April 1948 speech:

We will not be able to win the war if we do not, during the war, populate [the] Galilee, the Negev and Jerusalem area, even if only in an artificial way, in a military way…. I believe that war will also bring in its wake a great change in the distribution of [Palestinian] Arab population.

Three days later 254 villagers were killed at Deir Yassin near Jerusalem according to the killers’ body count. Menachem Begin, later a prime minister of Israel, explained in his book what happened next:

The legend in Deir Yassin helped in particular in the saving of Tiberias and the conquest of Haifa…. All the Jewish forces proceeded to advance through Haifa like a knife through butter. The Arabs began fleeing in panic, shouting Deir Yassin…. Arabs throughout the country … were seized by limitless panic and started to flee for their lives.

In May, Britain formally pulled out. Israel declared itself a state. Several Arab governments sent in regular forces. In June the Israeli cabinet barred return of the refugees.

The Arab armies were poorly armed. By the end of the year Israel defeated them, and expanded its share of the land allotted under the partition plan by 38%.

Jewish settlers moved in to work most of the formerly-Arab land. In 1949 the olive produce from these lands was Israel’s third largest export.

Palestinians call the war al-Nakba — the catastrophe.

Initially in 1948 the US favored the Palestinian refugees. Again from my Guild Notes piece:

Speaking for the US, Dean Rusk advocated immediate repatriation and implored that displaced Palestinians not be made pawns in negotiations for a final settlement. The UN passed resolution 194 in December 1948.

As part of the same resolution the General Assembly created a UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine. Israel continued to stonewall repatriation. Mark Ethridge, the US delegate to the UNCPP, characterized Israel’s refusal as “morally reprehensible.”

Ethridge’s quote is from the Quigley article below.

Israel’s intransigence continues today. Last Wednesday the New York Times reported that data from the Israeli Civil Administration shows that almost a third of the property held by Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is private Arab-owned land. Seizure of private land for establishing settlements for security purposes is illegal, according to the Israeli Supreme Court. Yet Israel bars Arabs from the settlements, and says it will never give up the three main settlement blocks, Maale Adumim, Gush Etzion, and Ariel. Thus the data will “further complicate the already distant prospect of a negotiated piece,” the Times says.

The US Reaction

Israel cannot act with moral clarity and yet at the same time be morally reprehensible. How does the US resolve this dilemma?

In material terms from 1949 on, it has backed Israel. Israel receives $2-3 billion a year in direct aid, most of it military. The total through the end of 2006 sums to $108 billion. No accounting is required as to how the funds are used. A 2001 report of an NLG delegation to Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel (one in which I did not participate) said:

Virtually all Israel’s weapons are provided or financed by the United States…. [Our delegation] spent considerable time in Beit Jala, Hebron, Nablus, and Gaza looking at shell debris and weaponry fragments that were found primarily in destroyed and damaged buildings. Although some of the shells contained Hebrew writing, which indicated Israeli manufactured weapons, the overwhelming majority of the fragments, when there was writing on them, had English descriptions at the least, and many of them identified the places of manufacture as being within the United States.

Israel does not produce its own tanks or planes. The NLG delegation noted the following US-made weapons used by Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories: Apache and Huey Cobra helicopters, Reshef patrol boats, bulldozers, pile drivers, armored personnel carriers, grenade launchers, shoulder-fired anti-armor weapons, rockets, and a wide variety of ammunition.

The US also resolves the dilemma ideologically. In a 2004 policy reversal, President Bush announced his rejection of Palestinian refugees’ rights to return to their homes in Israel. Both houses of Congress concurred.

It doesn’t have to be this way

For centuries until the 1920s Jews and Muslims in the Middle East had cordial relations, at least compared to Europe. Many European Jews sought refuge from persecution in Muslim-ruled areas.

Cheney’s speech also spoke of a “battle of ideas.” But in the battle of ideas, traditionally Christian countries have been the worst actors. Professed Christians ruled Germany when it killed millions of Jews in the 1940s. Professed Christians expelled Jews from England, France, and Spain in the 13th-15th centuries. Professed Christians ran the Crusades. In the siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, Muslims and Jews defended the city side by side, and in the end were massacred together.

The first military struggle between Jews and Muslims was not until al-Nakba in 1948.

I believe that under democratic norms the land of Canaan can be shared again, as Mazin Qumsiyeh argues in his book noted below. The nature of such a resolution is beyond the scope of my remarks, and at the moment there is conflict.

I do agree the conflict bears on what is happening in Iraq, though not in the way the vice-president looks at it. But a prerequisite to resolving both conflicts is for the US to get out. It must stop funding the Iraq war, and stop funding Israel.

******************************

Sources:

ABC News: Dems Abandon War Authority Provision, Democrats Back Off Requiring Bush to Gain Congressional Approval for Move Against Iran,
Ellis Boal, Arafat: A Critical Appreciation, guest commentary, Petoskey News-Review, 11/19/04

Ellis Boal, Palestinians’ Right to Return, Guild Notes, Volume XXVIII # 2 (Summer 2004)

Dick Cheney, The United States and Israel: Tradition and Transcendence, AIPAC Policy Conference 2007, March 11, 2007,
Steven Erlanger, West Bank Sites on Private Land, Data Shows,
Frank James, American Jews and the Iraq War, 2/23/07,
Ron Kampeas, In a show of bipartisan support, House backs Bush pledge to Israel, http://www.majorityleader.gov/in_the_news/articles/index.cfm?pressReleaseID=757

Shirl McArthur, A Conservative Estimate of Total Direct U.S. Aid to Israel: $108 Billion,
National Lawyers Guild: The Al Aqsa Intifada and Israel’s Apartheid: The U.S. Military and Economic Role in the Violation of Palestinian Human Rights,
John Quigley, Repatriation of Displaced Palestinians as a Legal Right,
Mazin Qumsiyeh, Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle,
Ian Swanson, Pelosi hears boos at AIPAC,
Wikipedia, History of the Jews in Muslim Lands,

Immediate Withdrawal by Marian Kromkowski was first published in Thirdeye Magazine.

Immediate Withdrawal

When you think about it, no other option really makes sense.

Last November, many Americans were celebrating the new Democratic majority in the House and Senate. Outrage and concern over the Iraq War had forced Democratic and Republican candidates to address not only the government’s decision to go to war, but also the handling of the war since 2003. More often than not, candidates who advocated a change in course were elected. These results clearly challenged the Bush administration policy of “staying the course.”

But rather than heeding the voice of the people, on Jan. 11 President Bush dismissed overwhelming disapproval of the war, ignored military advisors’ skepticism over a “surge” in forces, and announced an increase of 21,500 troops in Iraq.

Demonstrations against the announced surge immediately sprung up throughout the nation. With only one day’s notice, 70 protesters marched through downtown Traverse City. Two weeks later, hundreds of Traverse area residents gathered – in solidarity with protesters around the country – to call for an end to the war and to demand Congress move toward cutting off funding. Over 500,000 marched in Washington DC. A protest in San Francisco turned out 5,000 demonstrators. In Los Angeles, thousands took to the streets. In Seattle, more than one thousand people turned out to protest – including First Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to face prosecution for refusing to serve in Iraq.

Frustration and anger among anti-war activists continues to mount on both the national and local level. Watered-down nonbinding resolutions aside, what is missing from the dialogue in Washington is a demand for the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Immediate withdrawal must become the subject of debate everywhere, for the sooner it occurs the better for all sides of the conflict. Although possible, it is highly unlikely that America’s situation in Iraq is going to improve. It surely cannot get much worse for the Iraqis.

According to a Pentagon report, the number of weekly attacks has nearly doubled in two years time, averaging 792 per week in late summer. As of this writing, 3,133 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq and 23,500 have been wounded. And although most of the media is focused on sectarian strife and the resulting civilian death, last August a Defense Intelligence Agency report found that 70 percent of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) targeted U.S. forces, 20 percent targeted Iraqi security forces, and only 10 percent targeted civilians. Further, a poll conducted by the British Ministry of Defense found that between 45 and 65 percent of Iraqis support armed attacks against the occupying forces. In a recent three week period, five U.S. military helicopters were shot down by the Iraqi resistance.
These numbers – and the fact that wars are rarely won by an occupying force once faced with an armed, dedicated, and organized indigenous resistance – indicate that there’s a high likelihood the U.S. will be forced out of Iraq in defeat.

So, if we can not “win” this war, how much longer will we throw our citizenry into an unending meat grinder? How much more money will we spend on military adventures while our healthcare system remains nonexistent and our schools under-funded? How much longer will Iraqis have to live under occupation and how many more must die? If the U.S. will ultimately withdraw, why not do it now?

The most common criticism to immediate and absolute withdrawal of American troops is that it will bring chaos to Iraq. Of course, this ignores that the current dysfunction in Iraq has much to do with fifteen years of devastating sanctions spearheaded by the U.S., the aftermath of depleted uranium and remnants of unexploded munitions used by the U.S. in 1991’s Gulf War, and the saturation bombing conducted by British and U.S. forces in the months leading up to the 2003 invasion.

The current situation remains grim. Lancet research suggests as many as 650,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion. Unemployment is estimated at 60 percent while Kellogg, Brown & Root hire thousands of foreign workers for Iraqi jobs. Employed Iraqis earn $150 per month on average. The cost of fuel and electricity – when they are available – has gone up 270 percent in one year. Parents keep children home from school. One million Iraqis are refugees in Jordan and Syria.

Indeed, there is chaos, and there will be chaos with or without a U.S. presence. However, it is the U.S. who has taken the lead in destroying Iraq’s infrastructure from 1991 through 2003 and then subsequently mismanaged its affairs since the 2003 invasion. It’s also the U.S. who fueled sectarian divisions in the draft Iraqi constitution, invited the fringe fundamentalist Shia and Iran-backed parties into the political discourse, and first armed, trained, and funded the militias for counter-insurgency operations. The U.S., it seems, is much like a bull in a china shop – the only solution is to kick it out and send it the bill.

The call for withdrawal is gaining support. On Feb. 14, the Boston City Council voted 8-3 in support of a resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and the reallocation of funds from the Pentagon back to communities where they can be used for AIDS, jobs, housing, healthcare, and education. Similar resolutions are pending in other cities. PollingReport.com found that 63 percent favor a withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of 2008. Meanwhile, 40 percent say the efforts to bring stability to Iraq are going very badly, 46 percent say the situation in Iraq is going to get worse, and 47 percent think the U.S. is unlikely to succeed in Iraq. A vast majority believe the U.S. military cannot do much about fighting between Iraqi factions.

With these very realistic projections there is no justifiable reason to delay the inevitable. Withdrawal is the honest answer to a dishonest war that should not have been waged and an occupation that is making things worse by the day.

Marian Kromkowski is an attorney, mediator, and co-founder of Mideast: Just Peace – an educational/activist group providing a voice for the Palestinian resistance, anti-occupation Israelis, and Americans who oppose current U.S. policies in the Middle East. She is also a co-founder of Traverse for Peace.