Gaza Justice Action Center

You're just one click away from telling Congress to lift the Gaza siege and support UNRWA . . .

CLICK HERE TO TELL CONGRESS TO END THE SIEGE AND TO SUPPORT UNRWA

Farhana writes:

While the world's attention is on the Economic Stimulus debate, Israel continues to dominate and starve the people of Gaza.

The right-wing pro-Israel Lobby is applying all pressure on congress to tighten the Gaza blockade. AIPAC and their friends are working overtime to make sure the Gaza border continue to be closed.

They've gone as far as introducing a new house resolution that attacks the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) alleging it supports terrorists. Introduced last week and referred to the U.S. Congress House Foreign Affairs Committee, H. Con. Res. 29 states in part:

[Whereas schools administered by UNRWA have reported to have produced several graduates that have gone on to careers affiliated with terrorism, including Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, and Abd al-Azis Rantisi, the former Hamas chief;

Whereas United States taxpayer dollars should never be used for purposes of supporting terrorist cells or activities that support terror or promote a culture of hatred at any of its locations: ] READ THE FULL TEXT HERE

What twisted logic. How can UNRWA possibly know what their students will grow up to be? Instead of pumping more money into educating and feeding Palestinians, some in Congress would rather cut off all humanitarian aid starving young children so they don't grow-up to be terrorists. That's not a solution.

Thank you again, please spread the word to all your friends.

(thanks Janae)

-mr

LET'S HAVE A DEBATE!

SESAME is proposing a formal debate on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and is searching for student or faculty debaters ready and willing to represent the Israeli point of view.

We believe that vigorous and interactive discussion deepens the quality of discourse on campus and is essential in fulfilling the ideals of a democratic republic. A formal debate is a healthy place to express honest disagreements and challenge individual and collective assumptions.

We have yet to finalize any format or the parameters of the topic - so we are soliciting any and all suggestions!

We have already volunteered the idea at a recent Zionist meeting and were declined.

If you have strong and clear opinions on what we view as the Israeli occupation of historic Palestine, please contact us ASAP. We need your help in elevating the public discourse!

If you’re interested please contact Michelle @ SESAME or respond on tesccrier:

Phone: (360)867-6724
Email: sesame@evergreen.edu

-mr

Understanding Iraq's Elections

The latest polling results reveal a sharp drop in Baghdad's Sunni population indicating the triumph of years of ethnic cleansing in the capital's Sunni and mixed neighborhoods. This militia-led slaughter was decisive in lowering the catastrophic levels of violence plaguing Iraq in 2006, working in tandem with Bush's so-called surge. Prof. Cole described this devastating dialectic in summer '08:

"As best I can piece it together, what actually seems to have happened was that the escalation troops began by disarming the Sunni Arabs in Baghdad. Once these Sunnis were left helpless, the Shiite militias came in at night and ethnically cleansed them. Shaab district near Adhamiya had been a mixed neighborhood. It ended up with almost no Sunnis. Baghdad in the course of 2007 went from 65% Shiite to at least 75% Shiite and maybe more. My thesis would be that the US inadvertently allowed the chasing of hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arabs out of Baghdad (and many of them had to go all the way to Syria for refuge). Rates of violence declined once the ethnic cleansing was far advanced, just because there were fewer mixed neighborhoods. Newsrack was among the first to make this argument, though I was tracking the ethnic cleansing at my blog throughout 2007."

Few Sunnis still reside in Baghdad, a once vibrant metropolitan center hosting a commingling of faiths and ethnicities. Majority Sunni or mixed enclaves in the capital have since been refashioned into exclusively Shiite neighborhoods. Many of Iraq's four million internally and externally displaced peoples fled this sectarian bloodshed and even if they felt secure enough to return they would have little to return to. Their former homes have been re-occupied, and the current Baghdadi balance of power guarantees that the days of mixed neighborhoods are long gone for now.

Lasted on Iraq's provincial elections from Informed Comment:

Religious Parties Sweep Shiite South; Sunni Arabs fragmented, mainly Secular.

The Iraqi provincial election results are out. They confirm what I said last Monday, that the parties who want a strong, united Iraq have come to the fore in these elections. Although Nuri al-Maliki's Da'wa Party got over a third of the votes in Baghdad and Basra, they clearly did not achieve a commanding position, and its share in the more rural Shiite provinces was signifcantly less..

The big story here is that the Shiite religious parties (and yes, the Da'wa or Islamic Mission Party is among them) again swept the Shiite south. However, those Shiite parties that won out this time want a strong central government, not a Shiite mini-state.

There is nothing here to give comfort to those Americans who fear Iranian influence in Iraq. The Islamic Mission Party or Da'wa is just as committed to warm relations with Tehran as is the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. The Da'wa leaders were in exile in Tehran for years just like ISCI. Da'wa is more "lay" and less clerical than ISCI, but being "lay" means non-clerical, not secular. Da'wa wants an Islamic State.

These election results raise severe questions about the viability of the Biden plan, which foresaw three decentralized super-provinces overseen by a weak central government. Most of the victors in this election are strong believers in a centralized civil bureaucracy.

On the whole, I think these results are encouraging for Obama. The Sunni Arab ex-Baathist secular elites have reentered polities in the Sunni Arab areas. These election results put paid to the fantasies of Dick Cheney and John McCain that Sunni Arab Iraqis are pro-"al-Qaeda." Most of them would not even vote for a religious party, much less for a radical fundamentalist terrorist group. Cheney said that if the US left, al-Qaeda would take over Sunni Arab Iraq. That is highly unlikely given these election results.

Iraq voted as several distinct demographic zones.

In the two provinces with very large Shiite cities, the Islamic Mission Party (Da'wa) of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki took over a third of the vote. Another 15-20% of the vote went to Shiite fundamentalist parties such as the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq or the Sadrists. Contrary to what a lot of observers are saying, the Da'wa Party is not secular and it is not anti-Iran. It is Iraq's oldest Shiite fundamentalist party, founded in the late 1950s, and it explicitly works for an Islamic republic. Its leaders consult with and tend to defer to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Since these parties will have to make post-election coalitions to rule, given that none gained a majority, the resulting provincial governments will resemble those formed by the United Iraqi Alliance, which grouped as allies these same Shiite religious parties. The major difference in this election in the big urban areas is that in Baghdad, the Shiite middle class gave the Iraqi List of Iyad Allawi nearly 10% of the vote, and the Sunni fundamentalists got a similar percentage. Of course, some Sunnis may have voted for Allawi's Iraqi List. But the election returns suggest that Sunnis are no no more than ten to fifteen percent of the Baghdad population, and that Iraq's capital is now a largely Shiite city. In Basra province, the Sunni proportion seems even smaller, tiny, even. This is odd because Zubayr near Baghdad is a largely Sunni city of 300,000. The Basra middle classes, once fairly secular, returned the big religious parties overwhelmingly.

The second zone is the medium and smaller Shiite cities of the south. There, Da'wa did not do nearly as well, receiving between ten and twenty-three percent of the vote. The other 90 to 77 percent of the seats went to other fundamentalist Shiite parties in the main. The Sadrists showed substantial strength in some provinces, garnering 14% and 15% of the vote. Although the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq suffered a massive reversal, insofar as it had dominated the provinces of the south from 2005, it still often ranged from 8% to 15% of the seats in these provincial councils. Other small Shiite parties, including former PM Ibrahim Jaafari's National Reform Trend and the Islamic Virtue Party, both small Shiite fundamentalist parties, often got between three and eight percent of the vote.

The final zone is the four Sunni Arab provinces, which did not vote similarly to one another.

The ethnically mixed Diyala Province in the east split its vote, with about a quarter going to secular parties with a Baathist background; about a fifth going to the Sunni fundamentalist bloc; a fourth going to the Kurdistan alliance, and about 15 percent going to Shiite fundamentalist parties.

In al-Anbar, the secular and tribal parties won big, with the religious parties marginalized (15% of the vote).

In Ninevah, a big, secular, centralizing party, al-Hadba', got nearly 50% of the seats, sweeping away the Kurdish representatives that were once prominent on this provincial council.

Salahuddin returned so many small parties that seeing a trend thare is beyond me. The over all picture of the Sunni Arabs is that contrary to the last administration in Washington, the Sunni Arabs of Iraq are mostly secular nationalists and are uninterested for the most part in fundamentalists or "al-Qaeda."

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Iraqi High Electoral Commission announced 90 percent of the results in the provincial elections held Jan. 31. More results are given in Arabic in this al-Hayat article. The New York Times has a fairly complete list of results in English. (Juan Cole @ 2/05/2009 )

-mr

Obama's Hopelessly Lopsided Humanity

"Obama: What if this happened to your girls?"

Posted by Helena Cobban
February 4, 2009 4:33 PM EST | Link
Filed in Gaza08-09 , Obama presidency

When he was on the campaign trail, Pres. Obama gave Israel nearly "carte blanche" to act as it wanted against Gaza by saying-- in southern Israel-- that if his daughters were threatened by rocket attack in the same way that kids in southern Israel were, then he couldn't imagine what he would do in response.

So I hope he reads this piece by Ethan Bronner and Sabrina Tavernise in the NYT today, about what happened to Sabah Abu Halima's family in Atatra, Gaza during the recent war:

The phosphorus smoke bomb punched through the roof in exactly the spot where much of the family had taken refuge — the upstairs hall away from the windows.

The bomb, which international weapons experts identified as phosphorus by its fragments, was intended to mask troop movements outside. Instead it breathed its storm of fire and smoke into Sabah Abu Halima’s hallway, releasing flaming chemicals that clung to her husband, baby girl and three other small children, burning them to death.

But that's not all. Later on,

Omar Abu Halima and his two teenage cousins tried to take the burned body of his baby sister and two other living but badly burned girls to the hospital on that Sunday.

The boys were taking the girls and six others on a tractor, when, according to several accounts from villagers, Israeli soldiers told them to stop. According to their accounts, they got down, put their hands up, and suddenly rounds were fired, killing two teenage boys: Matar Abu Halima, 18, and Muhamed Hekmet, 17.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said that soldiers had reported that the two were armed and firing. Villagers strongly deny that. The tractor that villagers say was carrying the group is riddled with 36 bullet holes.

The villagers were forced to abandon the bodies of the teenage boys and the baby, and when rescue workers arrived 11 days later, the baby’s body had been eaten by dogs, her legs two white bones, captured in a gruesome image on a relative’s cellphone. The badly burned girls and others on the tractor had fled to safety.

Matar’s mother, Nabila Abu Halima, said she had been shot through the arm when she tried to move toward her son. Her left arm bears a round scar. Her son came back to her in pieces, his body crushed under tank treads.

Bronner and Tavernise's piece is tragic. (Though the NYT gave it an inappropriate headline, I think.)

It's also notable because they make a point of noting how many Palestinians were killed by Israel's security forces in the 39 months between the IDF's supposed withdrawal from Gaza in September 2005, and the outbreak of the hostilities last December: about 1,275.

Israeli hasbaristas have argued throughout this time that the siege the Israeli government has maintained around Gaza has been the main (or sometimes, the only) Israeli "response" to the rockets launched against Hamas and other militants in Gaza over this time. I have always argued that this was never a simple situation of "rockets versus siege" but that during this period, in addition to the siege, the Israelis maintained very lethal military ops against Gaza, as well.

Also, few if any of Israel's actions against Gaza have been undertaken solely "in response to" Palestinian rocketings. There has always been a cycle of violence; and very frequently (including, most notably, last December 27) Israel has been the one to initiate a new round or significantly escalate an existing round. The number of Israelis killed by the Gazans' for the most part extremely primitive, home-made bottle rockets has been very low. Certainly, far fewer than 100 killed over that same time. (Though Bronner and Tavernise somehow omit to mention the number. I believe it's available at B'tselem's site.)

But anyway, main point of post: Pres. Obama, what would you do if your family members got treated the same way Sabah Abu Halima's family got treated? I am assuming, of course, that you and everyone else agrees that a Palestinian life is every bit as valuable as an Israeli life...

(Helena Cobban - JUST WORLD NEWS )

-mr

White-Lies Israeli Style

Gazans Seek Answers on White Phosphorus:

Gaza City, Gaza - When Nafiz Abu Shabam received a 5-year-old patient at the Shifa Hospital early in the war between Israel and Hamas, he dressed her burns and sent her for tests. Three hours later, when he and other medical staff redressed the wound, they saw smoke coming from it.

"We found small pieces of foreign material in her body, and even when we picked it out, the wound was still smoking," he says. "We were later told [by foreign doctors and human rights workers who arrived after the war started] that it was white phosphorus."

As white phosphorus is highly incendiary, can reignite when exposed to oxygen, and causes painful chemical burns, it is not intended – or legal under international law – for use in civilian areas.

Israel initially denied that white phosphorus munitions were used in its 22-day war with Hamas. It now says, "there was no illegal use of phosphorus or any other material," according to the spokesman for Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Amid the allegations that white phosphorus shells were used in populated areas, Israel announced an investigation. READ MORE

-mr

Iraq's Elections

I have scanned several major mainstream news sources and they all fail to mention that al-Maliki's Da'wa party, which won most of the provinces in last week's local election, is a religious Shiite party. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and candidates backed by Muqtada as-Sadr are regularly branded as 'Shiite,' but never Da'wa. This is a deliberate omission to paint the most recent Iraqi elections as a victory for the 'secular West' and a defeat for the 'fundamentalist East.' It is as insincere in its intentions as the narrow worldview inspiring such fabrications in the first place. Prof. Juan Cole clarifies:

Iran did not Lose the Provincial Elections

It is being alleged by US pundits that the outcome of the provincial elections in Iraq, as far as it is known, indicates a defeat for the religious parties and for Iran.

This allegation is not true. In the Shiite provinces, the coalition of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Islamic Mission Party (Da'wa) will continue to rule. Both parties are close to Tehran, and leaders of both spent time in exile in Iran. Da'wa appears to have become more popular than ISCI. But Da'wa was founded in the late 1950s to work for an Islamic republic in Iraq, and current leader Nuri al-Maliki has excellent relations with the Iranian leadership.

Da'wa is more "lay" in the composition of its leadership, which is made up of lawyers, physicians and other white collar types. ISCI has more clerics at the top, though it also comprises technocrats such as VP Adil Abdul Mahdi. But Da'wa will need Iranian economic and development aid just as much as previous governments did.

In the Sunni provinces there appears to have been a turn to more secular parties, but neither the Sunni fundamentalists nor the Arab nationalists have much use for Iran to begin with.

The Kurdish leadership is also quite close to Iran. They will have elections in May.

Juan Cole @ 2/05/2009

-mr

Robert Fisk asks us when we stopped caring about civilians deaths in wartime.

McClatchy reports on Iraq's meager voter turnout:

Voter turnout in Iraq's provincial elections Saturday was the lowest in the nation's short history as a new democracy despite a relative calm across the nation. Only about 7.5 million of more than 14 million registered voters went to the polls.

Interviews suggest that the low voter turnout also is an indication of Iraqi disenchantment with a democracy that, so far, has brought them very little.

Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and the fall of a brutal dictator, Iraqis witnessed unprecedented violence in their nation and what they believe is humiliation under a foreign occupation. Even on Saturday, U.S. tanks could be spotted across Baghdad on largely empty roads. READ MORE

Prof. Cole offers some insight on the election:

There was a lockdown of the whole country, in which US troops assisted, with no private automobiles allowed to run. Given this datum, the breathless newspaper headlines that the elections came off without any major attacks are reporting a given. Guerrillas can't detonate a car bomb if they can't drive a car to their target.

Glitches prevented thousands of voters from casting their ballots McClatchy says, causing big demonstrations and protest rallies to be held. The Iraqi government electoral high commission said that the main problem was that some Iraqis had not registered and then just showed up expecting to be able to vote anyway. There were widespread reports of vote-buying.

American corporate media will report the Iraqi provincial elections as a vindication of the 2003 US invasion of that country, and as a sign that Iraqis are eager to be like Americans. In places like Sadr City, the teeming slums of East Baghdad, many Iraqis voted as a protest against continued US military presence. Likewise, Sunni fundamentalists saw the vote as an assertion of Iraqi sovereignty. The elections come in the wake of the Status of Forces Agreement that pledges all US troops will be out of the country by 2011, and in the wake of the election of Barack Obama in the US, who has committed to having most US troops out in 16 months. The sharp fall in deaths of civilians and security personnel in January, to 189, is not a sign that Bush won but rather that the Iraqis have. No point in blowing things up if the US is leaving anyway, and less reason to resist the new federal Iraqi government if Sunni Arab elites can rule their own provinces.

It is not the US presence in Iraq that Iraqis are celebrating in this election but Washington's imminent departure.

The USG Open Source center translated the sermon Fiday of Muzaffar al-Musawi, Friday prayer leader in Sadr City is observed to carry a report on a Friday sermon Shaykh Muzaffar al-Musawi delivered in the City of Al-Sadr:

' In his sermon, Al-Musawi urges citizens to participate in the elections "intensively so that others will not fill the voting forms." He denounces those whom he termed the "climbers of the ladder of Al Al-Sadr." He says: "We call on the sons of the City of Al-Sadr to vote lest others fill the forms or rig the elections. The one who does not participate in the elections will be betraying Martyr Al-Sadr and Muqtada al-Sadr."

He adds: "Some politicians and parties speak in the name of the two religious authorities, Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and Sayyid Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, may God sanctify their secret. We tell them that we, the sons of the two Al-Sadrs suffered from the torture and evil of Saddam. Beware, do not let anyone to climb the ladder of Al Al-Sadr."

Al-Musawi says: "Our bloc is the Independent Free Men Trend bloc, for which the Al-Sadr Trend announced its support a week ago."

Al-Musawi adds: "We have seen humiliation and deprivation from the authority and the occupier. What the occupier did was more heinous than what Saddam did."

Concluding, Al-Musawi says: "Elect the Independent Free Men Trend list so that your suffering will end. Make them hear your voice tomorrow. Say yes, yes to the Free Men List in order to prove to them that we are still present in the arena, the street, and Iraq."

-mr