Republicans and Democrats Agree Cut Aid to the Poor, Not Israel

By MEDEA BENJAMIN and CHARLES DAVIS

With the U.S. economy in the tank and governments at all levels facing massive budget shortfalls, politicians left and right are seeking ways to curb spending. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to eliminate collective bargaining rights and the decent pay that goes with them. President Barack Obama's budget includes halving the home-heating oil subsidy poor households depend on.

As Republicans and Democrats propose cuts in programs that actually benefit their increasingly impoverished constituents, though, they agree there's one area of the budget that's not to be touched: the annual $3 billion subsidy U.S. taxpayers provide to the Israeli military.

One of the biggest defenders of the handout is House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. "There will be no cuts to security assistance to the Jewish State of Israel," her chief of staff declared in a recent letter to House Republicans. The rest of the U.S. foreign aid budget, including assistance for Iraqi refugees and food aid to the world's poorest people, is fair game. But the Florida congresswoman insists we must help Israel maintain its "Qualitative Military Edge."

And congressional Democrats have her back.

Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, for instance – a leading member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus – has drafted a letter, cosigned by California Democrat Anna Eshoo, warning that the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia "have the potential to add to the very real security challenges faced by Israel." Reducing or "otherwise endangering aid to our ally" would be "unproductive," she adds, encouraging her colleagues to tell Obama they "strongly support … providing $3.075 billion in assistance to Israel." (For those shivering at home, that's more assistance than Obama is proposing to offer Americans trying to keep their houses warm.)

This liberal appeal for Israeli military aid, meanwhile, is being sent out under the auspices of J Street, a group that positions itself as a left-leaning answer to AIPAC. But J Street staff we spoke with at their recent conference were hard-pressed to explain why U.S. taxpayers should fund a right-wing Israeli government that continues to build settlements and maintains an inhumane siege of Gaza.

So it's left to folks like libertarian Congressman Ron Paul and his son, Kentucky Senator and Tea Party favorite Rand Paul, to call for ending aid to Israel. In a February 4 interview with ABC News, Rand Paul said of Israel, "I think that their per capita income is greater than probably three-fourths of the rest of the world. Should we be giving free money or welfare to a wealthy nation? I don't think so."

Indeed, Israel has the 24th largest economy in the world, and ranks 15th among 169 nations on the UN Human Development Index, which makes it a "very highly developed" nation.

Yet what thanks did Senator Paul get for his call to save the U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars? A torrent of criticism, even from J Street, which called on Republicans – and their donors – "to repudiate his comments and ensure American leadership around the world is not threatened by this irresponsible proposal."

Paul's fellowTea Partiers aren't any better. Of the 87 freshmen House Republicans elected on platforms of cut-baby-cut, at least three-fourths have now signed a letter declaring that, "As Israel faces threats from escalating instability in Egypt" – where have we heard that line of argument before? – "security assistance to Israel … has never been more important." Subsidies are for militaries, you see, not poor people.

But even without U.S. funding, Israel would still spend $11 billion-plus on its military, more than all but 20 other nations in the world spend on their armed forced – and hundreds of millions of dollars more than the Islamic Republic of Iran, despite having just 1/10th the population. Throw in a couple – as in, couple hundred – little things called nuclear weapons, and, for better or worse, the Jewish state's "Qualitative Military Advantage" isn't going anywhere.

But you wouldn't know that listening to the folks at J Street or to liberals like Jan Schakowsky, who hysterically cite the specter of Arab democracy to advocate billions in subsidies for a government that openly flouts international law. So much for their concern about human rights. And so much for being progressive. Indeed, with liberals like these, the Netanyahu government and its allies at AIPAC are likely asking themselves: who needs the Tea Party?

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange.

Charles Davis is a journalist.

http://counterpunch.org/benjamin03032011.html

Terrorist israel settlers block roads in 'Day of Rage'

Settlers tried to block a main highway and burned tyres at the entrance to Jerusalem, launching a "Day of Rage" to protest police action during an outpost demolition, officials said.

"There were a number of attempts to block the Jerusalem road. Police quickly arrived and dispersed them," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.

In one incident, a handful of protesters tried to block the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway at a point halfway between the two cities, while others put burning tyres in the road at the entrance to Jerusalem, he said.

Settlers are holding a day of protests following clashes at the Havat Gilad outpost near Nablus which broke out early on Monday when police came to demolish a caravan, a tent and another half-built structure at the site.

During the incident, the settlers say police used excessive force to remove demonstrators, using stun grenades and paint ball guns against them.

Some hardline settlers have threatened to carry out "price tag" attacks against Palestinians on Thursday -- a policy which involves attacks on the local population as a direct response to "anti-settler" activity by the Israeli government.

Police were on high alert to prevent violence, said Rosenfeld.

"We have stepped up patrols in different areas in Judaea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Jerusalem and we are prepared to deal with disturbances as they happen," he said.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.ba3a4fce067ab086f81ee88df7403702.531&show_article=1

Zionists committed genocidal massacres and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians

Israel Charny, director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem and former editor of the Encyclopedia of Genocide, acknowledges that Zionists committed genocidal massacres and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians

The Jewish Daily Forward article copied below reports on a disagreement between two scholars of genocide, in which one scholar, a man named Israel Charny, denounced another scholar as "delusional" for suggesting that what Zionists did to Palestinians in 1948 constituted genocide. What makes this article interesting is that Charny, while ardently defending Israel from the charge of genocide nonetheless admitted that Zionists carried out genocidal massacres and ethnic cleansing. He just didn't think the word "genocide" is appropriate to describe the Zionists' intentions. I have bolded the most relevant passages below. --John Spritzler

http://forward.com/articles/135484/

The Jewish Daily Forward

Genocide?

Palestinians evacuate the village of Zenin in 1948. Some scholars say that what is now called ‘ethnic cleansing’ constitutes a form of genocide.

Genocide? Palestinians evacuate the village of Zenin in 1948. Some scholars say that what is now called ‘ethnic cleansing’ constitutes a form of genocide.

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/135484/#ixzz1EMM2LDRp

By Gal Beckerman

Published February 16, 2011, issue of February 25, 2011.

Did Jews commit genocide in 1948?

The question is provocative, and the answer for most people is an unequivocal no. But a debate over this idea has formed the crux of a heated argument among the most eminent genocide scholars in the world, and led recently to the censure of an Israeli professor by the field’s leading academic association.

It’s also one more reminder of the growing divide between European scholars and their American and Israeli counterparts when it comes to how they view Israel, both historically and in the present moment.

The debate began in the pages of a scholarly publication, the Winter 2010 issue of the Journal of Genocide Research. Two specialists in genocide, Omer Bartov of Brown University and Martin Shaw of Roehampton University, in London, engaged in a back-and-forth exchange about whether the word “genocide” could be applied to the expulsion and killing of Arabs in Palestine during Israel’s War of Independence. During the course of the war, more than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced out of their homes and were later prevented from returning, creating what would become one of the world’s most enduring refugee crises.

Both Bartov and Shaw agreed that some form of what is now called “ethnic cleansing” did occur. But where Bartov was not willing to think of this as genocide, Shaw confidently argued that any policies meant to destroy a group, even if not outright murder, should be seen as genocide.

With this more expansive reading, he sees genocide victims everywhere, from the Aborigines in Australia to the Albanians uprooted from Kosovo. And Shaw goes further, claiming that the entire Zionist enterprise had “an incipiently genocidal mentality” toward the Arabs. Due to what he views as Israel’s original sin, Shaw argues that the state’s policies toward Palestinians and its Arab citizens since “can be seen as a ‘slow-motion’ extension and consolidation of the genocide of 1948.”

In the exchange, Bartov described Shaw’s ultimate purpose as “delegitimizing” Israel, and offered plenty of evidence for why calling what Jews did in 1948 “genocide” would only serve to render the term “meaningless.”

But it didn’t end there. Israel Charny, an American-born scholar who immigrated to Israel and who directs the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem and edited the Encyclopedia of Genocide, was offended by the exchange. He wrote a response that was posted on the discussion board of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, a 16-year-old organization that is considered the pre-eminent association of its kind.

Charny did not mince words. He referred to Shaw’s argument as the “delusional projection of an angry soul,” and accused Shaw of attacks on Israel and Zionism that were “blind and rampaging.”

Shaw complained that Charny’s criticism amounted to an ad hominem assault, and the president of IAGS, William Schabas, apologized to Shaw, admitting that the offending message shouldn’t have been posted. Schabas then took the unprecedented step of formally censuring Charny.

“My only concern is that we have a debate in which the tone is between civilized academics, discussing things in an appropriate way,” Schabas, a professor of international law at the National University of Ireland in Galway, told the Forward. “Charny’s comments were too intemperate. So we apologized to Shaw and let the debate continue.”

But to Charny, this was one more sign that a field that was started as “a civilizational response to the horror of the Holocaust” has been turned against the Jewish state. “This is ultimately a story of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, including among genocide scholars,” Charny told the Forward.

Charny makes it clear that he does think Jews committed what he calls “genocidal massacres” during the war of 1948, like the infamous shooting of civilians in the village of Deir Yassin, in which more than 100 unarmed people were killed in a brutal raid. But he does not consider the “ethnic cleansing” that took place as constituting genocide, nor does he think, as Shaw contends, that the Zionists had any genocidal objective.

“I do not believe the war was undertaken by us with a genocidal intent at all — it was in self-defense for the establishment of Israel per the U.N. mandate and our cherished Zionist dream,” Charny said. “And I do not at all believe that we had any grand genocidal plan in our warfare or in the collective mind-culture in which the Yishuv [pre-state government] was operating.”

According to the United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted at the end of 1948, genocide is legally defined as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” Nowhere does it specifically mention what we would think of today as ethnic cleansing, but there are those scholars, like Shaw, who believe that ethnic cleansing does indeed fall within the convention’s initial meaning.

Shaw thinks Charny’s reaction is indicative of those scholars he calls “pro-Israel,” those who he thinks are incapable of applying the same critical eye to Israel and its past that they do to other peoples’ histories.

“He’s an American Jew who’s gone to Israel, and he has invested a lot of his identity in Israel — whereas criticisms of the recent attack on Gaza don’t necessarily bring the whole existence of the state into question, this seems to him as an argument that strikes at the foundations,” Shaw said, speaking of Charny. “The other issue is that there is a problem with the language of genocide with anything having to do with Jews. For some Israeli and pro-Israeli scholars, genocide is something that happened to the Jews; it’s not something that Jews could ever really be involved in.”

This current conflict between the scholars in some ways cements what was already an ideological rift.

In 2005, a group of genocide researchers, many of whom had been part of IAGS, decided to start their own rival organization, calling it the International Network of Genocide Scholars. The reason they say they broke away was twofold: They felt that IAGS had become too American in its perspective, and that it had become too politically activist. Unofficially, according to Shaw, the feeling was that the association was “overtly pro-Israel.” Shaw cites the example of a resolution that the association issued in reaction to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments about destroying Israel. The resolution condemned this as a threat of genocide. Shaw did not believe it was the place of genocide scholars to make such a pronouncement.

The two groups have continued independently — though they share many of the same members — until this past year, when there was talk of a merger, initiated by Schabas. Recently, after a few meetings to negotiate what would have been a new organization, the INoGS leadership said it was no longer interested. Schabas thinks the timing was not coincidental.

“If you would ask them who would be representative of the things they don’t like in the association, probably Israel Charny would be at the top of the list,” Schabas said. “I suspect that the recent explosion between Charny and Shaw may have contributed to the fact that the discussions about merging the two associations have melted down.”
INoGS is led by Juergen Zimmerer, a professor at the University of Sheffield, in the United Kingdon. Zimmerer said that the decision not to merge had nothing to do with the flare-up between the two scholars.

“We simply felt that IAGS was too divided internally to proceed with the merger at the moment,” Zimmerer wrote in an e-mail to the Forward.

According to Charny, the crux of the problem is the issue of Israel. In a reversal of the criticism that the breakaway INoGS scholars had of IAGS, he thinks that hatred of the Jewish state has undermined their scholarship.

“While saying that they don’t take any political position, they are slowly but surely, insidiously, under a smokescreen of their good English manners and their supposedly dispassionate point of view, becoming a hotbed of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish sentiment, which they will of course deny vociferously,” Charny said.

For now, the two organizations seem to remain deeply divided. Schabas, who is nearing the end of his tenure, looked back at the volatility of presiding over an association of genocide scholars.
“It’s like riding a bucking bronco,” he said.

Contact Gal Beckerman at beckerman@forward.com or on Twitter @galbeckerman

The Forward welcomes reader comments in order to promote thoughtful discussion on issues of importance to the Jewish community. In the interest of maintaining a civil forum, the Forward requires that all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles. Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not. While we generally do not seek to edit or actively moderate comments, the Forward reserves the right to remove comments for any reason.


Read more: http://forward.com/articles/135484/#ixzz1EMMHXlTM

www.NewDemocracyWorld.org

This article may be copied and posted on other websites. Please include all hyperlinks.

I am Israel

WHO WERE THE FIRST TERRORISTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

VERA MACHT: VISITING NASSER

Wednesday, February 23, 2011 at 9:14PM Gilad Atzmon

It’s stormy, the wind is whipping through the trees, and scattered rain drops hit us in the face as we go down the muddy dirt road to Nasser's house. It’s a few hundred yards from the couple of houses around the cemetery, which form the village of Juhor al-Dik, to his small house near the border. "Goodbye," shouted the driver who will pick us up from this remote area again, and with a look at the path we chose he added laughingly: "Insha Allah - God willing."

But even under these circumstances, and even in this weather you cannot help but noticing how beautiful this area must have been, and actually still is, in spite of everything. While almost every other place in Gaza is loud and overcrowded, here's open land and soothing silence. There are a few olive trees that have survived the uncountable tank invasions, and a few new minor ones planted bravely. In between there’s the lush green grass from the winter rain. At least where it wasn’t again plowed up by Israeli bulldozers. And just as we talk about how peaceful this place actually is, we become suddenly aware of this calm being deceptive. On the other side of the barbed wire border, a jeep of the Israeli military appears. He stops as he sees us. My two colleagues and I exchange anxious glances, and without a word we open our hair and begin to inconspicuously walk in front of our Palestinian translator. What kind of a world is that in which blonde hair is a lifesaver.

The jeep drives on, we breathe a sigh of relief. I cannot even imagine how it is to know one’s children are in this danger every day.

Nasser is happy to see us, he has a good day. We had previously visited him with a local staff member of ‘Save the Children Palestine', and the psychological care of his children will start tomorrow. The staff diagnosed a deep trauma in his children, caused by watching their mother bleeding to death, and reinforced by the uncertain living conditions. Their report further states that "the family suffers from severe poverty, which has caused a shortage of food, medicine, clothing and blankets”.

We had made two appointments for Nasser with UNRWA. The first time he was sent away after a long journey, without anyone talking to him, the second time he was only told that an employee of UNRWA would visit him. The worker however didn’t even reach the house - the coordination with the Israeli side failed.
Nasser takes us on his roof and shows us the latest bullet holes. At the places where the wall is made of concrete, you see the bullets stuck in the concrete, at softer parts of the wall they went all the way through. The walls facing the border look like Swiss cheese, and you can everywhere see the little nails of the Flechette bombs sticking out.

Nasser however has to remain near his house, he knows that once it is empty, it will be flattened by Israeli bulldozers, along with his land. That would mean to him to never again be able to stand on its own feet, he makes his living from this small piece of land. The refugee camp that is located further away is thus not an option. And how should he move into the small village where his children would live right next to the cemetery. The solution would be a new small house where now his tent is located, but that is expensive, and the chance that an organization will cover the costs is very low. "The wall facing the border will at any case be made out of double cement," says Nasser, who won’t give up on that dream, and gives us one of his few smiles.

For despite everything, Nasser has a good day today. His children will soon get the urgently needed therapy, and with the first money that has reached us and therefore him, he has ran electricity to his tent. That in a place like this it is more important for frightened children to have light in the night, when shots are fired, than a few blankets more, that we didn’t even think of. We cannot even imagine what it is like to grow up as a child in such an environment. Every evening, the family goes into the tent when it gets dark.
But still it is light, and we sit in his house, drinking tea, and Nasser tells us how the staff of Save the Children had asked his eldest son what he wants to become when he has grown up. "What am I supposed to grow up for," responded Alaa, 10 years old. "My mother is not here. I just want to see my mother again”. But then Nasser stops talking, he jumps up again, his children are outside. He runs to the door, like every time he hears something suspicious, maybe a bang, who knows if it really was just the wind, or maybe one of his children has called him.

The wind gets stronger, it blows through the leaky house, we shiver in our jackets. And ask Nasser, who is back, whether it would help if we stayed a few nights in the area. "No, no," he replies softly. "It's too dangerous for you. The soldiers sometimes come until our house. When they see you, they would arrest you."

So we go back up the narrow dirt road that runs past his tent, it's getting dark, and also Nasser and his children cannot stay in the house much longer. The tents are flapping in the wind, you can see the two thin mattresses on the floor. On the wooden wall of the hastily set up outhouse next to the tent hangs a brand new white light bulb.

Vera Macht lives and works in Gaza since April 2010. She is a peace activist and reports about people´s daily struggle in Gaza

A letter from German activist Gabi Weber:

Dear friends and readers,

Overwhelmed by the incredible wave of helpfulness, which many of you have been showing in this first week of our fundraising project, Vera could already take the first small steps to help Nasser’s family after destiny dealt them such a heavy blow.

In the meantime Nasser could get electricity for a light bulb which can burn during the night and thus giving some kind of security to his heavily traumatised kids.
Furthermore Vera and her friends succeeded in getting some psychological help for the family. For details please read Vera’s own report enclosed.

Vera’s second article unfortunately witnesses further dramatic happenings in Gaza’s buffer zone.

Once again I would like to appeal to you all tonight, just to make a small donation (or a big one if you want and can…). 5 ¤ in Gaza is a lot of money, which already can make a big difference. We are trying to collect as much money as possible in order to have the basis to build just a small house which is a little bit further off the border. The old house, which you can see on the enclosed picture, is around 350 m away from the border. Nasser’s wife Naema was killed directly in front of the door, while she tried to rescue the baby.

Please join in and help us, and please share this fundraising appeal as widely as you can!

I would like to thank you with all of my heart, on behalf of Nasser and his kids, Vera and her friends in Gaza.

All my best wishes and greetings from Freiburg

Gabi Weber

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/vera-macht-visiting-nasser.html

Peres: Google and Facebook will bring Mideast peace

Unlike other Israeli leaders who have voiced apprehension over the unrest in the Middle East, Peres describes revolutions that toppled the Egyptian and Tunisian regimes as 'opportunities for peace.'

By News Agencies and Ora Coren

President Shimon Peres called on the West to push leading software and internet companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook to help Middle Eastern countries reform, and said the recent events in the region were an opportunity for peace.

Peres was speaking before the Spanish Parliament yesterday, the first day of a four-day trip to Spain.

As opposed to many other Israeli leaders, who have voiced apprehension over the unrest in the Middle East, Peres described the revolutions that toppled the Egyptian and Tunisian regimes as “opportunities for peace.”

“We believe the biggest guarantee of peace is having democratic neighbors.

We are happy to witness this democratic revolution taking place in the Arab world,” said Peres, observing, “Now is the time to resume the talks with the Palestinians.”

Analysts discussing how the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings could affect Palestinian politics have said they could inspire people to try to topple the Fatah-led government in the West Bank.

Earlier this month, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for general parliamentary and presidential elections in the Palestinian Authority no later than September. Hamas has said it will boycott the polls.

In his wide-ranging remarks, Peres said Israel aspired to a lasting peace with its neighbors, including Syria and Lebanon.

“I turn to Syria and ask that it not become hostage to Iran. Iran is not seeking peace,” Peres said. He accused Iran of “creating terrorist cells in other nations, in the Middle East and even in Latin America.”

Regarding the role of internet and software giants, Peres said that these companies have more available cash than many states, which are going through a financial crisis, and are therefore in a better position to assist.

“These companies have the means and they can help,” he said. “Aid is currently directed mainly at sick people in poorer countries. It’s better to cure the state and let it treat its own ills.”

Joining Peres in Spain is a delegation of Israeli businessmen.

Large international companies need to be called on to join the mission, he said.

“They can set up modern economic networks based on information and technology nearly anywhere in the world,” he said. “They can establish high-tech outlets and provide jobs for the young and unemployed, and provide hope for an entire people.”

http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/peres-google-and-facebook-will-bring-mideast-peace-1.345108?trailingPath=2.169%2C2.225%2C2.226%2C