Gaza’s Medical Misfortunes
Local health officials in Gaza say that millions of dollars in medication donated by the international community ultimately ends up as trash because 70 % of it is unusable. Doctors claim that approximately 20% of the donated medication has either expired or is near expiration, and that a large portion of the drugs simply do not address the healthcare needs of Gazans. A case in point was a recent two million dollar donation of H1N1 medication, which arrived in Gaza after the threat of the virus had passed. Amongst the list of 150 drugs that ARE urgently needed in Gaza are antibiotics and cancer treatment medication, both of which continue to be lacking in the donations being sent.
Wawro’s ‘Quicksand’ and the costs of the ‘special relationship’
Military historian Geoffrey Wawro has made a valuable new contribution to the scholarship on the US relationship with the Arab/Muslim world. Quicksand: America’s Pursuit of Power in the Middle East is a must read. (I’ll be reviewing it for MondoWeiss shortly.) Wawro makes extensive use of British and American archival sources to show what would be obvious to any serious student of the subject: with few exceptions, US leaders have always seen Israel as a strategic liability but short term domestic electoral imperatives — aka, the lobby — have forced policy makers into uncritical support of the Zionist entity against their better judgment. (Patrick Tyler reaches the same conclusion in his superb A World of Trouble) The costs of this relationship have been staggering. Though it is common for critics to point out the nearly $140 billion that the United States has given Israel in direct aid, the late Harvard economist Thomas Stauffer placed the real costs of US alliance with Israel at over $1.6 trillion between 1973-2002 alone! But the costs to the US economy have been even bigger. Between 1985-2008, the US-Israel Free Trade Agreement — which was opposed by nearly all major US corporations as well as the AFL-CIO, but backed by AIPAC — has resulted in a trade deficit of over $70 billion. Equally big losses have been incurred by the energy sector. Despite the opposition of big business and big oil, the US congress passed the Iran Libya Sanctions Act in 1996 which excluded US businesses from the lucrative Iranian and Libyan energy sectors. The sanctions against Iran still remain in place. As Juan Cole has shown in Engaging the Muslim World, in the 1990s, even Cheney complained about AIPAC’s role in perpetuating the sanctions against Iraq which were keeping US businesses out of the Iraqi energy market. Thanks to the neoconsrvative war, in 2009 US companies emerged as the major losers in Iraq after all the major contracts were sweeped up by Norwegian, Russian, Chinese and French companies.
So much for Israel’s strategic value.
Terror attack by Lebanese army thwarts Israeli landscaping effort
Other Israeli landscaping techniques.
In the latest Israeli inversion of cause and effect relationships, the clash near the Lebanese border village of Adaisseh yesterday between Israeli and Lebanese soldiers—which resulted in the deaths of one of the former nationality and three of the latter—was characterized by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak as a “planned provocation”, by Kadima MK Shaul Mofaz as a “planned terror attack”, and by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as something for which the Lebanese government was “directly responsible”. It is not clear how anyone in Lebanon is responsible for the Israeli decision to have its army uproot a tree lying outside the confines of Israel’s border fence in order to obtain a more unobstructed view of the area, especially given Israeli possession of numerous unmanned aerial vehicles for which single trees do not constitute an obstacle.
According to the Israeli Haaretz website, the tree uprooting was categorized by Israel as merely a “scheduled vegetation clearing activity”. The notion that Israeli soldier-gardeners should not be permitted to engage in heavily-armed tree-pruning wherever they see fit is thus presumably an extremist principle spawned by Iran and smuggled via Syria into Lebanon, where Hezbollah has used it to brainwash the Lebanese army—who were originally deemed less of a threat to Israeli vegetation clearing and whose debut south of the Litani River was insisted upon in UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended the July War of 2006. Past Israeli landscaping projects have meanwhile included separating Palestinians from their yards with concrete walls, erecting forests atop destroyed Palestinian villages, saturating Lebanese olive fields with cluster bombs, and diverting regional water supplies. It has not yet been established whether the latest deadly air raid on Gaza also qualifies as routine vegetation clearing.
Uri Avnery in the Knesset
The August issue of the London Review of Books has several excellent articles including one by well-known Israeli writer and peace activist, Uri Avnery. Avnery defines himself as a post-Zionist (in his youth he worked with the Irgun, an Israeli terrorist organization) who after learning from the mistakes of his past now dedicates himself to exposing Israeli injustice and the way in which Israeli policies are not only harming Palestinians, but also Israelis. Avnery’s writing style is recognized by its authoritative, matter-of-fact tone and unique ability to relay difficult messages in an indisputable way. In just a few columns he can point out root causes (not just problems) and identify contradictions with the same effectiveness that many writers would take pages to demonstrate.
In his most recent LRB piece Avnery illuminates the irony inherent in the description of Israel as “the only democracy in the Middle East” by describing some of its domestic policies. Israeli society has normalized far-right, even fascistic ideas to such an extent that even members of parliament deemed “disloyal” because they dare to challenge the status quo become the victims of physical assaults within governmental buildings — here Avnery talks about the case of Hanan Zoabi.
Jeff Halper on Israeli Settlements
Excerpts of a recent talk by American-Israeli Professor and co-founder/coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), Jeff Halper. Halper is among the most important voices when it comes to the issue of Israel’s colonial “settlements” — the most telling feature of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Bloomberg defends Mosque Construction at Ground Zero
Perhaps the most unlikely support for the planned Muslim Community Center at ground zero (aka Cordoba Mosque) comes from Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Speaking publicly this morning at Governors Island off the tip of Lower Manhattan, Bloomberg presented several arguments in favor of the community center – arguments that were also intended to delegitimize at least some of the ‘Islamophobic’ assumptions that are so deeply embedded in the rhetoric of those opposing the plan; i.e.- coming from people like Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich and the Anti-Defamation League (an organization which, at least in theory, claims to exist in order to combat anti-semitism.)
Although Bloomberg’s speech tends, more often than not, to invoke a rather romanticized conception of ’American ideals,’ he also manages to cite other critical moments in U.S. history – moments when hysterical bigotry has similarly served to occlude the religious freedoms of communities that are now considered to be America’s erstwhile ‘Others.’ Accordingly, Bloomberg does a pretty good job of blending historical fantasy and fact in his attempt to sway American public opinion in favor of the community center. Here’s the transcript of his speech:
“We’ve come here to Governors Island to stand where the earliest settlers first set foot in New Amsterdam, and where the seeds of religious tolerance were first planted. We come here to see the inspiring symbol of liberty that more than 250 years later would greet millions of immigrants in this harbor. And we come here to state as strongly as ever, this is the freest city in the world. That’s what makes New York special and different and strong.
Nasrallah: Israel assassinated Hariri and we will provide evidence
Israel provides Lebanon with an IOF scarecrow
Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has just delivered a significant short speech in Lebanon in the aftermath of the border clash and the STL (Special Tribunal for Lebanon). We provide a live-delivered translation courtesy of tweeter Roqayah below. The most important thing in his address is Nasrallah’s promise that Hezbollah will provide conclusive evidence to show that Israel was responsible for the assassination of former Lebanese PM, Rafiq Hariri. This is slated for a press conference on August 9th in which a longer address is expected. Blogger Qifa Nabki writes: “Just to play devil’s advocate, one wonders why — if the party has long held information that clearly links the Israelis with the murder — they did not release it earlier, when the STL was apparently going after the Syrians. Naturally, Hizbullah’s opponents in Lebanon are going to say that this is another desperate diversion tactic, but I for one am very curious to see what the Secretary-General offers up in next week’s press conference.” In his address, Nasrallah cites security considerations for not having revealed evidence earlier. Monday’s press conference should be very interesting indeed.
Here’s the translated speech, with only minor editorial emendations. Please note that this is an instant translation.
We are celebrating our victory over the biggest terrorist army in the Middle East (i.e. Israeli Army).
I was going to begin my words with the words covering the July War but what happened today on the Land of Heroes (South Lebanon) on the border with the Palestinians and the fight with our heroic Lebanese army;
[The Sayyed is now dividing his speech; first he will speak about the war, second the tribunal and lastly what shall happen after.]
Since the war stopped there have 14,000 incidents wherein the Israelis have broken resolution 1701.
Israel’s PR War
Escalating criticism of Israel led its security establishment to declare a pr war on “delegitimization” (more excellent reports by Lia Tarachansky here).
After Israel’s major attack on Gaza in December 2008, it has faced criticism around the world. This criticism escalated after the publication of the Goldstone Report in 2009 that found evidence of war crimes in the attack. This year, Israel’s security establishment declared a full out PR war on criticism that it identifies as “delegitimization” of Israel. Israel’s most influential think tank, the Reut Institute, developed the strategy for how to fight this PR war. It published a massive report in preparation for this year’s Herzeliya conference entitled “Building a political firewall: against Israel’s delegitimization” which advocated that the Israeli intelligence agencies establish special units to collect information on critics of Israel. The report also advocates the establishment of pro-Israel networks in “hubs of delegitimization” which it named as London, Paris, Madrid, Toronto, and the Bay Area. The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky spoke to Morton A. Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America who talks about how American lobby groups help Israel fight its PR war.
Amy Goodman on Media
An interesting discussion with independent media pioneer Amy Goodman and host Angie Coiro at INFORUM, a division of the Commonwealth Club in California. Goodman discusses her experiences as an investigative journalist who pursues stories that get overlooked by mainstream media organizations and the role reporters can play in today’s world.
The Legacy of the United States in Cambodia
Cluster bombs continue to kill people long after wars end. They do not discriminate between women and men and undetonated ones attract curious children. Cluster bombs were used extensively by Israel in Lebanon on several occasions and are littered across parts of Iraq and many areas in Afghanistan where mines are also a constant threat.
Find out more about cluster bombs here.
Al Jazeera — At least 26 million cluster bombs were dropped on Cambodia by the United States during the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 70s.
