This article summarizes an August 2007 B'Tselem report now available in print. It's one of a series of studies it conducts on life in Occupied Palestine to reveal what major media accounts suppress. This one is titled: "Ground to a Halt - Denial of Palestinians' Freedom of Movement in the West Bank."
B'Tselem has a well-deserved reputation for accuracy and integrity. It's the Jerusalem-based independent Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). It was founded in 1989 by prominent academics, attorneys, journalists and Knesset members to "document and educate the Israeli public and policymakers about human rights violations in (Occupied Palestine), combat (the Israeli public's) denial, and create a human rights culture in Israel" to convince government officials to respect human rights and obey international law.
Its work is detailed, wide-ranging, carefully researched, and based on hundreds of testimonies and dozens of on-the-ground observations. For verification, it's also cross-checked with relevant documents and other government sources. Work on this report was completed over a six month period in 2007. It included information from other reports, statements from political and military officials, petitions to Israel's High Court of Justice, and media accounts.
In the US and Britain, there is a campaign to smear anybody who tries to describe the plight of the Palestinian people. It is an attempt to intimidate and silence – and to a large degree, it works. There is nobody these self-appointed spokesmen for Israel will not attack as anti-Jewish: liberal Jews, rabbis, even Holocaust survivors.
My own case isn't especially important, but it illustrates how the wider process of intimidation works. I have worked undercover at both the Finsbury Park mosque and among neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers to expose the Jew-hatred there; when I went on the Islam Channel to challenge the anti-Semitism of Islamists, I received a rash of death threats calling me "a Jew-lover", "a Zionist-homo pig" and more.
Ah, but wait. I have also reported from Gaza and the West Bank. Last week, I wrote an article that described how untreated sewage was being pumped from illegal Israeli settlements on to Palestinian land, contaminating their reservoirs. This isn't controversial. It has been documented by Friends of the Earth, and I have seen it with my own eyes.
On May 14, Israelis will commemorate the 60th anniversary of their "War of Independence" and founding of the Jewish State. It also marks 60 years of Palestinian Nakba suffering. The web site alnakba.org recounts the history:
-- from the late Ottoman empire period; to
-- the birth of Zionism; to
-- the early Jewish colonization of Palestine; to
-- the 1917 Balfour Declaration support for a "Jewish national home in Palestine;" to
-- the simultaneous British betrayal of the indigenous Arabs; to
-- the British occupation; to
-- its delayed promised end; to
-- the founding of the Haganah underground military organization; to
-- the first British (1922) Palestine census showing a population of 757,182 - 78% Muslim, 11% Jewish and 9.6% Christian; to
-- the official 1923 establishment of the British Mandate period; to
-- the 1920s Jewish population increase to 16% on 4% of Palestinian land; to
-- the terrorist Irgun (IZT) National Military Organization established in 1931; to
I just finished watching a CNN video (April 28, 2008) on the slave labor conditions of immigrants working in Florida. Investigators say migrant workers enslaved in Florida have every movement controlled, and that they are not allowed to leave the space provided by the employer when they are done working. In other words, they are essentially prisoners of their employers. From the CNN video, it appears the immigrants are often beaten and maltreated as well.
What year is it anyway?? Can it really be 2008 in America? Or are we going backward so fast that we are too dizzy to recognize what is going on?
Section 1 of the 13th Amendment ratified by the 38th Congress on Dec. 6, 1865 states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
It appears that the draconian and repressive climate surrounding the issue of immigration in the US has contributed to this intolerable situation. Since the immigrants are illegal, and since we have not humanely fixed the immigration laws in this country, involuntary servitude programs flourish and the new forms of slavery remain hidden from the public eye.
I know Jeremiah Wright… Well, I never met him, but I know his ideas, he is a part of the American political left. Nothing he said outraged me, or even upset me. I agreed with a lot of it, and disagreed with some of it. If we were to meet in person I imagine we would get along just fine, and we probably could do some good work together.
Obama had to distance himself from his pastor in order to remain a viable candidate -- a smart move. Gary Wills, writing in the May 2008 NY Review of Books, pointed out that Abe Lincoln, who Obama invoked when announcing his own candidacy, was associated with John Brown and the "radical" abolitionists. Like Obama, Abe had to distance himself in pubic from the "extremists." But the abolitionists remained the left wing of Lincoln's coalition, and although he publicly disavowed them (gently) he was secretly and indirectly connected to them.
The US Supreme Court has just dealt a serious blow to voters' rights that could help put John McCain in the White House by eliminating tens of thousands of voters who generally vote Democratic.
By 6-3 the Court has upheld an Indiana law that requires citizens to present a photo identification card in order to vote. Florida, Michigan, Louisiana, Georgia, Hawaii and South Dakota have similar laws. Though it's unlikely, as many as two dozen other states could add them by election day. Other states, like Ohio, have less stringent ID requirements than Indiana's, but still have certain restrictions that are strongly opposed by voter rights advocates.
The decision turns back two centuries of jurisprudence that has accepted a registered voter's signature as sufficient identification for casting a ballot. By matching that signature against one given at registration, and with harsh penalties for ballot stuffing, the Justices confirmed in their lead opinion that there is "no evidence" for the kind of widespread voter fraud Republican partisans have used to justify the demand for photo ID.
