Tzipi Livni Aboutface: Now Against Terrorism

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, now grandstanding at the UN, is the daughter of Eitan Livni, the chief operations officer of the Irgun terrorist organization. Among Irgun's most spectacular operations was the blowing up of the King David tourist hotel in Jerusalem, which killed dozens of innocents (also some British intelligence officers). Just to give you an idea of how things change, the Irgun bombers disguised themselves as Arabs. Obviously, in 1946 Arabs could be presumed not to be dangerous, which explains the disguise; it was people who looked like they might be violent Zionists that would have attracted suspicion. Later generations of rightwing Zionists have attempted to convince the rest of the world that the Arab kaffiyah is an icon of terrorism; but their parents were perfectly willing to display it as a sign of innocence (and perhaps with the intention that the Arabs should take the fall).

Likud leader Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu actually attended a celebratory commemoration of this cruel act of terror in 2006 along with elder Irgun members!

Irgun also carried out the infamous massacre of Palestinian civilians at Deir Yassin in 1948. Note that this village had a peace agreement with the Haganah, which Irgun refused to honor.

Since she has never repudiated Irgun's actions, she does not make a convincing poster child for the condemnation of terrorist groups that field candidates in elections, her current campaign.

One wonders if Livni regrets her own father's having been elected to parliament as a member of the Likud Party, or if she thinks Netanyahu should be allowed to run for office. Or, um, there is the question of her own good self.

Her government fired 1.2 million cluster bomblets into Lebanon last summer, mainly in the last days of the war. Cluster bombs are anti-personnel weapons that are only useful on the battlefield if fired into massed troops. The Israelis did not use them that way. They spread them around on civilian farmland as the war was clearly ending. That is an act of naked terror fulfilling no war aim, and Lebanese children are still being killed by the bomblets. Israeli President Shimon Peres has called the action a mistake (as he has called the whole war a mistake.)

About Livni, UK blogger and human rights activist Charlie Pottin wrote:

' Livni, 47, first came to political notice as a teenager, taking part in violent demonstrations by right-wing Greater Israel nationalists against US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger when he tried to arrange territorial deals between Israel and Arab states with his shuttle diplomacy.

"My family is part of the founding history of Israel," she has boasted. Her father's gravestone bears the inscription, "Here lies the head of operations of the Irgun Z'vai Leumi" . The stone also bears a carved map of 'Greater Israel' extended to take in the opposite side of the Jordan river. in keeping with the old right-wing Zionist ditty that went "The River Jordan has two sides, and both of them are ours!" '

Livni's current campaign is not even a good idea. It was only after the Irish Republican Army fielded candidates from its political wing, Sinn Fein, that Britain and the US gradually had someone they could negotiate peace with. You can hardly hold talks with someone who is blowing you up. But you can talk to his colleague who is just doing ordinary politics. Over ten to fifteen years, such arrangements can create the political distance necessary to bring conflicts to a close. But then the Livnis only know one way to bring conflicts to a close.
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Escobar on Palestinian Refugees in Brazil

Pepe Escobar writes with regard to my posting about Brazil's granting of asylum to Palestinian refugees expelled from Palestine by the Israeli military in 1948, who had taken refuge in Iraq but have now been forced out of that country, as well.

Escobar writes regularly for the Asia Times and has a recent book, Red Zone Blues: : a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge .

Escobar writes:

"
I happen to be in Brazil at the moment. Re: one of your posts this Sunday, I guess you and your readers might be interested to know something about the Palestinian refugees in Brazil.

Up to next month Brazil will receive 117 Palestinian refugees. They lived in Baghdad during Saddam; before the invasion they were taken to Ruweished, a refugee camp in the middle of the desert in Jordan 60 km away from the Iraqi border. I visited the camp in 2003 - the living conditions were absolutely appalling.

Some of the refugees will be settled in cities in Rio Grande do Sul, a wealthy agricultural/industrial state in the south neighboring Uruguay. Others will se settled in Sao Paulo state, the wealthiest in the nation. They chose Brazil; others opted for Canada and New Zealand.

According to the Brazilian Ministry of Justice, they will all have juridical and diplomatic protection. Each person - including kids - will receive a modest salary, equivalent to US$ 200 a month, during their first 12 to 24 months in the country, plus social benefits. The government will pay their rent and utility bills. They will have a Brazilian ID like everybody else, a work permit and a diplomatic passport. 300 volunteers from civil society are involved in their integration in Brazilian society.

Among the refugees we find teachers, businessmen, housewives, whole families. Their first impression was predictably ecstatic. Brazil is not involved in wars (although there is an undeclared civil war in the big cities between the haves and have nots; they will be living in smaller, peaceful cities in the countryside). Women can use the veil and they won't be harassed. There's simply no ethnic and religious discrimination, no "clash of civilizations" paranoia.

There are no less than 14 million Arabs and people from Arab ancestry living in Brazil, especially in the south. It was up to Luis Vasere, from UNHCR, to put it all in perspective: "The Brazilian government has given an effective response to a humanitarian drama. It's part of official state policy".

All the best, Pepe "

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Global Affairs: Israel Peace Conference; and Roy on the Neocons

At the Global Affairs group blog:

Gershon Shafir writes

' The focus of political debate in Israel between now and November will be the planned Peace Conference. Two approaches seem to be shaping up.

One is expressed by the Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, who argues that no withdrawal from the West Bank should take place until Israel has developed an anti-rocket system . . .

The other is represented by Olmert’s deputy and confidant, Vice Premier Haim Ramon. '

and Barnett Rubin gives us a preview of Olivier Roy's new book, "The Crescent and Chaos," which is about the "Double Defeat of the Neoconservatives."
For "cont'd" postings, click here.

MESA Letter on Mearsheimer & Walt

The Committee on Academic Freedom (North America) of the Middle East Studies Association has written a letter protesting the cancellation of a talk by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt scheduled by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

CCGA maintains that the speakers, authors of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, needed to be balanced by an opposing viewpoint. But both have spoken there before without needing to be immediately contradicted by someone else. (Personally, I object to this idea of 'balancing' speakers during their events; lots of controversial views have been expressed at CCGA without a counter. If they want balance, they can invite someone else later in the year or the next year. And note that in the US public sphere and media, "balance" almost never requires that a real living Palestinian be allowed to speak for him or herself, alongside representatives of the Zionist point of view. Otherwise Abraham Foxman would have to carry a Palestinian around with him everywhere he spoke, to provide 'balance'.)

MESA, with about 2600 members, is just the professional organization of the researchers at North American universities who mainly teach and write about the Middle East. You'll never see most of them on television and they aren't often consulted by politicians, but they are the ones who know Middle Eastern languages and spend a lifetime trying to understand the place.

Anyway, here's MESA's letter:

4 September 2007

Marshall M. Bouton, President
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs
332 S. Michigan Avenue, Suite 1100
Chicago, Illinois 60604-4416

Dear Mr. Bouton:

I am writing to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA). We wish to convey to you our distress regarding your decision to cancel a forum, scheduled for September 27, 2007, in which two of this country’s most distinguished professors of Political Science, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, were to speak about their new book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. This action on your part constitutes a serious violation of the principles of free expression and the free exchange of ideas. We urge you to invite professors Walt and Mearsheimer to speak at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs at a mutually convenient time in the near future. It is important to rectify the effect that your cancellation on July 24 has had in reinforcing an intellectual environment that seeks to restrict informed and critical discussion of issues that are vital to this country’s future.

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has more than 2600 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

According to numerous press reports, pressure from supporters of Israel who are critical of Walt and Mearsheimer led you to take the highly unusual step of canceling the previously scheduled event. In these reports, you are cited as saying that the speakers are controversial and that you preferred that they appear in “an appropriate forum” balanced by an opposing viewpoint. Yet, John J. Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, have spoken before the Council on numerous occasions in the past without being forced to share the podium with those who oppose their points of view. It is only in this case, that of a presentation critical of Israeli policy and its supporters, that they have been subjected to the litmus test of “balance.” We regret that you chose to succumb to pressure exerted on the Council and are dismayed that in justifying your actions you have adopted the argument that controversial ideas should not be aired unless they are immediately and at the same event “balanced” by opposing views.

As the Association of American University Professors, the American Civil Liberties Union, and many other organizations have persuasively argued in official statements, the argument of “balance,” selectively invoked, has been repeatedly used to stifle the free exchange of ideas, especially when it comes to discussions about Israel and U.S. foreign policy. We are concerned that your decision --reminiscent of that taken by the Council-General of the Polish Consulate in New York to cancel a talk on Israel and U.S. foreign policy on October 3, 2006 by the renowned historian New York University Professor Tony Judt-- contributes to raising the wall of censorship. Indeed, three other organizations in Chicago as well the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, among others, have since either cancelled or turned down appearances by the authors.

We strongly urge you to reconsider your decision of July 24, and in the process affirm your support for free expression and the free exchange of ideas, by inviting Professors Walt and Mearsheimer to give a talk at the Council without requiring that they share the podium and without restrictions on the content of their presentation.

We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Zachary Lockman
MESA President

(MESA also weighed in on the Finkelstein case, here, in which there now appears to be a settlement.)

And, see Paul Craig Roberts, "Who are the Fanatics?"
For "cont'd" postings, click here.