The Great Bendib!

Tweet http://www.bendib.com/newones/2009/september/small/9-6-Colonial-Cuisine.jpg

Mad As Hell Docs in Seattle Tomorrow Night -- 5 p.m. -- Langston Hughes -- SINGLE PAYER OR BUST!

Tweet

"American Zionist Liberals" -- Angry Arab

Tweet I never followed Madonna enough to know what her politics were; I'll take Angry's word for it that she is a liberal. Linda J.

"Madonna is reportedly spending the Sabbath eve at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's home." Forget about the celebrity culture and forget about a person whose knowledge of world affairs is distracted by her constant search for poor African children to buy. But it made me think: that American Zionist liberals are not even like Israeli Zionist liberals. Israeli Zionist liberals are aware of the right-left dichotomy (as bad and criminal and terrorist the Israeli Zionist liberals and conservatives are), while American liberal Zionists identify with Israel so much that they disregard the right-left dichotomy. This is a woman who would never be seen with a right-wing American politician, but would be honored to dine with a fascist Israeli leader. Such are the standards of American Zionist liberals: Madonna mocks George W. Bush, and honors Netanyahu, who is to the right of Bush.

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2009/09/american-zionist-liberals.html

Fake Election Noticed by Afghanis -- U.S. Has a Big Problem

Tweet

“Now people will not trust the provincial council and the government system,” said Muhammad Ehsan, the deputy head of the provincial council, who was running for re-election. “Now people understand who has come to power and how.”

Hajji Abdul Majid, 75, the chief of the tribal elders council in Argestan District, in Kandahar Province, said that despite the fact that security forces opened the town’s polling place, no one voted, so any result from his district would be false.

“The people know that the government just took control of the district center for that day of the elections,” he said. “People are very frustrated. They don’t believe in the government.”

He added: “If Karzai is re-elected, people will leave the country or join the Taliban.”

Part of article below; whole article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/world/asia/07fraud.html?hp

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghans loyal to President Hamid Karzai set up hundreds of fictitious polling sites where no one voted but where hundreds of thousands of ballots were still recorded toward the president’s re-election, according to senior Western and Afghan officials here.

The fake sites, as many as 800, existed only on paper, said a senior Western diplomat in Afghanistan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the political delicacy of the vote. Local workers reported that hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of votes for Mr. Karzai in the election last month came from each of those places. That pattern was confirmed by another Western official based in Afghanistan.

“We think that about 15 percent of the polling sites never opened on Election Day,” the senior Western diplomat said. “But they still managed to report thousands of ballots for Karzai.”

Besides creating the fake sites, Mr. Karzai’s supporters also took over approximately 800 legitimate polling centers and used them to fraudulently report tens of thousands of additional ballots for Mr. Karzai, the officials said.

The result, the officials said, is that in some provinces, the pro-Karzai ballots may exceed the people who actually voted by a factor of 10. “We are talking about orders of magnitude,” the senior Western diplomat said.

The widening accounts of fraud pose a stark problem for the Obama administration, which has 68,000 American troops deployed here to help reverse gains by Taliban insurgents. American officials hoped that the election would help turn Afghans away from the Taliban by giving them a greater voice in government. Instead, the Obama administration now faces the prospect of having to defend an Afghan administration for the next five years that is widely seen as illegitimate.

"As Battlefields Shift, Old Warrior for Peace Pursues the Same Enemy" -- NYTimes

Tweet

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/us/07activist.html?_r=1
Sometimes the NYTimes surprises. This is an amazingly unbiased discussion of this man's efforts.

GREELEY, Colo. — It had been nearly 30 years since the Rev. Carl Kabat and a group of peace activists, including his fellow Catholic priests Daniel and Philip Berrigan, barged into a General Electric weapons plant outside Philadelphia. Known as the Plowshares Eight, they battered missile nose cones with hammers in an effort to disable some of the world’s most fearsome weapons, and sprinkled blood on classified documents to protest the cold war, before they were arrested.

The cold war ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago this November and the splintering of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Three of the Plowshares Eight, including Philip Berrigan, have died, and scores of other activists have turned their attention to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the terrorism suspects held at Guantánamo.

Not Father Kabat, though. At 75 he continues his crusade against nuclear weapons at missile silos across the United States, armed with a hammer and a pair of bolt cutters. He usually wears a clown suit, in homage, he says, to St. Paul’s words: “We are fools for Christ’s sake.”

Though his actions are mostly symbolic — the authorities have always seized him before he could damage a live missile — he has spent half of the last three decades in state and federal prisons.

His most recent protest unfolded on a quiet dawn last month, when he drove down a country road outside Greeley, a few hours north of Denver, used the bolt cutters to cut a hole in a chain-link fence, wedged his aging body through and stepped atop the silo of a Minuteman III nuclear missile coming up from the ground. He had enough time — about 45 minutes — to drape antiwar banners from the fence, say a prayer and try without success to open a hatch leading to the silo before he was arrested by Air Force security personnel.

“I thought, ‘What a beautiful place this is except for this damnable thing in the ground that could kill two or three million people,’ ” Father Kabat said later in an interview at the Weld County Jail, where he is being held on misdemeanor criminal mischief and trespassing charges. “It’s insane.”

If convicted, he faces up to a year behind bars, a possibility that does not seem to faze him.

“You can’t just kill babies and children and old people indiscriminately,” he said. “It should be unreasonable for every human person to accept nuclear weapons.”

Bill Sulzman, a former priest from Colorado Springs and a friend, described Father Kabat’s impact this way: “Everything in the peace movement has shrunk, but Carl represents steadfastness. When you see a man of his age willing to take on those risks, it has a big shaming effect.”

Raised on a farm in southern Illinois, Father Kabat joined the Oblates of Mary Immaculate order as a young man and became radicalized after missions in the Philippines and Brazil. But it was not until the late 1970s, after meeting Philip Berrigan — like his brother Daniel a giant of the peace movement — that Father Kabat hurled himself into the antinuclear weapons fight.

He served about a year and a half in prison for taking part in the 1980 Plowshares Eight protest at the G.E. plant in King of Prussia, Pa., which became a touchstone of the antinuclear movement.

Four years later, Father Kabat, his brother Paul and another man and a woman, armed with a jackhammer, broke into a missile silo in Missouri. Father Kabat served nearly 10 years in prison for that attack. “Even if we were left there for 24 hours, we could not cut through the reinforced concrete,” he recalled, “but we wanted to show that this was serious business.”

Subsequent protests led to Father Kabat’s spending more time in prison than out, raising questions about the effectiveness of his approach.

Liz McAlister, who married Philip Berrigan, has an answer. “We live in a culture where we want to measure everything to know how successful things are,” Ms. McAlister said. “It’s beautiful to see people who don’t spend time wondering and worrying about that and are willing to do what they think is right regardless of the consequences.”

Still, the United States no longer teeters on the brink of nuclear war, and the 150 Minuteman III missiles scattered across Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado go largely unnoticed by a younger generation of activists.

A 30-year-old Catholic peace activist, Chrissy Kirchhoefer, one of Father Kabat’s closest friends, acknowledged that she does not entirely relate to his cause, but said his devoutness still commanded a profound respect. “For young people, that issue doesn’t really speak to us,” she said. “But I don’t question the validity or usefulness of it. Carl once said to me, ‘If I don’t act on this, then what good is my life?’ ”

To Father Kabat, the nuclear issue — and his protests — remain essential. The building of weapons continues to drain money that could be used to fight poverty and hunger, he says, adding, as if caught in a time warp, “There’s still a real threat these things could go to the U.S.S.R.”

Nearing his 76th birthday, Father Kabat muses that he now feels freer behind prison walls, where he spends time reading, reflecting and playing basketball, a passion, than he does outside them. On the outside, he says, he is overwhelmed by the sense of not doing enough. “When I die, I want my tombstone to read, ‘He really lived,’ ” the priest said with a grin.

On a recent Thursday, Father Kabat shuffled into a small county courtroom here, shackled to a line of other inmates. He has refused to post $5,000 bond or sign anything that could be interpreted as capitulation. Before his case could be presented, Father Kabat’s public defender and a prosecutor agreed to continue the hearing until Sept. 17.

The priest smiled, nodded to a small group of supporters in the courtroom and was taken back to jail.

Child Shot Dead by Israeli Army -- Ghazi Maher Al Zaaanen, 13

Tweet http://www.imemc.org/article/61586

Palestinian medical sources reported Saturday morning that a Palestinian child died of wounds sustained Friday evening after Israeli soldiers opened fire at him in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

The Child was identified as Ghazi Maher Al Zaaanen, 13. He was shot in the head by Israeli troops stationed east of Beit Hanoun town.

He was moved to Al Shifa hospital where he was operated and remained in a critical condition for several hours before he was pronounced dead.

His body was moved to Beit Hanoun Hospital in preparation for his burial.

In related news, Israeli soldiers fired three artillery shells at Beit Lahia town, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip causing damage; no injuries were reported.

Wall Street -- Now Betting on Death -- The Ultimate Investment?

Tweet

Ghouls in Chief

(Pic by Michael Appelton NYTimes)

Reading the comments on this article is hilarious; Wall Street obviously cares nothing for its rotten public image. But this scheme is so transparently bloodthirsty that people are gleefully calling them on it. Many references to the "death panels." Linda J.

Portion of article below; whole thing here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/business/06insurance.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.

The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return — though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.

Either way, Wall Street would profit by pocketing sizable fees for creating the bonds, reselling them and subsequently trading them. But some who have studied life settlements warn that insurers might have to raise premiums in the short term if they end up having to pay out more death claims than they had anticipated.

The idea is still in the planning stages. But already “our phones have been ringing off the hook with inquiries,” says Kathleen Tillwitz, a senior vice president at DBRS, which gives risk ratings to investments and is reviewing nine proposals for life-insurance securitizations from private investors and financial firms, including Credit Suisse.

“We’re hoping to get a herd stampeding after the first offering,” said one investment banker not authorized to speak to the news media.

In the aftermath of the financial meltdown, exotic investments dreamed up by Wall Street got much of the blame. It was not just subprime mortgage securities but an array of products — credit-default swaps, structured investment vehicles, collateralized debt obligations — that proved far riskier than anticipated.

The debacle gave financial wizardry a bad name generally, but not on Wall Street. Even as Washington debates increased financial regulation, bankers are scurrying to concoct new products.

In addition to securitizing life settlements, for example, some banks are repackaging their money-losing securities into higher-rated ones, called re-remics (re-securitization of real estate mortgage investment conduits). Morgan Stanley says at least $30 billion in residential re-remics have been done this year.

Financial innovation can be good, of course, by lowering the cost of borrowing for everyone, giving consumers more investment choices and, more broadly, by helping the economy to grow. And the proponents of securitizing life settlements say it would benefit people who want to cash out their policies while they are alive.

But some are dismayed by Wall Street’s quick return to its old ways, chasing profits with complicated new products.

"The Toronto Declaration: No Celebration of Occupation"

Tweet Found originally on Mazin Qumsiyeh "Boycott Israeli Goods" newsletter. Americans might be pleasantly surprised to see some of the USA signatories to this very strongly worded declaration.

An Open Letter to the Toronto International Film Festival:

September 2, 2009

As members of the Canadian and international film, culture and media arts communities, we are deeply disturbed by the Toronto International Film Festival’s decision to host a celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv. We protest that TIFF, whether intentionally or not, has become complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine.

In 2008, the Israeli government and Canadian partners Sidney Greenberg of Astral Media, David Asper of Canwest Global Communications and Joel Reitman of MIJO Corporation launched “Brand Israel,” a million dollar media and advertising campaign aimed at changing Canadian perceptions of Israel. Brand Israel would take the focus off Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and its aggressive wars, and refocus it on achievements in medicine, science and culture. An article in Canadian Jewish News quotes Israeli consul general Amir Gissin as saying that Toronto would be the test city for a promotion that could then be deployed around the world. According to Gissin, the culmination of the campaign would be a major Israeli presence at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. (Andy Levy-Alzenkopf, “Brand Israel set to launch in GTA,” Canadian Jewish News, August 28, 2008.)

In 2009, TIFF announced that it would inaugurate its new City to City program with a focus on Tel Aviv. According to program notes by Festival co-director and City to City programmer Cameron Bailey, “The ten films in this year’s City to City programme will showcase the complex currents running through today’s Tel Aviv. Celebrating its 100th birthday in 2009, Tel Aviv is a young, dynamic city that, like Toronto, celebrates its diversity.”

The emphasis on 'diversity' in City to City is empty given the absence of Palestinian filmmakers in the program. Furthermore, what this description does not say is that Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages, and that the city of Jaffa, Palestine’s main cultural hub until 1948, was annexed to Tel Aviv after the mass exiling of the Palestinian population. This program ignores the suffering of thousands of former residents and descendants of the Tel Aviv/Jaffa area who currently live in refugee camps in the Occupied Territories or who have been dispersed to other countries, including Canada. Looking at modern, sophisticated Tel Aviv without also considering the city’s past and the realities of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip, would be like rhapsodizing about the beauty and elegant lifestyles in white-only Cape Town or Johannesburg during apartheid without acknowledging the corresponding black townships of Khayelitsha and Soweto.

We do not protest the individual Israeli filmmakers included in City to City, nor do we in any way suggest that Israeli films should be unwelcome at TIFF. However, especially in the wake of this year’s brutal assault on Gaza, we object to the use of such an important international festival in staging a propaganda campaign on behalf of what South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann have all characterized as an apartheid regime.

This letter was drafted by the following ad hoc committee:

Udi Aloni, filmmaker, Israel; Elle Flanders, filmmaker, Canada; Richard Fung, video artist, Canada; John Greyson, filmmaker, Canada; Naomi Klein, writer and filmmaker, Canada; Kathy Wazana, filmmaker, Canada; Cynthia Wright, writer and academic, Canada; b h Yael, film and video artist, Canada

Endorsed by:

Ahmad Abdalla, Filmmaker, Egypt
Hany Abu-Assad, Filmmaker, Palestine
Mark Achbar, Filmmaker, Canada
Zackie Achmat, AIDS activist, South Africa
Ra'anan Alexandrowicz, Filmmaker, Jerusalem
Anthony Arnove, Publisher and Producer, USA
Ruba Atiyeh, Documentary Director, Lebanon
Joslyn Barnes, Writer and Producer, USA
John Berger, Author, France
Dionne Brand, Poet/Writer, Canada
David Byrne, Musician, USA
Guy Davidi Director, Israel
Na-iem Dollie, Journalist/Writer, South Africa
Igor Drljaca, Filmmaker, Canada
Eve Ensler, Playwright, Author, USA
Eyal Eithcowich, Director, Israel
Sophie Fiennes, Filmmaker, UK
Peter Fitting, Professor, Canada
Jane Fonda, Actor and Author, USA
Danny Glover, Filmmaker and Actor, USA
Noam Gonick, Director, Canada
Malcolm Guy, Filmmaker, Canada
Mike Hoolboom, Filmmaker, Canada
Annemarie Jacir, Filmmaker, Palestine
Fredric Jameson, Literary Critic, USA
Juliano Mer Khamis, Filmmaker, Jenin/Haifa
Bonnie Sherr Klein Filmmaker, Canada
Paul Laverty, Producer, UK
Min Sook Lee, Filmmaker, Canada
Paul Lee, Filmmaker, Canada
Yael Lerer, publisher, Tel Aviv
Jack Lewis, Filmmaker, South Africa
Ken Loach, Filmmaker, UK
Arab Lotfi, Filmmaker, Egypt/Lebanon
Kyo Maclear, Author, Toronto
Mahmood Mamdani, Professor, USA
Fatima Mawas, Filmmaker, Australia
Tessa McWatt, Author, Canada and UK
Cornelius Moore, Film Distributor, USA
Yousry Nasrallah, Director, Egypt
Rebecca O'Brien, Producer, UK
Pratibha Parmar, Producer/Director, UK
Jeremy Pikser, Screenwriter, USA
John Pilger, Filmmaker, UK
Shai Carmeli Pollak, Filmmaker, Israel
Ian Iqbal Rashid, Filmmaker, Canada
Judy Rebick, Professor, Canada
David Reeb, Artist, Tel Aviv
B. Ruby Rich, Critic and Professor, USA
Wallace Shawn, Playwright, Actor, USA
Eyal Sivan, Filmmaker and Scholar, Paris/London/Sderot
Elia Suleiman, Fimmlaker, Nazareth/Paris/New York
Eran Torbiner, Filmmaker, Israel
Alice Walker, Writer, USA
Thomas Waugh, Professor, Canada
Howard Zinn, Writer, USA
Slavoj Zizek, Professor, Slovenia

Israeli soldiers fire on Al Jazeera correspondent - 04 Sep 09

Tweet

Comments are disabled on You Tube, but I'd like to say THANK YOU to Jacki Rowlands and Al Jazeera for showing the truth of the situation.

Israeli soldiers fire on Al Jazeera correspondent - 04 Sep 09

Tweet

Comments are disabled on You Tube, but I'd like to say THANK YOU to Jacki Rowlands and Al Jazeera for showing the truth of the situation.

"Obama to Cindy Sheehan: Get Lost" -- John V. Walsh

Tweet

Link to article at Oh Bummer site: http://obamboozled.blogspot.com/2009/09/obama-to-cindy-sheehan-get-lost.html

I spent but a short time with Cindy Sheehan as she carried her antiwar protest from an earlier time at Crawford, TX, to Martha’s Vineyard, vacation spot for Obama and many other Democrat Party elite. As Cindy remarked, the real story was not that she was protesting Obama’s wars but that the “leadership” of the peace movement did not support her protest. When the target was Bush in Crawford, she was all the rage with antiwar celebrities, but not so now that the target is Barack Obama. While there is considerable enthusiasm for her anti-Obama protest on the part of the rank and file in the anti-war movement, a refusal of its “leaders” to notify their members far and wide, high and low, crippled the action.

As a result of this betrayal, the numbers at Martha’s Vineyard were not large. But Cindy and her fellow anti-warriors were undeterred. While I was there, she mounted a spirited march down the road to Obama’s place, no more than a quarter mile away from where she stayed. The purpose was to present the President with a poster of Cindy bearing a signed plea to end the wars. The considerable armed force at the gate and the Secret Service officers would not even bring out the lowliest of staffers to receive the poster. Clearly the message from Obama was “Get lost, Cindy.” And we were quickly told to move a considerable distance down the road. At least in Crawford it had been possible to demonstrate at the checkpoint to the site – not so at Obama’s place. Thus, did Obama greet a mother whose son was lost in the wars, which he continues and enlarges by the day.

The site chosen by Obama for his vacation appeared restful, even idyllic, that afternoon though the house itself was a considerable distance away from the road, hidden from view. But the image of the “antiwar” candidate lounging comfortably by the ocean, his family nearby, while ordering the deaths, by drones and assorted other killing instruments, of people half a world away, complete innocents, unknown to this man or his advisers, was disturbing indeed. What sort of man could do this? Does Obama bring his much ballyhooed “coolness” down a degree or two for cold blooded murder? Are these wars a matter of conscience or patriotism for Obama? If that were so, does one suppose in a future imperial war that Obama will urge his daughters to volunteer to die in some Muslim land any more than did Bush offer his daughters? Is there no shame to this poltician, Obama, who rose to high office on the yearning of so many for peace? How long will we allow the soothing words of this latter day Elmer Gantry to cover up his deeds?

Despite the silence of the antiwar misleaders, news of Cindy Sheehan’s presence did make the rounds of Cape Cod and the Islands. And who knows but that it might have gone further. Was Obama going to be caught unprepared? A cynic or a realist, or merely someone familiar with the Obama PR machine, might be pardoned for thinking that a plan was in place - and executed in the form of an anti-Cindy mom. And so it came to pass that, while there was no time for Cindy, the Obamas did make it a point to pay a highly publicized visit to another mom, Lisa X, who had lost her son in Obama’s AfPak war. This young man Obama had happened to encounter earlier this year at Camp Lejeune. The Cape Cod Times reported the meeting thus:

So, yesterday afternoon, the family drove from Yarmouthport to Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod. They waited about two hours at the base. …The Obamas entered. …. President Obama called them all by their first names, Lisa said. "It was like seeing a friend you hadn't seen in a couple months," Lisa said of the nearly 10-minute meeting. …

President Obama offered his condolences. "He told us whatever decisions he makes, he has Nick (and others serving) in mind," Lisa said. Earlier this year, Nicholas X met President Obama and shook his hand. The president gave a speech at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Shortly after, Nicholas decided he wanted to be part of the new offensive in Afghanistan, his father told the Times in July.

Lisa said her son called her right after the meeting. "He shook his (President Obama's) hand and called me moments later and said, 'Mom, the President was amazing, his hand was the softest thing I've ever touched, like a baby's bottom,'" Lisa recalled.

She made sure to tell President Obama that yesterday, drawing a laugh from him. Lisa X said her family is "still pretty numb and raw" over losing Nicholas. But she thought of his likely reaction to the family meeting the Obamas. "He is probably laughing hysterically ... and proud."

Such an account should break your heart and stir your anger at this hypocritical politician. The more so if, as one might suspect, this encounter made cynical use of this grieving woman’s trust. That soft hand of Obama’s is soaked in considerable blood now, some of it Nicholas X’s, no less than the rough hands of Bush and Cheney. Obama’s message is clear. Sacrifice your child and endure without complaint the “numb and raw” emotions that come of your grief. And then Barack Obama will glad hand you for “nearly ten minutes” and get some good press - after you cool your heels for two hours awaiting the cool, great man. But protest the senseless death of your son, and you get the bum’s rush at Obama’s gate. Thus, does the erstwhile “antiwar candidate” (How silly that phrase sounds now!) treat Cindy Sheehan whose like he once called on to join him in making peace. And the “leaders” of the antiwar movement are nowhere to be seen or heard.

"New Japanese Leadership Causes Discomfort in the U.S." -- Amitabh Pal

Tweet

http://www.progressive.org/mag/pal090309.html

The new Japanese leadership is causing palpitations within the U.S. establishment.

There is deep anxiety that the incoming government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is questioning two lodestars of U.S. foreign policy: free-market neoliberalism and its security alliances worldwide.

In an astonishingly strong op-ed penned for the New York Times on the eve of his victory, Hatoyama savaged “market fundamentalism” for the current parlous state of the Japanese economy.

“In the fundamentalist pursuit of capitalism, people are treated not as an end but as a means,” he wrote. “Consequently, human dignity is lost.”

Hatoyama asked, “How can we put an end to unrestrained market fundamentalism and financial capitalism, that are void of morals or moderation, in order to protect the finances and livelihoods of our citizens?” For an answer, he turned to the French Revolution and its ideals of fraternity, liberty, and equality.

Hatoyama’s indication that he won’t bow at the altar of the market has caused apprehension. Western apologists cannot figure out why the Japanese people rejected the free-market turn initiated by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, an Elvis-loving hipster adored abroad.

“Japan is now more reluctant than ever to use market forces to raise productivity,” a New York Times reporter quoted a Britisher at an Australian securities firm (with no counterargument offered). “But these changes are crucial.”

In addition, Hatoyama has challenged—in his op-ed and otherwise—the U.S.-Japan military partnership, suggesting that Japan will reorient itself toward its Asian neighbors.

“Mr. Hatoyama has signaled a foreign-policy quest for a balanced equation with the U.S., Japan’s longtime military ally,” writes The Hindu newspaper of India. “He is guided by the perception of a potential sunset on the globalism that the U.S. has so far presided over. At the least, Mr. Hatoyama is keen to take a close look at America’s military and geostrategic footprint across Japan and its neighborhood.”

This may affect the United States in a number of ways.

“Specifically, the newly elected Democratic Party says it may recall the Japanese naval forces from a mission to refuel American warships near Afghanistan,” reports the New York Times. “And it wants to reopen an agreement to relocate a Marine airfield on Okinawa, which requires Japan to pick up much of the cost for moving thousands of Marines to Guam.”

Over the past half a century, the constant backing of the Liberal Democratic Party by the United States (so that its left-leaning opponents wouldn’t come to power) helped perpetuate its reign. And when the first non-LDP government, headed by the Socialists, ascended to victory in 1994, then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher expressed his anxiety. The U.S. foreign policy elite is still holding on to that mentality.

An Obama Administration official described the change in Japan’s outlook as a “seismic event,” while the conservative American Enterprise Institute said that there was “fear of dramatic change in the U.S.-Japan alliance.” And the New York Times showed how much it is joined at the hip with the establishment with its statement in an editorial that there was “cause for concern” about some of Hatoyama’s proposals.

You’d think that there’d be widespread expressions of support that only for the second time in Japan’s post-war history, the nation has been able to break out of the one-party stranglehold of the Liberal Democratic Party (the name being an oxymoron). And that there’d be near unanimity that it’s a good idea for a country with Japan’s awful history to retreat into a less militaristic stance. But no.

The U.S. bases in Japan have anyway been a blot ever since the United States imposed them on the country in the aftermath of World War II. Chalmers Johnson, an expert both on Japan and U.S. military bases, has written about how much resentment they have caused among the Japanese.

“Sexual violence against women and girls by American GIs has been out of control in Okinawa, Japan's poorest prefecture, ever since it was permanently occupied by our soldiers, Marines, and airmen some 64 years ago,” he writes at TomDispatch.com. “That island was the scene of the largest anti-American demonstrations since the end of World War II after the 1995 kidnapping, rape, and attempted murder of a 12-year-old schoolgirl by two Marines and a sailor.”

Regardless, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, John Roos, said after the election that he wanted to “make it abundantly clear” that the base deals are non-negotiable.

But a Japan that becomes less aggressive and not so much in thrall to the market is good not only for itself but also for the United States. Alas, the strong U.S. reaction is already causing Hatoyama to retreat from the welcome changes he had pledged to implement, revealing how difficult it is for even countries as ostensibly strong as Japan to wriggle out of the U.S. grip.

“A notion that you can have Japan essentially subordinate, a puppet of American interest, controlled by us on all fronts, I think, is a recipe for disaster down the road,” says Steven Clemons of the Japan Policy Research Institute and the New America Foundation. “And we’ve been seeing, until this election, a kind of nasty, rightwing, history-denying conservatism and sort of nationalism in Japan that I felt was sort of a reaction to this control. So this vote is about the healthiest thing that one could hope for, if you were hoping for sort of a healthy balanced nationalism and a more constructive and healthy US-Japan relationship.”

But the United States doesn’t want its own nationalism healthily balanced. It prefers dominance.

Save Gaza Vigil- Outside the Seattle Center. Saturday, Sep 5th @ Noon

Tweet http://uk.video.yahoo.com/watch/4310063/11578895

What: Save Gaza Vigil

When: Saturday Sep 05,Noon-2:00pm

Where: Outside the Seattle Center, on the corner of Broad St & 5th Ave N.

VoicesOfPalestine.org
http://www.voicesofpalestine.org
"Do you think you have seen it all?" Click here http://www.voicesofpalestine.org/showme.asp?dif=2&alb=aqsaint&title=Al-Aqsa+Intifadah&start_at=407

Liberation, Not A Fictitious Palestinian "State" -- Electronic Intifada

Tweet Hasan Abu Nimah and Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 2 September 2009
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10748.shtml

Late last month, Salam Fayyad, the appointed Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister in Ramallah, made a surprise announcement: he declared his intention to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip before the end of 2011 regardless of the outcome of negotiations with Israel.

Fayyad told the London Times that he would work to build "facts on the ground, consistent with having our state emerge as a fact that cannot be denied." His plan was further elaborated in a lengthy document grandly titled "Program of the Thirteenth Government of the Palestinian National Authority."

The plan contains all sorts of ambitious ideas: an international airport in the Jordan Valley, new rail links to neighboring states, generous tax incentives to attract foreign investment, and of course strengthening the "security forces." It also speaks boldly of liberating the Palestinian economy from its dependence on Israel, and reducing dependence on foreign aid.

This may sound attractive to some, but Fayyad has neither the political clout nor the financial means to propose such far-reaching plans without a green light from Washington or Tel Aviv.

Fayyad aims to project an image of a competent Palestinian administration already mastering the craft of running a state. He boasts, for instance, that the PA he heads has worked to "develop effective institutions of government based on the principles of good governance, accountability and transparency."

But what is really taking shape in the West Bank today is a police state, where all sources of opposition or resistance -- real or suspected -- to either the PA regime, or the Israeli occupation are being systematically repressed by US-funded and trained Palestinian "security forces" in full coordination with Israel. Gaza remains under tight siege because of its refusal to submit to this regime.

In describing the Palestinian utopia he hopes to create, Fayyad's plan declares that "Palestine will be a stable democratic state with a multi-party political system. Transfer of governing authority is smooth, peaceful and regular in accordance with the will of the people, expressed through free and fair elections conducted in accordance with the law."

A perfect opportunity to demonstrate such an exemplary transfer would have been right after the January 2006 election which as the entire world knows Hamas won fairly and cleanly. Instead, those who monopolize the PA leadership today colluded with outside powers first to cripple and overthrow the elected Hamas government, and then the "national unity government" formed by the Mecca Agreement in early 2007, entrenching the current internal Palestinian division. (Fayyad's own party won just two percent at the 2006 election, and his appointment as prime minister by PA leader Mahmoud Abbas was never -- as required by law -- approved by the Palestinian Legislative Council, dozens of whose elected members remain behind Israeli prison bars.)

From 1994 to 2006, more than eight billion US dollars were pumped into the Palestinian economy, making Palestinians the most aid-dependent people on earth, as Anne Le More showed in her important book International Assistance to the Palestinians after Oslo: Political Guilt; Wasted Money (London, Routledge, 2008). The PA received this aid ostensibly to build Palestinian institutions, improve socioeconomic development and support the creation of an independent state. The result however is that Palestinians are more destitute and aid-dependent than ever before, their institutions are totally dysfunctional, and their state remains a distant fantasy.

PA corruption and mismanagement played a big part in squandering this wealth, but by far the largest wealth destroyer was and remains the Israeli occupation. Contrary to what Fayyad imagines, you cannot "end the occupation, despite the occupation."

A telling fact Le More reveals is that the previous "programs" of the PA (except those offered by the Hamas-led governments) were written and approved by international donor agencies and officials and then given to the PA to present back to the same donors who wrote them as if they were actually written by the PA!

Everything we see suggests Fayyad's latest scheme follows exactly the same pattern. What is particularly troubling this time is that the plan appears to coincide with a number of other initiatives and trial balloons that present a real danger to the prospects for Palestinian liberation from permanent Israeli subjugation.

Recently, the International Middle East Media Center, an independent Palestinian news organization, published what it said was the leaked outline of a peace plan to be presented by US President Barack Obama.

That plan included international armed forces in most of the Palestinian "state"; Israeli annexation of large parts of East Jerusalem; that "All Palestinian factions would be dissolved and transformed into political parties"; all large Israeli settlements would remain under permanent Israeli control; the Palestinian state would be largely demilitarized and Israel would retain control of its airspace; intensified Palestinian-Israeli "security coordination"; and the entity would not be permitted to have military alliances with other regional countries.

On the central issue of the right of return for Palestinian refugees, the alleged Obama plan allows only an agreed number of refugees to return, not to their original homes, but only to the West Bank, particularly to the cities of Ramallah and Nablus.

It is impossible to confirm that this leaked document actually originates with the Obama administration. What gives that claim credibility, however, is the plan's very close resemblance to a published proposal sent to Obama last November by a bipartisan group of US elder statesmen headed by former US national security advisors Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Moreover, recent press reports indicate a lively debate within the Obama Administration about whether the US should itself publish specific proposals for a final settlement once negotiations resume; so there is little doubt that concrete proposals are circulating.

Indeed there is little of substance to distinguish these various plans from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's concept of "economic peace" and a demilitarized Palestinian statelet under overall Israeli control, with no right of return for refugees. And, since all seem to agree that the Jordan Valley -- land and sky -- would remain under indefinite Israeli control, so would Fayyad's airport.

Similar gimmicks have been tried before: who remembers all the early Oslo years' hullabaloo about the Gaza International Airport that operated briefly under strict Israeli control before Israel destroyed it, and the promised Gaza seaport whose construction Israel forbade?

There are two linked explanations for why Fayyad's plan was launched now. US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has repeatedly defined his goal as a "prompt resumption and early conclusion" of negotiations. If the kinds of recycled ideas coming from the alleged Obama plan, the Scowcroft-Brzezinski document, or Netanyahu, are to have any chance, they need to look as if there is a Palestinian constituency for them. It is Fayyad's role to provide this.

The second explanation relates to the ongoing struggle over who will succeed Mahmoud Abbas as president of the PA. It has become clear that Fayyad, a former World Bank official unknown to Palestinians before he was boosted by the George W. Bush Administration, appears to be the current favorite of the US and other PA sponsors. Channeling more aid through Fayyad may be these donors' way of strengthening Fayyad against challengers from Abbas' Fatah faction (Fayyad is not a member of Fatah) who have no intention of relinquishing their chokehold on the PA patronage machine.

Many in the region and beyond hoped the Obama Administration would be a real honest broker, at last bringing American pressure to bear on Israel, so that Palestinians might be liberated. But instead, the new administration is acting as an efficient laundry service for Israeli ideas; first they become American ones, and then a Palestinian puppet is brought in to wear them.

This is not the first scheme aimed at extinguishing Palestinian rights under the guise of a "peace process," though it is most disappointing that the Obama Administration seems to have learned nothing from the failures of its predecessors. But just as before, the Palestinian people in their country and in the Diaspora will stand stubbornly in the way of these efforts. They know that real justice, not symbolic and fictitious statehood, remains the only pillar on which peace can be built.

Low-Wage Workers Are Often Cheated, Study Says -- NYTimes

Tweet The "least of these" as this great Christian nation would say. This the way capitalism works, folks. And don't even dream of getting healthcare. Thanks to Jim McDermott and our courageous Congress -- of course, that's only because Obama took single payer off the table, right Jim? That's what you said at your "town hall" tonight.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/us/02wage.html?hp

Low-wage workers are routinely denied proper overtime pay and are often paid less than the minimum wage, according to a new study based on a survey of workers in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

“We were all surprised by the high prevalence rate,” said Ruth Milkman, one of the study’s authors and a sociology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the City University of New York. The study, to be released on Wednesday, was financed by the Ford, Joyce, Haynes and Russell Sage Foundations.

In surveying 4,387 workers in various low-wage industries, including apparel manufacturing, child care and discount retailing, the researchers found that the typical worker had lost $51 the previous week through wage violations, out of average weekly earnings of $339. That translates into a 15 percent loss in pay.

The researchers said one of the most surprising findings was how successful low-wage employers were in pressuring workers not to file for workers’ compensation. Only 8 percent of those who suffered serious injuries on the job filed for compensation to pay for medical care and missed days at work stemming from those injuries.

“The conventional wisdom has been that to the extent there were violations, it was confined to a few rogue employers or to especially disadvantaged workers, like undocumented immigrants,” said Nik Theodore, an author of the study and a professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois, Chicago. “What our study shows is that this is a widespread phenomenon across the low-wage labor market in the United States.”

According to the study, 39 percent of those surveyed were illegal immigrants, 31 percent legal immigrants and 30 percent native-born Americans.

The study found that 26 percent of the workers had been paid less than the minimum wage the week before being surveyed and that one in seven had worked off the clock the previous week. In addition, 76 percent of those who had worked overtime the week before were not paid their proper overtime, the researchers found.

The new study, “Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers,” was conducted in the first half of 2008, before the brunt of the recession hit. The median wage of the workers surveyed was $8.02 an hour — supervisors were not surveyed — with more than three-quarters of those interviewed earning less than $10 an hour. When the survey was conducted, the minimum wage was $7.15 in New York State, $7.50 in Illinois and $8 in California.

Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis responded to the report with an e-mail statement, saying, “There is no excuse for the disregard of federal labor standards — especially those designed to protect the neediest among us.” Ms. Solis said she was in the process of hiring 250 more wage-and-hour investigators. “Today’s report clearly shows we still have a major task before us,” she said.

The study’s authors noted that many low-wage employers comply with wage and labor laws. The National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small-business owners, said it encouraged members “to stay in compliance with state and federal labor laws.”

But many small businesses say they are forced to violate wage laws to remain competitive.

The study found that women were far more likely to suffer minimum wage violations than men, with the highest prevalence among women who were illegal immigrants. Among American-born workers, African-Americans had a violation rate nearly triple that for whites.

“These practices are not just morally reprehensible, but they’re bad for the economy,” said Annette Bernhardt, an author of the study and policy co-director of the National Employment Law Project. “When unscrupulous employers break the law, they’re robbing families of money to put food on the table, they’re robbing communities of spending power and they’re robbing governments of vital tax revenues.”

When the Russell Sage Foundation announced a grant to help finance the survey, it said that low-wage workers were “hard to find” for interviews and that “government compliance surveys shy away from the difficult task of measuring workplace practices beyond the standard wage, benefits and hours questions.”

The report found that 57 percent of workers sampled had not received mandatory pay documents the previous week, which are intended to help make sure pay is legal and accurate. Of workers who receive tips, 12 percent said their employer had stolen some of the tips.

One in five workers reported having lodged a complaint about wages to their employer or trying to form a union in the previous year, and 43 percent of them said they had experienced some form of illegal retaliation, like firing or suspension, the study said.

In instances when workers’ compensation should have been used, the study found, one third of workers injured on the job paid the bills for treatment out of their own pocket and 22 percent used their health insurance. Workers’ compensation insurance paid medical expenses for only 6 percent of the injured workers surveyed, the researchers found.

Keep the Change! Direct from Cindy's Soapbox

Tweet

http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2009/09/keep-change.html

“If George Bush was/is a war criminal; then Obama is a war criminal. If Obama is not, then Bush is not. We the people cannot have it both ways.” Cindy Sheehan, Martha’s Vineyard
Cindy Sheehan

Through many difficulties we faced on Martha’s Vineyard, (the sad passing of Senator Kennedy, Tropical Storm Danny---and even getting my wallet stolen) last week, a hearty band of about a two dozen of us, from off the island and on, tried our damndest to revive some kind of anti-war sentiment in this nation.

The media wanted to make it a story about the media: about how Crawford was such a big story and how Martha’s Vineyard is not. I don’t think that was the story, though.

Even though, we received endorsements from three of the most effective national anti-war groups; Veterans for Peace, Iraq Vets Against the War and World Can’t Wait and about a dozen others from smaller groups, but the large groups that supported the anti-Bush, anti-war message of the Camp Casey in Crawford were MIA physically and spiritually from the actions in Martha’s Vineyard.

The New York Times ran an article on Sunday claiming that after a long period of dormancy, the “anti-war” movement was getting “restive” and planned to do some actions in October around the 8th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. Well, some of us have been restive and working for years and the groups that are now becoming “restive’ are the very ones that let the War Genie out of the bottle, and will have a lot of problems putting it back in, if that is really the intention of these groups.

The “restive anti-war movement” is planning “teach-ins” and “memorials” but not planning on surrounding the White House and demanding that their leader bring the troops home from all theaters of war and then threatening to withhold support if he doesn’t. The “restive anti-war movement” will not do anything it thinks will compromise Democratic chances in the 2010 midterms.

I have two questions to ask of the “restive anti-war movement.”

1) How did the people of Iraq/Afghanistan lose value as human beings when the Democrats took over power in 2007?

2) How did the people of Pakistan lose their value as humans when Obama became president at the beginning of the year?

The born-again “restive anti-war movement” allowed the Democratic Party to suck the wind out of our sails in 2007 and it is almost like we will have to start from scratch.

“Give Him a chance,” they say.

“He’s better than McCain,” they say.

“If you question Him then you’re a racist,” they say.

I say “go to Iraq-Af-Pak and tell these things to the people who are being drone bombed for simply having the nerve to want to get married.”

Give Him a chance for what? No thanks, keep the change!

Recognizing the fact that the establishment anti-war movement will never organize to be an effective movement against Democrats, no matter how many people are dying, we on the Vineyard last week decided to write an International People’s Declaration of Peace which we will promulgate all over the world: raising grass roots support for a true People’s driven peace movement, not one driven by foundation funding or partisan politics.

A working draft of the IPDoP should be ready within a week and then we are hoping that the final draft will be ready to be read in front of the White House on October 5th when we gather to protest Obama’s wars.

Go here for more information about the October 5th protests.

Go here to view a great interview that Cindy did with Russian TV this past week in Martha’s Vineyard.

Go here to listen to last week’s Soapbox with attorney, Ellen Brown who talks about monetary policy.

Go here to donate to our continuing efforts for peace.

Google Image Search -- Family Togetherness

Tweet








Me & Doug

Girl, 15, Seeks Justice for Gaza in World Court

Tweet

link to original article (via Uruknet.info): http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hx9p9wd31AY9f9Rc0yA8keN2-lJQ

THE HAGUE — A 15-year-old Palestinian girl who says Israeli troops killed her father and two siblings in Gaza in January, sought justice from the International Criminal Court on Monday.

"I am here to lodge a complaint against the occupying army," Amira Alqerem told journalists in The Hague, seven months after her family was killed in an early-morning assault in the Tal Al Hawa neighbourhood that also left her severely injured.

"I hope this complaint will succeed because it is the truth," the soft-spoken teenager said, seated next to her lawyer on his way to the ICC to file the complaint with the office of the prosecutor.

In her court filing, Alqerem says her 67-year-old father Fathi, 16-year-old-sister Ismat, and 14-year-old brother Ala, were killed by Israeli army fire in the early hours of January 14.

The three children were awoken by an explosion to find their father's body, covered in blood, next to a crater near their house, the document claims.

Ismat and Ala went off to seek help, but were killed in another explosion. Amira, who had stayed behind with her dead father, was hit in the right leg.

"This was a crime against humanity, that is why we brought it to the ICC," said her lawyer Gilles Devers, who claims the attacks were aimed at civilians.

"Israeli politicians and military leaders must be held responsible."

Israel's 22-day offensive on Islamist Hamas-controlled Gaza left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead before ceasefire took effect on January 18.

ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced in February he had begun a "preliminary analysis" of alleged crimes committed by Israel during the Gaza offensive.

He has to date received complaints and evidence from the Palestinian Justice Minister Ali Kashan, the Palestinian National Authority, and over 360 other individuals and non-governmental bodies, his office said on Monday.

Amira, meanwhile, is undergoing physical and psychological rehabilitation in France.

"I am doing this for all the children of Gaza," she said through an interpreter.

"I want to do something to change the situation."

Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu visit Israel's Annexation wall in Bil’in -- from Lorca Newsletter

Tweet

On 27 August former US president Jimmy Carter, Mrs. Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa visited the site of the Apartheid Wall on the land of the village of Bil’in. The Carters and Archbishop Tutu came to Bil’in together with their colleagues from The 'Elders' delegation, former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former Norwegian prime minister Gro Brundtland, former Irish president and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, Indian human rights activist Ela Bhatt, and renowned businessmen Richard Branson and Jeff Skoll.

Pointing to the land on the other side of the Wall where the Occupation settlement of Modi’in Illit is being built, Carter said: “This is not Israel; this is Palestine and settlements must be removed from Palestinian land so that justice will be restored in the area.” Desmond Tutu encouraged the Palestinian activists: “Just as a simple man named Gandhi led the successful non-violent struggle in India and simple people such as Rosa Parks . . . led the struggle for civil rights in the United States, simple people here in Bil’in are leading a non-violent struggle that will bring them their freedom. The South Africa experience proves that injustice can be dismantled.”

The 'Elders' placed symbolic stones on the monument commemorating Bassem Abu Rahme, a non-violent activist who was shot dead on 17 April while attempting to speak to Israeli soldiers during a non-violent demonstration. (See video at http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/6185)

The Bil’in popular committee and their friends, including Luisa Morgantini, the former vice president of the European Parliament, and Israeli activists welcomed the delegation and invited them to participate in Bil’in’s annual conference for non-violent popular resistance. The delegation met Raja Abu Rahme, the daughter of Adib Abu Rahme, a leading peace activist from Bil’in. Adib was taken prisoner on 10 July during a non-violent demonstration and is being held in Ofer military prison (see: http://palsolidarity.org/2009/07/7652). Raja told them about her father’s arrest and about the night raid arrests that the Israeli military began in Bil’in on 23 June.

For almost five years the residents of Bil’in have been struggling against the annexation of more then 50% of their farmland. The village has become an international symbol of the Palestinian popular struggle against Israel's apartheid Wall. In a celebrated decision, the Israeli Supreme court ruled on 4 September 2007 the present route of the wall in Bil’in illegal. The ruling has not been implemented.

Operation Cast Lead Like "Burning Up Ants" with a Magnifying Glass -- by Frida Berrigan

Tweet Part of story below; whole thing here: http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=35264

“You feel like a child playing around with a magnifying glass, burning up ants.” That is how one Israeli soldier described Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defense Force’s (IDF) invasion of the Gaza Strip, which began in December 2008.

His is one of 54 testimonies collected by the Israeli organization Breaking the Silence in a 110-page report that paints a disturbing picture of urban warfare in one of the world’s most densely populated areas, where more than 1.5 million people occupy a narrow strip of land between Israel and the sea.

Another soldier, after recounting an incident in which his unit used civilians as human shields, described Gaza as a “moral twilight zone.”

It is an apt term for Gaza’s wholesale destruction: homes demolished by Caterpillar D9 bulldozers (manufactured in the United States and armored by Israeli Military Industries) and set afire by white phosphorus canisters (made by Pine Bluff Arsenal, a U.S. Army installation in Pine Bluff, Ark.). Save the Children, a U.K.-based NGO, estimated that more than 500,000 people were displaced during the war, and, a month after the ceasefire, 100,000 remained homeless. The Palestinian Economic Development Council puts a $1.9-billion price tag on rebuilding from the 22-day war. It noted that even under ideal circumstances the work could take five years.

The term also applies to the civilians killed: children cut down while playing, women and men killed as they tried to carry on their normal lives. Civilians were targeted by Cobra helicopters armed with high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) missiles (both made by Lockheed Martin), blasted by Strike missiles shot from Hermes drones (designed and manufactured in Israel) and caught in the crossfire as groups of soldiers advanced on firing militants. Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, says that of the 1,434 Palestinians killed in Gaza, 960 were civilians, including 121 women and 288 children.


Arms and dollars for the ‘moral twilight zone’

Israel—the largest recipient of U.S. military aid—has one of the most sophisticated and extensive military arsenals in the region. U.S.-origin weapons predominate and are an emblem of Washington’s close relationship with Tel Aviv. During George W. Bush’s presidency, Israel received more than $22 billion in military assistance from the United States. The bulk of this was in Foreign Military Financing (FMF), which are U.S. grants for weapons purchases. Now, FMF is on the rise. President Obama is following through on his predecessor’s promise to increase security assistance to $30 billion over the next 10 years.

In a review of the Gaza war published in February 2009, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service listed U.S. weapons platforms used in Operation Cast Lead, including “F-15 and F-16 aircraft [and] Apache helicopters.” Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) list of the U.S. systems deployed by Israel is far more extensive, including Cobra helicopters and American-made High-Explosive, Dual-Purpose rockets and HEAT missiles.

In addition to these systems, human rights groups found evidence of Israel’s use of a wide array of controversial, experimental weapons systems.


White phosphorus

“Why fire phosphorus?” “Because it’s fun. Cool.“—Israeli soldier, to Breaking the Silence.

White phosphorus is designed to obscure the battlefield, increasing freedom of movement for the user. It can also be used as a weapon. The U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventative Medicine notes that white phosphorous is “spontaneously flammable” and an “extremely toxic inorganic substance.” In Gaza, it was used to devastating effect used to burn down buildings. As one Israeli soldier told Breaking the Silence, “phosphorus was used as an igniter, simply to make it all go up in flames.”

One woman interviewed by HRW described what happened after she was hit by burning white phosphorus: “It burnt a hole and melted everything,” she said, pointing to her bandaged arm. The phosphorus ignites and burns on contact with oxygen, and continues burning until nothing is left or the oxygen supply is cut. According to medical personnel, the wounds sometimes began to burn again as they cleaned them.

In late January 2009, an Amnesty International investigation “found white phosphorus still smoldering in residential areas throughout Gaza days after the ceasefire came into effect on 18 January.” In the bombed courtyard of the Gaza headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, researchers found fragments of white phosphorus artillery shells and note that the “attack had caused a large fire, which destroyed tens of tons of humanitarian aid, including medicines, food and other non-food items.”


Deadly drones

Unlike much of Israeli military hardware, the Hermes and Heron drones are manufactured domestically, and both were used in Operation Cast Lead. In a joint assessment of Israeli drone attacks, B’Tselem, the Palestine Centre for Human Rights and Al Meza Centre for Human Rights found that Israel carried out 42 drone attacks in which 87 civilians were killed during the war.

Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst with HRW, describes how precise and discriminate the drones can be: “Drone operators can clearly see their targets on the ground and also divert their missiles after launch.” In a study of six specific IDF drone attacks during Operation Cast Lead, HRW found that 29 civilians were killed, including 8 children. According to their study, 5 of the 6 attacks were carried out in broad daylight, all of them in civilian areas far from the fighting and in “unlikely sites for launching rockets into Israel.” Given the drones’ high degree of precision, HRW asserts that “these attacks violated international humanitarian law.”


New weapons testing

Human rights investigators, journalists and humanitarian workers were all barred from Gaza during the fighting, fueling confusion and speculation about what kinds of weapons systems were being used.

Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor who worked in a Gaza hospital during the war, told “Democracy Now!” that “we have seen a substantial number of amputations where the amputees do not have shrapnel injuries. On the contrary, they have torn apart their legs, often one or two or even three limbs.” These injuries—new, terrible and seemingly shrapnel-free—have led to the hypothesis that Israel has been using what are known as Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME), a type of weapon that is still in testing phase in the United States.

“It is highly likely that Israel has developed its own version of DIME,” writes journalist David Hambling on the national security blog Danger Room. The “Iron Fist” interceptor, unveiled by the Israeli military in 2006, works in a way that is consistent with DIME technology. As Hambling writes in the online magazine Defense Update, the Iron Fist “uses only the blast effect to defeat the threat, crushing the soft components of a shaped charge or deflecting and destabilizing the missile or kinetic rod in their flight.”

Amnesty International researcher Donatella Rovera surveyed the damage wrought by these weapons and concluded, “The kinds of weapons used and the manner in which they were used indicates prima facie evidence of war crimes.”