NONVIOLENT ACTION IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING

February 21, 2011 

By David Swanson

Veterans Today

Michael Nagler tells this story:

“One of my close friends, David Hartsough, who is white, was sitting in with a small group of civil rights activists at a segregated lunch counter in Virginia in the early sixties.  They had been sitting there without getting service for close to two days, harassed almost without letup by an increasingly angry crowd. 

As neither the sitters nor the proprietors backed down, tension increased.  Suddenly David was jerked back off his stool and spun around by a man who hissed at him, ‘You got one minute to get out of here, n——- lover or I’m running this through your heart.’ 

David, a birthright Quaker, stopped staring at the huge Bowie knife held at his chest and slowly looked up into the man’s face, to meet ‘the worst look of hate I have ever seen in my life.’  The thought that came to him was, ‘Well, at least I’ve got a minute,’ and he heard himself saying to the man, ‘Well, brother, you do what you feel you have to, and I’m going to try to love you all the same.’ 

For a few frozen seconds there seemed to be no reaction; then the hand on the knife started shaking.  After a few more long seconds it dropped.  The man turned and walked out of the lunchroom, surreptitiously wiping a tear from his cheek.”

Whatever Hartsough did in the days and weeks and years following this incident, it was not to bemoan life’s supposed lack of meaning.  Nor did he do that in the months leading up to the incident, during which he clearly prepared himself to respond to the “wind of hate” (as soldiers describe it in war) in his chosen way without having to stop and think about it. 

He heard himself saying the words that saved his life and improved the lives around him, just as a properly conditioned soldier watches himself fire a weapon in the heat of battle.  But there is a drastic difference: the soldier who fires the weapon is usually himself traumatized by having done so.  He has to recover afterwards.  Veterans’ suicide rates suggest that many never do.  

Nonviolent action in Bil'in, Palestine, held weekly. Each week the IDF maims and/or murders one of these protesters and every time, the IDF looks worse and worse in the eyes of the world.

The “meaning” violent actors have found in war is fleeting. 

TA nonviolent activist is empowered by his or her action, and need not recover from it.  In fact, those confronted by nonviolent activism can be empowered by it as well.  Many more Egyptian young people and Egyptian soldiers will tell you life has meaning right now than would have said so last year, and that meaning will leave no hangover. 

Instead it will fade slowly or last as long as the nonviolent activism continues.  When young Palestinians took up nonviolent resistance, their usage of drugs and alcohol plummeted.  Does anyone doubt that same effect could be found right now in Madison, Wisconsin?

 One of history's most famous examples of non violent action

~Tiananmen Square, Beijing

When I speak about peace and justice, people always ask what they can do and often ask for an easy solution.  When I tell them that our entire system is deeply corrupt, that we need a cultural revolution and a massive movement for change, that until Freedom Plaza in DC looks like Tahrir Square in Cairo all changes are going to be cosmetic or for the worse, people often look disappointed or discouraged. 

They don’t understand (and I have failed to communicate) that I am offering them what people have longed for since the beginning of time and desperately craved and lacked since the beginning of television: I’m offering a life with meaning. 

Why do people pick up harmful addictions, risk life and limb for no purpose but the risk, try their hardest to believe in theology and astrology and all variety of nonsense?  

The peaceful protesters of Tahrir Square in Cairo

Why all the quiet ~ and sometimes not so quiet ~ desperation? 

It is because people do not believe their lives can have a larger purpose, do not believe they can struggle and sacrifice in solidarity with friends and strangers to improve everything for everyone for centuries to come. 

And yet, of course, they can and must or all will be lost.

Nagler’s book “The Search for a Nonviolent Future” makes the case that nonviolence and only nonviolence can work, not only work as a fulfilling career for those who practice it, but work in halting wars and injustices. 

When violence seems to accomplish such ends, the blowback can be swift or slow but is always lingering. 

When nonviolence seems to fail, it always makes progress, and most failures of nonviolent activism are failures of actions taken with no training whatsoever or of sheer inaction (which our worse-than-useless educational system leaves people confusing with nonviolent action).  

 A great teacher of nonviolent action, Martin Luther King.

Yet, the victories won through spontaneous actions by untrained and undisciplined nonviolent actors suggest the incredible potential still largely untapped.  The Kapp Putch was stopped in Germany. 

The Soviet occupation in the Prague Spring was frustrated for months and the groundwork laid for its overthrow. 

The Rosenstrasse Prison Demonstration overpowered the Nazis, won its participants’ demands, and then disbanded. 

What if these movements that won victories through nonviolent action had continued and broadened and advanced strategically toward larger goals, as we are all now hoping the people’s movements in Egypt and around the Middle East, Puerto Rico, and the United States are able to do? 

What if Wall Street had spent the thirties and forties investing in nonviolence training in Germany rather than in weapons and eugenics?

What if people were trained to travel as rapid response teams to use nonviolence in areas of crisis around the globe? 

They have been for decades now, with stunning success.  They have put their lives on the line without weapons or the threat of weapons, accomplished more, and yet been killed and injured far, far less than soldiers who shoot to kill or U.N. peace keepers who threaten to shoot to kill if “needed.” 

In the early eighties, the minister of war (“defense”) of Nicaragua, Ernesto Cardenal, learned that peace activists protecting villages by their nonviolent presence provided far greater protection than he could.  

He told Nagler and a group of people, speaking through a translator that wherever these small groups of international activists were, there was no violence.  His translator “corrected” his comment and said “nearly no violence.”  Cardenal “caught that at once and slammed his fist on the table: ‘I said, absolutely no violence!’”

Peace studies should be required in every college and every high school and every elementary and pre-school.  All those years and decades of blankness in between the wars should be filled in our history books, and we should invest in nonviolence training instead of war. 

I like to fantasize about bills that could be introduced in Congress.  I’d like to see a bill forbidding the United States to spend more on its military than three times the nearest nation behind it.  This would require massive cuts to the Pentagon immediately. 

What about a bill requiring that the military receive no more than 1,000 times the funding appropriated for nonviolence training and peace?  Of course, the trend is in the other direction.  

 

The military gets more money and a larger share of the money every year, and Congress is working to defund the US Institute of Peace, Americorps, and the United Nations.  But those were not what we really needed. 

 

And we don’t really need the government to do what is needed.

We need to do it ourselves.

We need to build peace teams for domestic and international work, teams that include independent journalism as part of their activities.

We need to invest everything we can in such work.

Here’s one example of a place to get started. 

 

 Learning his technique very early in life.

Here’s something happening all over the United States next week.

Here’s that chance to bring Cairo and peace to DC.

Here are more activities planned in the near future that you can get involved in.

About the Author: David Swanson is the author of “War Is a Lie”

BOOKS ON TALMUD, JEWISH RELIGION, FOUND IN GADAFFI'S PRESIDENTIAL PALACE

 CAIRO, Feb 27, 2011
Veterans Today

For the past week, Libya has been racked by a popular uprising against the 42-year rule of strongman Moammar Gadhafi, which the ruling regime has tried to quell with a mix of violence ~ including the use of gun-ships and foreign mercenaries ~ and disinformation. 

Within the last two days, however, after a spate of high-level defections, most areas of the troubled North African nation have fallen into the hands of opposition forces. Several of Gadhafi’s personal residences, meanwhile, have now been occupied by anti-government demonstrators.

Interestingly, on Sunday, February 27, Arabic-language satellite news channel Al Jazeera reported that several books on the occult ~ and about “Jewish magic” in particular ~ had been discovered in Gadhafi’s presidential palace in Al-Beidaa in eastern Libya.

The following is an English-language translation of the brief news report:

“Numerous books on magic and summoning [of demons] have been found inside Gadhafi’s presidential palace in Al-Beidaa, in addition to several religious books specifically about the Talmud and the Jewish religion.”

Al Jazeera goes on to show six Arabic-language books that were said to have been found in Gadhafi’s possession (and which appear to have been mounted behind glass).

The books bear titles including: 

“A Complete Exegesis of the Talmud and the Teachings of the Rabbis”;

“The Kabbala and Jewish Magic”;

“The League of Satan: The Political Mafia and the Mafia of Religions”; and

“The 72 Secrets at the Heart of Judaism.”

While the report does not prove anything conclusively, it nevertheless raises questions about the Libyan leader’s peculiar beliefs and  ~ possibly ~ associations.

BAHRAIN: BREAKING NEWS: SAUDI TANKS ARRIVE

 

Veterans Today

February 28, 2011

Bahrain

Eyewitnesses have reported seeing an estimated 30 tanks being transported into Bahrain from Saudi Arabia on Monday night at around 6:45pm local time. The tanks were sighted along the King Fahd causeway, which links the small island-nation of Bahrain to Saudi Arabia. 

Commuters traveling along the 25-km causeway were held up due to the presence of “15 tank carriers carrying two tanks each heading towards Bahrain.” Civilian eyewitnesses could not, however, confirm whether the tanks belonged to the Saudi military.

The presence of Saudi military hardware in Bahrain is considered highly unusual.

The development comes on the eve of yet another scheduled anti-government demonstration organized by the Bahraini opposition and protesters in Manama’s Pearl Roundabout.

Fears of Saudi intervention in the ongoing Bahraini uprising first came to the fore last week when unconfirmed reports emerged on Wednesday that Saudi officials had told US authorities that they were “prepared to intervene” in Bahrain should such a move prove necessary to protect Bahrain’s embattled government.

Tomorrow’s mass protest will be the first to take place since the arrival to the country of controversial Shia opposition leader Hassan Mosheima from self-imposed exile.

Mosheima arrived on Saturday, using his first speech to call for national unity and to urge protesters to step up demands for the ouster of Bahrain’s prime minister of 40 years, Sheikh Khalifa Al Khalifa.

AMERICA ~ DESTROYED BY DESIGN

From government sponsored terrorism to the takeover of our national parks to biometrics ~ this tape has the information you need! Find out how the sovereignty of the United States is being subordinated to the globalist interests, through such examples as the Foundations at the Presidio and the Panama Canal. See United Nations and Chinese Interests are affecting our nation. Witness the United Nation's indoctrination of America's children.

WISCONSIN POLICE HAVE JOINED PROTEST INSIDE STATE CAPITOL

"To a right-winger, unions are awful. Why do right-wingers hate unions? Because collective bargaining is the power that a worker has against the corporation. Right-wingers hate that." ~ Janeane Garofalo

 

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: "Whose?" ~ Don Marquis

"The first thing a dictator does is abolish the free press. 

Next he abolishes the right of labor to go on strike." ~ George Seldes

 

Okay I have been ignoring a HUGE story in the US of A.  We complain that Americans are apathetic and lazy about having their rights removed from them, one by one, as they sit about watching sports and drinking beer. Something has changed in the state of Wisconsin. The apathy is gone and the people are moving. 

These folks may not be activists for the humanitarian causes I usually present here, but what is happening in Wisconsin is HUGE!  Its significance for the working American cannot be underestimated. For decades TPTB have been destabilizing and crushing unions in their rapacious need to have absolute control over their workers and work conditions. As a result they have run roughshod over Americans, each attack leaving them with  less. No one sindividual dared speak out for fear of unemployment; they just took it on the chin and were grateful for the work. SLAVERY.

Before the turn of the last century, life for the ordinary person was grim. They worked hard long hours, including the children, under unsafe conditions and were truthfully little more than underpaid slaves, yet happy to at least have a pittance for bare survival wages.  Then came unionization. People began to see they had power in large groups. They could slow or stop business and cut into the profit margins of the (usually robber) barons and be heard. There were many wars between the strikers and the PTB who used violent means to put the unionizers down. Many died in extremely violent marches that turned violent when the authorities began shooting and killing.

However, in the long run, with much struggle and determination, unions were formed and circumstances improved for the common worker. No one teaches of these events in school because the current PTB plan is to kill all unions once again so that big business can reap greater profits off the backs of the everyday worker.  It is also difficult even on line to find adequate information without some serious digging beyond the negativity. For the past few decades as unions were squashed, people just accepted the loss of their benefits, jobs, hours cut, etc. All part of the cost of keeping a job that has covered less and less in these days of runaway inflation.

It seems the good folk of Wisconsin have had enough! No more union busting. Return of their rights. As I just browsed looking for a cartoon or two on unions to post here, I found that almost all of them were terribly anti union. From the 1800's till today, all warning, in one way or another, of the evil of organized labour. Of course that would be because, as today, propoganda in the media was in full swing. The problem, according to the PTB is simply that unions put power into the hands of the serfs, something they really really realllly don't like. So they did their damndest to ensure this attitude became that of the people. They only divided the populace in one more manner, pro and anti union.

I pray that this action in Wisconsin opens the eyes of more Americans to what is being done to them and that they might take up their power again and stop taking it on the chin just to survive. It is also extremely heartening to note that the police force has joined with the people. Heartening not just because they have joined in the struggle, but because they have shown their human side and are not behaving like militia thugs as has been the general direction law enforcement has be moving towards so rapidly.

**PTB = Powers That Be

The Understory

February 27, 2011

From inside the Wisconsin State Capitol, RAN ally Ryan Harvey reports:

“Hundreds of cops have just marched into the Wisconsin state capitol building to protest the anti-Union bill, to massive applause. They now join up to 600 people who are inside.”

Ryan reported on his Facebook page earlier today:

“Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: ‘We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!’ Unreal.”

Ryan HarveyYou can find more updates from Ryan Harvey on Twitter @ryanharveysongs and his blog Even If Your Voice Shakes.

UPDATE: This video says it all. It makes me proud of my neighbors. “Let me tell you Mr. Walker, this is not your house, this is all our house.”

UPDATE 2-27: I’ve got to say a huge thank you to Ryan Harvey for the incredible on-the-spot reporting from inside the Wisconsin state capitol. Keep ‘em coming Ryan!

In this next video, Ryan interviews Brian Austin of the Madison Professional Police Officers Association, who is featured in the video above.

Not only are police officers on the side of labor inside the capitol, so is the chief of police. Bill Glauber reported this evening from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

“The people who are in the building will be allowed to stay,” Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs said Sunday night. “There will be no arrests unless people violate the law.”

Tubbs…announced the decision to let the protesters stay after he saw how they moved aside while work crews went about cleaning the Capitol, including mopping and polishing floors.

“People are very cooperative,” the police chief said. “I appreciate that.”

As this long night comes to a end, I leave you with this final piece of good news from Ryan’s Twitter feed:

“Huge news! Republican senator dale shultz has announced that he is switching sides and opposing the bill!!! 2 more to go!”

Rock on Wisconsin.

Remind the politicians who have forgotten, 

and the corporations in denial,

and any folks out there who aren’t sure their voice really counts, 

that the true power of these United States

is with The People. 

And it’s time to get used to the idea.

HOW DO YOU SPELL 'DENIAL" / 'IT IS THE HALLUCINOGENS'

Truly beyond belief. Truly in denial. Truly on drugs. Truly dishonest. Truly chutzpah on the level of Netanyahu.  Just plain unbelievable. Saif al-Islam on the problems in Libya.

Okay so according to Saif,  Muammar Gadaffi’s son, this whole war in Libya is a joke. Nothing happened, the bombs are totally fake, those 2000+ people who are dead…nope not dead. The mercenaries…don’t exist. Al Qaeda is behind this WHOLE thing.  I wonder what they put in his coffee this morning.

INSTITUTIONALIZED ARAB INEQUALITY IN ISRAEL

Palestinians are picked up and jailed without any type of what we term due process. Their jails are crowded with people who will never see the world without bars.

Posted: 26 Feb 2011

By Stephen Lendman

SeveLendmanBlog

In December 2010, the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel published a study titled, "Inequality Report: The Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel," [PDF] saying:

Affecting Jews as well, it takes many forms, including:

• privileged v. deprived groups;
• Western Jews (Ashkenzim) v. Eastern ones (Mizrakhim);
• men v. women;
• Israeli-born Jews (Sabar) v. immigrant ones (Olim);
• Orthodox v. secular Jews;
• urban v. rural ones;
• progressive v. hardline extremists;
• gay v. straight, and so forth.

Mostly, it represents majority Jews against minority (largely Muslim) Israeli Arabs, indigenous people living in their historic homeland, comprising 20% of the population or about 1.2 million people, excluding East Jerusalem and Golan.

Under international law, they're considered a national, ethnic, linguistic and religious minority, but not under Israel's Basic Laws. As a result, they face "compound discrimination" as non-Jews, as well as for belonging to one or more sub-groups. For example, women, Bedouins, the disabled or elderly.

Institutionalized inequality excludes them from state resources, services and positions of power, including:

 Settler attacks a Palestinian car in Jabal al Mukabbir, East Jerusalem, "Yesh Din" an Israeli human rights organization revealed that some 90 % of files opened by the police in regarding settlers who injured Palestinians or damaged Palestinian property, in which the investigation was completed (or not carried out), were closed without an indictment being filed.

LEGALIZED INEQUALITY

As citizens, they're denied equality and freedom in a Jewish state. Over 30 laws directly or indirectly discriminate besides new ones at various stages in the legislative process.

CITIZENSHIP

It affords no equality, granting it solely to Jews, and under a new law, it may be lost for reasons alleging "disloyalty" or "breach of trust."

INCOME/POVERTY

Affecting over half of Arab families, they're disproportionately poor compared to one-fifth of Jews. Arab towns, villages and Bedouin communities are the poorest.

REDRISTIBUTION OF RESOURCES AND SOCIAL WELFARE

Resources are disproportionately allocated to Jews, a policy institutionalizing inequality.

As of July 2008 the Separation Barrier (Wall) has 66 gates for crossing between severed parts of the West Bank. 27 of them are closed. 19 gates from the remained 39 are opened seasonally, for farmers working their land on the other side of the Barrier. These women await soldiers to open the gates. Quite often the soldiers do not even bother to show up so the day is lost.

EMPLOYMENT

Arabs are discriminated against with regard to work opportunities, pay, and conditions, largely because of entrenched structural barriers, especially affecting women, the disabled, and other sub-groups. Failure to perform military service impedes men, even when no connection between it and job qualifications exist.

Arabs are also underrepresented in civil service jobs, Israel's largest employer. They constitute about 6% of public employees, despite affirmative action laws requiring fair representation.

LAND

Longstanding and more recent laws deprive them of its access and use. Admissions committees in many agricultural and community towns exclude them based on alleged "social unsuitability," amounting to legalized apartheid.

As a result, Arab towns and villages suffer severe overcrowding, their municipalities having jurisdiction over only 2.5% of total state land. Moreover, since 1948, about 600 Jewish municipalities were established, no Arab ones.

Two 10 year old schoolboys were critically wounded by Israeli soldiers while at their studies.

EDUCATION

Israel's Ministry of Education has centralized control, excluding Arab educators from decision-making authority. Moreover, State Education Law sets objectives, emphasizing Jewish history and culture. Though Arabs represent 25% of school children, funding for them is far less than for Jews.

ARABIC LANGUAGE

Though an official state language, it holds vastly inferior status to Hebrew, including regarding resources allocated for its use.

HEALTH

On average, Jewish life expectancy exceeds Arabs who face much higher mortality rates, especially past age 60. In addition, Palestinian infant mortality is double that for Jews. Poorer Arab communities are especially impacted, lacking facilities to keep pace with needs.

POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Arabs have unequal access to all areas of public life and decision-making, including the legislature, judiciary, and civil service. Moreover, Israel's Attorney General and extremist MKs tried to disqualify Arab parties from political participation, and overall limit their political voices.

In addition, legislation targets free movement and speech, including attempts to restrict political travel to Arab nations called "enemy states." Further, police routinely use force to arrest Palestinian demonstrators to silence dissent.

"Years of deliberate discrimination, unequal citizenship and a limited voice in the political system have left Palestinian citizens" feeling vulnerable, marginalized, insecure and distrustful of state authority, exacerbated by being considered a "fifth column."

A daily routine for Palestine children coming to and from school.  In January ’07, border police shot to death Abir Aramin, a 10 year-old girl on her way home from Anata school, with a so-called rubber bullet; no stones were thrown by any kids that day. The file investigating her death was closed for insufficient evidence.

FRAMEWORK OF LEGALIZED INEQUALITY

Israel's Basic Laws afford rights solely to Jews. Arabs clearly aren't wanted so aren't treated equally under the law. As a result, institutionalized discrimination harms them in all aspects of daily life, including citizenship and family unification rights, forcing them to live apart or insecure under threat of separation.

A CASE STUDY OF DISCRIMINATORY RESOURCE ALLOCATION

Government provides "budget balancing grants" to municipalities and local councils to fund essential services. Arab communities are systematically cheated despite far greater need.

The current system affords extra grants to towns absorbing new Jewish immigrants, so-called "front line" communities, and others called "socially diverse," excluding Arab ones considered homogeneous. Nearly always, Jewish communities are helped. Adalah's 2001 Supreme Court petition for redress is still pending.

Further, Amendment 146 to the Income Tax Act affords Israeli communities near Gaza and others exemptions for political reasons. All Arab towns and villages were excluded.

A CASE STUDY OF MILITARY SERVICE EXCLUDING ARABS FROM RAILWAY INSPECTION WORK

In 2009, the Israeli Railway Company (IRC) and another firm employing guards concluded an agreement, excluding applicants with no military service from consideration. Over 130 Arab citizens held guard positions. The decision threatened their status or ability to obtain future employment. A temporary September 2009 court injunction prevented those employed from being fired. After a follow-up February 2010 hearing, the Railway Company cancelled the exclusionary provisions.

A Case Study of Arab Family Unsuitability to Live in Rakefet

Fatina and Ahmed Zubeidat hold Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design College of Architecture degrees with distinction. Both are practicing architects. After marrying in 2006, they applied to live in Rakefet, located in Misgav in northern Israel. Its admissions committee requires applicants take an acceptance test. It excluded them on grounds of "social unsuitability." In September 2007, Adalah petitioned Israel's Supreme Court, demanding admissions committees be abolished. In October, the Court ordered Rakeft set aside land for the family, pending a final decision. It's still pending.

Bethlehem Checkpoint

 

A CASE STUDY OF UNRECOGNIZED BEDOUIN AL ARAQIB VILLAGE DESTRUCTION

On July 27, 2010, al-Araqib residents were awakened at dawn, surrounded by police carrying guns, tear gas, truncheons and other arms. Declaring the village a "closed area," its 250 residents were ordered out in two minutes, warned that resistance would forcibly remove them.

Almost immediately, 1,300 police officers began demolishing homes while residents tried salvaging belongings. All 45 houses were bulldozed. Villagers were displaced and their belongings confiscated. Police also uprooted 4,500 olive trees. Tax Authority representatives accompanied police, seizing property of indebted residents.

No prior warnings were given. A week later, the village was destroyed a second time, police again using excessive force, including pushing, stomping, dragging, assaulting, and cursing people present at the time. Adalah immediately demanded a criminal investigation. Numerous other villages have also been targeted. None so far have gotten redress.

A CASE STUDY OF A POSSIBLE FIRST EVER UNRECOGNIZED BEDOUIN VILLAGE HIGH SCHOOL

None exist in any unrecognized Bedouin village. In Abu Tulul region, El-Shihabi is home to about 12,000 Bedouin citizens. About 750 are of high school age. However, only about 170 can attend 12 – 15 km away, requiring public or other transportation to reach.

In 2005, Adalah petitioned Israel's Supreme Court for 35 Bedouin girls and six local NGOs, demanding an accessible high school be built nearby. In January 2007, the Court ruled for one to begin operating on September 1, 2009 to no avail. On September 22, 2009, Adalah again petitioned for enforcement, including that non-implementation be considered in contempt of court.

 

East Jerusalem. Just in the past ten years, more than 13,000 Palestinians became homeless as a result to the Israeli policy of mass demolition of Palestinian houses.

A CASE STUDY OF MOTHER AND CHILD CLINIC CLOSURES

In October 2009, Israel's Ministry of Health (MOH) closed clinics in three unrecognized villages ~ Qasr el-Ser, Abu Tlul and Wadi el-Niam. They specialize in post-natal care with three others established after Adalah's successful 1997 Supreme Court petition.

MOH's reasons for closure were bogus. As a result, the health and lives of thousands of pregnant Bedouin women, new mothers and their babies are at risk. On December 16, 2009, Adalah petitioned Israel's Supreme Court, demanding clinics remain open. On August 11, 2010, two reopened. The other is still closed.

CASE STUDY ABOUT PROTESTERS KILLED IN OCTOBER 2000

In October 2000, at the start of the Second Intifada, police killed 13 unarmed Palestinians, protesting occupation brutality. Snipers shot most in the head or chest. Hundreds of others were injured and over 1,000 arrested. Despite Or Commission recommendations, no one was held responsible. Over 10 years later, no commander, soldier, policeman, or political official was charged with cold-blooded murder. Given impunity, they remain safe from prosecution.

LEGITIMATE POLITICAL ACTIVITY CRIMINALIZED

In November 2009, Israel's Attorney General indicted Arab MK Mohammed Barakeh, leader of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash), for participating in four nonviolent protests against Israel's Separation Wall, the 2006 Lebanon war, and its officials remaining unaccountable for the October 2000 killings.

In January 2010, the Knesset House Committee voted to strip Tajammoa/Balad party MK Sa'id Naffaa of his parliamentary immunity. Israel's Attorney General then indicted him for visiting Syria in September 2007 as part of a holy site pilgrimage. Charges included contact with a foreign agent.

Earlier, MK Azmi Bishara, then National Democratic Assembly/Balad head, was indicted for political speech -for "supporting a terrorist organization (Hezbollah)." In fact, he merely analyzed factors leading to Israel's southern Lebanon occupation and right to resist it. Charges followed the Knesset voting to strip him of parliamentary immunity. At the time, it was unprecedented in Israeli politics. In February 2006, Israel's Supreme Court dismissed all charges unanimously.

Nonetheless, on June 7, 2010, the Knesset House Committee revoked Tajammoa/Balad member Haneen Zoabi's parliamentary privileges for participating in the May 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla. As a result, she lost her diplomatic passport, overseas travel privileges, and right to have the Knesset pay her legal expenses in case of criminal prosecution. Overall, she was viciously assailed. Called a "terrorist" and "traitor," extremist ministers and MKs wanted, but failed, to have her Knesset membership and citizenship revoked.

Two recent articles explained Israel's gross mistreatment of Israeli Arab citizens.

Socially, politically and economically they're denied rights for being Arabs in a Jewish state, affording them solely to Jews. Increasingly less of them, in fact, benefit under predatory neoliberal harshness, rewarding the rich, abandoning the rest.

As a result, Israel is a nation of extreme, growing inequality, mostly affecting Arabs. Studies, in fact, found Israel, America and Britain the most unequal western societies, an indictment of neoliberal betrayal.

Moreover, Muslims face violent and ad hominem attacks, with no protections afforded them. As a result, some call Israel a failed state, more hypocrisy than democracy, resembling how Arundhati Roy once described India, calling it a 

"limbless, headless, soulless torso left bleeding under the butcher's clever with a flag driven deep into her mutilated heart."

For Israeli Arabs, it's daily reality. For Occupied Palestinians, its worse. For besieged Gazans, it's catastrophic because world leaders abandoned them.

A FINAL COMMENT

On February 25, a full Spanish High Court panel (its Audencia Nacional) rejected a Spanish prosecutor's attempt to halt investigation into America's involvement in torture at Guantanamo. In response, the Center for Constitutional Rights said:

"This is a monumental decision that will enable a Spanish judge to continue a case on the 'authorized and systemic plan of torture and ill treatment' by US officials at Guantanamo." Former commanding officer Gen. Geoffrey Miller "has already been implicated, and the case will surely move up the chain of command."

Importantly, "this will be the first real investigation of the US torture program….This is a victory for accountability and a blow against impunity." CCR applauded Spain's High Court decision "for not bowing to political pressure and for undertaking what may be the most important investigation in decades."

If successful, might other unindicted US and Israeli war criminals be far behind? Also, will courageous lawyers like persecuted Paul Bergrin be vindicated? At times, justice moves in slow, incremental steps. Perhaps this is a first major one.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.