US boycotts UN racism conference

A Palestinian woman calls for a boycott of Israel at a rally in Geneva ahead of the anti-racism conference, 18 April
Some demonstrators in Geneva on Saturday condemned Israel

Washington has confirmed it will boycott a UN forum on racism in Geneva next week because of differences over Israel and the right to free speech.

The state department said the proposed text of the conference's guiding document remained unacceptable despite having been amended significantly.

The US and Israel quit a similar forum in Durban in 2001 when its draft document likened Zionism to racism.

Current language about "incitement to religious hatred" also alarms the US.

The five-day Durban Review Conference is due to open on Monday.

EU diplomats were still consulting on Saturday on whether to attend the conference. Canada and Israel said earlier that they would not attend.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has stirred outrage by repeatedly calling the Holocaust of the Jews a "myth", is the only prominent head of state so far scheduled to attend.

'Serious concerns'

The state department said it was "with regret" that the US had decided to boycott the conference.

"The text still contains language that reaffirms in toto the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action [DDPA] from 2001, which the United States has long said it is unable to support," it said in a statement.

"Its inclusion in the review conference document has the same effect as inserting that original text into the current document and re-adopting it.

"The DDPA singles out one particular conflict and prejudges key issues that can only be resolved in negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.

"The United States also has serious concerns with relatively new additions to the text regarding 'incitement', that run counter to the US commitment to unfettered free speech."

Internal debate has raged in the US for weeks on whether to attend, the Associated Press news agency reports from Washington.

Pro-Israel groups vehemently opposed participation while human rights advocates and organisations like TransAfrica and members of the Congressional Black Caucus thought it was important to attend.

Immediately after the announcement, Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who heads the black caucus in Congress, said the group was "deeply dismayed" by the boycott.

"This decision is inconsistent with the administration's policy of engaging with those we agree with and those we disagree with..." she said.

"The US is making it more difficult for it to play a leadership role on UN Human Rights Council as it states it plans to do. This is a missed opportunity, plain and simple."

West Bank man killed at protest

Relatives mourn dead Palestinian protester Bassem Abu Rahmeh
The Israeli military is investigating the cause of death

A Palestinian has died after he was hit by a tear gas canister during a protest against the West Bank barrier, protesters and medics say.

The Israeli military said it was investigating the incident in the West Bank town of Bilin.

It said tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets were used to disperse rock-throwing rioters.

Last month a US protester was left in a coma after he was hit in the head by a tear gas canister in a nearby village.

Demonstrations take place weekly in Bilin, where residents have long protested against the loss of land and freedom of movement caused by the building of the barrier, which Israel says is for security.

Bassem Abu Rahmeh, aged about 30, died in a hospital in Ramallah on Friday. A doctor told AP news agency he had been hit in the chest by a tear gas canister.


The West Bank barrier at Qalandia checkpoint

The Israeli military said it would work with Palestinian medics to determine the cause of his death.

Israel began building the West Bank barrier in 2002. It is now about two-thirds complete.

It has been widely criticised internationally for looping into Palestinian areas around Israeli settlements, rather than following the Green Line, which marks the boundary that separates Israel from the West Bank.

The International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 that the barrier was illegal where it cut into the West Bank and called for it to be pulled down.

Earlier on Friday, a knife-wielding Palestinian was shot dead after he tried to stab people in a settlement in the south of the West Bank, the Israeli military said.

Palestinian police said they were still investigating the incident in Beit Hagai, but confirmed the dead man was Rabah Hejazi Sidr, 17.

Barenboim gets ovation in Cairo

Daniel Barenboim rehearsing with the Cairo Symphony Orchestra - 16/4/2009
Daniel Barenboim is a vocal supporter of Palestinian rights

In a rare performance by a prominent Israeli musician in Egypt, Daniel Barenboim has received a rapturous reception at the Cairo Opera House.

Mr Barenboim conducted the Cairo Symphony Orchestra playing Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

The famed conductor and pianist has long strived to use music to bring people together in the region.

He is a supporter of Palestinian statehood and a critic of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.

'Human project'

His visit - the result of an invitation from the Austrian embassy in Cairo - is believed to be the first by a prominent Israeli musician in Egypt, one of the few Arab states to have signed a peace deal with Israel.

As well as conducting the orchestra, Mr Barenboim played Beethoven's Pathetique piano sonata.

"Every military victory of Israel has left it politically weaker"
Daniel Barenboim

Answering criticism that the time was not right for such a visit, following Israel's offensive in Gaza earlier this year, Mr Barenboim said bringing musicians from both sides together was not a political project, but a human one.

"For 60 years they have been trying with force and they haven't solved anything," he said during rehearsals for the concert. "Every military victory of Israel has left it politically weaker."

"I hope very much that this, my first visit to Egypt, will maybe allow another way of thinking to come," he added.

The concert was largely welcomed in Egypt, but has been criticised by some who feel Egypt should resist closer ties with Israel until a final peace deal is reached with the Palestinians.

The Secretary-General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, refused an invitation to attend from the Egyptian culture minister.

'Mutual ignorance'

Mr Barenboim founded the joint Arab-Israeli orchestra, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, with the late Palestinian-American writer Edward Said in 1999 to further cultural exchange between young people in Israel and the Arab world.

His views earned him an honorary Palestinian Authority passport in 2007.

The conductor, a former child prodigy pianist who moved to Israel from his native Argentina at the age of nine, said on Wednesday that he had always been curious about life in Arab countries.

He said too few Israelis were curious about their neighbours, and that the ignorance went both ways.

"To put all Israelis in one basket and say we boycott, we don't want anything to do with them, anyone who goes there is an enemy, this is no good," he said in Cairo.

"It would be much better that Egyptians, and Syrians, and Palestinians, and Jordanians, and Lebanese, will go to Tel Aviv, and explain their point of view."

Despite leading the Divan Orchestra around the globe, the Cairo performance is only Mr Barenboim's third in the Arab world, after performances in Morocco in 2003 and the West Bank city of Ramallah in 2005.

Two concerts in Qatar and Egypt were called off in January because of safety concerns for the Divan Orchestra musicians during the Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip.

ADL in action attempting to suppress critics of Israel

This was sent by CNI Supporter Grace Said. Apparently a Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Scholar cannot escape the criticism of the Lobby.

Group assails MSU's Tutu invitation

Academic freedom cited by Simon in response to criticism

Matthew Miller
mrmiller@lsj.com

EAST LANSING - Michigan State University announced last week that
retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu would give this year's
commencement address. Two days later, the Anti-Defamation League, a
Jewish advocacy organization, filed a protest.

In a letter to Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon,
two ADL officials wrote that Tutu, whose opposition to apartheid in
the 1980s won him the Nobel Peace Prize, had made statements about
Israel that "conveyed outright bigotry against ... the Jewish people."

They said a proposed cultural and academic boycott of Israel, which
Tutu supports, was "based on ideas that are anti-Semitic and should
be anathema to any institution of higher learning truly committed to
academic freedom."

They asked MSU to reconsider the invitation.

Simon responded this week. She said no.

While noting that university leaders had publicly opposed such a
boycott, she wrote, "Michigan State University rejects the notion
that free intellectual exchange and scholarly activities should be
casualties of political disagreement."

It's an apparently open and shut matter, but it has set off minor
ripples on campus.

Professors and students interviewed Thursday were unanimous in their
support of Simon's stance on academic freedom and on allowing Tutu to
speak.

Opinions diverged on the ADL's tactics and on the boycott that Tutu
has advocated.

David Wiley is a professor of sociology who headed MSU's African
Studies Center for 30 years before stepping down this year. He played
a role in MSU's decision to divest from South Africa in 1978. And he
called the ADL's request "improper."

"Again and again, the ADL and some other Jewish agencies confuse
being critical of Israel with being anti-Semitic," he said. "In fact,
Bishop Tutu has always been for inclusion of the marginal, whether
it's blacks in South Africa or the Jewish community."

Tutu has said he supports the existence of the state of Israel. He
also has compared the treatment of Palestinians to that of blacks
under apartheid.

And he is involved in the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural
Boycott of Israel, which wants to cut relations with - and investment
in - Israeli academic and cultural institutions until Israel
withdraws from the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Such a boycott, said Ken Waltzer, director of Jewish Studies at MSU,
would dramatically hinder the work of his program. It would punish
those Israelis who are most committed to peace.

And it "rests on an analogy between South Africa and Israel which is
patently false and ignoble."

Geoff Levin, an MSU sophomore and the Israel advocacy intern at MSU
Hillel, said he respects Tutu's accomplishments, but is unhappy with
his views on Israel.

"I wouldn't push to have him removed from the speaking list at all
because of the great works he has done," he said.

"But I do feel like the pro-Israel community and the Jewish community
need to voice our discontent with what he's been pushing for."

Salah Hassan is an MSU English professor and a member of Michigan
Professors Against Occupation, an ad hoc group that opposes the
Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

"The best way to put an end to this call for a boycott," he said,
"would be to end the occupation."

"It's fully within the rights of ADL to protest someone coming who
they don't like," he said.

"But realistically, had the president of MSU agreed to retract the
invitation, that would have stirred a significant controversy."

Additional Facts
May 8 convocation
Retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu will be the featured
speaker at MSU's spring undergraduate convocation. The ceremony will
be held at 1 p.m. May 8 at the Jack Breslin Student Events Center.
The event is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required.

Council for the National Interest
1250 4th Street SW, Suite WG-1 · Washington, DC 20024
800.296.6958 · 202.863.2951 · Fax: 202.863.2952
http://cnionline.org/

Happy Easter!

The Egyptian Ankh Cross which symbolized resurrection to eternal life to the ancient Egyptians. "Out of Egypt I called My Son"..

On Anti-Semitism, Boycotts, and the Case of Hermann Dierkes:

An Open Letter from Jewish Peace Activists

March 30, 2009 By Authors Many


Authors Many's ZSpace Page

We are peace activists of Jewish background. Some of us typically identify in this way; others of us do not. But we all object to those who claim to speak for all Jews or who use charges of anti-Semitism to attempt to squelch legitimate dissent.


We have learned with dismay the allegations regarding Hermann Dierkes, a trade unionist and leader of the Left Party (DIE LINKE) in the German city of Duisburg. Dierkes, in response to the recent Israeli assault on Gaza expressed the view that one way people could help Palestinians obtain justice would be to support the call of the World Social Forum to boycott Israeli goods, so as to put pressure on the Israeli government.


Dierkes has been subjected to widespread and vitriolic denunciations for anti-Semitism, and accused of calling for a repeat of the Nazi policy of the 1930s of boycotting Jewish products. Dierkes responded that "The demands of the World Social Forum have nothing in common with Nazi-type racist campaigns against Jews, but aim at changing the Israeli government's policy of oppression of the Palestinians."


No one has made any claims of anti-Semitism against Dierkes for anything other than his support of the boycott. Yet he has been accused of "pure anti-Semitism" (Dieter Graumann the Vice-President of the Central Jewish Council), of uttering words comparable to "a mass execution at the edge of a Ukrainian forest" (Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung editorialist Achim Beer), and of expressing "Nazi propaganda" (Hendrik Wuest, General Secretary of the Christian Democratic Party).


We signatories have differing views on the wisdom and efficacy of calling for a boycott of Israeli goods. Some of us believe that such a boycott is an essential component of a campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions that can end the four-decade-long Israeli occupation; others think the better way to pressure the Israeli government is with a more selective boycott focused on institutions and corporations supporting the occupation. But all of us agree that it is essential to apply pressure against the Israeli government if peace and justice are to prevail in the Middle East and all of us agree that a call for a boycott of Israel has nothing in common with the Nazi policy of "Don't buy from Jews." It is no more anti-Semitic to boycott Israel to end the occupation than it was anti-white to boycott South Africa to end apartheid. Social justice movements have often called for boycotts or divestment, whether against the military regime in Burma or the government of Sudan. Wise or not, such calls are in no way discriminatory.


Violence in the Middle East has indeed led to some acts of anti-Semitism in Europe. There was a call to boycott Jewish-owned stores in Rome that was widely and appropriately condemned. We deplore such bigotry. Israel's crimes cannot be attributed to Jews as a whole. But, at the same time, a boycott of Israel cannot be equated with a boycott of Jews as a whole.


An acute and disturbing form of racism rising in Europe today is Islamophobia and xenophobia directed at immigrants from Muslim countries. Dierkes has been a champion in defense of the rights of immigrants, while some of those who accuse all critics of Israel of being anti-Semitic often participate themselves -- like the Israeli government and state -- in such forms of racism.


The Holocaust was one of the most horrific events in modern history. It is a dishonor to its victims to use its memory as a bludgeon to silence principled critics of Israel's unconscionable treatment of Palestinians.



[We have spent just a week gathering names on this letter, circulating it only in a few countries. We apologize to all those who would have liked to sign, but didn't get a chance or whose names arrived too late for inclusion. Peace activists of Jewish background can still sign on here (though those names are not automatically added here). For information on how you can help support this effort, please contact Dierkes.Letter@gmail.com.]

Signatories

(organizations listed for identification purposes only)


BELGIUM


Marc ABRAMOWICZ, Psychothérapeute

Mateo ALALUF, Professeur, Université libre de Bruxelles

Joëlle BAUMERDER, Directrice institution culturelle

Marianne BLUME, Professeur

Jacques BUDE, Professeur émérite, Université libre de Bruxelles

Willy ESTERSOHN, Union des Progressistes Juifs de Belgique

Fanny FILOSOF

Thérèse FRANKFORT, Professeur

Victor GINSBURGH, Professeur émérite, Université libre de Bruxelles

Tom GOLDSCHMIDT, Journaliste

Martine GOLDSTEIN, Psychologue, Université libre de Bruxelles

Henri GOLDMAN, Auteur

José GOTOVITCH, Professeur retraité

Anne HERSCOVICI, Sociologue

Miaden HERZL

Henri HURWITZ, Professeur émérite, Université libre de Bruxelles

Paul JACOBS, Professeur, Université libre de Bruxelles

Willy KALB

Daniel LIEBMAN, Romaniste

Léon LIEBMAN, Magistrat honoraire

Nicole MAYER, Professeur émérite, Université libre de Bruxelles

Henri ROANNE-ROZENBLATT, Journaliste

Dominique RODRIGUEZ, Union des Progressistes Juifs de Belgique

Edith RUBINSTEIN, Femme en noir

Serge SIMON, Ecrivain et Union des progressistes juifs de Belgique

Michel STASZEWSKI, Professeur

Léo TUBBAX

Elie VAMOS, Médecin

Esther VAMOS, Professeur émerite, Université libre de Bruxelles

Serge VIDAL

Jean VOGEL, Professeur, Université libre de Bruxelles

Laurent VOGEL, Professeur, Université libre de Bruxelles

Henri WAJNBLUM, Co-président de l'Union des Progressistes Juifs de Belgique


CANADA


Elizabeth BLOCK, Not In Our Name: Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism, Women in Solidarity with Palestine, Independent Jewish Voices

Corey BALSAM, Student

Julia BARNETT

Lawrence BOXALL, Jews for a Just Peace

Mark Robert BRILL

Anne-Marie BRUN

Smadar CARMON, Not In Our Name: Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism

James DEUTSCH, MD

Judith DEUTSCH, MSW, President, Science for Peace

Gordon DOCTOROW

Inge FLEISCHMANN FOWLIE, Independent Jewish Voices

Barry FLEMING

Matt FODOR

Inge FOWLIE

Daniel FREEMAN-MALOY, Activist and writer

Sam GINDIN, York University

Rachel GUROFSKY, Trent University

Larry HAIVEN, Saint Mary's University

Jean HANSON, Independent Jewish Voices

Jake JAVANSHIR, Not In Our Name: Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism

Mira KHAZZAM, Independent Jewish Voices

Mark KLEIN

Naomi KLEIN, Author

Jason KUNIN

Richard Borshay LEE, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto

Abby LIPPMAN, Independent Jewish Voices

Henry LOWI

Elizabeth MOLCHANY, Esquire

Rabbi David MIVASAIR, Ahavat Olam Synagogue, Vancouver

Joanne NAIMAN

Yakov M. RABKIN, Professeur titulaire, Département d'histoire, Université de Montréal

Diana RALPH, Independent Jewish Voices

R.S. RATNER, University of British Columbia

Herman ROSENFELD, Instructor, Labour Studies, McMaster University

Martha ROTH, United Jewish Voices-BC

Marty ROTH, United Jewish Voices-BC

Regine SCHMID

Alan SEARS, Ryerson University

Edward SHAFFER, University of Alberta

Sid SHNIAD, Independent Jewish Voices

Greg STARR, Jews for a Just Peace

Vera SZOKE

Judith WEISMAN

Suzanne WEISS, Not In Our Name: Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism


FRANCE


Houria ACKERMANN, Directrice de crèche

Nuri ALBALA, Avocat

Paula ALBOUZE

Paul ALLIÈS, Professeur à l'Université de Montpellier

Arlette ALVARENGA, Consultante retraitée

Simon ASSOUN, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Marc AYBES, Infographiste

Bernard BATT

Raphaël BÉNARROSH, Avocat retraité

Eliane BÉNARROSH, Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amitié entre les peuples

Zvi BEN-DOR, Professor, New York University (Paris, France)

Daniel BENSAÏD, Professeur à l'Université Paris 8

Jean BRAFMAN, Conseiller régional d'Île-de-France

Kurt BRAININ, Médecin

Rony BRAUMAN

Kenneth BROWN, Mediterraneans/Méditerranéennes

Alice CHERKI, Psychiatre, psychanalyste, auteure

Élisabeth CHOPARD-LALLIER, Conceptrice d'édition

Sonia DAYAN-HERZBRUN, Professeur émérite à l'université Paris 7

Gilles DERHI, Pédopsychiatre, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Sylvia EVRARD, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Mireille FANON-MENDÈS-FRANCE, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Patrick FELDSTEIN, Bureau national, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Rafael GOLDWASER

Jean-Guy GREILSAMER, Président des Amis du Théâtre de la Liberté de Jénine

Serge GROSSVAK

Bertrand HEILBRONN

Avi HERSHKOVITZ, Cinéaste

Thamara HORMAECHEA, Médecin

Gonzague HUTIN, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Bernard JANCOVICI, Professeur émérite, Université de Paris-Sud

Christine JEDWAB, Psychologue

Jacques JEDWAB

Samuel JOHSUA, Professeur émérite, Université de Provence

Nicole KAHN

Florence KERAVEC, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Maurice KERNBAUM

Daniel LARTICHAUX-ULLMANN, Documentaliste

Catherine LÉVY, Sociologue

Daniel LÉVYNE, Enseignant retraité

Michaël LÖWY, Sociologue

Françoise MALFROID

Alain MARCU, Petit fils de déporté, fils de juifs résistants

Jean François MARX

Véronique MARZO, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Pierre MAUREL

Ariane MONNERON, Ancien Chef de Clinique, Directeur de recherche au CNRS

Jean-Hugues MORNEAU, Bibliothécaire, Université Joseph Fourier de Grenoble

François MUNIER

Josiane OLFF-NATHAN, Université de Strasbourg
Perrine OLFF-RASTEGAR, Porte-parole Collectif Judéo Arabe et Citoyen pour la Paix

Martine OLFF-SOMMER, Psychologue

Henri OSINSKI

Marie-France OSINSKI

Nahed PUST, Femmes en Noir de Strasbourg

Jocelyne RAJNCHAPEL-MESSAÏ, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Sabrina RANASINGHE

Claude RAYMOND, Retraitée

Yaël REINHARZ HAZAN, co-directrice du Festival du Film et Forum International sur les Doits Humains

Suzanne ROSENBERG

Jacques SCHWEIZER, Physicien

Michèle SIBONY, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Claude SZATAN

Hannah TAIEB, Union Juive Française pour la Paix

Marlène TUNINGA, Présidente section française, Ligue internationale des femmes pour la paix et la liberté

Dominique VENTRE, Directeur de Formation Télécom

René VONWALLENBERG, Avocat
Fabrice WEISSMAN, Directeur d'études Fondation Médecins Sans Frontières

Adek ZYLBERBERG

Marie Claire ZYLBERBERG

GERMANY


Galit ALTSHULER, European Jews for Just Peace

Linda BENEDIKT

Stacey BLATT

Elias DAVIDSSON, Komponist, Menschenrechtler

Ilil FRIEDMAN, European Jews for Just Peace

Ruth FRUCHTMAN, Writer, European Jews for Just Peace

Harri GRÜNBERG, Mitarbeiter der Bundestagsfraktion DIE LINKE

Iris HEFETS, European Jews for Just Peace

Tal HEVER

Michal KAISER-LIVNE, European Jews for Just Peace

Kate KATZENSTEIN-LEITERER, European Jews for Just Peace

Jason KIRKPATRICK

Felicia LANGER

Mieciu LANGER

Jean Joseph LEVY

Edith LUTZ, European Jews for Just Peace

Jakob MONETA, früherer Chefredakteur der Zeitung Metall

Abraham MELZER, Publisher, European Jews for Just Peace

Moshe PERLSTEIN, European Jews for Just Peace

Fanny Michaela REISIN, European Jews for Just Peace

Paul Otto SAMUELSDORFF

Lawrence ZWEIG, Solidarity International


ISRAEL


Hillel BARAK, Movement Against Israeli Apartheid in Palestine

Ronnie BARKAN, Anarchists Against the Wall

Judith BLANC, Bat Shalom, Women in Black, HADASH

Matan COHEN, Tarabot

Adi DAGAN, Coalition of Women for Peace

Rotem DAN MOR, Student, Center of Middle Eastern Classical Music in Jerusalem

Yvonne DEUTSCH, Social worker and feminist peace activist

Daniel DUKAREVICH

Emmanuel FARJOUN, Professor of Mathematics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Naama FARJOUN

Alon FRIEDMAN, MD, Departments of Physiology and Neurosurgery, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Yodfat Ariela GETZ, Filmmaker and social activist

Rachel GIORA, Tel Aviv University

Angela GODFREY-GOLDSTEIN, Action Advocacy Officer, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

Neta GOLAN

Vardit GOLDNER

Amos GVIRTZ, Recognition Forum

Connie HACKBARTH, Alternative Information Center

Roni HAMMERMANN, Machsomwatch

Shir HEVER, Alternative Information Center

Tikva HONIG-PARNASS

Ronnee JAEGER, Bat Shalom, Coalition of Women for a Just Peace

Jimmy JOHNSON, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

Matan KAMINER

Reuven KAMINER

Teddy KATZ

Hava KELLER

Adam KELLER, Journalist

Idan LANDAU, Department of Foreign Literatures & Linguistics, Ben Gurion University

Yael LERER, Publisher

Orit LOYTER

Eilat MAOZ, Women's Coalition

Anat MATAR, Department of Philosophy, Tel Aviv University

Dorothy NAOR, Activist for justice and peace

Israel NAOR

Gilad NATHAN

Amos NOY

Adi OPHIR, Professor of Philosophy, Tel Aviv University

Amit PERELSON

Shai Carmeli POLLAK

David REEB, Artist

Andre ROSENTHAL, Civil rights lawyer

Yehoshua ROSIN

Sergeiy SANDLER, New Profile

Ayala SHANI

Kobi SNITZ, Technion

Lea TSEMEL, Attorney, SOS Torture

Roy WAGNER

Michel WARSCHAWSKI, Alternative Information Center

Sergio YAHNI, Alternative Information Center

Uri ZACKHEM

Beate ZILVERSMIDT


ITALY

Liviana BORTOLUSSI, Rete Radiè Resch di solidarietà Internazionale

Paola CANARUTTO, Medico

Giorgio CANARUTTO, Impiegato

Marina DEL MONTE, Psicoterapeuta

Ronit DOVRAT, Pittrice

Douglas DOWD, Professor of Economics

Giorgio FORTI, Professore Emerito Università di Milano

Milena MOTTALINI, Avvocata

Carla ORTONA, Funzionaria sanità

Marco RAMAZZOTTI, Funzionario Nazioni Unite, Rete Ebrei Contro L'occupazione, Jews Against Occupation

Stefano SARFATTI , Commerciante

Susanna SINIGAGLIA

Ornella TERRACINI, Insegnante in pensione


SWITZERLAND


Guy BOLLAG

Shraga ELAM, Winner of the Australian Gold Walkley Award for Excellent Journalism 2004

Dorrie ITEN, Jewish Voice for a Just Peace

Leo KANEMAN, Co-directeur Festival du Film et Forum International sur les Droits Humains

Rolf KRAUER, Gewerkschafter UNIA

Martine RAIS, Médecin

Peter STRECKEISEN, Soziologe

Ursel URECH, Lehrerin, Gewerkschaft VPOD

Sharon Weill, Ph.D. candidate in International Law, University of Geneva

Robin WINOGROND, Jewish Voice for a Just Peace


UK


Hanna BRAUN, Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Richard BRENNER, Editor, Workers Power

Haim BRESHEETH, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies

Peter COHEN, London South Bank University

Angela DALE, Jews Against Zionism

Mark ELF, Jews Sans Frontieres

Liz ELKIND, Scottish Jews for a Just Peace

Rayah FELDMAN, London South Bank University

Alf FILER

Sylvia FINZI, Jews for Justice for Palestinians

Tony GREENSTEIN , Trade unionist (UNISON)

Pete HALL

Abe HAYEEM, Jews for Justice for Palestinians /International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Rosamine HAYEEM, Jews for Justice for Palestinians/International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Dan JUDELSON, Secretary, European Jews for a Just Peace

Yael KAHN

Bernice LASCHINGER

Les LEVIDOW, Open University

Vivien LICHTENSTEIN

Yosefa LOSHITZKY, Professor of Film Studies

Moshe MACHOVER, Professor Emeritus, founding member of the Socialist Organization in Israel "Matzpen"

Hilda MEERS, Scottish Jews for a Just Peace

Diana NESLEN, Jews Against Zionism

Esther NESLEN

Susan PASHKOFF, Jews Against Zionism

Roland RANCE, Jews Against Zionism

Anna ROBIN

Shrila ROBIN

Brian ROBINSON

Miriam SCHARF

Ruth SIRTON

Inbar TAMARI, Jews Against Zionism

Norman TRAUB

Eyal WEIZMAN, University of London

Jay WOOLRICH


USA


Deborah AGRE, Middle East Children's Alliance

Michael ALBERT, ZNet

Barbra APFELBAUM, Riverside Language Program, New York City

Rann BAR-ON, International Solidarity Movement and North Carolina Coalition for Palestine

Trude BENNETT

Phyllis BENNIS, Institute for Policy Studies

Carl BLOICE, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy & Socialism

Audrey BOMSE, Lawyer

Daniel BOYARIN, University of California-Berkeley

Lenni BRENNER

Stephen Eric BRONNER, Director of Global Relations, Center for the Study of Genocide, Conflict Resolution, & Human Rights, Rutgers University

Judith BUTLER, Professor, University of California-Berkeley

Leslie CAGAN, National Coordinator, United for Peace and Justice

Ellen CANTAROW, Writer

Barbara H. CHASIN, Professor Emerita, Montclair State University

Noam CHOMSKY, Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Jill Hamburg COPLAN, Journalist

Lawrence DAVIDSON, West Chester University

Daniel ELLSBERG, Revealed Pentagon Papers, writer

Carolyn EISENBERG, Hofstra University

Judith FERSTER, Jewish Voice for Peace and BritTzedek

Michelle FINE, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Barry FINGER, Editorial board, New Politics

David FINKEL, Managing Editor, Against the Current

Norman G. FINKELSTEIN, Independent scholar

Laurie FOX

Racheli GAI, Co-editor, Jewish Peace News

Irene GENDZIER, Boston University

Jack GERSON, Oakland Education Association Executive Board

Alice GOLIN, Bloomfield-Glen Ridge NJ Peace Action

Steve GOLIN, Bloomfield College

Linda GORDON, Professor of History, New York University

Marilyn HACKER, Writer, City College of New York

Stanley HELLER, Moderator "Jews Who Speak Out"; Host "The Struggle" TV news magazine

Edward S. HERMAN, Professor Emeritus, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Carol HORWITZ, "Jews Say No"

Louis KAMPF, Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Stan KARP, Rethinking Schools

Melanie KAYE/KANTROWITZ, Queens College, City University of New York

Richard LACHMANN, University at Albany - State University of New York

Joanne LANDY, Campaign for Peace & Democracy

Jesse LEMISCH, Professor Emeritus, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Howard LENOW, American Jews For A Just Peace

Zachary LEVENSON, University of California-Berkeley

Joseph LEVINE, Professor of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts

Mark LEVINE, Professor of Middle East History, University of California, Irvine

Nelson LICHTENSTEIN, University of California, Santa Barbara

Lawrence LIFSCHULTZ, Author and journalist

Zachary LOCKMAN, New York University

Marvin MANDELL, Co-editor, New Politics

Marilyn Kleinberg NEIMARK, co-host of "Beyond the Pale: Jewish Culture and Politics," WBAI radio, New York

Joan NESTLE

Henry NOBLE, National Secretary, U.S. Section, Freedom Socialist Party

Judith NORMAN, Co-editor, Jewish Peace News

David OST, Hobart & William Smith Colleges

Frances Fox PIVEN, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Karen REDLEAF, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Adrienne RICH, Poet and activist

Bruce ROBBINS, Columbia University

Robert C. ROSEN, William Paterson University

Deborah ROSENFELT, Professor of Women's Studies, University of Maryland

Emma ROSENTHAL, Cafe Intifada/Los Angeles Palestine Labor Solidarity Committee

Paula ROTHENBERG, Professor Emerita, William Paterson University

Matthew ROTHSCHILD, Editor, The Progressive magazine

Rachel RUBIN, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Marjorie SCHEER, Jews for a Just Peace - North Carolina

Michael SCHWARTZ, Stony Brook State University

Alexander SHALOM, Lawyer

Beverly SHALOM, Social worker

Evelyn R. SHALOM, Health educator

Stephen R. SHALOM, William Paterson University

Sami SHALOM CHETRIT

Ira SHOR, City University of New York

Jerome SLATER, Writer

Alan SOKAL, New York University

Stephen SOLDZ, Co-founder, Coalition for an Ethical Psychology

David S. SURREY, Saint Peter's College

Norman TRAUB

Carol WALD, War Resisters League

Richard I. WARK, Jews for a Just Peace-North Carolina

Lois WEINER, Professor of Education, New Jersey City University

Adrienne WELLER

Eleanor WILNER, Writer

Howard ZINN, Historian


OTHER


Marshall ANSELL, Sweden

David BARKIN, Mexico

Viviane COHEN, Architect, Morocco

Hans DIELEMAN, Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México, Mexico

Mary ELDIN, Ireland

Dror FEILER, Musician, Chairperson of European Jews for a Just Peace and Judar för Israelisk Palestinsk Fred, Sweden

Jacques HERSH, Professor Emeritus, Denmark

Zachris JÄNTTI, Finland

Jakob LINDBERG, Judar för Israelisk Palestinsk Fred, Sweden

Margot SALOM, Palestinian & Jewish Unity for Justice and Peace, Australia

Changing the rules of war

George Bisharat
San Francisco Chronicle
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

The extent of Israel's brutality against Palestinian civilians in its 22-day pounding of the Gaza Strip is gradually surfacing. Israeli soldiers are testifying to lax rules of engagement tantamount to a license to kill. One soldier commented: "That's what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him."

What is less appreciated is how Israel is also brutalizing international law, in ways that may long outlast the demolition of Gaza.

Since 2001, Israeli military lawyers have pushed to re-classify military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from the law enforcement model mandated by the law of occupation to one of armed conflict. Under the former, soldiers of an occupying army must arrest, rather than kill, opponents, and generally must use the minimum force necessary to quell disturbances.

While in armed conflict, a military is still constrained by the laws of war - including the duty to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and the duty to avoid attacks causing disproportionate harm to civilian persons or objects - the standard permits far greater uses of force.

Israel pressed the shift to justify its assassinations of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, which clearly violated settled international law. Israel had practiced "targeted killings" since the 1970s - always denying that it did so - but had recently stepped up their frequency, by spectacular means (such as air strikes) that rendered denial futile.

President Bill Clinton charged the 2001 Mitchell Committee with investigating the causes of the second Palestinian uprising and recommending how to restore calm in the region. Israeli lawyers pleaded their case to the committee for armed conflict. The committee responded by criticizing the blanket application of the model to the uprising, but did not repudiate it altogether.

Today, most observers - including Amnesty International - tacitly accept Israel's framing of the conflict in Gaza as an armed conflict, as their criticism of Israel's actions in terms of the duties of distinction and the principle of proportionality betrays. This shift, if accepted, would encourage occupiers to follow Israel's lead, externalizing military control while shedding all responsibilities to occupied populations.

Israel's campaign to rewrite international law to its advantage is deliberate and knowing. As the former head of Israel's 20-lawyer International Law Division in the Military Advocate General's office, Daniel Reisner, recently stated: "If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it. The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries ... International law progresses through violations. We invented the targeted assassination thesis and we had to push it. At first there were protrusions that made it hard to insert easily into the legal molds. Eight years later, it is in the center of the bounds of legitimacy."

In the Gaza fighting, Israel has again tried to transform international law through violations. For example, its military lawyers authorized the bombing of a police cadet graduation ceremony, killing at least 63 young Palestinian men. Under international law, such deliberate killings of civilian police are war crimes. Yet Israel treats all employees of the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip as terrorists, and thus combatants. Secretaries, court clerks, housing officials, judges - all were, in Israeli eyes, legitimate targets for liquidation.

Israeli jurists also instructed military commanders that any Palestinian who failed to evacuate a building or area after warnings of an impending bombardment was a "voluntary human shield" and thus a participant in combat, subject to lawful attack. One method of warning employed by Israeli gunners, dubbed "knocking on the roof," was to fire first at a building's corner, then, a few minutes later, to strike more structurally vulnerable points. To imagine that Gazan civilians - penned into the tiny Gaza Strip by Israeli troops, and surrounded by the chaos of battle - understood this signal is fanciful at best.

Israel has a lengthy history of unpunished abuses of international law - among the most flagrant its decades-long colonization of the West Bank. To its credit, much of the world has refused to ratify Israel's violations. Unfortunately, our government is an exception, having frequently provided diplomatic cover for Israel's abuses. Our diplomats have vetoed 42 U.N. Security Council resolutions to shelter Israel from the consequences of its often illegal behavior.

We must break that habit now, or see international law perverted in ways that can harm us all. Our government has already been seduced to follow, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, Israel's example of targeted killings. This policy alienates civilians, innocently killed and wounded in these crude strikes, and deepens the determination of enemies to harm us by any means possible.

We do not want civilian police in the United States to be bombed, nor to have anyone "knock on our roofs." For our own sakes and for the world's, Israel's impunity must end.

George Bisharat is a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, and writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East.

GM and Segway unveil new two-wheeled urban vehicle

By BREE FOWLER and DAN STRUMPF, AP Auto Writers Bree Fowler And Dan Strumpf, Ap Auto Writers – Tue Apr 7, 1:38 pm ET

NEW YORK – A solution to the world's urban transportation problems could lie in two wheels not four, according to executives for General Motors Corp. and Segway Inc.

The companies announced Tuesday that they are working together to develop a two-wheeled, two-seat electric vehicle designed to be a fast, safe, inexpensive and clean alternative to traditional cars and trucks for cities across the world.

The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, or PUMA, project also would involve a vast communications network that would allow vehicles to interact with each other, regulate the flow of traffic and prevent crashes from happening.

"We're excited about doing more with less," said Jim Norrod, chief executive of Segway, the Bedford, N.H.-based maker of electric scooters. "Less emissions, less dependability on foreign oil and less space."

The 300-pound prototype runs on a lithium-ion battery and uses Segway's characteristic two-wheel balancing technology, along with dual electric motors. It's designed to reach speeds of up to 35 miles-per-hour and can run 35 miles on a single charge.

The companies did not release a projected cost for the vehicle, but said ideally its total operating cost — including purchase price, insurance, maintenance and fuel — would total between one-fourth and one-third of that of the average traditional vehicle.

Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research and development, and strategic planning, said the project is part of Detroit-based GM's effort to remake itself as a purveyor of fuel-efficient vehicles. If Hummer took GM to the large-vehicle extreme, Burns said, the PUMA takes GM to the other.

Ideally, the vehicles would also be part of a communications network that through the use of transponder and GPS technology would allow them to drive themselves. The vehicles would automatically avoid obstacles such as pedestrians and other cars and therefore never crash, Burns said.

As a result, the PUMA vehicles would not need air bags or other traditional safety devices and include safety belts for "comfort purposes" only, he said.

Though the technology and its goals may seem like something out of science fiction, Burns said nothing new needs to be invented for it to become a reality.

"At this point, it's merely a business decision," he said.

Burns said that while putting that kind of communications infrastructure in place may still be a ways off for many American cities, the automaker is looking for a place, such as a college campus, where the vehicles could be put to use and grab a foothold in the market.

There's currently no timeline for production, Burns said.

The ambitious announcement also comes at a time when GM's future is hanging by a thread after receiving billions of dollars in federal aid and is in the midst of a vast restructuring that could still lead to a filing for bankruptcy protection.

Meanwhile, the ongoing recession has resulted in some of the lowest industrywide vehicle sales in more than a quarter century.

But Burns argued that some of the most revolutionary ideas have been born out of tough economic times.

"The next two months, and really 2009, is all about the reinvention of General Motors," he said.

Obama wins praise in Muslim world

By LEE KEATH – 1 hour ago

CAIRO (AP) — President Barack Obama won praise from many Muslims on Wednesday as a "fresh breeze" bringing hope for improved relations with the United States. But mixed with the optimism was uncertainty and skepticism the new U.S. president will change policies deeply disliked by many.

Obama reached out to Arabs and Muslims in a speech in Turkey earlier this week, saying the United States "is not and never will be at war with Islam."

He then traveled Tuesday to Iraq — where the U.S. military presence has long been a sore point for Muslims — and told cheering U.S. soldiers it was time to phase out America's combat role there.

Many across the Mideast and broader Muslim world seemed struck by Obama's demeanor, praising him for sincerity or what they called a lack of arrogance.

"Everyone is optimistic about this man," said Nasser Abu Kwait, 32, a barber in Ramallah in the West Bank. "He is different and he could be a friend to the Muslim world."

Added Ikana Mardiastuti, who works at a research institute in Jakarta, Indonesia, and is the mother of a young boy: "For the Islamic world, these words are like a fresh breeze. I believe him."

Jamal Dahan, a 50-year-old taxi driver in Beirut's Muslim sector, called Obama "a modest person with a humanitarian view on world issues."

That contrasts sharply for Dahan with former President George W. Bush, Obama's predecessor, whom Dahan called "an arrogant man who only knew military power."

Bush was widely disliked across the Arab and Muslim worlds, mostly for his administration's policies on Iraq, the detentions of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay and the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

But the strong antipathy went well beyond policy disputes: Many Muslims felt Bush often lectured them rather than trying to understand their positions on difficult issues like the Palestinian-Israeli crisis.

Not all see Obama as a true change.

"I will believe him only when I see his troops leave Iraq and when I see him telling the Israelis that it's time for you to leave the Palestinian territories," said Tariq Hussein, 25, who sells shoes at a shop in Ramallah. "Other than that it's all a political maneuver."

Ahmad Mulyadi, a university student in Jakarta, said: "He has to prove that it's not only lip service."

Even those who think Obama is sincere said they wonder if he can untie what Riad Kahwaji, director of the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, called the Mideast's many problems.

A new hardline government in Israel could actually worsen tensions between Muslims and the United States, Kahwaji said.

"It's nice to see and hear (Obama's words). But this region is a mess, and there are a lot of hardline adversaries still out there," Kahwaji said. "The Middle East is like a long rope, with lots of knots to untie."

Erdal Tozluyurt, a shopkeeper in Ankara, Turkey, also worried that Obama's tone — "so different from Bush" — might not be enough.

"No one can bring peace to the Middle East," Tozluyurt said. "Ethnic strife there is not likely to end."

Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Turkey; Mohammed Daraghmeh in the West Bank; Barbara Surk in the United Arab Emirates; Hussein Dakroub in Lebanon; and Niniek Karmini in Indonesia contributed to this report.

Obama reaches out to Muslim world

Mr Obama called for a greater bond between Americans and Muslims

Barack Obama has declared that the US "is not at war with Islam", in a major speech during his first visit as president to a mainly Muslim country.

Addressing the Turkish parliament, Mr Obama called for a greater partnership with the Muslim world and said the US would soon launch outreach programmes.

"America's relationship with the Muslim world cannot and will not be based on opposition to al-Qaeda," he said.

Mr Obama also said Washington supported Turkey's efforts to join the EU.

Earlier, at a news conference with his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul, he urged Turkey to help bridge the gap between the Muslim and Western worlds.

He said his visit was a "statement about the importance of Turkey, not just to the United States, but to the world".

The US president began his visit to Turkey on Monday morning by laying a wreath at the tomb of the founder of modern Turkish state, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, whose "vision and courage" he praised.

He then travelled to the presidential palace in Ankara for talks with President Abdullah Gul, before giving an address to the Turkish Grand National Assembly.

Mr Obama devoted much of his speech to calling for a greater bond between Americans and Muslims, admitting that "the trust that binds us has been strained".

"Let me say this as clearly as I can: the United States is not and will never be at war with Islam," he stated.

"In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject."

He said: "The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country - I know, because I am one of them."

"And when people look back on this time, let it be said of America that we extended the hand of friendship," he said.

"There is an old Turkish proverb: 'You cannot put out fire with flames.'"

BBC North America editor Justin Webb in Ankara says there are some back in the US who wonder if Mr Obama is going too far, but his intention seems clear.

He is on a mission to charm with the hope that in years to come, there is a tangible benefit for America and the world, our correspondent says.

'Crucial ally'

In his speech, Mr Obama said the US considered Turkey a "critical ally", despite the deterioration of their relations over the war in Iraq.

He said that while they had not always agreed on everything, the two states were stronger when they worked together.

The president also reiterated that the US government strongly supported Turkey's bid to become a member of the European Union.

"Europe gains by diversity of ethnicity, tradition and faith - it is not diminished by it," he said to a round of applause from the audience. "And Turkish membership would broaden and strengthen Europe's foundation once more."

The EU agreed to open accession talks with Ankara in 2004, but in recent years Turkey has made little progress with democratic reforms which would improve its chances of membership, correspondents say.

Later in his address, Mr Obama said the US strongly supported the full normalisation of relations between Turkey and Armenia.

At his earlier news conference with President Gul, he had stood by his 2008 assertion that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 constituted "genocide" - without repeating the word.

The issue remains highly sensitive between the governments of Armenia and Turkey, which denies those killed were victims of systematic genocide, and has prevented normal relations between them for many years.

During his election campaign, Mr Obama said the "Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence".

After his speech, Mr Obama was due to meet Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The US leader will then leave Ankara for Istanbul, where he will attend the Alliance of Civilizations forum.

Israel holds 423 Palestinian children: report

www.chinaview.cn 2009-04-06 18:25:32

GAZA, April 6 (Xinhua) -- Israel still holds 423 Palestinian children aged under 18, the Palestinian Center for Defending Prisoners said on Monday.

"The children stay in very difficult circumstances in the Israeli jails," the center said in a report, adding the Israeli jailers "put them under psychological pressure and some jailers molested some of the children."

The prison authorities places eight to ten children in one room of four meter square, the report added.

According to the center, "231 of the children were sentenced while 182 are still waiting their trial. Ten children are subject to administrative detention without any charge."

In 2006, Islamic Hamas movement captured an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid near the Gaza Strip and demanded to exchange him for a number of Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas still holds the Israeli soldier and Egyptian-mediated talks to achieve a swap collided with Hamas' insistence to select the names of the first 450 prisoners and Israel's rejection.

In addition to the 450, Hamas stresses that Israel must also free all the children, women, old prisoners and leaders of the Palestinian groups.

The U.S. government just delivered a massive new arms shipment to Israel:

Amnesty International USA: TAKE ACTION NOW!

Grill State Department officials for answers on why the U.S. would deliver these arms to Israel after the violations in Gaza.

New information obtained by Amnesty researchers this week confirmed a massive shipment of U.S. weapons was delivered to Israel on March 22nd.

The administration allowed the delivery, despite clear evidence of Israeli human rights violations, some amounting to war crimes, including the controversial use of U.S. made white phosphorous munitions over densely populated areas. That's the white phosphorous that sticks to flesh and sears it until completely deprived of oxygen.

You and I need the State Department to know that they can't just plop tons of weapons into the hands of a known serious human rights violator without getting grilled.

Ask State Department officials why the U.S. would deliver these arms to Israel.

Last month, our researcher from Gaza came to Washington, DC and met with State Department officials to present our evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. They told us during those meetings that they were concerned and would review our evidence.


Refueling Israel with tons of new explosives.
Label from missile used in Gaza
Label on the remains of a missile that killed three paramedics and a child, Gaza, January 2009.
Take Action Now

The State Department has a moral and legal obligation to make sure U.S. weapons don't go to foreign forces with a record of committing gross human rights violations.

So, what happened? Did they decide against overwhelming evidence that Israel's actions were completely justified and didn't violate numerous international and U.S. laws? Did they put any extra restrictions on the use of these new arms?

With this new shipment just landing, we have a unique opportunity to find out exactly what happened to the State Department's review into Israel's misuse of U.S. weapons. There should be little difficulty in simply revealing the outcome of such a review. Yes we want a full embargo. But we need to be smart and push them one step at a time.

Ask the State Department officials in charge of U.S. arms exports to come clean on their findings of Israel's use of U.S. weapons in Gaza.

There is no way you and I can let tons of weapons land in Israel's hands with no questions asked.

We've got enough supporters to actually make something happen here. Send your letter now, and we'll let you know what happens.

Sincerely,

Edie, Zahir, Colby, Steve and the rest of the team tracking this issue

Jury: University of Colorado wrongly fired prof

By IVAN MORENO – 18 hours ago

DENVER (AP) — A jury ruled Thursday that the University of Colorado wrongly fired the professor who compared some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi, a verdict that gives the professor $1 and a chance to get his job back. "What was asked for and what was delivered was justice," Ward Churchill said outside the courtroom.

Then-Gov. Bill Owens was among the officials who had called on the university to fire Churchill after his essay touched off a national firestorm, but the tenured professor of ethnic studies was ultimately terminated on charges of research misconduct.

Churchill said claims including plagiarism were just a cover and that he never would have been fired if it weren't for the essay in which he called World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi leader who helped orchestrate the Holocaust. Jurors agreed.

When the verdict was read, Churchill hugged his attorney, David Lane, and his wife, Natsu Saito.

"I can't tell you how significant this is," Lane said. "There are few defining moments that give the First Amendment this kind of light."

A judge will decide whether Churchill gets his job back. Lane said a reinstatement motion would be filed within 30 days and a hearing would likely be scheduled in June.

"What's next for me? Reinstatement, of course," Churchill said. "That's what I asked for. I didn't ask for money."

University spokesman Ken McConnellogue said the university will review its options before deciding whether to appeal.

"(The verdict) doesn't change the fact that more than 20 of his faculty peers found that he engaged in plagiarism and other academic misconduct," McConnellogue said.

He said the jury's $1 damage award sends a message about the merits of Churchill's civil claims.

Lane said the university will also be liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in Churchill's legal bills.

Churchill's essay was written in 2001 but attracted little attention until 2005, when critics publicized it after Churchill was invited to speak at Hamilton College in upstate New York.

Churchill testified last week that he didn't mean his comments to be hurtful to Sept. 11 victims. He said he was arguing that "if you make it a practice of killing other people's babies for personal gain ... eventually they're going to give you a taste of the same thing."

Betsy Hoffman, who was president of the university at the time, had testified that Owens pressured her to fire Churchill and said he would "unleash my plan" when she told him she couldn't.

In his testimony, Owens denied threatening the university.

University officials concluded that Churchill couldn't be fired over the essay because of his First Amendment rights, but they launched an investigation of his academic research.

That investigation, which didn't include the Sept. 11 essay, concluded he had plagiarized, fabricated evidence and committed other misconduct. He was fired on those allegations in 2007.

The university has maintained that the firing was justified.

UN appoints (Jewish) Gaza war-crimes team

Richard Goldstone 1999
Mr Goldstone headed the UN tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda

The UN has appointed South African judge and former war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone to lead a fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip.

Mr Goldstone will investigate alleged violations of international law during the recent conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants.

Martin Uhomoibhi, president of the UN Human Rights Council, said the mission would be independent and impartial.

Israel calls the council biased and has previously refused to co-operate.

Mr Goldstone will lead a four-member team, which also includes experts from Pakistan, Britain, and Ireland, in investigating "all violations of international humanitarian law" before, during and after the Israeli campaign in Gaza that ended on 18 January.

"It's in the interest of the victims. It brings acknowledgment of what happened to them. It can assist the healing process," Mr Goldstone said.

"I would hope it's in the interests of all the political actors, too."

The fact-finding mission, which will aim to provide clarity on the legality of the deaths and destruction, is due to start work in the region within weeks, the UN said.

Israel 'singled out'

The council voted to set up the investigation into at a special meeting in January, after widespread allegations of war crimes committed by Israeli forces in Gaza.


I believe I can approach the daunting task that I have accepted in an even-handed and impartial manner
Richard Goldstone

Gaza conflict: Who is a civilian?
Who can probe 'war crimes'?
Israel disputes Gaza death rates

However, the Israeli army says its operations in the Gaza Strip "were carried out in compliance with the rules of warfare under international law".

It says it took "numerous measures to avoid causing harm to the civilian population".

The Palestinian militant group Hamas is widely accused of basing its forces within heavily populated areas, allegations it denies.

The Israeli government has in the past refused to co-operate with UN human rights council investigations, including one led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

It is not clear whether Israel will co-operate with the new investigation.

"This committee is instructed not to seek out the truth but to single out Israel for alleged crimes," said Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

He said the council was a discredited body.

'Shock' appointment

Mr Goldstone is a former UN chief prosecutor for war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He is also a former judge at the South African constitutional court.

He is also on the board of governors at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Mr Goldstone said he was "shocked, as a Jew", to be invited to head the mission.

"I've taken a deep interest in what happens in Israel. I'm associated with organisations that have worked in Israel.

"And I believe I can approach the daunting task that I have accepted in an even-handed and impartial manner."

Boy, talk about creating a spin-doctor, a South African Jewish judge who just happens to be on the board of governors at Hebrew University. I'm sure he'll be objective as hell towards seeing if crimes against humanity were perpetrated by the IDF against Palestinians.

Orchestra shut over holocaust row--too Arab for Israelis to handle

Members of Strings of Freedom youth orchestra, after concert in Holon, Israel
The group began their concert with an Arabic song called We Sing For Peace

Local residents have closed down a West Bank children's orchestra after it performed a concert for Holocaust survivors in Israel.

Adnan Hindi, a social leader in the Jenin refugee camp, accused the group's director of "exploiting" the children for political reasons.

Thirteen children travelled to Israel last week to play for an audience which included holocaust survivors .

It was part of the Good Deeds Day event set up by an Israeli billionaire.

Mr Hindi, the head of an organisational committee in the refugee camp, said the concert had overstepped the purely "recreational" remit of the Strings of Freedom orchestra.

'No agenda'

The room in the house of the orchestra's director, Wafa Younis, where the teenagers practiced, has been locked and boarded up, local residents say.

Parents are also said to have stopped their children from participating in the group, saying they were not informed of the nature of the trip to Israel.


If I had known this was a political excursion, I would not have let my son go
Ibrahim Samour
Father of a member of the orchestra

"I have no political agenda," Ms Younis told Reuters news agency, and dismissed the decision to close down the orchestra as "ignorant".

Many members of the audience at the concert in the Israeli town of Horon were surprised to discover the performers were from Jenin, known for brutal fighting between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces in 2002.

And reports from the concert said it was the first time some of the young people had heard about the Holocaust, and seen civilian Israelis, rather than the soldiers they encounter in the West Bank.

"If I had known this was a political excursion, I would not have let my son go," Ibrahim Samour, father of 18-year-old Qusay, who plays the kamanja, a traditional Arab stringed instrument, in the orchestra, told AP news agency.

Neither he nor Mr Hindi deny the fact that some six million Jews were killed by the Nazis.

The need to provide sanctuary for the hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees is widely seen to have speeded the creation of the state of Israel, which led to a war during which about 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled.

"I'm not denying bad things happened to them, but there has to be mutual recognition," said Mr Samour.

Good Deeds Day is an annual event to foster "hope and brotherhood" founded by Israeli billionaire Shari Arison.

President Obama Ends Military Aid to Israel!

April 1, 2009

Happy April Fools' Day! Although we're not there yet in terms of ending military aid to Israel, it is clear that our collective efforts to hold Israel accountable for its misuse of U.S. weapons are making a difference.



In April, President Obama will send a detailed budget request to Congress which is expected to include $2.775 billion in military aid to Israel for FY2010.

That's $17.75 for each of the approximately 156 million individuals who filed a tax return with the IRS in 2008!

Israel uses the weapons it gets from U.S. taxpayers to commit human rights abuses against Palestinian civilians living under Israel's illegal military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, in violation of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act.

During the Bush Administration, Israel killed more than 3,000 innocent Palestinian civilians who took no part in hostilities, including nearly 1,200 Palestinian civilians during its December 2008-January 2009 war on the Gaza Strip. Israel often misuses U.S. weapons to kill these Palestinian civilians.

Is this how you want your tax-dollars spent?

From U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation

Bomb blows hole in Lenin statue

Damaged statue of Lenin in St Petersburg
Lenin's statue was left with a gaping hole

One of Russia's most famous statues of Vladimir Lenin has been bombed, leaving the Bolshevik revolutionary with a gaping hole in his rear.

The bronze statue, in the city of St Petersburg, was badly damaged before dawn on Wednesday, when the blast blew a hole in Lenin's coat.

No-one was hurt in the attack, the motive for which was unknown.

The statue, outside the Finland Station, marks the Bolshevik leader's return from exile in April 1917.

"Today at 0430 [0030 GMT] there was an explosion at the Lenin monument at the Finland Station in the city centre," a spokesman for the Saint Petersburg branch of the Russian emergency situations ministry told the AFP news agency.

"As a result of the explosion a crater of 80-100cm [31-39in] appeared on the monument," he added.

Lenin gave a speech at the railway station after his return from exile.

Later that year he would lead the revolution that overthrew the government and would take the Communists to power for more than 70 years.

St Petersburg was the cradle of the Russian Revolution and was renamed Leningrad after Lenin's death in 1924.

Lenin's embalmed body remains on display in a mausoleum in Moscow.