Home

House Condemns Goldstone 344-36, Clinton Caves on Settlements

by James M. Wall

Tuesday was a dark day. The US House of Representatives passed Resolution 867, 344-36.   HR 867 is an AIPAC-driven bill which is a litmus test for hard-core Zionist supporters.

Ha’aretz had the story Wednesday morning.

The resolution is co-sponsored by the two senior members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.).

The resolution calls on the President and the Secretary of State:

. . . to continue to strongly and unequivocally oppose any endorsement of the `Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in multilateral fora, including through leading opposition to any United Nations General Assembly resolution and through vetoing, if necessary, any United Nations Security Council resolution that endorses the contents of this report, seeks to act upon the recommendations contained in this report, or calls on any other international body to take further action regarding this report.

Chairman Berman has been in the Congress since 1982. He became chair of Foreign Affairs in 2008.  When he became chairman, Rep. Berman told the Jewish publication, Forward, “Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist.”

Rep. Ros-Lehtinen, who was elected to her House seat from the Miami area in 1989, was the first Cuban American and the first Hispanic woman elected to the Congress.

The language of the resolution describes the report of the UN Human Rights Council, headed by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, as “irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy.”

Looking for a sign of hope in this dark moment in congressional history?  Here’s one:

Congressman Brian Baird (D-Washington) was one of the 36 House member who voted against the resolution. Baird is one of the few members of the House who has actually visited Gaza, which he did on a recent fact-finding trip following the Gaza invasion. (To continue reading, click here.)

Moyers’ Tough Questions Help Goldstone Explain His Report

by James M. Wall

I have now watched Bill Moyers’ PBS interview with Judge Richard Goldstone for the third time.

I’m keeping the tape. It is historic.

During the sixty minutes of that interview, we hear more rational discussion of the Goldstone Report than we have heard from all the other Main Stream commercial major networks combined.

Moyers has a way of inviting his viewers to join him in a safe environment. Then he exposes them to some of the more progressive thinkers on the public scene. Sometimes he even talks to a judge like Richard Goldstone.

If your local PBS station carries Moyers on a regular basis, double your pledge.  If it doesn’t, send your money to a more worthy cause.

Moyers, 75,  is the most sensitive interviewer currently working on television.  He is a son of  what was once the segregated south, an Oklahoma-born, Texas-raised, seminary trained, southerner, a journalist who knows how to ask tough questions in a gentle manner.

I think of Bill as a sabra, “a thorny plant with a thick hide that conceals a sweet, soft interior”. (To continue reading, click here.)

A Bibi-Obama Split: Jones Speaks to J Street; Oren a No-Show

By James M. Wall

Looking for a sign that President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu are not always singing from the same page in the Middle East hymnal?

Start your search with the three-day J Street Conference, “Driving Change: Securing Peace”, which began Sunday night in Washington, DC.  More then 1200 are expected to attend.

Obama’s National Security Advisor, retired United States Marine Corps four-star general, James Jones, will be a featured speaker.

On October 15, General Jones delivered the keynote address for the fourth annual gala of the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), a Washington-based pro-Palestinian organization.

Jones told ATFP the Obama administration was committed “to establishing a Palestinian state and [determined] to move forward with peace talks”, not an earth-shattering promise.

In fact, it is current White House boiler plate.  It is not, however, what Jones says, but to whom and where he says it.

In a stark contrast to Jones’ friendly outreach, Michael Oren, the American-educated Israeli ambassador to the US, rejected J Street’s invitation. . . . 

For Updates and to continue reading the full posting, click here.)

Tony Judt Still Fights to Expose Israel’s “Inconvenient Truths”

by James M. Wall

On October 23, 2003, exactly six years ago this week, Professor Tony Judt published an essay in the New York Review of Books entitled, Israel: The Alternative.

The essay was the culmination of a journey he began as a teen-ager on an Israeli Kibbutz during the Six Day War.

Judt was born in London in 1948. His parents were secular Jews. His mother’s parents were immigrants from Russia; his Belgian-born father came from a long line of Lithuanian rabbis. By the time he reached the age of 24, Judt had earned a PhD in history from Cambridge University.

Earlier, the young scholar had followed a pattern that came naturally to a secular Jewish teenager in the 1960s.At age 15, according to his biography in Wikipedia, he “helped promote the migration of British Jews to Israel.”

At 18, he worked for a year on Kibbutz Machanaim in Israel. During and after the 1967 Six Day War, Judt worked as a driver and translator for the Israeli Defense Forces. When the war ended, Judt began to have doubts about the Zionist project.

“I went with this idealistic fantasy of creating a socialist, communitarian country through work,” Judt has said. He began to realize that this “idealistic fantasy” was “remarkably unconscious of the people who had been kicked out of the country and were suffering in refugee camps to make this fantasy possible.” (To continue reading, click here.)

Why Are Palestinians Losing Faith in Obama? Ask Rahm Emanuel

By James M. Wall

I read an online report on Gentleman’s Quarterly (GQ)’s latest issue, and discovered why Palestinians are losing faith in President Obama.

There at the top of a list of the 50 Most Powerful People in Washington, DC, was my old political colleague from Chicago, Rahm Emanuel.

I quickly scrolled the entire list of the MPPs in DC and discovered folks who are close to Obama, or who are engaged in running his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or who are advising the president on how to rescue the economy.

There are even some Republicans, in or out of office, who are dedicated to seeing Obama fail. There is even a media heavyweight, former Bill Clinton White House aide, George Stephanopoulos.

But there is no one who knows and feels the Palestinian narrative. (To continue, click here.)

Leipzig 10/9/89: The Day Prayers and Candles Ended an Occupation

By James M. Wall

Twenty years ago, October 9, 1989, East German citizens marched to a prayer service at Leipzig’s St. Nicholas (Lutheran) Church. In a ritual they had repeated many nights before, they marched  to the church holding lighted candles.

There were 70,000 marchers in the streets of Leipzig that night. Communist East German officials waited for the signal from Berlin and Moscow to disperse the crowd by force. The signal never came.  Two weeks later, the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union began its total collapse.

The Leipzig Communist security chief wanted very much to subdue the rebellion.  His police force was well armed. Soldiers with machine guns stood on top of nearby buildings.

In a final scene from the East German movie, Nikolaikirche, the security chief stares out at the crowd, his defiance now gone, and says, “”We planned everything. We were prepared for everything, except for candles and prayers.”

I attended the premier showing of Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas Church) at the 1996 Berlin International Film Festival. Thirteen years later, Nikolaikirche remains for me one of strongest cinematic demonstrations I have ever seen of the power of peaceful, non violent protest against an occupying force.

I opened my Berlin Film Festival report by placing Leipzig in a religious context: (To continue reading click here.)

After Public Outrage, PA Says Blocking Report was a “Mistake”

by James M. Wall

Ha’aretz reported Wednesday:

The Palestinian leadership made a mistake by suspending action on a UN report on Gaza war crimes, a member of President Mahmoud Abbas’ inner circle said Wednesday – the first such acknowledgment after days of protests in the West Bank and Gaza. . . .

Excerpts from the Ha’aretz story follow. To read the full story, click here.

Abbas made the [original decision to postpone consideration of the Report] under heavy U.S. pressure, Palestinian and Israeli officials have said. U.S. officials told Palestinian leaders that a war crimes debate would complicate efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, according to participants in such meetings. . . .

. . . What led Abbas to make such a mistake? Is he that removed from the Palestinian people not to be aware that rejecting the Report would have a negative impact?

The Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, based in Jerusalem, issued a statement September 30, which began with a prophetic warning about present conditions in the Occupied Territories. (To continue reading, click here.)

US Churches Must Stop Following Israel Down the Trauma Trail

by James M. Wall

Avraham Burg , former Israeli Chairman of the Jewish Agency and former Speaker of the Israeli Knesset, has written a book with the provocative title, The Holocaust is Over; We must Rise from Its Ashes.

In a PBS interview with Charlie Rose, Burg told Rose why he wrote the book.

I realized that we must deal with the psyche of the place. And the psyche of the place goes back to the trauma. We’re a traumatized society. My suggestion in the book is a suggestion for a new strategy for the Jewish people, and maybe a new strategy for the West in general, and this is to move from trauma to trust.

Rose: Traumatized by?

Burg: By everything, but mainly the Holocaust. It goes like this. Whenever there is a victim in Israel, whenever somebody is killed in a terror activity or whatever it is, that’s one victim on top of seven wars, on top of 6 million, on top of 2,000 years of problems. So it always the history, nothing is just contemporary state of affairs.

In his book and in his conversation with Rose, Burg, a well-known figure in Jewish political life, offers his explanation as to what leads otherwise rational, compassionate people to cling tightly to the certainty that the 1948 “invasion of Arab armies” grants permission to the state of Israel to use whatever methods are at hand to defend their “newborn Jewish state”.

American churches are filled with “otherwise rational, compassionate people” who remain oblivious to the reality that they are sponsors of Israel’s Occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.  They are a people who are living in the darkness of their ignorance. (To continue reading, click here.)

Bibi Spins Obama Again; Pushes Iran as a Nuclear Threat to Israel

by James M. Wall

IMPORTANT: Tuesday, 3 p.m. update  at end of posting

Haggai Ram teaches the history of the Middle East at Israel’s Ben Gurion (Negev) University. The most recent book to emerge from his research and teaching is Iranophobia: The Logic of an Israeli Obsession (Stanford University Press, 2009).

This week, just before a United Nations Security Council committee was to discuss Iran as a “nuclear threat”, Ram offered a brief overview of his book in a column he wrote for Juan Coles’ Informed Comment.

In his book and in his online essay, Ram describes the ways in which Israel has “time and again (ab)used the specter of the ‘Iranian threat’ in order to cover up, and divert attention away from, both domestic oversights and the continuing apartheid regime in the Palestinian territories.”

Ram points to Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s incumbent Foreign Minister, as an example of how the Israeli government uses Iran as a diversion, spinning a tale of imminent threat that frightens its own population and increases support from the US. (To continue reading, click here.)

Stand Up to Bibi, Mr. President; The World is Watching

by James M. Wall

The UN Report on Israel’s attack on Gaza, December 27, 2008-January, 18, 2009, found that the attack was “directed at the people of Gaza as a whole,” not just at Hamas militants.

This was just one of the conclusions reached in the massive UN report, written after public hearings and site visits in June and July by a four-member panel chaired by South African Judge Richard Goldstone. (Israel refused to participate.)

Judge Goldstone came to his assignment with impeccable credentials. He was the chief prosecutor with the war crimes tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

In releasing the Report, the judge said: “As a Jew with a long-standing affiliation with Israel, it’s obviously a great disappointment to me, to put it mildly, that Israel behaved as described in the report.”

There was nothing mild in the Report’s conclusion that the assault on Gaza reached the level of “war crimes and possibly, in some respects, crimes against humanity.”

US media has given little attention to the report. Those that do refer to it, usually focus on one finding, Hamas also may have committed war crimes by rocketing Israeli civilian areas. (To continue reading, click here.)

Jimmy Carter Explains Racism to the White House; It is Not Pretty

by James M. Wall

President Obama’s health care hopes are floundering. So are his dreams for a Middle East agreement. Remember that triumphant election night victory, celebrated by a cheering, weeping, crowd in Chicago’s Grant Park?

That one shining moment gave us hope that racism had been defeated. The entire world rejoiced with us. In January, a new president and his family would be living in the White House. This president would bring peace and justice into the darkest corners of the planet.

What happened? Racism was not defeated last November. It was only stunned briefly, and was quickly resurrected by forces for whom profit and greed are far more important than delivering health care services to all.

The hope for equality and justice for all was battered down by a democratic system that deceived us into believing that Barack Obama’s election was a paradigmatic moment, the dawning of a new day.

Instead of letting Barack Obama seize that joyous moment and take command of his priorities, affordable health care for all, a just peace in the Middle Peace, and the end of our military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the White House played clumsy politics with these priority issues. (To continue reading, click here.)

Obama Regrets, Bibi Fights, Fayyad Has a Program

by James M. Wall

Previous U.S. presidents offered “regrets” for Israeli actions so many times the phrase entered the Middle East diplomatic playbook as a signal to Israel: “Build, baby, build”.

A close reading of Spokesman Robert Gibbs’ response to Israel’s decision to start construction on 455 additional housing units in the West Bank suggests this White House follows its “regrets” with sterner language.

In his White House statement Gibbs said:

We regret the reports of Israel’s plans to approve additional settlement construction.  Continued settlement activity is inconsistent with Israel’s commitment under the Roadmap.

As the President has said before, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion and we urge that it stop.  We are working to create a climate in which negotiations can take place, and such actions make it harder to create such a climate.

The Israeli statement (which comes from the Defense ministry, not the Housing ministry) is precise as to the housing units in specific settlements. (To continue reading, click here)

At the Montreal World Film Festival: A 24-Hour “Ceasefire” in Fallajuh

(Tuesday Update: Ceasefire was honored with the Ecumenical Jury prize as the best competition film in the Montreal World Festival at ceremonies Monday, September 7.   The prize was presented to Director Lancelot von Naso by Jury chair Julia Laggner, an Austrian documentary film maker. (For more on the festival awards, click here)

by James M. Wall

A van travels on an isolated road connecting Baghdad to Fallujah. It is a few days after Easter, 2004. Until a 24-hour ceasefire wasagreed to by both sides, U.S. forces and Iraqi Sunni fighters had engaged in a fierce battle for control of the city.

The ceasefire would end at dawn.

The van on the road to Fallujah is carrying five people with food and medical supplies for a small hospital in Fallujah. What the passengers will not know for several hours is that before the ceasefire, the U.S. had bombed the hospital.

Two of the passengers in the van work in the hospitals in Fallujah and Baghdad. One is a surgeon, the other a relief worker who is also a nurse. Two other passengers are German journalists, a young television reporter eager for an exclusive story, and his cameraman, eager for little other than his personal safety.

The driver of the van is an Iraqi who has his own reasons for signing on for this dangerous mission.   He believes he knows which roads to take to avoid U.S. army checkpoints. He soon discovers he is wrong. (To continue reading, click here)

MLK: “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly”; Time to Embrace BDS

By James M. Wall

This is not the time for U.S. denominations to keep debating inadequate, diluted, compromised resolutions on “peace in the Holy Land”.

It is rather, kairos time, the moment to move against Israel’s apartheid dominance over four million Palestinians by embracing the non-violent strategy of BDS, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

Christian denominations have spent far too many years trapped in dreary hotel conference rooms working to “get along” with one another by approving meaningless resolutions that fooled few and excited none.

Resolution time has far outlived its expiration date. It is time to join a growing number of justice-oriented communities and take direct action against Israel’s oppressive actions against an oppressed people. (To continue reading, click here.)

A Civil Exchange with The NY Times on the IDF and Thomas Friedman

By James M. Wall

This blog has received more immediate reaction to Is Thomas Friedman a Positive Voice for Peace? You Decide, than any other posting I have written since Wall Writings was launched in April, 2008.

One reader of the blog, unnamed here except as “Faithful Reader”, sent a copy of  that posting to Clark Hoyt, public editor of The New York Times. Hoyt responded to Faithful Reader, who then sent me Hoyt’s response.

I wrote Hoyt and asked his permission to print his note in my blog. He graciously gave that permission and then, just as graciously, told me why I was wrong in my reading of the visit of Thomas Friedman with officials of the Israeli Defense Forces headquarters. (To continue reading, click here.)

Is Thomas Friedman a “Positive Voice” for Peace? You Decide

by James M. Wall

Thomas Friedman is the Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent and columnist for the New York Times. So what, in the name of all that is sacred in media land, are we to make of this news item that appeared August 12 in Ha’aretz:

Senior New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman gave a lecture last week to a number of members of the IDF General Staff. He spoke to them about his impressions of his recent visits to Arab countries.

Friedman visited Israel and the territories last week and published a two-part column on the situation in the territories after most IDF checkpoints were removed and Palestinian security forces moved in.

Friedman met personally with IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi during his visit, and spoke to the deputy chief of staff, the head of Military Intelligence, the head of the Home Front Command and the head of the planning branch.

Helene Cobban was furious. Cobban was a long time Middle East correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. (To continue reading, click here).

Hard Right Zionists Try to “Freeman” Peace Activist Mary Robinson

+++++++++++++++

FRIDAY UPDATE:

The ceremony proceeded at the White House Wednesday without any interference.  Mary Robinson was one of 16 recipients of the 2009 Presidential Medal of Honor. The effort to “Freeman” Robinson, failed.  Read here what President Obama said about Robinson.

Wednesday Update:

Mary Robinson is scheduled to receive the Presidential Medal of Honor in Washington today. So far, there is no indication that the campaign to “Freeman” (see below) the Irish-born peace activist will have any impact on the ceremony.  Watch to see how the event is covered by Main Stream Media. Thus far, MSNBC’s lineup of liberal news stars has ignored the “Freeman” attacks on Robinson.

One alert reader of this blog (see below) points out that “Freeman” attacks are not confined to the U.S. The Jerusalem Post reports that strong criticism has been been raised by German Jewish organizations against German President Horst Köhler, who presented the Federal Cross of Merit, first class – the country’s most prestigious award, to noted Israeli human rights attorney Felicia Langer. A long time critic of Israel’s harsh treatment of Palestinians, Langer, 79,  moved to Germany in 1990.

Before her retirement, Langer devoted her career to defending Palestinians she believed to be wrongly accused by Israeli occupation authorities. She often compared Israel’s occupation to the white apartheid rule in South Africa. Ms. Langer received her award on August 6.

+++++++++++++++++

by James M. Wall

During a “private” Tel Aviv conversation, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu was reported to have denounced Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod as “self-hating Jews”. Israeli officials immediately denied that the prime minister threw that ugly epithet at the two officials.

Whether Bibi used the term or not is not the issue. What is important is that someone in Israel’s ruling circles wanted the ”self-hating Jew” term out there. The term fits into the campaign to undercut Barack Obama’s credentials as a friend of Israel.

The strategy is obvious. Hard right Israeli Zionists, and their American neocon Zionist colleagues (HRZs, for short), spend considerable energy intimidating western civilization into believing any negative criticism of Israeli policies is, in the case of non Jews, a sign of latent or overt anti-semitism,  or in the case of Jews, a sure sign that the guilty party is a “self hating Jew”.

With even the slightest hint that an anti-semite or self-hating Jew has been sighted, the culprit must be revealed and punished. The higher profile of the offending culprit, the more vicious the attacks. (To continue reading click here.)

Bibi Told Mossad, “Kill Khalid”; Now Khalid is Key to Israel’s Future

by James M. Wall    

Twelve years after he survived Bibi Netanhayu’s attempt to assassinate him, Khalid Mishal, the head of the Hamas political bureau, holds meetings with Jimmy Carter, and gives interviews to the Wall Street Journal.

Khalid Mishal is also key to a peaceful Israeli future, if only Netanyahu would pay attention to what he is saying.

When Mishal talked with Carter in Damascus, Syria, in April of this year, he told the former U.S. president that Hamas was ready to talk peace with Israel. On August 1, he sent the same message to President Barack Obama through an interview he gave to two Wall Street Journal reporters, Jay Solomon and Julien Barnes Daceu:   (To continue reading, click here.)

Bush Blessed Israel’s Assault on Gaza But the Aftermath Belongs to Obama

by James M. Wall

Raise your hand if  you still believe Israel’s claim that its 23-day assault on Gaza was a necessary retaliation against Hamas for breaking a cease fire. Ok, put your hand down and listen up.

Consider the dates of the assault’s start and abrupt ending. The first Israeli air attack on Gaza came on December 27, 2008. Barack Obama was the president-elect. George Bush would be president until noon, January 20, 2009.

Israel had less than a month left to operate with impunity under the blessing of the out-going U.S. president.

Twenty three days after December 27, Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, announced that his government would  remove its forces from Gaza “at the greatest possible speed”.

The assault troops were out of Gaza by midnight, January 18. 2009. The Palestinian death toll had reached more than 1300. The injured totaled more than 5100.

Two days later, on January 20, 2009, Barack Obama was inaugurated president of the United States.

Before he entered the White House Obama knew what was happening in Gaza. His transition team remained in touch with the Bush White House. The London Guardian provided a daily death and injury report. Bloggers, like this one, also provided statistics on the wounded and dead. Few U.S. papers bothered to even notice. (Click here to read entire posting.)

After 31 Years, Jack Shaheen Still Helps Us See “Reel Bad Arabs”

By James M. Wall

My first encounter with Jack G. Shaheen came in the summer of 1978. He was a professor of communications at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville.

I was the editor of the Christian Century magazine in Chicago, Illinois. Jack sent me a manuscript entitled “The TV Arab”, which I immediately accepted for publication.

In October, 1978, the Wall Street Journal published an expanded version of the essay. In 1984, Shaheen expanded the article into a book with the same title.

In 2001, Jack Shaheen produced his break-through work: Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People (Olive Branch Press, 2001), described by film scholar Henry Girous as a “pacesetting and courageous book”, focusing on “Hollywood’s production of long-standing racist stereotypes aimed at Arabs and Middle East culture.”

This publishing history is important as background for Jack Shaheen’s latest book, Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs after 9/11 (Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press. 2008) because it became immediately apparent after the attacks of 911, that Hollywood would exploit the emotions evoked by the horrors of that day. (To read the entire story, click here.)

Carter and the Elders Challenge “Injustice Wherever We See It”

by James M. Wall    

Jimmy Carter is always busy, scurrying around below the line of public attention, doing what he does best, making a difference.

His friends, and they are many, are always glad to see him emerge into the light, taking aim at yet another difficult problem.

His enemies, and you know who you are, grab their propaganda weapons and take aim. They always miss.

An 84-year old former U.S. president who works to eradicate disease in Africa, monitor national elections, and push for peace in the Middle East, is not easy to bring down.

This week Carter surfaced again, this time as part of a group known as the Elders, retired world leaders who individually have found ways to continue to serve.

In a column for the London Guardian, Carter described one major problem the Elders have addressed to all faith traditions: Using religion to do massive harm to women.

His title:”The words of God do not justify cruelty to women”. (To read further, click here.)

A Man Kills His Parents and Begs for Mercy Because He is an Orphan

By James M. Wall    

Since its creation in 1948, the modern state of Israel has steadily stolen Palestinian land and driven Palestinians from their homes, cities and villages.

Nothing has been done to halt Israel’s steady march to tighten its absolute control of the Palestinian people with the obvious goal of ethnic cleansing, an historic fact well documented by Israeli scholar Ilan Pappe.

Under the protection of a security-obsessed military occupation, fully supported and underwritten by U.S. tax payers, Israel denies it has broken any laws. Israel makes its own self-preservation laws. It listens to no higher authority.

Israel has destroyed olive tree orchards and smothered stolen farmlands and pastures with modern malls where U.S. firms like Ace Hardware and Burger King enrich stock holders who don’t know, or don’t care, that they are taking part in the ugly crime of ethnic cleansing. (To continue reading, click here.)

The Thieves Pause: Israel “Open” to Summer Building Freeze

by James M. Wall                

“Israel Open to Settlement Freeze” was the New York Times headline over Ethan Bronner’s latest report from Jerusalem. How generous.

The occupiers who stole all that Palestinian West Bank land now offers to “freeze” construction for three months.  Why not? It is beastly hot in the West Bank from July to September.

The swimming pools and those “natural growth” houses next to grandma will just have to wait a little longer. The sheer absurdity of this latest Israeli governmental gesture boggles the mind.

Oh, but wait a minute. Even the freeze comes with caveats:

Israel would be open to a complete freeze of settlement building in the West Bank for three to six months as part of a broad Middle East peace endeavor that included a Palestinian agreement to negotiate an end to the conflict and confidence-building steps by major Arab nations, senior Israeli officials said Sunday.

The audacity of that offer is obscene. (To continue reading, click here.)

Bibi Uses “Recognition Plus” to Defy Obama and Block Peace Plan

by James M. Wall

Israel never misses a chance to create a new road block for peace. The latest? Recognition Plus.

Of course, Bibi Netanyahu could not put this latest road block over on the U.S. public without the help and support of the people he loves, AIPAC and his media and congressional friends.

I am indebted to Philip Weiss (Mondoweiss) for the heads up on “recognition plus”–a term initially coined by Lara Ferguson, writing in the Americans for Peace Now blog.

The heads up comes from Rob Browne, writing in Daily Kos.

Rob Browne at Dailykos has an excellent piece on the evolution of the Israeli demand for “recognition-plus”– that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state, even before negotiations over land, refugees etc begin. (To continue reading, click here.)

Carter’s Middle East Trip: If Its Tuesday, This Must be Gaza

by James M. Wall

Jimmy Carter’s 10-day trip to the Middle East started in Lebanon, June 7 and ended in Gaza, June 17.

This picture was taken in Gaza, where, among other stops, Carter visited an UNRAW Children’s Center, accompanied by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

At the Center he interacted with children and delivered an address, the text of which is available here in the Palestine Chronicle.

What are we to make of this latest Carter venture into peace-making in the Middle East?

The answer? The American voters wanted change. They got it. George Bush is gone and Barack Obama is the new president.

The Christian Science Monitor reported on the trip, noting, in particular, the change in relations between the region and the US, following the election of Barack Obama:

Mr. Carter has been shunned in the past by both the Bush administration and Israeli leaders, who criticized his efforts to engage the militant Palestinian group that he says is crucial to any lasting Arab-Israeli peace.

But analysts say Carter’s ties with the more like-minded Obama administration, which has taken a firmer stand with Israel on some issues, may bolster his effectiveness as a regional peace broker. (To continue reading, click here.)

Update: Iran Detaining Election Opponents

In a practice which sounds disturbingly familiar to Middle East election watchers, the Iranian government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has “detained” leading supporters of the man who “lost” the election, Mirhossein Moussavi.

It has become increasingly obvious that the election was “stolen”. (see earlier update below). Of course it was.

The familiarity comes from a reminder from Helene Cobban that the January 2006 Palestinian legislative election did not result in the ending Israel and the U.S. wanted.  So Israel and Iran took the same action to change the results, arrest the opposition. (For more on this update, click here.)

Update 4 p.m. Saturday; A Stolen Election?

According to today’s New York Times, Ahmadinejad won Friday’s election by a large margin.  Moussavi insists he is the winner, and speculation has begun that the election results were falsified.

Juan Cole suggests the election may be a “crime scene”.

I am aware of the difficulties of catching history on the run. Some explanation may emerge for Ahmadinejad’s upset that does not involve fraud. For instance, it is possible that he has gotten the credit for spreading around a lot of oil money in the form of favors to his constituencies, but somehow managed to escape the blame for the resultant high inflation.

But just as a first reaction, this post-election situation looks to me like a crime scene. And here is how I would reconstruct the crime. . . .

Obama Speech and Moussavi Campaign Weaken Zionism’s Iran Narrative

by James M. Wall

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election four years ago as president of Iran was the gift that kept on giving to the Zionist narrative, the worldview that before the arrival of Barack Obama, dominated U.S. politics and media.

Not, I hasten to add, a gift to the Israeli people, far from it, but a gift to the Zionist zealotry that is driving the Israelis deeper and deeper into a dark future.

What zealotry? The zealotry personified by Israel’s drive-the-Arabs-into-the-desert foreign minister, the far-right Avigdor Lieberman, who resides in one of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank.

Helene Cobban’s blog, Just World News, is my inspiration for believing Mirhossein Moussavi (whose campaign colors are green; see above) will win the Iranian presidency. (To continue reading, click here.)

Obama Speech Draws Spirited Response From DC To Damascus

by James M. Wall  

Reactions to Barack Obama’s Cairo speech were largely positive, with one notable caveat.

Start with the ongoing struggle between two Washington, D.C. lobby groups, AIPAC, and its emerging challenger, J Street.

The more moderate challenger’s rise to prominence was timely, just before Obama took off to Cairo where the President’s speech was praised worldwide.

There remains, however, a dark cloud hovering over Obama’s rhetoric: His plans for Palestine, specifically, his failure to reverse the military assistance program George Bush gave Fatah in its attempt–backed by Israel–to defeat Hamas.

Obama is in a position to stop favoring Fatah. He has backup at home where that struggle between two sides in the DC Lobby wars, as reported pre-Cairo by the Atlantic.com blog, is starting to tilt away from AIPAC. (To continue reading, click here.)

Can Obama Take His Cairo Show on the Road to Jerusalem?

by James M. Wall

President Obama has a massive educational task on his hands. In his long-awaited Cairo speech, he addressed a world audience of more than 1.2 billion Muslims, an estimated 22% of the world’s population, second only to Christianity, which has an estimated 33% of the world’s inhabitants.

Obama chose a university campus in Cairo, Egypt to give his address, a city historically identified as a major center of Arab culture. Complicating his task is the fact that only 12% of the world’s Muslim population is Arab.

Beruit journalist Rami Khouri notes that while The Speech will no doubt inspire, its true impact will finally be judged by how it affects Muslims who live in Gaza, Jenin, Ramallah, Beruit or Riyadh. Can the leader of what is currently the world’s major superpower take his Cairo show on the road to Jerusalem? (To continue reading, click here.)

The Narrow Visions of Dick Cheney and Benny Morris

by James M. Wall

This is a quick visit into the thinking of two men, Dick Cheney and Benny Morris, one an American, the other an Israeli. Both have formulas they have developed to deal with “others”.

You would have thought Cheney, defeated in 2008, could no longer find audiences eager to listen to his message. You would have thought wrong.

Cheney has emerged from his bunker and is once again taking his show on the road.

He preaches to a public which gave him an approval rating of 29% in November, 2008. His most recent favorable ratings are up to 37%. He still faces a 55% unfavorable rating.

Since Dick Cheney came out, blinking into the sunlight, he has been officially designated by both Leno and Letterman as the “former president”, which, of course, accurately describes the man who also answers to Darth Vader. (To continue reading, click here)

Between Netanyahu and Obama, The NYT Picks Fear of Amalek

By James M. Wall

Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu came to Washington with one thing on his mind: Attack Iran.

President Obama was not buying it. His focus was on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.

How did the venerable New York Times report the high-level meeting? Bibi’s spin was the winner, going away.

When the New York Times reports a story, it becomes the gospel which the rest of the nation’s media follows with the fervor of an evangelical preacher with the literal biblical truth clutched in his hand.

David Bromwich begins his Huffington Post column with this scathing exposure of the Times’ biased coverage, a blatant pro-Israeli spin that recalls the days when Judith Miller was feeding the Bush-Cheney WMD line to a frightened American public. (To continue reading, click here.)

Obama Is The “tough-loving, truth-telling friend” Israel Needs      

by James M. Wall

Early in my writing career, I received a personal note from a well-known writer which so boosted my morale that fifty years later, his note remains deeply embedded in my memory bank. What I had written prompted this response: “I wish I had written that”.

I cannot remember what prompted such praise. I seriously doubt that my words were that special. Nevertheless, I was happy to read them.

The purpose of this blog is to point to the wisdom, research, creative thinking and well crafted writing of many people. I try to include as many links to these writers as possible. I have long ago decided that there are far better and much wiser writers out there than the author of this blog.

Now, instead of saying ”I wish I had written that”, I spend my time telling others what the wiser ones are writing and saying.

I want to start with a conference I attended last week at the Carter Center, in Atlanta, Georgia, under the auspices of the Human Rights Program, of the Center. (To continue reading, click here.)

EFCA Could Lose: We Need Frances Perkins Today

by James M. Wall

Your reading assignment for today combines New Deal history with a current news story.

The book is by Kirstin Downey, The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience (Nan A. Talese, Doubleday, 2009).

The current news story? The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is in danger. Democratic senators are wobbly. We need a Frances Perkins for today who will push Congress to do the right thing.

The original Frances Perkins chaired New York State’s Industrial Commission under two successive governors, Al Smith and Franklin Roosevelt. When Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, Perkins became his Secretary of Labor, the first woman to serve in a president’s cabinet.

Before his inauguration, Roosevelt invited Frances Perkins for an interview in his New York City residence on East 65th Street. Kirstin Downey, the author of this stirring biography, describes their historic 1933 meeting on “a chilly February night”. (To continue reading, click here.)

The Pope Skips Gaza: “I was in prison and you visited me not”            

by James M. Wall

A friend writes from Bethlehem:

His Holiness will arrive in Jordan at the end of this week, then cross the river to Israel-Palestine and spend a few more days here.

Sad to say, he will not visit Gaza.

It would have been a huge encouragement for the people of the region especially the Christians in Gaza, and provided a good “media op” to highlight the devastation and on-going problems inside the prison that is Gaza.

To be fair to Pope Benedict XVI, he does not have total control over his May 8-14 travel itinerary which begins in Amman, where he plans to visit a mosque. From Jordan, the Pope will cross the Jordan River into the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel.

On the Israeli side of the river he will be met by Israeli President Shimon Peres, who will serve as his constant companion and guide before he returns to Rome. (To continue reading, click here.)

“Congress is Israeli-Occupied Territory”; You Got a Problem With That?

(With May 5 Update)

by James M. Wall

It is Springtime in the nation’s capitol. The cherry trees are in bloom. And once again, just after the robins return, AIPAC gathers for its annual conference, May 3-5.

AIPAC, in case you have just arrived from Mars, is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby which gives the U.S. Congress its marching orders on all matters pertaining to the best interests of the state of Israel.

If you have to ask if AIPAC is also concerned with the best interests of the people of the United States, conservative pundit Pat Buchanan has news for you:

The U.S. Congress is “Israeli-occupied territory”.

Occupiers, as the Palestinian people can testify, have only the best interests of the Occupier at heart. (To continue reading, click here)

Thomas More: “I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake”

by James M. Wall

In his press conference Wednesday night, President Obama was asked two questions about torture. In his first answer he referred to an article he read recently. His staff did not initially provide the source, but Huffington Post suggests his source could have been a blog posting by Andrew Sullivan:

In his blog, The Daily Dish, Sullivan wrote:

Most ordinary people lived through the Blitz, a random 9/11 a week, from an army poised to invade, and turn England’s democratic heritage into a footnote in a Nazi empire.

As all that was happening, and as intelligence was vital, the British captured over 500 enemy spies operating in Britain and elsewhere. Most went through Camp 020, a Victorian pile crammed with interrogators. As Britain’s very survival hung in the balance, as women and children were being killed on a daily basis and London turned into rubble, Churchill nonetheless knew that embracing torture was the equivalent of surrender to the barbarism he was fighting.

Responding to a second torture question: ”Do you believe that the previous administration sanctioned torture?” Obama ignored the “previous administration” reference, evoking instead the Churchillian rationale: (To continue reading, click here.)

Arlen Specter’s Switch Is a Mixed Blessing to Progressives

by James M. Wall

Not to be churlish about it, but news that Arlen Specter has switched parties to save himself from certain defeat in the 2010 Republican primary comes as a mixed blessing for peace and justice progressives.

Specter brings Senate Democrats a filibuster-proof majority, 60 votes, assuming Al Franken survives Norm Coleman’s prolonged court struggle in Minnesota.

On progressive issues, Specter’s record is not encouraging. Now 79 years old, he announced his late in life political conversion by reasserting his opposition to a major labor reform bill, the EFCA (Employees Free Choice Act). (To continue reading, click here.)

U.S. Justice Department May Drop Spy Case Against AIPAC Lobbyists      

by James M. Wall

Pro-Israeli Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Ca) may not be in so much trouble after all. The U.S. Justice Department may drop the spy case against former AIPAC Lobbyists Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman.

Harman might have figured in the case, had it gone to trial, as scheduled on June 2, The case, however, has been postponed repeatedly. It could open on June 2, but all signs point to Justice dropping it. This is good news for Harman, who was caught in an FBI wire tap of her conversation with an Israeli “agent”.

On the wire tap, Harman is reported to have promised the agent she would “wade into” the case on behalf of Rosen and Weissman.

Three days after her comments were revealed by Congressional Quarterly (April 19), the Washington Post (April 22) brought her the welcome news: (To continue reading, click here.)

Jane Harman Caught on NSA Wiretap Cutting a Deal with an Israeli “Agent”  

by James M. Wall

Representative Jane Harman (D-California) is in a tough spot. She has been caught on an NSA wiretap cutting a deal with an Israeli agent.

Will Representative Harman become the Rod Blagojevich of Washington, accused of “pay for play”? Don’t count on it. Harman has many friends inside the Israel Lobby. And the Lobby knows people who know people.

Nonetheless, a story has just been published that reports that Harman was wiretapped in a conversation in which she promised to help AIPAC in an Israel Lobby staff problem. In return, so the story reports, she expects help from AIPAC.

The story identifies the wiretap conversation as one between Harman and someone involved in “alleged Israel covert action operations in Washington.” (To continue reading, click here.)

Wingnuts, Blinders and Bubbles: Obama Continues U.S. Obeisance to Israel

by James M. Wall

The right wing media wingnuts (Urban Dictionary: “A wingnut: An outspoken, irrational person with deeply-held, nominally conservative, political views”) went wild over the slight bow they detected when President Obama greeted Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah with a cordial two-handed shake. It was an ignorant and silly objection.

But what word can the Urban Dictionary suggest to describe liberals, moderates, and progressives who cling to their own deeply-held, rigid political views? What word best describes the entire U.S. media corp and the U.S. Congress, for that matter, who continue to enable President Obama to pretend he does not know how tightly the state of Israel controls U.S. foreign policy.

You will not find any need for a wingnut equivalent in the MSM; wingnuts don’t know they are wingnuts. Instead, go to the internet to find the spotlight thrown on the enabling behavior of our leaders. And develop your own wingnut word equivalent.

Start with Kathleen and Bill Christison who have just published a scathing critique of the Obama administration’s continued obeisance to Israel. (To continue, click here.)

Yes to Tutu, Cuba Travel, and Marriage in Vermont

By James M. Wall

The times they are a’changing. Not immediately and not fast enough, but the signs are promising. Consider these three stories:

Michigan State President Says No to ADL

Michigan State University invited retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu to deliver the university’s 2009 commencement address. Tutu is the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to apartheid in his native South Africa in the 1980s. He is a widely admired Christian world leader.

Two Anti-Defamation League officials, including the Jewish advocacy group’s director, Alexander H. Foxman, sent a letter of protest to MSU President Lou Anna Simon, objecting to the presence of Tutu at MSU. The officials claimed that Tutu was a “poor choice” to deliver the commencement address because he had made statements about Israel that “conveyed outright bigotry against … the Jewish people.” (To continue reading, click here)

Could Avraham Burg Be Israel’s Future Barack Obama?

by James M. Wall

Avraham Burg is the former Speaker of the Israeli Parliament and former Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organization. Winding up a recent book tour in the United States, Burg was interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.

Burg was in the U.S. to discuss his new book, The Holocaust Is Over: We Must Rise from its Ashes.

In the 2008 English foreword to his book, which was initially published in Hebrew in 2007, Burg wrote:

I wrote this book in order to open up the heart, mouth, and eyes for a new vision. I have tried to touch on our [Israel's] maladies and afflictions and to offer preliminary directions of cure and recovery on the road to a new national and global vision for the Jewish people. . . .

Now, the book has been published in other languages and I am once more ridden with anxiety. Can a foreigner understand Israeli intimacy? Is it possible for someone who is not part of the Jewish family to perceive the loving tension that characterizes family members who sometimes do not see eye to eye with one another and yet remain whole? Will there be people who take my words, distort them and use them as weapons against me, against my nation? Probably.

In an answer to a question from Goodman, when he appeared on Democracy Now, Burg spoke of his earlier years: (To continue, click here)

Jewels in the American Crown: Obama, Hightower and Maddow        

by James M. Wall

Elections do have consequences. Imagine any other current American politician handling questions from the international press corp and town hall meetings the way Barack Obama has been doing on his European trip.

We have much for which to be thankful this spring, starting with the fact that our democracy awoke from its stupor in time to invite Barack (and never forget, Michelle) into our White House for four and hopefully, eight years.

Obama has elevated our national sense of purpose. He has inspired us to look on the brighter side of life. Sometimes we even feel like Wall-E poking through mountains of trash and coming up with a jewel. . . (To continue reading, click here)

Looking for a Bishop in The Family Tree

By James M. Wall

This blog is concerned, among other things, with current events, history, and religious connections. You don’t like family history? Well stick around, at least long enough to hear, below, a rousing rendering of ”Old Dan Tucker” from Bruce Springsteen.

My history is also your history. Our joint histories are our world’s history. We are all connected. You may find these connections to be of interest, and, just maybe, you could decide to launch your own search for a bishop in the family tree.

When I started building on the research of Florence Day Ellis (my Aunt Florence) I knew we had a connection to a famous name (famous in church circles, that is) but we had never been able to confirm a “blood kin” connection.

McKendree is the “M” in my byline above. McKendree was my grandfather James McKendree Day’s middle name; my son and grandson both have McKendree middle names. The McKendree name is significant in our family history.

My Aunt Florence, who died before she could enjoy the luxury of internet searching, uncovered the first appearence of a McKendree in our family history. . . . (To continue, click here.)

The Public Is Mad at Big Business; So Why is EFCA in Trouble?            

by James M. Wall

Things are becoming “curiouser and curiouser” in Wonderland. We have fallen into that deep hole with Alice where up is down and down is up.

“Who are YOU?” said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I–I hardly know, sir, just at present– at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

The Republican party should be hiding from pitchfork mobs angry because bankers, bonus babies, and venture capitalists have stolen 401-K retirement funds, closed factories, and shipped jobs overseas. But the Republicans are not hiding. They are gearing up to prevent Democrats from delivering a long awaited gift to American workers.

After six long years of being turned away by the Bush White House, labor unions finally have a president who is on their side. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) has once again been introduced in Congress. (To continue reading, click here).

Israel’s “revolting” Marriage Law Faces A Court Challenge

by James M. Wall

Veteran Israeli journalist Uri Avnery is constantly outraged at the conduct of the nation he loves.

In a column in the Palestine Chronicle, Avnery writes about a case now before the Israeli Supreme Court in which a group of Jews and Arabs seek to overturn a draconian Israeli law that attacks the core of Palestinian families.

Though security was the pretense for the passage of the law, Avnery knows the real reason for this “temporary” law was to make life untenable for Palestinians who live both inside and outside the border of Israel, a border that continually expands, also under the pretense of “security”.

Israel has no constitution. Instead, the nation is governed under what is known as “Basic Laws”. The case now before the Supreme Court insists this marriage law violates the “equal rights of all citizens” provision of those Basic Laws. (To continue reading, click here.)

Ron Holloway Finds “Political Movies” at the 2009 Berlin Festival

By James M. Wall

Ron Holloway was one of my earliest mentors in relating film to religion. We met during the 1960s, the peak era for art movies when European imports were arriving in the US from directors like Ingmar Bergman, Francoise Truffaut and Michelangelo Antonioni.

Ron was instrumental in creating a Chicago-based organization for film education that became the National Center for Film Study. He and his actress wife Dorothea continue their intense involvement with film, and their exhaustive coverage of festivals, from their home in Berlin, Germany. A posting he wrote for this blog on the 2008 Cannes Film Festival continues to attract readers.

Ron has sent me his report on the 2009 Berlin Film Festival. He graciously allowed me to trim it to fit this space.

His edited version runs below. (To continue, click here.)

Jimmy Carter’s New Book Is Must Reading for Freeman’s Successor

by James M. Wall

While keeping up with L’Affaire Freeman, which has been consuming this blog of late, I have been rereading Jimmy Carter’s We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work.

I started this post on Carter’s book the morning that Ann Hafften sent me her latest blog posting from “A Texas Lutheran’s Voice for Middle East Peace”.

I have a double motive for linking to Ann Hafften’s blog. First, her sources are well chosen. Second, I need to point out that progressive peace and justice bloggers like Ann Hafften were following Charles Freeman’s rise and fall as the potential NIC chair. The arrival of Carter’s book was timely, a break in the dark clouds of the Israel Lobby’s grip on our political life. (To continue, click here.)

David Broder: Obama Suffers an Embarrassing Defeat

by James M. Wall

There are few journalists working today I admire as much as I admire David Broder. We go way back. As far back as the George McGovern campaign of 1972.

This is a man I trust and what is more important, he is trusted by the Washington political and media community. His column appears regularly in the Washington Post. It is also syndicated to the more fortunate news outlets in the country.

His column this week on Charles Freeman was so on target, so personal and so insightful that it is command reading for everyone who has shown interest in the rise and fall of Charles Freeman.

He begins in his usual pithy style with the following words, and he concludes with a zinger on how the White House has handled this matter. To continue reading, click here.

The Times Wakes Up While Schumer Says He Helped the White House Do the Right Thing

by James M. Wall

The New York Times finally woke up to the Charles Freeman affair and wrote about Freeman’s withdrawal in its news pages this morning.

The Times called AIPAC for a statement and allowed a spokesman to deny involvement while treating the withdrawal as a “new” story, even though the assault on Freeman has been waged for weeks in the blogosphere. (The Times’ promotion of the Iraq war creeps sadly back to mind).

Greg Sargent explains in Who Runs Gov.com:

The Times didn’t seem that interested in figuring out why Freeman was ousted. The paper quotes Freeman blaming the “Israel Lobby,” and then places one call to AIPAC, whose spokesperson says that the group never took a formal position on Freeman. The paper lets the matter rest there.

Now that the Times has finally put words on paper in its news section, the rest of the MSM (Main Stream Media) will follow the Media Godfather’s lead and gingerly touch upon the topic with its usual lack of insight or perspective. (For links and to continue reading this post, click here)

Good: Cohen Calls Hamas a “political phenomenon” in the Palestinian National Fabric; Bad: Freeman Withdraws

By James M. Wall

Back in the Israel Lobby’s halcyon days, could you imagine a New York Times leading columnist writing the following paragraphs? And keeping his job?

Like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah has long been treated by the United States as a proscribed terrorist group. This narrow view has ignored the fact that both organizations are now entrenched political and social movements without whose involvement regional peace is impossible.

Britain aligned itself with the U.S. position on Hezbollah, but has now seen its error. Bill Marston, a Foreign Office spokesman, told Al Jazeera: “Hezbollah is a political phenomenon and part and parcel of the national fabric in Lebanon. We have to admit this.”

Hallelujah.

But that is what Roger Cohen wrote in a column entitled, “Middle East Reality Check”. Hallelujah, indeed. But wait, there is more: (To continue, click here)

Yes Virginia, There is an Israel Lobby and It is Still Fighting Charles Freeman

by James M. Wall

Yes, Virginia, there is an Israel Lobby, and it is still fighting to block Charles Freeman’s recent appointment.

We thought the matter was settled when the word came down that Charles Freeman would be named chairman of the National Intelligence Council. This decision evoked great rejoicing among those of us who are counting on President Obama to tell the Israel Lobby, no single lobby will control what happens in the Obama Oval Office.

It is important to remember, Virginia, that the Israel Lobby has a role to play along with all the other special interest pleading groups in Washington. But, Virginia, you and all your other little friends, should never forget that a lobby’s role is to plead a case, not to control government policy. (To continue reading, click here.)

The Palestinian Democracy that Might Have Been After the 2006 Election

By James M. Wall

The map to the right shows the final results of the 2006 Palestinian legislative district elections. It was distributed by the Central Elections Commission of Palestine and published on the BBC website. One half of the legislators in the 2006 election were chosen in districts (66 seats); the other half were chosen in a “countrywide” vote (66 seats).

As this map indicates, Hamas won an overwhelming majority of the legislative seats chosen by districts in both the West Bank and Gaza. The border drawn on this map follows the internationally recognized 1967 border. Note carefully how many green Hamas legislative seats on this map are in the West Bank. The 2006 legislative election was a major electoral triumph for Hamas throughout the entire country, not just in Gaza, as post-election propaganda would have us believe.

American media did not cover this election as a Palestinian election. They covered its implications for Israel while viewing it entirely through Israeli lens. This was an election I viewed up close, talking with voters and officials. I am certain it was the sort of election US political writers would have loved to cover. (To continue reading, click here.)

Carter, Walt and Mearsheimer, This One’s for You; Freeman Named National Intelligence Council Chairman

by James M. Wall

It is official: Ambassador Charles Freeman has been appointed chairman of the National Intelligence Council. The announcement came Thursday afternoon from the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis C. Blair.

From the Office of the Director of National Intelligence:

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair has selected Charles W. Freeman, Jr. to be Chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC). As Chairman, Ambassador Freeman will be responsible for overseeing the production of National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) and other Intelligence Community (IC) analytic products. (To continue reading, click here.)

Update on Israel Lobby Attacks on Freeman’s NIC Appointment

by James M. Wall

The Washington Post’s Al Kamen has a follow up story on the State Department assignment given to Dennis Ross, discussed in my earlier posting, However, the smear tactics now being used by the Israel Lobby against Ambassador Charles Freeman’s appointment as the new NIC chairman are not in the Kamen story.

His story focuses on Ross, a favorite of the Israel Lobby.   His silence on Freeman is revealing.

Still, as background to the ban on Freeman stories. Kamen’s report makes for fascinating inside baseball reading.  The shifting about he reports on may or may not have long term diplomatic significance, but it does suggest that strong personalities are in play in Hillary Clinton’s State Department.   (To continue reading, click here.)

Israel Lobby Smears Ambassador Freeman with Angry Distortions    

by James M. Wall

The MSM (Main Stream Media) still has not noticed, but the Israel Lobby is out in full force to scuttle the appointment of Ambassador Charles W. Freeman as the new chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

Once the word swept across the blogosphere, the battle was joined. You will not hear about this from the MSM until the Freeman appointment is confirmed (or blocked). Then the MSM will report the news as a “controversy” between supporters and enemies of Israel, a total distortion of the story.

Within the Jewish blogosphere, however, the debate is intense between the Israel Lobby and progressive Jewish forces. (To continue reading, click here)

Why Israel War Backers Are Unhappy With Obama for Considering Freeman For NIC

by James M. Wall

In his new book, The Inheritance, David E. Sanger describes the impact of a 140-page NIC-produced National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Bush White House just before Thanksgiving, 2007. The report was not what the war-oriented forces in the White House wanted to see. The NIE brought to a screeching halt, perhaps for years to come, any US military action against Iran.

As President Bush’s national security team gathered in the Situation Room they were given the news that the NIE had found that while Iran was indeed “racing ahead to produce fuel that would give it the capability to build a bomb, it had suspended all of its work on the actual design of a weapon in late 2003″.

We now know that much to the disappointment of the “bomb Iran” crowd in Washington, there was no longer any chance of mustering sufficient public support for any attack or invasion of Iran during 2008, the crucial presidential election year. (To continue reading, click here).

There is Joy in Mudville! Samantha Power Now Batting for the Obama Team

by James M. Wall

Samantha Power first gained national attention with her 2003 Pulitzer Prize winning book, From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. Then Senator and future President Barack Obama read the book. In 2005 he invited the 38 year old Power to his office for a discussion.

Powers recalled the meeting in an interview with theNew York Times:

“I was supposed to meet him for an hour,” she recalled. “And entering the fourth hour, I heard myself say, ‘Why don’t I leave my job at Harvard and intern in your office?’

Which she did, later taking a longer leave to become a full time volunteer for the Obama campaign. The position she left behind was Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy, at Harvard’s Kennedy Center. A passionate human rights advocate, Power has also served as a war correspondent. Her most recent book was Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World. . . .  (To continue reading, click here.)

Tom Geoghegan Is A Progressive Running to Replace Rahm Emanuel In Illinois’ Fifth; He Could Win

Update: Thursday, February 19:

Tom Geoghegan has just been endorsed in the Fifth District Democratic primary by Democrats for America (DFA).

by James M. Wall

At last count, 14 candidates are competing in the special March 3 Democratic primary to fill Rahm Emanuel’s Illinois 5th Congressional District seat. There will be an April 7 General Election, but this is Chicago, so the primary will pick the next congressman from the Fifth.

Don Rose, veteran independent political operative and columnist, describes the district in a recent Chicago Sun Times column:

The 5th is the second-toughest Machine-controlled Democratic congressional district in Chicago. It differs slightly from the conservative 3rd District because of a handful of independent-liberal lakefront precincts comprising 18 percent of the vote. . . .

High profile congressmen from the Fifth have included Dan Rostenkowski, who served the district for 36 years before his imprisonment on fraud charges, and Rod Blagojevich, who stopped by the district long enough to become governor before he crashed and burned.

Rahm Emanuel held the seat between two stints in the White House, first with Bill Clinton, and now as Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff. Emanuel also managed to shoe horn in two years out of politics in the world of financial deal making, during which time he built a $18 million personal kitty and an enhanced rolodex, both of which were assets in his successful run to become Blagojevich’s successor. (Click here to continue reading.)

A Good Samaritan Comes Upon a Homeless Woman; She is Homeless No More

by James M. Wall

There are not many “good news” stories in politics these days. But a Florida woman, Henrietta Hughes, was central to one of the few “good news” moments that reached national attention in Fort Myers Thursday.

Huffington Post has the story with two videos, one with the beginning of the story, the other with the aftermath.

As Henrietta Hughes told the story to CNN, she had been unable to find work since 2003. She and her son Corey, have been homeless, sleeping wherever they could find a place to bed down.

Hughes had thought of writing the President to tell him her story. Then Hughes learned from her son that President Obama was to be in Fort Myers Tuesday. Someone told her she could stand in line and possibly get a ticket to see the President.

She stood in line for 12 hours. She got into the hall and was standing close to the platform where the president was speaking and taking questions. He called on her. Tearfully, she told Obama her story. (See the video here, posted by Huffington Post).

Hughes told the President she needed a place to live. Touched, he came over, kissed her and promised to have his staff look into her situation. What neither of them could have anticipated is that another woman, Chene Thompson, learned about Hughes’ meeting with the president. (To continue reading, click here.)

Helen Thomas is Back and Obama Has Her; Now What Does He Do?

by James M. Wall                                          

It was yet another sign that the Bush years are over when 48 minutes into his first White House presidential press conference, President Obama turned to Helen Thomas, who, at least for the moment, is back on the White House predetermined questioner list.

Writing for Slate in March, 2003, Jack Shafer described Thomas’ snub by the Bush media handlers.

At his televised news conference last week, President George W. Bush deliberately snubbed several reporters he ordinarily calls upon, including journos from the Washington Post, Newsweek, and USA Today.

But the most conspicuous recipient of the 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. freeze-out was longtime UPI reporter Helen Thomas, who has barbed and grilled every president since John F. Kennedy and almost always gets to ask a question. Bush pointedly ignored her.

Bush then dealt Thomas a second slight. By custom, Thomas concludes White House press conferences at the president’s signal by saying, “Thank you, Mr. President.” Bush denied her that supporting role, ending the conference with his own sign off, “Thank you for your questions,” and flushing a decades-old White House custom.

George Bush is now back in Texas.  Helen Thomas, the daughter of Christian immigrants from Lebanon, has covered every US president since John F. Kennedy. Now 88, she remains active on the lecture circuit and still writes a syndicated column.

Barack Obama chose to bring Thomas back to the White House press conference privilege list, no doubt aware that in a recent column she addressed the tax problems of Timothy Geithner, the new Secretary of the Treasury, by noting the irony that the Treasury Secretary administers the Internal Revenue Department. (To continue reading, click here.)

Tom Harkin and Raul M. Grijalva Push Howard Dean for HHS

by James M. Wall                      

I first met Howard Dean during the early days of his 2004 run for the presidency. He struck me then, as he does now, as a passionate man with progressive ideas, a politician willing to take risks.

It is therefore, no surprise that two prominent Democratic members of Congress, Iowa’s Senator Tom Harkin and Arizona Representative Raul M. Grijalva have this week, separately, recommended that President Obama consider naming Howard Dean as the next Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The Hill story that reported these endorsements traces the history of Dean’s campaign for president and his tenure as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. It also reports on an unverified story circulating in Washington: Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has been blocking Dean from the HHS position. (To continue reading, click here).

Mitchell’s Two Big Problems: Israel Attempts to Ban Arab Political Parties as Lieberman Grows Stronger

Updated:

by James M. Wall                        

Obama envoy George Mitchell faces two big problems in his effort to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

Because the problems are intimately connected they will have a major impact on the Israeli Knesset election, February 10.  The first problem involves the initial banning of two major Arab political parties, Balad and the United Arab List-Ta’al (UAL-T), from taking part in the election.

The reason for the banning? Party members, all of whom are Israeli citizens, had openly protested the war in Gaza. Israel’s Election Commission voted on January 10 to ban the two Arab parties from the February 10 election.

After the two parties protested, on January 21 Israel’s High Court of Justice restored them to the ballot. This legal victory, however, will not reverse a growing trend in Israel politics: A mood of intolerance toward its own Arab citizens. (To continue click here.)

A Sad Reminder from Illinois:”Money is the mother’s milk of politics”

By James M. Wall              

Listening to the 59 Illinois state senators solemnly repeat their “yes” vote to remove Governor Rod Blagojevich  from office, one had to wonder: How many of them thought, “there but for the grace of God go I”?

Everyone of those senators got to their senate seats in Springfield by raising money, some of which came from $25 checks from the average vote.

But most of the money that lifted those senators up the political ladder came from persons of wealth, lobbyists, contractors, lawyers, and other citizens who had something other than “good government” on their minds when they wrote out their checks.

Jesse Unruh, Speaker of the California Assembly from 1961 to 1968, is credited with coining the phrase, ”Money is the mother’s milk of politics.” Every office holder or aspiring office holder in every state in the union knows this is true. (To continue reading, click here)

In “Waltz With Bashir” Art Connects Gaza to Sabra and Shatila

By James M. Wall                                          

Waltz With Bashir, an animated documentary film by Israeli Director Ari Folman, arrived in U.S. theaters during the recent Israeli invasion of Gaza.

During the invasion, Gary Kamiya wrote a review of the film for Salon.com. He entitled it: “What Waltz With Bashir can teach us about Gaza”. Here is an excerpt from that review. . .  (To continue reading, click here.)

Obama Names George Mitchell Top Middle East Envoy

by James M. Wall

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Or, if you prefer, there is a God in Heaven who has finally figured enough is enough. You know the God I mean, the One who led President Barack Obama to choose George Mitchell as his Middle East envoy.

OK, if you don’t like this theology, or any theology, at least, accept Mitchell as a gift from Santa Claus one month late. (To continue reading, click here.)

“Lift Every Voice and Sing”

by James M. Wall

After Barack Hussein Obama became the 44th president of the United States, he delivered a stirring inaugural address that called on Americans to join with him in addressing the problems facing the nation. . . .

Obama’s speech was followed by a benediction from 87-year-old Joseph Lowery, from Atlanta, Georgia, whose opening words must have sounded familiar to the millions of African Americans in the crowd and around the nation. . . To continue, click here)

Pastor to Obama:”Perhaps you are where you are for such a time.”

by James M. Wall

On Sunday morning, President-elect Barack Obama and his family worshipped together at the 19th Street Baptist Church. The Obamas’ new hometown newspaper, the Washington Post, covered the event:

President-elect Barack Obama and his family attended services this morning at one of the oldest historically black churches in Washington . . .  The pastor, Derrick Harkins, focused his sermon on how God prepares people for challenging situations.

He told Obama: ” . . . perhaps, just perhaps, you are where you are for such a time.” . . .. (To continue reading click here.)

Israel Calls a Timeout While Gaza Continues to Suffer

By James M. Wall

Late Saturday night, Israel and its allies, the US and Egypt, made a grand show of calling a “time out” (also known as a “ceasefire”) in Israel’s relentless attacks against Gaza’s civilian population.

The US has agreed for its part to monitor the border between Egypt and Gaza. Egypt’s President Hosni Muburak will inform his people that he favored a ceasefire to end the bloodshed.

And, of course, Israel went through its “democratic” dance by letting the Knesset vote on the ceasefire. But not before killing a few more Gazan children. Don’t want those Palestinians to think we are getting soft, do we fellows? . . . To continue reading, click here.

War crimes? Or “part of a new strategic ballgame in the Arab-Israel arena”?

by James M. Wall

With the invasion of Gaza ending its third week, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported Friday, January 16, that the Palestinian death toll is now 1115, of whom 370 are children and 85 are women.

The number of injured is at least 5,015, of whom 1,745 are children and 740 are women. An estimated 400-500 are critically injured.

Mindful of these mounting death and injury figures, the International Federation for Human Rights, has urged the UN Security Council to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court for possible war crime charges in Gaza. . . To continue reading, click here.