Category: News

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How Did It Start?

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(photo: U.N.)

So how the hell did it all start?

By Uri Avnery / Antiwar.com
February 18, 2017

In 1908, a group of Arab members of the Turkish parliament . . . had a brilliant idea: why not approach the Zionists and offer them an alliance against the Turks? . . . This was a historic moment, one of those moments when history holds its breath. A totally new vista opened up: an alliance between Arabs and Jews! A joint liberation movement!

So how the hell did it all start?

Last week I tried to describe the 1948 war, starting from the shooting at a Jewish bus on the morrow of the UN partition resolution. Some readers dispute the timing. They insist that the war started on May 15, on the morrow of the founding of the State of Israel, when the armies of the neighboring Arab states entered the country.

I have seen this many times. Every serious debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict raises the question: “When did it start?” Each side has its own date, proving that the other side started it.

The Arabs started it, the Zionists assert. The conflict started with the “invasion” of the Arab armies. (“Invasion” in quotation marks, since they entered the territories allotted by the UN to the Palestinian Arab state, though their declared aim was to crush the new Jewish state right at the beginning.)

The Jews started it, the Arabs assert. They began to drive the Arab population out, leading to the Naqba (“disaster”).

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A Great New Accidental Renaissance

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Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn was filled on Feb. 6 for an evening of strategizing against President Trump. (photo: Demetrius Freeman / The New York Times)

By Timothy Egan / The New York Times
March 3, 2017

Trump has been good — indirectly — for a free press, an independent judiciary, high school civics, grass-roots political activity, cautionary tales in literature and theater, and spirituality. You don’t know what you’ve got, as the song says, till it’s gone — or nearly so.

My friend Sam laughed when I told him I was going to spend my Saturday at a “Search for Meaning” festival at a Jesuit college in the heart of seriously secular Seattle. He assumed, as I did, that a bare handful of the usual search-for-meaning suspects would be straining minutiae while still clinging to the meaninglessness of it all.

But nooooo — all the keynote events at Seattle University were completely sold out. In the winter of the American soul, people thronged to hear advice on how to “live a life of significance and impact” and to “find meaning in times of change, challenge and chaos.”

I credit President Trump. Not because he seems any more evolved than the first earthworms now appearing in the cold soil of my garden. But because the threats to truth, civility, rational thought and brotherly love coming from the White House have prompted a huge counterreaction.

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White Supremacists Targeting Washington State Colleges

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University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce. (photo: U.W.)

Campuses in 24 other states also have been hit with supremacist fliers, a new national report says.

By Katherine Long / The Seattle Times
March 6, 2017

“Don’t let these cowardly tactics succeed. Remember: There are far, far more of us than there are of them.”
— UW President Ana Mari Cauce

White-supremacist groups are targeting college campuses in Washington and 24 other states with fliers that promote their ideology, according to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League, a national organization that fights hate speech and anti-Semitism.

Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, said three white-supremacist groups appear to be at work in Washington: Identity Evropa and Atomwaffen at the University of Washington and American Vanguard at Washington State University.

In total, the Anti-Defamation League has cataloged 104 incidents of white-supremacist posters appearing on campuses in at least 25 states, starting in September 2016. “The fact we’re seeing this many fliers around the country raises a red flag,” Segal said.

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FBI Investigates Shooting of Sikh in Kent

Deep Rai, 39, told Kent police he was shot about 8 p.m. Friday by a man who told him to “go back to your own country.” Police have not identified a suspect.

By Mike Carter and Evan Bush / The Seattle Times
March 6, 2017

“Hate crimes are the highest priority of the FBI’s Civil Rights program, not only because of the devastating impact they have on families and communities, but also because groups that preach hatred and intolerance can plant the seed of terrorism here in our country.”
— FBI spokeswoman Ayn Dietrich-Williams

The FBI has opened a federal civil-rights investigation into the shooting of a Sikh man who says he was wounded by a masked gunman who told him to “go back to your own country.”

Ayn Dietrich-Williams, spokeswoman for the FBI’s Seattle office, acknowledged the investigation in an email Monday afternoon.

“The FBI is working with the Kent Police Department and will collect all available facts and evidence to determine if there is a federal civil-rights violation,” she said. “As this is an ongoing investigation we are not able to comment further at this time.”

The federal investigation, which will be conducted in conjunction with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, is in addition to a criminal investigation being conducted by Kent police.

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Detained Afghan family bound for Washington State

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Attorney Robert Blume, who represents the family, speaking to reporters in Los Angeles. (photo: Nick Ut / AP)

Government officials said the family members were given back their passports and visas and will be interviewed April 5 in Seattle to determine if they are eligible to use those visas to remain in the United States.

By Amy Taxin / The Associated Press via The Seattle Times
March 6, 2017

“It is a victory in a battle that shouldn’t have been fought. The government swung and missed on this issue, and they just got it wrong.”
— Attorney Robert Blume

An Afghan family of five who traveled to the United States on special visas and were detained by immigration officials at the Los Angeles airport were released from custody Monday, according to the U.S. government and the family’s attorneys.

The mother, father and their three young sons, including a baby, arrived at the airport Thursday for a connecting flight to Washington state, where they planned to resettle.

Instead, U.S. immigration officials detained them and split them up. They planned to send the mother and children to a detention center in Texas, but lawyers intervened over the weekend and got a federal judge to quash the transfer.

Homeland Security officials haven’t said why the family was held, while immigrant advocates asserted in a court petition that there was “absolutely no justification whatsoever.”

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How to Expel: Advice to Trump from Israel

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A Palestinian family sits next to the remains of their home near the village of Jenbah, which is in Firing Zone 918 in the West Bank, February 2, 2016. (photo: AFP)

Eight ways Trump can make Mexicans and Muslims experience what Palestinians do.

By Amira Hass / Haaretz
February 3, 2017

Barely a week has passed and you’ve screwed things up, Donald Trump. The reason is simple: You didn’t consult Israel on how to deny entry into your country without rousing half the world against you. But when it comes to your other promise — actual expulsion — you still have time to consult us.

For a lack of patience and space only two types of expulsion will be discussed here — two of the many types we’ve become experts at: the expulsion of native Palestinian Jerusalemites from their city, and the expulsion of West Bank residents from their homes.

  1. Quiet. Don’t publicize the expulsion policy. Let every person being expelled confront the decree alone and believe that the problem lies with him. Personally. . . .
  2. Astonishment. Insist that after all nothing has changed and that these laws have been there since time immemorial. . . .
  3. Gradualism. Expulsion is built one step at a time, as if by chance. . . .
  4. Legal support (A). In 1988, the Supreme Court ruled that it was legal to expel a Palestinian born in 1943 in Jerusalem because he also had foreign citizenship. . . .
  5. Variety. Don’t stick to one excuse, Mr. President. We successfully rely on a raft of excuses for expelling Palestinians from their land, their homeland, their homes. . . .
  6. Legal support (B). Our judges avoid ruling against the policy of unequal zoning and construction for Jews and Arabs.
  7. Scant water supply. Cut back on water, Trump. Rule that every Muslim or Mexican will be eligible for only a quarter or less of the water consumed by an average WASP. . . .
  8. The support of the elites. Send aides to Israel. They’ll get tips on how routine expulsion activities are greeted by the silence of most of the enlightened educated intelligentsia. . . .

[Read the full article here . . . ]

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A Letter to President Trump

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The following letter by forty-eight US university presidents and chancellors was sent to President Trump on February 2, 2017.

By Joanne Berger-Sweeney, Lee C. Bollinger, Robert A. Brown, Robert L. Barchi, and Ronald J. Daniels, et al. / The New York Review of Books
March 9, 2017

Throughout its history America has been a land of opportunity and a beacon of freedom in the world. It has attracted talented people to our shores and inspired people around the globe. This executive order is dimming the lamp of liberty and staining the country’s reputation. We respectfully urge you to rectify the damage done by this order.

President Donald J. Trump
The White House
United States of America

Dear President Trump:

We write as presidents of leading American colleges and universities to urge you to rectify or rescind the recent executive order closing our country’s borders to immigrants and others from seven majority-Muslim countries and to refugees from throughout the world. If left in place, the order threatens both American higher education and the defining principles of our country.

The order specifically prevents talented, law-abiding students and scholars from the affected regions from reaching our campuses. American higher education has benefited tremendously from this country’s long history of embracing immigrants from around the world. Their innovations and scholarship have enhanced American learning, added to our prosperity, and enriched our culture. Many who have returned to their own countries have taken with them the values that are the lifeblood of our democracy. America’s educational, scientific, economic, and artistic leadership depends upon our continued ability to attract the extraordinary people who for many generations have come to this country in search of freedom and a better life.

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Afghan Family, Visas in Hand, Detained in Los Angeles

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Los Angeles International Airport (photo: Patrick T. Fallon / Reuters)

An Afghan family of five that had received approval to move to the United States based on the father’s work for the U.S. government was detained after flying into Los Angeles, a legal advocacy group said in court documents filed Saturday.

By Nicholas Kulish / The New York Times via The Seattle Times
March 5, 2017

“I’ve never, ever heard of this happening. They go through so many layers of security clearance, including one right before they get on the plane.”
— Becca Heller, Director of the International Refugee Assistance Project

An Afghan family of five that had received approval to move to the United States based on the father’s work for the U.S. government has been detained for more than two days after flying into Los Angeles International Airport, a legal advocacy group said in court documents filed Saturday.

A federal judge in Los Angeles on Saturday evening issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the mother and children from being transferred out of the state. The order, by Judge Josephine L. Staton of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, arrived as they were about to be put on a plane to Texas, most likely bound for a family detention center there, lawyers said.

The scene at the airport was “chaotic, panicked, it was a mess,” said Lali Madduri, a lawyer with the firm Gibson Dunn, which is representing the family pro bono. “The whole time the children are crying, the woman is crying. They can’t understand what’s going on.”

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Banksy’s Bethlehem Hotel with the “Worst View in the World”

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An Israeli watchtower seen from one of the rooms of the Walled Off Hotel in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. (photo: Dusan Vranic / Associated Press)

Welcome to the “Walled Off Hotel,” the hotel with “worst view in the world.” Please be mindful of the million-dollar art on the walls.

By Russell Goldman / The New York Times
March 3, 2017

The elusive British street artist Banksy has decorated the interiors of the Walled Off Hotel, a nine-room guesthouse in the West Bank city of Bethlehem whose windows overlook the barrier that separates the territory from Israel.

Among the rooms decorated by the artist, who has earned a following for tagging walls around the world with witty illustrations and dark political commentaries, is the “Banksy Room.”

In the room, a mural on the wall above a king-size bed depicts a Palestinian and an Israeli locked in combat — only they are having a pillow fight.

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We are Using the Wrong Timeline for the Jewish State

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Foreign ministers 100 years apart: Arthur Balfour of Britain and John Kerry of the U.S. (photos: Mondoweiss)

In his parting speech, former Secretary of State John Kerry described a future of a “one-state” scenario — Palestinians living in enclaves without rights — but he was actually describing the situation of today.

By Jonathan Ofir / Mondoweiss
January 3, 2017

“I say [the two state solution] was not born because I think that there was not one Prime Minister in Israel who ever really intended it. Because if there had been a PM who would have really intended it, then they would first of all stop with the settlements. And no PM has ever stopped with the settlements.”
— Gideon Levy

In his recent speech titled “Remarks on Middle East Peace,” US Secretary of State John Kerry offered a wide historical symmetric trajectory including “milestones” which Kerry believes “illustrate the two sides of the conflict and form the basis for its resolution.”

His three-point trajectory was based upon three dates: 1897, 1947 and 1967.

It started out 120 years ago, 1897, with the First Zionist Congress in Basel, “by a group of Jewish visionaries, who decided that the only effective response to the waves of anti-Semitic horrors sweeping across Europe was to create a state in the historic home of the Jewish people, where their ties to the land went back centuries – a state that could defend its borders, protect its people, and live in peace with its neighbors. That was the vision. That was the modern beginning, and it remains the dream of Israel today,” as Kerry appraises.
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