28 oct 2013
Former British foreign secretary Jack Straw told a gathering in the House of Commons last week that AIPAC’s “unlimited” funding and intimidation of American politicians is one of the main barriers to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Straw, who has been sharply critical of Israeli foreign policy, also said Germany’s “obsession” with defending Israel was another impediment to peace, according to former MK Einat Wilf.
Straw was foreign secretary under prime minister Tony Blair, and he announced at the end of last week that he would not seek reelection to Parliament.
His comments came during a round table discussion hosted by the Global Diplomatic Forum, a British nongovernmental organization, on October 22. The event was not videotaped or recorded and a spokeswoman for the forum was unable to provide a summary of the discussion by press time.
Straw’s office did not respond to requests for comment and an employee of the Israeli Embassy in London who also attended the event declined to answer questions.
A spokesman for the British Embassy in Tel Aviv said it would have no comment.
The news of Straw’s comments spread on social media after Wilf posted a photo on Facebook and discussed Straw’s statements. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Wilf said Straw argued that the intransigence of the Israeli government was an impediment for peace.
“He talked then about the unlimited amount of money available to Jewish organizations and to AIPAC to divert, I think was his words, American policy,” Wilf said. “He talked about Germany’s ‘obsession’ [with] defending Israel.”
Wilf said she “found the choice of words very interesting. He could have talked about Germany’s obligation to defend Israel. He could have talked about Germany’s sense of duty to defend Israel. But he chose to talk about Germany’s obsession.”
When asked whether she found the comments anti- Semitic, Wilf said that “there’s a whole discussion of how European anti-Semitism has mutated into this anti-Israel view.
“You take anti-Semitic classic kind of attacks about Jews controlling the world, and Jews manipulating politics behind the scenes, about Jewish money [used] to divert public will, and you just put it in the Israel context,” she said.
Straw, both in his cabinet position and as a member of Parliament, has criticized Israeli policies, particularly regarding military action in the Palestinian territories.
In 2001, he called the Israeli Forces action in the town of Beit Jala “excessive and disproportionate,” when they took over civilian residences and engaged in firefights with Palestinians who were indiscriminately firing at the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. In 2002, he called on the government to withdraw from the West Bank. During the 2004 Operation Days of Penitence, Straw said the IDF was “causing civilians death and injuries and unnecessary suffering.”
Most recently, he told BBC Radio4 in June that Israel has an “extensive” nuclear weapons program but has “no territorial ambitions apart from stealing the land of the Palestinians.”
Straw was foreign secretary under prime minister Tony Blair, and he announced at the end of last week that he would not seek reelection to Parliament.
His comments came during a round table discussion hosted by the Global Diplomatic Forum, a British nongovernmental organization, on October 22. The event was not videotaped or recorded and a spokeswoman for the forum was unable to provide a summary of the discussion by press time.
Straw’s office did not respond to requests for comment and an employee of the Israeli Embassy in London who also attended the event declined to answer questions.
A spokesman for the British Embassy in Tel Aviv said it would have no comment.
The news of Straw’s comments spread on social media after Wilf posted a photo on Facebook and discussed Straw’s statements. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Wilf said Straw argued that the intransigence of the Israeli government was an impediment for peace.
“He talked then about the unlimited amount of money available to Jewish organizations and to AIPAC to divert, I think was his words, American policy,” Wilf said. “He talked about Germany’s ‘obsession’ [with] defending Israel.”
Wilf said she “found the choice of words very interesting. He could have talked about Germany’s obligation to defend Israel. He could have talked about Germany’s sense of duty to defend Israel. But he chose to talk about Germany’s obsession.”
When asked whether she found the comments anti- Semitic, Wilf said that “there’s a whole discussion of how European anti-Semitism has mutated into this anti-Israel view.
“You take anti-Semitic classic kind of attacks about Jews controlling the world, and Jews manipulating politics behind the scenes, about Jewish money [used] to divert public will, and you just put it in the Israel context,” she said.
Straw, both in his cabinet position and as a member of Parliament, has criticized Israeli policies, particularly regarding military action in the Palestinian territories.
In 2001, he called the Israeli Forces action in the town of Beit Jala “excessive and disproportionate,” when they took over civilian residences and engaged in firefights with Palestinians who were indiscriminately firing at the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. In 2002, he called on the government to withdraw from the West Bank. During the 2004 Operation Days of Penitence, Straw said the IDF was “causing civilians death and injuries and unnecessary suffering.”
Most recently, he told BBC Radio4 in June that Israel has an “extensive” nuclear weapons program but has “no territorial ambitions apart from stealing the land of the Palestinians.”
5 oct 2013
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Israel is an integral element of the US imperialistic policy to reinforce Washington’s hegemonic agenda across the Middle East, a political analyst says, Press TV reports.
In a Friday article on Press TV, Finian Cunningham argued that Israel is not merely an entity that pressures Washington through Zionist lobby groups and bribes US Congress, “but, more fundamentally, Israel serves to project American imperialist interests and power in the Middle East.” “The affront to international law and human rights that the Israeli regime incarnates, the conflict and wars that it fuels, all these violations are an integral part of how US imperialism asserts hegemony across the Middle East region and beyond,” Cunningham wrote. |
He pointed to Saudi Arabia and other Arab authoritarian regimes as other parts of the US’ “anti-democratic architecture that guarantees Washington’s domination in the oil-rich Middle East.”
“That domination depends not just on the flow of oil and massive weapons sales from conflicts, but more crucially on the flow of petrodollars to prop up the bankrupt American Federal Reserve,” the analyst pointed out.
He also pointed to the decades-long US animosity toward Iran as part of Washington’s imperialistic agenda that serves the capitalistic interests of the White House, adding, “American imperialism is hostile to any nation that pursues a path of independent economic and political development. Iran is top of that list.”
Cunningham also referred to the recent signs of an improvement in the Iran-US relationship and noted, “The ignominious history of American aggression towards Iran will require some earnest practical measures to build confidence in Washington’s purported sincerity. The immediate canceling of illegal US sanctions would be a good place to start, one where the onus is firmly on Washington, not Tehran.”
On September 26, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his American counterpart John Kerry held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the 68th meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York.
A day later, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his American counterpart held a landmark phone conversation mainly focusing on Iran’s nuclear energy program. It was the first direct communication between an Iranian and a US president since the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution more than three decades ago.
“That domination depends not just on the flow of oil and massive weapons sales from conflicts, but more crucially on the flow of petrodollars to prop up the bankrupt American Federal Reserve,” the analyst pointed out.
He also pointed to the decades-long US animosity toward Iran as part of Washington’s imperialistic agenda that serves the capitalistic interests of the White House, adding, “American imperialism is hostile to any nation that pursues a path of independent economic and political development. Iran is top of that list.”
Cunningham also referred to the recent signs of an improvement in the Iran-US relationship and noted, “The ignominious history of American aggression towards Iran will require some earnest practical measures to build confidence in Washington’s purported sincerity. The immediate canceling of illegal US sanctions would be a good place to start, one where the onus is firmly on Washington, not Tehran.”
On September 26, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his American counterpart John Kerry held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the 68th meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York.
A day later, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his American counterpart held a landmark phone conversation mainly focusing on Iran’s nuclear energy program. It was the first direct communication between an Iranian and a US president since the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution more than three decades ago.
22 sept 2013
Screenshot from the website of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network shows the logo it has been using for years.
Having seen so much of their country occupied and colonized by Israel, Palestinians have often objected to Israeli attempts to appropriate symbols of their culture as well, including dishes like hummus, falafel and olive oil, as well as dance, music and folklore.
But here’s a new twist. The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University has ripped off the name and logo of the well-known Palestinian think-tank Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network (for which I am a policy advisor).
The name Al-Shabaka means “the network” in Arabic, reflecting the fact that Al-Shabaka’s Palestinian members and contributors are dispersed all over the world.
“Al” preceding the name is the Arabic definite article, roughly equivalent to “The” in English.
At the top of this post is a screenshot from Al-Shabaka’s website including the logo it has been using for years.
Uncanny similarity This month, the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University launched a new publication with the name “Shabaka.” [PDF] This is its logo:
Having seen so much of their country occupied and colonized by Israel, Palestinians have often objected to Israeli attempts to appropriate symbols of their culture as well, including dishes like hummus, falafel and olive oil, as well as dance, music and folklore.
But here’s a new twist. The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University has ripped off the name and logo of the well-known Palestinian think-tank Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network (for which I am a policy advisor).
The name Al-Shabaka means “the network” in Arabic, reflecting the fact that Al-Shabaka’s Palestinian members and contributors are dispersed all over the world.
“Al” preceding the name is the Arabic definite article, roughly equivalent to “The” in English.
At the top of this post is a screenshot from Al-Shabaka’s website including the logo it has been using for years.
Uncanny similarity This month, the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University launched a new publication with the name “Shabaka.” [PDF] This is its logo:
The logo for “Shabaka” released this month by the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University bears striking resemblance to that of Al-Shabaka.
The first issue states:
Shabaka (“Network” in Arabic and Turkish) is a new newsletter published by the Moshe Dayan Center. It will summarize and analyze noteworthy trends of discussion on Arabic and Turkish SNS [social networking sites].
“Blatant lifting” I asked Nadia Hijab, co-founder and director of Al-Shabaka, what she thought of the striking similarity. She wrote:
We were really shocked and upset to see this blatant lifting of not just our name but also our logo. It looks like the intention is to sow confusion and try to make life harder for a think-tank aiming to put a Palestinian policy voice on the map. But our numbers are growing – members, readers, social media outreach – and that’s certainly not going to stop us. We’ve written to them asking them to cease and desist.
Unlikely to be coincidence Any Internet search for the word “shabaka” produces a link to Al-Shabaka high in the results. It is not credible that the Moshe Dayan Center would have been unaware of Al-Shabaka when it chose the name “Shabaka.”
It is even more implausible that the Moshe Dayan Center independently came up with an almost identical logo.
Tel Aviv University is itself built on stolen Palestinian land belonging to the village of Sheikh Muwannis.
When Israel has already taken so much from Palestinians, perhaps, someone thought, “so what if we help ourselves to a name and logo as well?”
Update Shortly after publishing this post, I was informed by Nadia Hijab that Al-Shabaka had received an emailed response from Moshe Dayan Center director Uzi Rabi saying that Tel Aviv University is closed this week, but that they will treat this as an urgent matter and provide a full response.
In reaction, Hijab commented: “It’s good they’re taking this seriously. The similarity between the names and logos is so striking that we feel driven to treat this as an act of infringement on our intellectual property. We trust that they will respond appropriately and that it will not be necessary to pursue this matter further.”
The first issue states:
Shabaka (“Network” in Arabic and Turkish) is a new newsletter published by the Moshe Dayan Center. It will summarize and analyze noteworthy trends of discussion on Arabic and Turkish SNS [social networking sites].
“Blatant lifting” I asked Nadia Hijab, co-founder and director of Al-Shabaka, what she thought of the striking similarity. She wrote:
We were really shocked and upset to see this blatant lifting of not just our name but also our logo. It looks like the intention is to sow confusion and try to make life harder for a think-tank aiming to put a Palestinian policy voice on the map. But our numbers are growing – members, readers, social media outreach – and that’s certainly not going to stop us. We’ve written to them asking them to cease and desist.
Unlikely to be coincidence Any Internet search for the word “shabaka” produces a link to Al-Shabaka high in the results. It is not credible that the Moshe Dayan Center would have been unaware of Al-Shabaka when it chose the name “Shabaka.”
It is even more implausible that the Moshe Dayan Center independently came up with an almost identical logo.
Tel Aviv University is itself built on stolen Palestinian land belonging to the village of Sheikh Muwannis.
When Israel has already taken so much from Palestinians, perhaps, someone thought, “so what if we help ourselves to a name and logo as well?”
Update Shortly after publishing this post, I was informed by Nadia Hijab that Al-Shabaka had received an emailed response from Moshe Dayan Center director Uzi Rabi saying that Tel Aviv University is closed this week, but that they will treat this as an urgent matter and provide a full response.
In reaction, Hijab commented: “It’s good they’re taking this seriously. The similarity between the names and logos is so striking that we feel driven to treat this as an act of infringement on our intellectual property. We trust that they will respond appropriately and that it will not be necessary to pursue this matter further.”
20 sept 2013
Here is AIPAC’s official response [PDF] to the growing possibility that Iran and the United States will negotiate to reach an agreement on the nuclear issue, It can be summed up in three words: NO, NO, NO.
Netanyahu and his lobby want war and, suddenly, they fear they won’t get it. It’s like Dickens wrote: it was the worst of times and it was the worst of times.
I think I will read AIPAC’s memo [PDF] again over Shabbat dinner. Seeing them in pain is, in itself, a blessing.
Netanyahu and his lobby want war and, suddenly, they fear they won’t get it. It’s like Dickens wrote: it was the worst of times and it was the worst of times.
I think I will read AIPAC’s memo [PDF] again over Shabbat dinner. Seeing them in pain is, in itself, a blessing.