A view from the Jewish left

[Docd187123]

Now that President Obama is calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an unwilling partner in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Palestinian representatives in the United States have a simple message for him: We told you so.

Oded Balilty/AP Photo
“Ever since [Netanyahu] came to power in 2009, he did not have any intention whatsoever to deal with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” said Maen Areikat, the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s representative to the United States.

“I think he is telling the world, 'Here I am. I want to show you my true skin,'” he added.

President Obama said the United States would re-evaluate its policies towards Israeli-Palestinian issues after Netanyahu said, the day before parliamentary elections, that he would not see a Palestinian state established if he were re-elected.

“We take him at his word when he said that it wouldn’t happen during his prime ministership," Obama said in an interview with The Huffington Post Saturday. "And so, that’s why we’ve got to evaluate what other options are available to make sure that we don’t see a chaotic situation in the region.”

Netanyahu’s Likud party went on to victory, which many political observers attributed to Netanyahu's comments on a Palestinian state and other comments that were seen as driving divisions between Israeli Jews and minorities. He has walked back those statements -- most recently apologizing to Israeli Arabs in remarks at his official residence Monday evening -- but the White House insisted the damage was done.

Areikat said the government he represents understands why Obama gave Netanyahu the benefit of the doubt until now, but that just looking at domestic Israeli politics, it was clear he was never serious about peace talks -- which have started and stopped twice since Obama and Netanyahu took office.

Netanyahu ran his campaign largely on security issues and the threat he said would befall Israel if his center-left opponents took over.

“This whole shift in Israeli politics in recent years was fundamentally based on misperceptions, false presentations, a culture of fear exported to the Israeli people about the security issues,” Areikat said. “This current government succeeded in somehow selling what it sold its own public to the rest of the world, especially the United States.”

The Israeli embassy in the United States did not respond to requests for comment on the issue.

One policy shift the Obama administration has already floated is to support, or at least not actively oppose, a United Nations Security Council resolution defining Palestinian statehood, which it had previously opposed because it believed such a move could jeopardize direct talks, which it believed were more effective.

Oded Balilty/AP Photo
PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greets supporters at the party's election headquarters


Last week, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Netanyahu’s comments “have consequences for actions that we take at the United Nations and other places,” although during the Huffington Post interview Obama would not say whether or not he would support such a resolution.

But the Palestinian ambassador to the U.N., Riyad Mansour, suggested that was one way the U.S. could register its disillusionment with Netanyahu.

“A United Nations Security Council resolution legislating the two-state solution would be an appropriate option to defend the two-state solution which enjoys a global consensus,” he said.

Airekat said that while supporting a U.N. resolution would be a step in the right direction, he wanted the U.S. to also urge Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank.

“Nobody knows what the United States is planning to do. We are hoping together to hear from them in the coming days about what they have in mind,” he said.

So far, the United States has only signaled that it might make changes, without actually making any yet. But long wait times are nothing new for participants in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process -- something Mansour seemed to acknowledge when he spoke generally of this new shift in U.S. policy.

“This process will likely take time," he said. "However, we do hope it happens quickly.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/palestinians-obama-told-netanyahu/story?id=29845638

 

[Docd187123]

Amnesty International has lashed out at Israel for committing war crimes against Palestinians, slamming the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the international community for failing to protect citizens against violence.

Amnesty's Secretary General Shalil Shetty made the remarks in a 415-page annual report of the group on Wednesday, focusing on Israeli crimes against Palestinians and on violence against people by armed groups in in the world, especially in Syria, Iraq, and Nigeria.

Pointing to the Tel Aviv regime’s atrocities against Palestinians, Shetty said in the report that the July 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza which claimed more than 2,000 lives - at least 1,500 of them civilians – was “marked by callous indifference and involved war crimes.”

Referring to the ISIL terrorists, Amnesty's Secretary General Shalil Shetty said in the report that the Takfiri group “has been responsible for war crimes in Syria, [and] has carried out abductions, execution-style killings and ethnic cleansing on a massive scale in northern Iraq.”

In the past four years, the report said, more than 200,000 people have died in Syria - overwhelmingly civilians – and around 4 million Syrian people are now refugees in other countries. Another 7.6 million are displaced inside Syria, the report added.

As for conflicts in other regions, the report also mentioned atrocities by Boko Haram in Nigeria as well as the sectarian violence in the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

The report blamed the international community for paying “lip services to the importance of protecting civilians” and still failing to protect them. “Amnesty International believes that this can and must finally change,” it said.

The group also criticized world governments for “pretending the protection of civilians is beyond their power.”

UN Security Council failure

The report by Amnesty International criticized the UNSC, saying the UN body has “miserably failed” to protect civilians.

The five permanent members of the UNSC “consistently abused” their veto power to “promote their political self-interest or geopolitical interest above the interest of protecting civilians,” it said.

The UNSC is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and according to the UN Charter, its responsibility is to maintain international peace and security

Its five permanent members that are world's main powers – namely Britain, China, France, Russia and the US – have the “veto” power which can prevent adoption of any resolution.

Amnesty international in the report called on the five states to give up their veto power in cases where genocide and other mass killings are being committed, saying such an action would give the UN a better opportunity to save civilian lives in conflicts.

Refugee crisis

He further denounced the international community for failing to appropriately respond to the ongoing refugee crisis in the world.

“It is abhorrent to see how wealthy countries’ efforts to keep people out take precedence over their efforts to keep people alive. The global refugee crisis is only likely to get worse, unless urgent measures are taken,” said Shetty in the report.

The report underscored that the refugee crisis has stemmed from the ongoing conflicts in the world and described it a consequence of the international community’s inability to cope with the issue.

“Leaders have it in their power to alleviate the suffering of millions—by committing political and financial resources to assist and protect those fleeing danger, delivering humanitarian aid generously, and resettling the most vulnerable.”

2014 catastrophic year

The annual report also highlighted that the year 2014 was a disastrous year for millions of people caught in violence across the world.

“2014 was a catastrophic year for millions caught up in violence,” Shetty said, adding, “The global response to conflict and abuses by states and armed groups has been shameful and ineffective.”

“As people suffered an escalation in barbarous attacks and repression, the international community has been found wanting,” Shetty said.

“The global outlook on the state of human rights is bleak, but there are solutions. World leaders must take immediate and decisive action to avert an impending global crisis and take us one step closer to a safer world in which rights and freedoms are protected,” said Salil.

The report alarmed that the situation would get worse this year unless world leaders took immediate action.

IA/NN/HRB

http://presstv.ir/Detail/2015/02/25/399080/Amnesty-slams-Israel-for-war-crimes

 

[kawilt]

It doesn't make any difference at all what the United Nations say in their resolutions. Israel will do what it believes is in it's best interest. They have already ignored over 21 resolutions in the past.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

AP Analysis: Is Israel Democratic? Not So Clear
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/ap-analysis-israel-democratic-clear-29843543?singlePage=true

Is Israel a democracy? The answer is not so straightforward, and it increasingly matters given the diplomatic fallout over hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu's re-election last week.

The displeasure felt in some quarters over his win has placed front and center the world community's unwritten obligation to accept the results of a truly democratic vote. It is a basic tenet of the modern order which has survived the occasional awkward election result — as well as recent decades' emergence of some less-than-pristine democracies around the globe.

For Israel, the argument is especially piquant, because its claim to be the only true democracy in the Middle East has been key to its branding and its vitally important claim on U.S. military, diplomatic and financial support. Israel's elections, from campaign rules to vote counts, are indeed not suspect.

But with the occupation of the West Bank grinding on toward the half-century mark, and with Netanyahu's election-week suggestion that no change is imminent, hard questions arise.

Republican Sen. John McCain reflected the traditional appreciation of Israel when he advised President Barack Obama to "get over it" — a reference to reports that the United States was reassessing relations with Israel in the wake of the result. McCain told CNN that "there was a free and fair democratic election" in Israel — "the only nation in the region that will have such a thing."

But among Israelis themselves, there is increasing angst over the fact that their country of 8 million people also controls some 2.5 million West Bank Palestinians who have no voting rights for its parliament.

 

[Docd187123]

Anybody else find it ironic that Kawilt posts something by Chomsky and CBS labels him an anti-Semite and vilifies Chomsky meanwhile the good doctor posts a Chomsky video and nada?

 

[kawilt]

American Jews are taking back their power from Israel
US Politics
Philip Weiss on March 24, 2015 80 Comments

A demonstrator holds a sign during a rally near the Israeli Consulate in New York to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech in front on Congress. (Photo: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

    



The last month has seen the greatest change in the US relationship with Israel in more than 40 years, maybe since the 1973 war, or possibly even Suez, or the creation of the state. We see President Obama repeatedly faulting the Israeli prime minister’s conduct, politicians boycotting the Israeli p.m.’s speech in Washington, and suggestions in the official press that Democrats are going to run against Israel in the next election season. The 1991 fight between George Bush and Yitzhak Shamir that helped elect Bill Clinton and Rabin doesn’t approach what we are seeing today. Yesterday the White House chief of staff got rousing cheers in Washington from J Street, the liberal Zionist group, as he slammed Israel as an occupier: “An occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end.”

Why is this rupture happening now? Why didn’t it happen during any number of earlier provocations, from the building of Har Homa settlement outside Jerusalem to the fomenting of the Iraq war to the slaughter of Cast Lead?

This moment must be seen primarily as a generational Jewish moment. Our politicians and newspapers are speaking out because they are licensed by a segment of the official Jewish community that is deeply troubled by Israel’s behavior. In 1967, American Jews fell in love with Israel and made a solemn promise to protect the country through thick and thin. Nearly fifty years later the same community is reconsidering that vow. What we are seeing is a transfer of power from the Israeli Jewish community to the Diaspora Jewish community that Benjamin Netanyahu failed to anticipate even as he precipitated it. This transfer will not be reversed, and it marks the end of the traditional Israel lobby, though not the end of the “special relationship” between the countries.

The old lobby that so influenced US policy on the conflict for 40 years was based on a simple principle: There must never be daylight between the US administration and the Israeli government, no matter who was in power in Israel, a former terrorist, a war criminal, a rightwing lunatic. No daylight was the motto of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC holds a profound trust: it justly believes its support to be crucial to Israel’s survival, and it was able to maintain order in the official Jewish community behind the No-daylight principle through massacres and colonization because the American Jewish community deferred to the Israeli one. The deference is encapsulated by Bill Kristol’s response in an Upper West Side synagogue to Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street some years ago: It would be “cavalier” of me to sit here in comfort and criticize Israel even if I wondered about its actions, Kristol said. That attitude was reinforced by the Holocaust message, Never again, and by the Jewish religious instruction that Jews in Israel are aliyah, higher, while we in the west are yoredim, or lower.

Liberal secular Jews accepted that back seat. We were in no position to criticize Israel because we didn’t live there and our children didn’t serve in armies. My mother is typical: a liberal Democrat who votes against war and has never been to Israel, she puts photos of her best friend’s children in Israeli uniform on the refrigerator and bites her tongue about the occupation.

No doubt there have been many moments of strain between the liberal Jewish community and Israel. Sabra and Shatilla, Cast Lead, Lebanon, Operation Defensive Shield during the Second Intifada. At each of these horrors, segments of the Jewish population fell out of love for Israel, from Breira to Jews Against the Occupation to Jews Say No, but that splintering didn’t really matter in the official world. The lobby was able to marginalize dissidents so that there were no fractures in the monolith that dealt with establishment politicians. Even the group that has been the leading critic of the settlements – Americans for Peace Now — refused to leave the Conference of Presidents, a very conservative no-daylight organization, lest Peace Now lose access to power as a member of the Jewish inner circle. Peace Now valued Jewish solidarity higher than its human rights principles.

The lobby would not lose power—said MJ Rosenberg, an AIPAC apostate—until congresspeople such as Jerrold Nadler got buttonholed by reporters about their blind support for Israel. That moment finally seems to be upon us, and the question is, Why did things change now? What was special about this provocation?

The Jewish community split on Israel not because of Netanyahu’s racism or his massacres or his rubbishing of the two-state solution; but because he acted in such a way as to place American Jews’ loyalty to the United States in doubt by making the historic speech to Congress on March 3 that even the New York Times has called “subversive.” It was one thing for American Jews to support Israel when the argument could be made that American and Israeli interests aligned. Louis Brandeis helped form Zionist pressure groups in the first place by stating that it was the American way for ethnic groups to show loyalty to their own kind. But the Netanyahu speech to Congress was a shocking and unprecedented interference by a foreign leader in our politics. A generation from now people won’t believe that this even happened. It did happen. A warmongering prime minister sought to undermine a president’s peacemaking policy by coming to Congress at the invitation of Republicans to fight the president’s deal with Iran. The power-play surely reflected the importance of conservative Jewish money in our political process– Bill Kristol’s group the Emergency Committee for Israel had given $1 million to make the career of the Republicanfreshman senator at the head of insurgency– and it was agonizing to Jews and Democrats who are also beholden to the lobby. The New York Times stated their dilemma plainly: they would “need to make an awkward, painful choice between the president of their country and their loyalty to the Jewish state.” Their loyalty to the Jewish state! Those words are shocking and nearly seditious; and many Democrats made a clear choice, they were on Obama’s side. The Netanyahu speech was surely popular in Israel – when I was there last week, even young people at the polls praised him for his strength – and it delighted the neoconservatives, but it angered liberal Jews.

It took a while for that outrage to coalesce over the six weeks between the announcement of the speech in January and the speech in March. For some time, the main response in the Jewish community was to wish the speech did not happen. J Street pleaded with the Prime Minister not to make Americans have to choose sides over Israel. And even AIPAC worked behind the scenes to try and make the nightmare go away. But the speech went forward, and it did what J Street and AIPAC both feared: it caused Americans and American Jews to have to take a stand. This was a no-brainer for liberal Jews. They would be with their president. As MJ Rosenberg has often said, if American Jews are faced with a choice between open dual loyalty and walking away from Israel, they will walk away from Israel. (We know which side our bread is buttered.)

Of course many other Americans were angered by Netanyahu’s act of daring. But I believe that Jews drove the political shift. You can see that in Chris Matthews’s handling of the matter. Today he is one of the biggest critics in our media of Netanyahu and his speech. He talks about it every night. But in the first couple of days of the outrage he had nothing to say, even though the outrage was as obvious then as it is now, and his first comments were strained. He was awaiting the cue, waiting to see where the Jewish establishment (the sort of people he works for, the heads of Comcast in Philadephia, pro-Israel Jews) was going to line up. When Matthews saw that elements of the Jewish establishment were going to criticize the speech forcefully, he began to criticize it more and more strongly. Today he is a leader on the issue, and he is echoing J Street’s line: Netanyahu has savaged the two-state solution, which the world believes in. Last night Matthews praised J Street as a strong group and the big winner of the Netanyahu scandal; and at J Street’s conference, Morton Halperin (father of Mark Halperin, who appears on Matthews) said that the Prime Minister was a racist who had blocked the two state solution.

Today for the first time in decades, we can see an open divide inside the Jewish establishment over Israel. AIPAC is for tightening Iran sanctions; it devoted its policy conference to that push. J Street is all for the president’s deal; its policy conference was about getting a deal with Iran. AIPAC is http://app.reply.aipac.org/e/es?s=1843795798&e=27957&elq=db9e4de500a8440d9b01eb8ffa97a7ca his relationship with Netanyahu in a hurry; but J Street revels in the new daylight. Netanyahu was repeatedly attacked from the stage at J Street. The young people cheered whenever there was criticism of the occupation.

The moment is generational because six years ago J Street tried to pull off this same political move and it failed. In the belief that American Jews opposed settlements, it resolved to drive a wedge in US politics between those who supported settlements and those who opposed them. That was also President Obama’s policy. He said that the settlements must end. But there was massive pushback inside the Democratic Party Jewish community toward any criticism of the settlement project. Obama folded at the U.N., and J Street folded too. It began talking instead about settling on borders (i.e., accepting the settlement blocs). The president made sure that the Democratic Party supported Israel’s control over Jerusalem in 2012, surely to capture Haim Saban’s millions.

But today U.S. policy is getting shaken up. At J Street this year they cheered for a Palestinian state and the president’s chief of staff indicated that the U.S. would take Netanyahu on over settlements. Chris Matthews campaigns for the two-state solution every night. Will this shift make any difference in the conflict? I don’t think so. It is too late for the two state solution; any real effort to establish a viable Palestinian state would start a civil war in Israel. We are at the beginning of a tumultuous period inside Israeli society, as Noam Sheizaf warned J Street; while Nabila Espanioly stated that Israeli “fascism” is at our door. Americans are finally waking up to what Israel is.

The significance of the rupture is the political and psychological shift inside the American Jewish community. The civil war will begin here. For two generations the Jewish community was unwilling to criticize Israel. In the face of events that would cause a Jewish uprising in the U.S. — from racist atrocities to policies merging church and state– the Jewish community was silent because it had made a vow in the 1970s to provide political life support to Israel.

Today that deal has been broken; and the American discourse will only get better. J Street tried to circumscribe the official statements on its stage to Zionists, and Halperin pledged to fight the boycott movement; but free speech is free speech, and many panelists expressed heretical views. Marcia Freedman spoke up for cultural Zionism, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum called for Jewish spaces to open their doors to anti-Zionists, and Huda Abu Arqoub called for the boycott and downfall of the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli politicians who appeared at J Street looked dazed and lost. When the rockstar of Israeli Labor, 29-year-old Stav Shaffir, called for “separation” from Palestinians, the hall was silent. Once this American conversation begins, it will never end. More and more Jews http://coreyrobin.com/2015/03/19/it-breaks-my-heart-to-say-this-but-today-i-dont-feel-i-can-call-myself-a-zionist-any-longer/with liberalism. And Jewish Voice for Peace and the BDS movement will be the beneficiaries.

For forty years we saw the demise of the Jewish intellect in blind support of Israel. A leading liberal community had abandoned its post. The overreach by a thuggish racist foreign leader in American politics has stirred that community to life. America won’t be the same.

 

[CensoredBoardsSuck]

Anybody else find it ironic that Kawilt posts something by Chomsky and CBS labels him an anti-Semite and vilifies Chomsky meanwhile the good doctor posts a Chomsky video and nada?

Kawilt didn't reference Chomsky, HeadyMuscle did. So that's your first mistake.

What are you implying, docd187123? That I'm hiding my feelings about Chomsky because of Doc - either out of respect or cowardice? You're making faulty assumptions. That's your second mistake.

This might be difficult for someone like you to understand, Docd - someone who posts articles from Nazi Holocaust denial websites and then hides his source out of embarrassment - but I've stated my views on Chomsky several times on this forum and I see no reason to turn every thread into a Chomsky discussion. That's your third mistake.

Just for you, @Docd187123:


Against Chomsky
Oliver Kamm deplores his crude and dishonest arguments

In his book Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline, Richard Posner noted that “a successful academic may be able to use his success to reach the general public on matters about which he is an idiot.” Judging by caustic remarks elsewhere in the book, he was thinking of Noam Chomsky. He was not wrong.

Chomsky remains the most influential figure in theoretical linguistics, known to the public for his ideas that language is a cognitive system and the realisation of an innate faculty. While those ideas enjoy a wide currency, many linguists reject them. His theories have come under criticism from those, such as the cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, who were once close to him. Paul Postal, one of Chomsky’s earliest colleagues, stresses the tendency for the grandiloquence of Chomsky’s claims to increase as he addresses non-specialist audiences. Frederick Newmeyer, a supporter of Chomsky’s ideas until the mid-1990s, notes: “One is left with the feeling that Chomsky’s ever-increasingly triumphalistic rhetoric is inversely proportional to the actual empirical results that he can point to.”

Prospect readers who voted for Chomsky will know his prominence in linguistics, but are more likely to have read his numerous popular critiques of western foreign policy. The connection, if any, between Chomsky’s linguistics and his politics is a matter of debate, but one obvious link is that in both fields he deploys dubious arguments leavened with extravagant rhetoric—which is what makes the notion of Chomsky as pre-eminent public intellectual untimely as well as unwarranted.

Chomsky’s first book on politics, American Power and the New Mandarins (1969) grew from protest against the Vietnam war. But Chomsky went beyond the standard left critique of US imperialism to the belief that “what is needed [in the US] is a kind of denazification.” This diagnosis is central to Chomsky’s political output. While he does not depict the US as an overtly repressive society—instead, it is a place where “money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print and marginalise dissent”—he does liken America’s conduct to that of Nazi Germany. In his newly published Imperial Ambitions, he maintains that “the pretences for the invasion [of Iraq] are no more convincing than Hitler’s.”

If this is your judgement of the US then it will be difficult to credit that its interventionism might ever serve humanitarian ends. Even so, Chomsky’s political judgements have only become more startling over the past decade.

In The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many (1994), Chomsky considered whether the west should bomb Serb encampments to stop the dismemberment of Bosnia, and by an absurdly tortuous route concluded “it’s not so simple.” By the time of the Kosovo war, this prophet of the amoral quietism of the Major government had progressed to depicting Milosevic’s regime as a wronged party: “Nato had no intention of living up to the scraps of paper it had signed, and moved at once to violate them.”

After 9/11, Chomsky deployed fanciful arithmetic to draw an equivalence between the destruction of the twin towers and the Clinton administration’s bombing of Sudan—in which a pharmaceutical factory, wrongly identified as a bomb factory, was destroyed and a nightwatchman killed. When the US-led coalition bombed Afghanistan, Chomsky depicted mass starvation as a conscious choice of US policy, declaring that “plans are being made and programmes implemented on the assumption that they may lead to the death of several million people in the next couple of weeks… very casually, with no particular thought about it.” His judgement was offered without evidence.

In A New Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the West (2000), Chomsky wryly challenged advocates of Nato intervention in Kosovo to urge also the bombing of Jakarta, Washington and London in protest at Indonesia’s subjugation of East Timor. If necessary, citizens should be encouraged to do the bombing themselves, “perhaps joining the Bin Laden network.” Shortly after 9/11, the political theorist Jeffrey Isaac wrote of this thought experiment that, while it was intended metaphorically, “One wonders if Chomsky ever considered the possibility that someone lacking in his own logical rigour might read his book and carelessly draw the conclusion that the bombing of Washington is required.”

This episode gives an indication of the destructiveness of Chomsky’s advocacy even on issues where he has been right. Chomsky was an early critic of Indonesia’s brutal annexation of East Timor in 1975 in the face of the indolence, at best, of the Ford administration. The problem is not these criticisms, but Chomsky’s later use of them to rationalise his opposition to western efforts to halt genocide elsewhere. (Chomsky buttresses his argument, incidentally, with a peculiarly dishonest handling of source material. He manipulates a self-mocking reference in the memoirs of the then US ambassador to the UN, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, by running separate passages together as if they are sequential and attributing to Moynihan comments he did not make, to yield the conclusion that Moynihan took pride in Nazi-like policies. The victims of cold war realpolitik are real enough without such rhetorical expedients.)

If Chomsky’s political writings expressed merely an idée fixe, they would be a footnote in his career as a public intellectual. But Chomsky has a dedicated following among those of university education, and especially of university age, for judgements that have the veneer of scholarship and reason yet verge on the pathological. He once described the task of the media as “to select the facts, or to invent them, in such a way as to render the required conclusions not too transparently absurd—at least for properly disciplined minds.” There could scarcely be a nicer encapsulation of his own practice.

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/forandagainstchomsky

 

[Docd187123]

Please CBS don't let me down now. I've waited all day with a chub, Jergens lotion and a box of he softest quilted northern toilet paper I could find in my state. Please I cannot take the suspense. Just call Dr. Scally an anti-Semite like everyone else who disagrees with you or anyone who quotes Chomsky and all will be right in the world

 

[CensoredBoardsSuck]

Please CBS don't let me down now. I've waited all day with a chub, Jergens lotion and a box of he softest quilted northern toilet paper I could find in my state. Please I cannot take the suspense. Just call Dr. Scally an anti-Semite like everyone else who disagrees with you or anyone who quotes Chomsky and all will be right in the world

I never said Chomsky was an anti-Semite. Oops! That's your forth mistake. LMFAO

I called you an anti-Semite when I caught you posting articles from Nazi, Holocaust denial websites while hiding your source like a coward. You know - because Nazis aren't really a friend of the Jewish people and all.

But feel free to go play with yourself just the same. After all, it is what you do best.

 

[Docd187123]

I never said Chomsky was an anti-Semite. Oops! That's your forth mistake. LMFAO

I called you an anti-Semite when I caught you posting articles from Nazi, Holocaust denial websites while hiding your source like a coward. You know - because Nazis aren't really a friend of the Jewish people and all.

But feel free to go play with yourself just the same. After all, it is what you do best.

You're letting me down CBS. This is such a disappointment. Now poor Dr. Scally doesn't need to defend himself against anti-Semite claims like the rest of us do.

Caught me? You copied and pasted what I copied and pasted into google and read the links. Congrats on being an astute detective.

Please hurry CBS, my meet is coming up soon and my coach says I'm not allowed to have sex or orgasm the few days before it. You have only a little time left to get me to use this lotion and TP. Hurry CBS, let me do what I do best

 

[kawilt]

A left wing overview of that much maligned word "conspiracy". I say left wing because it seem's everything has to have a label now day's.

Who is Afraid of Conspiracy Theories?
March 26, 2015 By davidjones


By LANCE DEHAVEN-SMITH, Ph.D.

In his book Philosophical Investigations, philosopher of science Ludwig Wittgenstein demonstrated that words are more than designations or labels. They are signals in a context of activity, and are invested with many assumptions about the roles and social status of speakers and listeners.
In the 20th century, men often called women “girls.” This term, while indeed referring to something real – to women – was more than merely a label; it was demeaning and implicitly conveyed a subservient status. Wittgenstein called the common sense view of words standing for things, the “naming theory of language.” However, he pointed out, if words were merely labels, you could not teach language to children. If you pointed at a table and said “table,” how would a child know you are referring to the piece of furniture and not to the rectangular shape of its top, or the table’s colour, or its hardness, or any number of other attributes? Language is taught in the context of activity. You say to the child, “the cup is on the table,” “slide the cup across the table top,” “I am setting the table for dinner,” and slowly the child learns what a table is and how the word table is used.
Wittgenstein’s observation may seem simple, but it posed a profound challenge to all of Western philosophy since Plato, who had asked: What is beauty? What is truth? What is justice? Wittgenstein’s critique of the naming theory of language suggested these were the wrong questions. What needs philosophical investigation is who uses such words in what circumstances and with what implications.
The term conspiracy theory did not exist as a phrase in everyday conversation before 1964. The conspiracy theory label entered the lexicon of political speech as a catchall for criticisms of the Warren Commission’s conclusion that US President Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman with no assistance from, or foreknowledge by any element of the United States government. Since then, the term’s prevalence and range of application have exploded. In 1964, the year the Warren Commission issued its report, the New York Times published five stories in which conspiracy theory appeared. In recent years, the phrase has occurred in over 140 New York Times stories annually. On Amazon.com, the term is a book category that includes in excess of 1,300 titles. In addition to books on conspiracy theories of particular events, there are conspiracy theory encyclopedias, photographic compendiums, website directories, and guides for researchers, sceptics and debunkers.
Initially, conspiracy theories were not an object of ridicule and hostility. Today, however, the conspiracy theory label is employed routinely to dismiss a wide range of anti-government suspicions as symptoms of impaired thinking akin to superstition or mental illness. For example, in his 2007 book on the assassination of President Kennedy, former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi says people who believe JFK conspiracy theories are “as kooky as a three dollar bill in their beliefs and paranoia.” Similarly, in Among the Truthers, Canadian journalist Jonathan Kay refers to 9/11 conspiracy theorists as “political paranoiacs” who have “lost their grip on the real world.” Making a similar point, if more colourfully, in his popular book Wingnuts journalist John Avlon refers to conspiracy believers as “moonbats,” “Hatriots,” “wingnuts,” and the “Fright Wing.”
As these examples illustrate, conspiracy deniers adhere unwittingly to the naming theory of language. They assume that what qualifies as a conspiracy theory is self-evident. In their view, the phrase conspiracy theory as it is conventionally understood, simply names this objectively identifiable phenomenon. Conspiracy theories are supposedly easy to spot because they posit secret plots that are too wacky to be taken seriously. Indeed, the theories are deemed so far-fetched they require no reply or rejoinder; they are objects of derision, not ideas for discussion. In short, while ridiculing conspiracy beliefs, conspiracy deniers take the conspiracy theory concept itself for granted.
This is remarkable, not to say shocking, because the concept is both fundamentally flawed and in direct conflict with English legal and political traditions. As a label for irrational political suspicions about secret plots by powerful people, the concept is obviously defective because political conspiracies in high office do, in fact, happen. Officials in the Nixon administration did conspire to steal the 1972 presidential election. Officials in the Reagan administration did participate in a criminal scheme to sell arms to Iran and channel profits to the Contras, a rebel army in Nicaragua. The Bush-Cheney administration did collude to mislead Congress and the public about the strength of its evidence for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. If some conspiracy theories are true, then it is nonsensical to dismiss all unsubstantiated suspicions of elite intrigue as false by definition.
This fatal defect in the conspiracy theory concept makes it all the more surprising that most scholars and journalists have failed to notice that their use of the term to ridicule suspicions of elite political criminality betrays the civic ethos inherited from British legal and political traditions. The Magna Carta placed limitations on the King, guaranteed trial by one’s peers, assigned historic revenue sources to London, and in other ways recognised the dangers of unrestrained political authority. More generally, the political institutions of the English speaking peoples presuppose political power is a corrupting influence which makes political conspiracies against the people’s interests and liberties almost inevitable. One of the most important questions in Western political thought is how to prevent top leaders from abusing their powers to impose arbitrary rule or tyranny. The men and women who fought for citizens’ rights, the rule of law, and constitutional systems of checks and balances would view today’s norms against conspiratorial suspicion as not only arrogant, but also dangerous and historically illiterate.
The founders of English legal and political traditions would also be shocked that conspiracy deniers attack and ridicule individuals who voice conspiracy beliefs, and yet ignore institutional purveyors of conspiratorial ideas, even though the latter are the ideas that have proven truly dangerous in modern history. Since at least the end of World War II, the citadel of theories alleging nefarious political conspiracies has been, not amateur investigators of the Kennedy assassination and other political crimes and tragedies, but political elites and governments. In the first three decades of the post-World War II era, officials asserted that communists were conspiring to take over the world, Western governments were riddled with Soviet spies, and various social movements of the 1960s were creatures of Soviet influence. More recently, Western governments have accepted US claims that Iraq was complicit in 9/11, failed to dispose of its biological weapons, and attempted to purchase uranium in Niger so it could construct nuclear bombs. Although these ideas were untrue, they influenced millions of people, fomented social panic, fuelled wars, and resulted in massive loss of life and destruction of property. If conspiracy deniers are so concerned about the dangers of conspiratorial suspicions in politics and civic culture, why have they ignored the conspiracism of top politicians and administrators?
In my book Conspiracy Theory in America, I reorient analysis of the phenomenon that has been assigned the derisive label of conspiracy theory. In a 2006 peer-reviewed journal article, I introduced the concept of State Crimes Against Democracy (SCAD) to displace the term conspiracy theory. I say displace rather than replace because SCAD is not another name for conspiracy theory; it is a name for the type of wrongdoing which the conspiracy theory label discourages us from speaking. Basically, the term conspiracy theory is applied pejoratively to allegations of official wrongdoing that have not been substantiated by public officials themselves.
Deployed as a derogatory putdown, the label is a verbal defence mechanism used by political elites to suppress mass suspicions that inevitably arise when shocking political crimes benefit top leaders or play into their agendas, especially when those same officials are in control of agencies responsible for preventing the events in question, or for investigating them after they have occurred. It is only natural to wonder about possible deception when a US president and vice president bent on war in the Middle East are warned of impending terrorist attacks, and yet fail to alert the public or increase the readiness of their own and allies’ armed forces. Why would people not expect answers when Arabs with poor piloting skills manage to hijack four planes, fly them across the eastern United States, somehow evade America’s multilayered system of air defence, and then crash two of the planes into the World Trade Center in New York City and one into the Pentagon in Washington, DC? By the same token, it is only natural to question the motives of President Bush and Vice President Cheney when they dragged their feet investigating this seemingly inexplicable defence failure and then, when the investigation was finally conducted, they insisted on testifying together, in secret, and not under oath. Certainly, citizen distrust can be unwarranted and overwrought, but often citizen doubts make sense. People around the world are not crazy to want answers when a US president is assassinated by a lone gunman with mediocre shooting skills who manages to get off several lucky shots with an old bolt-action carbine that had a misaligned scope. Why would there not be doubts when an alleged assassin is apprehended, publicly claims he is just a patsy, interrogated for two days but no one makes a recording or even takes notes, and then shot to death at point-blank range while in police custody at police headquarters?
In contrast, the SCAD construct does not refer to a type of allegation or suspicion; it refers to a special type of transgression: an attack from within on the political system’s organising principles. For these extremely grave crimes, English legal and political traditions use the term high crime and included in this category is treason and conspiracies against the people’s liberties. SCADs, high crimes, and antidemocratic conspiracies can also be called elite political crimes and elite political criminality. The SCAD construct is intended not to supersede traditional terminology or monopolise conceptualisation of this phenomenon, but rather to add a descriptive term that captures, with some specificity, the long-recognised potential for representative democracy to be subverted by people on the inside – the very people who have been entrusted to uphold the constitutional order.
If political conspiracies in high office do, in fact, happen; if it is therefore unreasonable to assume conspiracy theories are, by definition, harebrained and paranoia; if constitutional systems of checks and balances are based on the idea that power corrupts and elite political conspiracies are likely; if, because it ridicules suspicion, the conspiracy theory label is inconsistent with the traditional Western ethos of vigilance against conspiracies in high office; if, in summary, the conspiracy theory label is unreasonable and dangerous, how did the label come to be used so widely to begin with?
Most people will be shocked to learn the conspiracy theory label was popularised as a pejorative term by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a global propaganda program initiated in 1967. This program was directed at criticisms of the Warren Commission Report. The propaganda campaign called on media corporations and journalists around the world to criticise conspiracy theorists and raise questions about their motives and judgments. The CIA informed its contacts that “parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by communist propagandists.” In the shadows of McCarthyism and the Cold War, this warning about communist influence was delivered simultaneously to hundreds of well-positioned members of the press in a global CIA propaganda network, infusing the conspiracy theory label with powerfully negative associations. In my book, I refer to this as the “conspiracy theory conspiracy.”

 

[CensoredBoardsSuck]

A left wing overview of that much maligned word "conspiracy". I say left wing because it seem's everything has to have a label now day's.

What does this nonsense have to do with the Jewish left? Talk about coming out of left field! (pun intended)

 

[kawilt]

What does this nonsense have to do with the Jewish left? Talk about coming out of left field! (pun intended)

Well CBS...Almost every time I or another moonbeam post a position that you don't approve, especially if it's about Israel along with an article that has a left wing handle on it , it seems to get your feathers ruffled. You call me and whomever, conspiracy theorist, like it's a bad word, a sure sign of mental degeneration. I'm surprised the author didn't mention the house committee on assassinations, which came to the conclusion that there was in fact a conspiracy in the assassination of JFK. Didn't mention the cocaine invovlement with the Contras, or Clinton's minor role.
Anyway, I didn't want to start a new web since a lot of the conspiracies we bring up here involve Eretz Yisrael.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

NETANYAHU’S SPYING DENIALS CONTRADICTED BY SECRET NSA DOCUMENTS
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/...l-directly-contradicted-secret-nsa-documents/

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday vehemently denied aWall Street Journal report, leaked by the Obama White House, that Israel spied on U.S. negotiations with Iran and then fed the intelligence to Congressional Republicans. His office’s denial was categorical and absolute, extending beyond this specific story to U.S.-targeted spying generally, claiming: “The state of Israel does not conduct espionage against the United States or Israel’s other allies.”

Israel’s claim is not only incredible on its face. It is also squarely contradicted by top-secret NSA documents, which state that Israel targets the U.S. government for invasive electronic surveillance, and does so more aggressively and threateningly than almost any other country in the world. Indeed, so concerted and aggressive are Israeli efforts against the U.S. that some key U.S. government documents — including the top secret 2013 intelligence budget — list Israel among the U.S.’s most threatening cyber-adversaries and as a “hostile” foreign intelligence service.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Netanyahu's Right of Way
How the Israeli Left Fell Behind
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/143298/daniel-kurtzer/netanyahus-right-of-way

Benjamin Netanyahu's victory in Israel’s election last week has been declared a triumph of security over economics. Netanyahu exploited Israelis’ fears about terrorism and regional instability, virtually ignoring the growing economic and social problems in the country. His opponent, Isaac Herzog, fashioned himself as the candidate who would bring economic and social change. Although his message resonated with a part of the electorate—Herzog’s party increased its strength from 15 to 24 seats in the Knesset—the largest segment of the electorate (about 25 percent) ultimately opted for Netanyahu, seeing in him a leader who would keep the country safe.

But the election was about more than just Netanyahu. The ultimate victory belongs to the Israeli right wing, demonstrating that it has become something of a permanent majority—a strength that comes regardless of who leads it.

Several factors account for the right’s entrenchment in Israeli politics. First, the right has become synonymous with security. In a way, this evolution defies common sense, since a growing chorus of former military and security leaders are speaking out against Netanyahu and the right’s policies. But the Israeli right has been buoyed by the fact that the peace process—long identified with the left—has ground almost to a halt, undermining Israelis’ faith that the left can ever broker a peace agreement. The voters have responded by rationalizing: if no peace from the left, then at least security from the right.

The right has also benefited by exploiting long-standing contempt for the left among the Sephardim (Jews of Middle Eastern background), especially among those of North African ancestry—an animosity that stems from long-simmering resentment over past discrimination. In addition, by unequivocally supporting settlers, right-wing parties have acquired a reliable strong support base. And finally, the Israeli right has taken advantage of the fact that a large part of the electorate has perceived coolness toward Israel from U.S. President Barack Obama. The right has translated this distancing into accusations that the United States is abandoning Israel. Differences of view over how to stop the Iranian nuclear program, for example, have been hyped by Netanyahu and right-wing leaders, further feeding the perception that Obama is not committed to the relationship.

The resultant toxic mix of factors have driven the Israeli electorate firmly to the right, making it extremely difficult for anyone on the left—no matter how compelling—to break through.

THE FEAR FACTOR

Israelis live in a dangerous neighborhood: Palestinian rockets from Gaza, Hezbollah threats from Lebanon, jihadist militants in the Sinai, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham in Syria, and the looming threat of a nuclear Iran. Despite Israel’s impressive military strength and its society’s economic and social resilience, Netanyahu and the right have been successful in exploiting the dangers by feeding the electorate a constant diet of concern about security, going so far as to evoke the possibility of a new Holocaust.

Even more important, the right has managed to convince the majority that it is better qualified than the left to protect the country. Its rhetoric is not matched by reality; Netanyahu was no more successful than his predecessors in dealing with Hamas rockets from Gaza. And during the election campaign, more than 150 former senior army and security officers argued that the right’s policies actually make the country less safe—a view also held by such Israeli military and intelligence veterans as Meir Dagan, the former director of Mossad, and Yuval Diskin, the former director of Shin Bet. Still, the Israeli right has appropriated the mantle of Israel’s security.

The right’s rhetoric resonates particularly strongly with the country’s large Russian immigrant population. Generally seen as liberal when it comes to economic and social policy, Russian voters swung sharply to the right as a result of Palestinian violence in the 1990s and the second intifada in 2000–2004. In the final days of the recent campaign, Netanyahu appealed to these and other voters who were swayed by the security argument.

Netanyahu's move was rooted in his concern that right-wing voters could split their votes among the several parties on the right. In that case, he feared, Likud would fail to secure the most seats, and Herzog’s party could be given the mandate to form a coalition government. Netanyahu’s last-minute maneuvers were designed to accrue as many right-wing seats as possible for Likud. This strategy worked: in the end, the right as a whole did not increase the number of seats it would have won, but Likud gained a larger share of the right’s votes, shooting up to 30 seats and all but guaranteeing that Netanyahu would get the first chance to form the governing coalition.

It is not only the Russian immigrants who opt to vote for security over domestic social reforms. The failure of the 1993 Oslo peace process, the intensification of Palestinian terrorism, and the deteriorating security situation in the region have reinforced the salience of the security issue in the political calculations of Israelis across the board. Quantitative research by Israeli social scientists has shown that even as an increased number of Israeli voters accept the idea of a two-state solution, those same voters do not actually believe that it will come to be. Since there is little in the way of peacemaking that is lost, these voters have drifted right in hopes of safety over peace.

SEPHARDIC DISCRIMINATION

The second factor that accounts for the right’s strength in Israeli politics is the enduring animosity of a majority of the Sephardim toward the left. The ruling elite in the 1950s was almost entirely made up of leftists of Ashkenazic background. Represented in the Mapai, Ahdut Avodah, and Mapam parties, these leaders had to cope with bringing a state into being while also fending off Arab threats, enhancing diplomatic recognition, building an economy, and absorbing immigrants primarily from the Arab states. In the end, these processes succeeded, but the transition was extremely painful for the Sephardic immigrants, particularly those from North African countries. Many spent years in transit camps or makeshift housing, and jobs were allocated first to the Ashkenazi supporters of the ruling political parties, leaving many Sephardim—even those who had been professionals in their countries of birth—without work or underemployed.

Memories of poverty and discrimination turned the Sephardim against left-wing parties, and these parties’ support of Menachem Begin propelled him to victory in 1977. No doubt, those same residual memories helped Netanyahu secure victory last week.

But there is more than just memory involved. For example, during a large rally in Tel Aviv on behalf of the Zionist Union (the opposition party led by Herzog), Yair Garbuz, an Israeli artist, railed against supporters of Likud, calling them “kissers of amulets and idol worshippers.” These words were widely understood as a direct insult against the Sephardim, who hold more traditionalist religious beliefs and who venerate sages. Garbuz’s rant evoked memories of a similar episode in 1981 when the popular actor and comedian Dudu Topaz ridiculed Likud supporters, calling them “riffraff.”

The impact of the split between Sephardim and Ashkenazim was felt deeply in this election. Early voting data indicate that the Likud prevailed in seven of Israel’s ten largest cities, most of them on the so-called periphery, which have large Sephardic communities and which represent a substantial segment of Israel’s economically disadvantaged population. Notwithstanding the economic straits that they face, the populations in these cities voted their emotions—in favor of Netanyahu—rather than their pocketbook. The Zionist Union won in Tel Aviv and Haifa, religious parties won in Bnei Brak (a largely haredi city), and Likud took the rest.

THE SETTLEMENTS MOVEMENT

The third reason for the ascendancy of the right is the dynamism and growth of the settlements movement. The settlers’ goal of preventing any territorial concessions over what they see as the birthright of the Jews fits neatly with the right wing’s opposition to the peace process and its distrust of Palestinians and Arabs. The settlers are not a homogeneous group, and many choose to live in the West Bank for reasons of convenience and affordability. But the ideological core of the settlements movement works hard on behalf of right-wing parties—an effort that was made very clear in the election: almost 72 percent of settlers who cast ballots opted for the right. According to one report, many settlers responded to Netanyahu’s appeal in the days before the election by spreading out across the country to mobilize votes for Likud.

The Israeli settlements movement has been very successful not only in expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank but also in placing settlement advocates in key positions throughout the Israeli bureaucracy, thereby obtaining a far larger share of the national budget than their numbers would otherwise indicate. For example, for many years, the government has designated West Bank and Gaza settlements as priority areas qualifying for advantageous tax treatment and government subsidies. When settlers established unauthorized outposts, the government’s response was not to rebuke them but to hook their new homes into the water and electricity grid and to provide security. In a 2004 report, Talia Sasson, a Ministry of Justice official, chronicled a pattern of systemic and systematic illegality among settlers and their supporters within the government bureaucracy that advanced their goals.

POLITICS CHANGING AND UNCHANGING

There are no permanent majorities in most democratic political systems. But the Israeli right is likely to maintain a majority until and unless the left is able to overcome three handicaps. First, it must persuade Israeli voters, especially those of Russian origin, that it can handle Israel’s security challenges at least as well as, if not better than, the right. (Former military intelligence director Amos Yadlin was recruited by Herzog’s party to be its security face, but his voice was almost inaudible during the campaign.) Second, the left must induce the Sephardim to put past grievances behind and to vote with their pocketbooks. And, third, it must overcome the perception that support for peace with the Palestinians is akin to appeasement and therefore endangers Israel.

Until then, there will likely be more elections in store that will resemble last Tuesday’s. Netanyahu’s victory exposed many false assumptions about Israeli politics—namely, that poor relations with an American president would hurt the country, that economic and social issues require attention, and that open disdain toward Israeli Arabs is risky. Netanyahu contradicted each of these premises through his words and actions, yet he emerged victorious.

Netanyahu’s victory is thus not only a personal triumph but also a confirmation of a systemic bias in favor of the right that is likely to last for many years ahead. It is the challenge of the Israeli left to understand this new normal and to convince the electorate that it cares about the country’s future and has the means to safeguard it.

 

[heady muscle]

Manufacturing Consent
http://www.socialismonline.net/sites/default/files/Manufacturing Consent - 2002 - by Chomsky and Herman.pdf

read/have the book. And I don't idolize him either.

 

[heady muscle]

@kawilt
Please only post articles or videos from FoxNews. They are the only unbiased source of information on the planet. Thank you.

 

[flenser]

^^^ That article makes it seem like the Israeli Left would do things differently w.r.t. Palistinians, settlements

@kawilt
Please only post articles or videos from FoxNews. They are the only unbiased source of information on the planet. Thank you.

LOL

 

[Michael Scally MD]

For US, Israel’s nuclear arsenal is the elephant in the room
http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/for-us-israels-nuclear-arsenal-is-the-elephant-in-the-room

In order to hold a sound debate, it is said, opposing sides must first have an agreed-upon set of facts, a common view of what constitutes reality. It’s no surprise, then, that debates about nuclear arms in the Middle East – including over Iran’s contentious nuclear programme – tend to run amok.

In this case, the reality in the region is that only one country, Israel, maintains a stockpile of the world’s most dangerous weapons. Despite this being exposed in 1986 by an Israeli whistle-blower, Mordechai Vanunu, Israel has never acknowledged its arsenal, estimated to be between 80 and 200 bombs. In what has since become the official line on its nukes, then-deputy defence minister Shimon Peres told US president John Kennedy in 1963: “Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East” – leveraging an almost comically narrow definition of the word “introduce”.

More curiously, Israel’s main backer, the United States, won’t acknowledge reality either. Since a late-1960s agreement with Israel, US officials, ranging from members of Congress to nuclear scientists, are barred from publicly acknowledging Israel’s nuclear arsenal. Last year, an analyst at a US government nuclear lab lost his job after mentioning Israel’s nukes in an academic journal article.

That ridiculous dynamic, however, may be giving way to tacit acknowledgement. A quiet shift occurred recently when the US defence department released a previously classified 1987 report on Israel’s nuclear research. It came to light as part of a Freedom of Information lawsuit by Grant Smith of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy.

 

[kawilt]

Ten Years After His Release From Prison, Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu Is Still Not Free
by
Felice Cohen-Joppa, David Polden

Ten years ago, on April 21, 2004, several hundred of us from around the world waited with great anticipation outside the gates of Israel’s Ashkelon Prison, holding up signs saying “Thank you, Mordechai Vanunu: Peace Hero, Nuclear Whistle-blower”. After many years of campaigning for his freedom, the day had finally arrived: Mordechai Vanunu would walk out of the prison where he had spent each day of his 18 year sentence (12 of those years in solitary confinement) for blowing the whistle on Israel’s then secret nuclear arsenal. We were there to welcome him to freedom.

Our excitement had been somewhat dimmed a couple of days earlier, when Israel announced a list of oppressive and unjust restrictions on the soon-to-be-released whistle-blower. These restrictions continue to this day, having been renewed each April: Mordechai Vanunu remains under restrictions which require him to report and gain approval for any change in residence, to avoid diplomatic missions, to not speak to foreign nationals and which prevent him from leaving Israel, a thing Mordechai has wished to do ever since his release from prison.

Since his release he has been repeatedly harassed and taken in by police for questioning. He has served a further three months in prison for talking to foreigners, which he continues to do in spite of the restrictions.

In December 2013, an appeal to Israel’s High Court of Justice against this indefinite punishment for “crimes” for which he has served his full sentence proceeded much as previous appeals had. The government, in secret testimony, persuaded the court that “the evidentiary material suggests that there is still additional privileged information that [could be jeopardized] by the petitioner.”

However Vanunu has repeatedly insisted that he has no more secrets to tell, including in his first public statement to the throng of international reporters gathered to cover the moment that he emerged from prison on April 21, 2004. He shared all that he knew with UK Sunday Times journalists back in 1986 (information that is now more than 28 years old) – giving the world its first photographic proof of Israel’s clandestine production of nuclear weapons at the remote Dimona factory where he had worked as a technician until 1985.

He strongly believed that in a democratic country, people have the right to know what their government is doing, and, after examining his conscience, felt it was his responsibility to share the information he had. On the eve of publication, Vanunu was lured from London to Rome by a Mossad agent, where he was kidnapped, drugged and bound and put on a freighter to Israel. A secret court convicted him of espionage and treason.

We believe that Mordechai Vanunu is a hero for his courageous act of whistleblowing, not a traitor or a spy. And we think it’s likely that Israel would view a potential Iranian nuclear whistle-blower in the same light. In any case, it is time for Israel to stop this endless persecution of Vanunu. He is currently living in East Jerusalem, but very much wishes to leave Israel and start a new life.

As we continue to work for a nuclear-free future, we invite people around the world to join us as we call on Israel to do the right thing, morally and legally, and finally lift Vanunu’s restrictions without further delay, ten years after the original court-imposed sentence for his “crime” has expired. Mordechai Vanunu must at last be given his freedom.

Signed:

(Israel) Yehuda Atai, Ronnie Barkan, Rayna Moss, Gideon Spiro, Meir Vanunu

(UK) Yasmin Alam, Pat Arrowsmith, Geoffrey Austin, Ben Birnberg, Margaret and Jacob Ecclestone, Paul Eisen, Jay Ginn, June Hautot, Ben Inman, Bruce Kent, Bruce Mackenzie, Carmel Martin, Jenny Morgan, Adeline O’Keeffe, David Polden, Ernest Rodker, Sabby Sagall, David Smethurst, Ben Soffa, James Thackera, Barry White

(US) Barbara Beesley, Felice Cohen-Joppa, Nick and Mary Eoloff, Ken Hannaford-Ricardi, Art Laffin, Daniel McGowen, Mary H. Miller, Ronald H. Miller, Kim Redigan, Grace Ritter, Scott Schaeffer-Duffy, Jeanie Shaterian

(Ireland) Kevin Cassidy, Barbara Fabish, Mairead Maguire

(Norway) Fredrik Heffermehl

(Japan) Shinji and Ryoko Noma

(Australia) Phillip Mudge, Rev. David Smith