Paul Foot of the Guardian recently published a forceful article on the hypocrisy and irresponsibility of much coverage of the Israeli military occupation of Palestine. As Foot argues, there is far, far too much white-washing of the conflict in terms of some mealy-mouthed "pox on both your houses" approach condemning "violence," full stop. Such an approach seems like the pacifist moral high road, but in fact merely amounts to an abdication of responsibility, an abandonment of the conflict under the assumption that "Tut tut, there they go again. Two enemy peoples in a far-off land, caught up in an age-old conflict, swapping atrocity for atrocity, and endlessly killing each other out of some primeval hatred. There is nothing civilised and humane observers can do about it, apparently, except perhaps to hope that sooner or later one side (the strong) will annihilate the other (the weak)."

I remember not too long ago I watched a news commentary show in which Arab and Israeli representatives spoke about the occupation of Palestine. Whenever the Arab representative would point out that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian territory and Palestinians might just have a right to resist and defend themselves, the Israeli representative would snort and dismissively say that the Arab representative was "still fighting the old war." As if there were a statute of limitations on fundamental human rights. The whole idea that there might, just maybe, be a real distinction between oppressed and oppressors here is completely excluded from the mainstream discourse.

Foot points out an excellent example of the hypocrisy – in fact, an example I have commented on myself in these pages:

Remember the indignant hullabaloo when a shipment of arms, bound apparently for the Palestinians, was intercepted. Whoever complains about arms shipments a hundred times greater that pour regularly from our factories and those of the US into Israel? Anyone in the United States or Britain who opposes such sanctions is taking up an unequivocal stand on the side of illegal occupation, military conquest and economic oppression.

Or as I put it,

Meanwhile Israeli and US leaders condemn Yasser Arafat for attempting to import heavy weapons into the Palestinian Authority. Christ, they are being militarily assaulted by Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships, and you act all surprised when they import weapons to defend themselves against invasion? If we started classifying all the weapons Israel buys and builds as “enhancing terror” (George W.’s words), then Israel would be considered one of the single biggest terrorist states in the world. Oh, but wait, Israel receives $2,040,000,000 every year from US tax dollars for direct military aid, and $720,000,000 more in economic aid. The Palestinian weapons, at least, were not purchased on your and my dime.

OK, now, I should step back for a second. One thing which Foot doesn’t do, and he is wrong not to do it, is to strongly condemn the acts of the deranged, self-styled jihadis of groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The use of force in direct self-defense is legitimate; the use of violent terror in order to kill civilians is not.

Unfortuantely, far too many people on both sides of the conflict assume that resistence fighters and fundamentalist terrorists are cut from the same cloth. I do not agree. These are two fundamentally different tactics and must be understood as fundamentally different ways. We can neither pass off terrorists who bomb innocent civilians as resistence fighters, nor condemn people legitimately defending themselves against tanks, heavily armed infantry, and helicopter gunships – as if the Palestinians resistors, who are being slaughtered left and right by Israeli military forces, were somehow the aggressors.

For further reading:

• GT 1/31/2002 Sharon Threatens Arafat’s Life
• GT 3/07/2001 War Criminal Ariel Sharon Becomes Prime Minister

Yesterday, Irish voters narrowly rejected a referendum that would have tightened Ireland’s constitutional restrictions against abortion, which are already among the harshest restrictions in Europe.

Ahem, I seem to have lost this one. – Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern

Abortion is already illegal under the Irish constitution, but the rejected amendment sought to tighten restrictions by overturning an Irish Supreme Court ruling which authorized therapeutic abortions when the mother threatened to commit suicide, and by imposing harsh criminal penalties for women who received abortions, and the doctors who performed the procedure. Currently, nearly 7,000 Irish women receive abortions each year, but nearly all must have them performed in legal clinics across the Irish Sea in the United Kingdom. Thankfully, EU immigration protections prevent the Irish government from stopping women from leaving the country.

629,041 Irish voters rejected the amendment, while 618,485 voted in favor of it. In urban centers, the vote was much more lopsided, with some 61% of Dublin voters rejecting the new restrictions. Anti-abortion proponents of the referendum urged that it be adopted because a rejection might lead down a slippery slope towards abortion-on-demand in Ireland.

I’m not holding my breath, but let’s hope they’re right.

For further reading:

• GT 2001-03-24: Victory: Abortion Legalized in Switzerland
• GT 2001-03-26: King George End-runs Congressional Review on Global Gag Rule

Your Secretary of Defense

According to CNN, Donald Rumsfeld has claimed that the Iranian government may have aided Taliban and al-Qaida agents to escape from Afghanistan into Iran, in a desperate attempt to justify Bush’s inclusion of Iran in the axis of evil with Iraq and North Korea.

What CNN has not reported, nor has the New York Times, nor TIME (who first broke the story), is that the Iranian government has angrily denied the administration’s allegations (this was reported in the British paper, the Guardian), and pointed out what our own press had been saying (TIME, MSNBC) earlier: Iran hates the Taliban and al-Qaeda and has no desire to have ties with them or help them out (We hated each other and we never had any commonalities, the head of Iran’s powerful Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, said Friday). Why? Because:

• Iran’s government, and most of Iran’s populace, are Shi’ite Muslims, whereas the Taliban and al-Qaeda are Sunni, and have participated in persecution and massacres of Shi’ites
• Iran’s strategic interests in Afghanistan have traditionally been head-to-head in conflict against those of Pakistan. Iran backed the Northern Alliance against the Pakistan-backed Taliban for years before the US ever got involved.
• Iran nearly went to war with the Taliban after ten Iranian diplomats and a journalist were murdered during the Taliban conquest of Mazar-i-Sharif

So, where did Rumsfeld get the ludicrous idea that Iran is helping out the Taliban and al-Qaeda? From that extremely reliable source, Ismail Khan, the brutal warlord of Herat province (see the TIME report). The main interesting fact of all this is that Khan has historically been backed by Iran, and took refuge in Iran twice while the Taliban was in power. However, Afghan Prime Minister Karzai wants to negotiate with Khan about concerns over Iranian influence [Afghan Radio]. Khan has long been in conflict with other powerful United Front anti-Taliban fighters such as Gul Agha Shirzai, the warlord of Kandahar, and Abdul Rashid Dostum, a northern warlord. There may be reason to believe, then, that Khan wants to solidify his position within the new government by cutting his ties with Iran, which have traditionally been a source of friction between him and the rest of the mujahedeen.

The real issue here is that Rumsfeld thinks we are stupid enough to swallow this ludicrous report. Or if the report does turn out to be true, he doesn’t think he needs to give any kind of explanation for such a bizarre turn of events. He just assumes people will think Oh, Iran, yeah, they’re terrorists, so naturally they’ll help out anyone else who commits terrorism against the US. And the US newsmedia are doing their best to help ensure that happens, since they refuse to report on Iran’s statements or to provide any background on the conflicts between Iran and the Taliban.

Ever since Iran revolted against the US-installed Shah in 1979 and established an anti-US government, many on the Right have been chomping at the bit to conquer Iran and install a new pro-US government. Here is their perfect opportunity. If they can make this story stick, the Bush administration has a sure-fire reason to insist that Iran is a state which harbors terrorists the United States is trying to apprehend — the same reason they used to wage war on the Taliban. And the Right-wing hawks have a sure-fire way of expanding the war on terror into Iran.

Don’t let Rumsfeld take you for a fool. Contact the Department of Defense and demand further explanation of the basis for their allegations against Iran. Contact national media outlets, particularly CNN, and demand that they do responsible research into the background of claims made by the Department of Defense and Afghan warlords, particularly when another war is on the line and everyone is asking where we will start bombing next.

Read the rest of He Thinks That You’re An Idiot …

War criminal Ariel Sharon has enhanced his sterling reputation as a leader for peace in the Middle East by saying he’s sorry he didn’t have Yasser Arafat killed [NY Times] during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980s, which he led (this is the same invasion in which he surrounded the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps with Israeli troops, and then let in Phalangist militia who slaughtered and tortured thousands of unarmed Palestinian civilians).

The two-facedness of Sharon’s policy is sometimes simply stunning. Sharon has repeatedly demanded that Israel will not negotiate with the Palestinians for peace while Israel is under fire and the threat of terrorism (all the while maintaining military assaults on the illegally occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip). And now he turns around, and, as head of a government with an established policy of assassinating suspected Palestinian militants, starts talking like a New York mafioso:

There was an agreement in Lebanon not to liquidate Yasir Arafat, he said. Actually, I am sorry that we did not liquidate him. An Israeli sniper is said to have had Mr. Arafat in his sights as the Palestinian leader boarded a ship to leave Beirut for Tunis, but he did not receive the order to fire.

Now how, exactly, is Arafat to be expected to work for peace while under a clearly implied threat on his life?

Meanwhile Israeli and US leaders [NY Times] condemn Yasser Arafat for attempting to import heavy weapons into the Palestinian Authority. Christ, they are being militarily assaulted by Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships, and you act all surprised when they import weapons to defend themselves against invasion? If we started classifying all the weapons Israel buys and builds as enhancing terror (George W.’s words), then Israel would be considered one of the single biggest terrorist states in the world. Oh, but wait, Israel receives $2,040,000,000 every year from US tax dollars for direct military aid, and $720,000,000 more in economic aid. The Palestinian weapons, at least, were not purchased on your and my dime.

Now, listen. I don’t like Yasser Arafat. He deserves credit as a military leader resisting the Israeli occupation, but as a governor he has proven to be dictatorial, corrupt, sometimes two-faced, and has sold out the Palestinians on a number of issues. The Palestinian people deserve better than him. But this is simply absurd. If Yasser Arafat had made a comment like this, Israeli government officials and President Bush would both be on every news program in the world screaming bloody murder. But Ariel Sharon says it, and all the State Department spokesperson has to say is, Remarks like these can be unhelpful.

For further reading:

• GT 2001/03/07: War Criminal Ariel Sharon Becomes Prime Minister

For the most part, the New York Times’ story on the World Economic Forum beginning its proceedings in New York is just a gooey report on the men who had the air of money and power hobnobbing inside the Waldorf-Astoria, … like the start of summer camp. Now I really wonder if this sort of fluff reporting on a serious conference of the global economic and political elite is necessary. But, more to the point, the Times has decided to creatively reinvent history:

That has not prevented critics from painting the Forum in the darkest colors. The World Economic Forum will celebrate war in Afghanistan and the Middle East, attacks on civil liberties, and corporate tax cuts, proclaimed a group called A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) in its call for demonstrations which will get under way in earnest with marches on Saturday.

At the New York W.E.F. summit, the world’s richest C.E.O.s will collaborate with the world’s most powerful politicians to set the global economic agenda, declared another group, Students for Global Justice.

Whether the protests reach the violence of last year’s meeting in Davos remains to be seen. Some of the opposition groups acknowledge that a clash with New York’s finest in the aftermath of Sept. 11 would not sit well with the public.

Now, it’s a bit irresponsible to spending only two dismissive paragraphs on the fact that there are, in fact, people who have serious problems with what goes at the WEF, while spending the rest of the front-page story gushing about how elite and idealistic it all is (for more responsible coverage, I suggest the Times’ recent in-depth article on anarchism, buried in the New York Region section). What concerns me a bit more, however, is that they are simply making shit up when they say that the protests at Davos last year had any violence to be reached.

In reality, last year’s protests in Davos featured 250 activists staging a peaceful march. In 2000, the worst violence was a few windows being broken at a McDonald’s. In 2001, the worst violence was snowballs being tossed at police barricades.

Well, I should take that back. There was violence at the 2001 protest. See, the Davos local authorities decided to ban any exercise of the right to peaceful public assembly, so protestors were met by over 1,000 Swiss security agents armed with batons and tear gas guns. The demonstrators’ peaceful march was turned back with police barricades and water cannons. But this isn’t exactly the sort of violence that the Times story was claiming had happened.

This is, unfortunately, part of a general press smear campaign against the globalization movement, which has invented protestor violence out of thin air in protests in Seattle, DC, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia… at all of these there was plenty of police violence against demonstrators but the virtually none initiated by protestors. In Seattle and DC, heavy tear gas bombardments were used; in Los Angeles I watched mounted cops stage dragoon attacks with batons on protestors who had done nothing other than run away from rampaging peace officers. And yet the New York Daily News compared protestors to the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and threatened them, You have a right to free speech, but try to disrupt this town, and you’ll get your anti-globalization butts kicked. Capish?

Sidebar: I’ve noticed that they’ve been awfully cagey about just how many women are at the invite-only WEF meeting; one article lumped in women amidst everyone else in the overwhelming minority at the WEF (third world leaders, human rights activists, union leaders, etc.). The Times’ editorial column said it was some 3,000 Davos Men, and a sprinkling of Davos Women. For all their apologia, it’s really hard to shade just how reactionary in constitution their Good Ol’ Boys meeting is.

For further reading

• For independent coverage of the World Economic Forum and surrounding protests, visit NYC Indymedia.
• For more on the demonstrations and alternatives to the WEF, check out Another World is Possible.
• GT 9/17/2001 Globalization Protestors Targeted in Post-9/11 Crackdown on Dissent
• GT 9/06/2001 Debate Over Reformist and Radical Approaches to Change
• GT 5/29/2001 WTO Protest videogame announced at E3