Just ran across a video of Ehud Olmert and his latest appearance in the USA; he'll be coming to the bay area, and although I will not be able to attend, I'm sure that many others will...
On 15 October 2009, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert came to give the annual King Abdullah II Leadership Lecture at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. Outraged that a man responsible for war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon that killed more than three thousand people during his term of office, community members confronted Olmert inside the lecture hall effectively preventing him from delivering his speech.
Here's more on the video and another look at it,
Approximately 30 activists -- mainly students from area universities -- disrupted a lecture given in Chicago by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday which was hosted by the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. While Olmert's speech was disrupted inside the lecture hall, approximately 150 activists protested outside the hall in the freezing rain.
Protesters inside the hall read off the names of Palestinian children killed during Israel's assault on Gaza last winter. They shouted that it was unacceptable that the war crimes suspect be invited to speak at a Chicago university when his army destroyed a university in Gaza in January. They reminded the audience of the more than 1,400 Palestinians killed during the Gaza attacks and the more than 1,200 killed during Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 2006. Both invasions happened during Olmert's premiership.
The demonstration was mobilized last week after organizers learned of the lecture, paid for by a grant provided by Jordan's King Abdullah II. Within hours an appeal was issued, urging those concerned with Palestinian rights to call the university and demand that the lecture be canceled. The call was put out by major community organizations such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)-Chicago, American Muslims for Palestine and the United States Palestine Community Network, as well as solidarity organizations al-Awda, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, the International Solidarity Movement, the Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago and area campus groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at DePaul University and the University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as the Arab Student Union at Moraine Valley.
And just as this event was demonstrated/disrupted/etc, there are plans for the SF event to be dealt with in much the same way; here's the details,
Protest Olmert! Chicago October 15th Union Square, San Francisco October 22 6pm
Protest Ehud Olmert, former Prime Minister and war criminal for his role in the brutal attack on Gaza in December/January, who will be appearing as a speaker for the World Affairs Council. (see also Chicago) On Thursday October 22, while former Prime Minister Olmert speaks in the St Francis Hotel, we will be gathered outside on Union Square. We want Israel and its leaders held accountable for their crimes against the people of Palestine and Lebanon.
We support the findings of the Goldstone Report, that detail the crimes committed by Israel during its war against the whole people of Gaza of last December/January, in "Operation Cast Lead". President Obama and most politicians have simply refused to take this report seriously, some by vocally rejecting it, or just ignoring it completely.
It is therefore up to us, civil society, to again do what politicians are just too afraid to do. Call for universal application of human rights and international law. This will be the message of our protest. We demand that Olmert, who initiated "Operation Cast Lead" be held directly responsible for the crimes that took place. Olmert is also responsible for the insane attack against Lebanon in the Summer of 2006. Olmert shares criminal responsibility for the siege on Gaza that leaves children hungry and 1.5 million people in desperate circumstances.
As I mentioned, I am not going to be able to attend this protest due to a prior commitment; but that said, I wanted to open up some discussion on the event, the planned protest, and related issues (I'll end the diary with some comments on a few recently released books).
I'll put it out there, that such events leave me somewhat conflicted, for many reasons. On the one hand, I disagree that it is a free speech issue; my friend Barbara Lubin wrote quite well about this when another Israeli war criminal came to the area;
Netanyahu Protest Did Not Dishonor The Free-Speech Movement
We demonstrators did not intend to, nor expect to, prevent the speech. We did what we have done whenever someone with as shameful a record as Netanyahu has comes to Berkeley: We registered our dissent -- nonviolently.
Contrary to assertions that we sullied Berkeley's proud tradition of free speech, our demonstration honored that tradition. This was true democracy in action. But Netanyahu recoiled when confronted with peaceful opponents he could not send his army out to bludgeon.
What I find most ridiculous is the amount of outrage mustered to defend the free-speech rights of a man who has almost unlimited access to the international media, while we who oppose him must demonstrate to be heard. Where were their voices of outrage when Israeli soldiers gunned down unarmed Palestinian children?
I agree with Barbara, and I agree with the organizers of the Chicago protest; Netanyahu, Olmert, all of these people are not just some random commentators, some sort of academic researchers, these are people deeply embedded in the actions of the state of Israel, actions which have been proven again and again by human rights organizations and UN reports, the Goldstone report being the latest one, of committing war crimes, and as we know now, crimes against humanity. And while the Palestinians are locked up under siege in Gaza, and controlled by the collaborationist occupation forces of the West Bank, these Israeli leaders, whose generals and underlings propose a continuous stream of horrifying doctrines of violence and dispossession, try and hide behind the idea of 'Free Speech?' I think not.
And things are a changing, US veto or not...
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has backed an inquiry's report into the Israeli war on Gaza that accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes. The inquiry, lead by Justice Richard Goldstone, calls for credible investigations by Israel and Hamas, and suggests international war crimes prosecutions if they do not.
Twenty-five countries voted for the resolution, including several Arab and African states, while six were against. The Palestinian Authority initially backed deferring a vote, but changed its position after domestic criticism.
The report concluded that Israel used disproportionate force during the war on Gaza, and that its soldiers deliberately targeted civilians. It also accused Israel of using Palestinians as human shields. The report also accused Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas, of deliberately targeting civilians in southern Israel.
And let's also understand the false attempts at finding an 'equal' amount of blame; that just does not stand even the most basic scrutiny.
AMY GOODMAN: But on other issues, of Palestinian militants committing crimes against humanity.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: The report found that the Palestinians were guilty of war crimes because of its indiscriminate and intentional firing on civilians in Israel. I’m not trying to make any apologies, but I want to get the facts right. The Goldstone report, like the Amnesty report and the others, you have to look carefully at the proportions. About nine-tenths—literally, about nine-tenths of the Goldstone report, like the Dugard report, like the Amnesty report, about nine-tenths was devoted to Israeli war crimes; about one-tenth was devoted to Palestinian war crimes. And you have to understand why, because you have to look at the comparable damage. The ratio of killings was about a hundred to one: about—exactly thirteen on the Israeli side, about fourteen hundred on the Palestinian side. If you look at the damage, the damage is actually quite astonishing. Israel just systematically blasted everything in sight and reduced it to rubble, whereas on the Israeli side they say that several houses were damaged and one was almost completely destroyed. So if you look at the facts, the facts on the ground, the proportions in the reports, including the Goldstone report, are correct. It’s about ten to one.
And that’s why yesterday’s—or today’s headline in the New York Times is so misleading. It’s like a Pravda headline. It says the Goldstone report finds both sides guilty of war crimes. Well, that’s technically true, but an accurate headline would have read, "Goldstone reports Israel guilty of massive war crimes and also faults Hamas." That’s what a true headline would have read.
But, such demonstrations have their drawbacks, I have to admit. They usually involve a large number of people, and controlling the message can be difficult. Also, and most importantly, they usually result in a string of disruptions, at 'their' events and at 'ours' (quotes used to show my dislike at casual dichotomization/otherizing... cool, two new words!). As much as it makes my blood boil to even sit and listen to such war criminals, or worse, try and equate them with others that I feel are speaking out on such issues, and for peace and justice, it is just a fact of such activism that it can swing both ways...
Now, that said, I think that in the somewhat limited comparison of such protests, 'ours' (the Chicago one) came out a bit better than 'theirs' (the minor disruption of the Finkelstein/Dugard talk).
So there you have it, and really, this is just one of the things we kind of have to do when we are here. We must bring up the issue, we must support those who are oppressed, and we must make it clear that war criminals belong in a court of justice, not in our universities and communities. I mean, if Saddam Hussein's war crimes justified the invasion of Iraq, the murder and killing that followed, then what is the proper response to the crimes committed in Gaza? (and just to answer my own question, I do not think such crimes warrant the invasion of Israel or the killing of anyone; BDS, sanctions, criminal prosecution, international isolation, these things sure, but not violence.)
Onwards from this issue, and on to the next, a few books to discuss/mention. Here are two that I have not read, but have been reviewed by friends of mine;
Book review: Palestinian views on suicide operations
Asa Winstanley, The Electronic Intifada, 13 October 2009
In his new book The Making of a Human Bomb: An Ethnography of Palestinian Resistance, Nasser Abufarha examines the phenomena of Palestinian suicide operations. It is based on extensive fieldwork conducted in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, mostly in and around the northern town of Jenin. A native of the city, Abufarha interviewed families of suicide bombers, observed demonstrations and studied Palestinian cultural products that addressed suicide attacks. He also conducted interviews with activists from three different armed factions to explain suicide bombings, or "martyrdom operations" as they are more commonly known in the Arab world.
Book casts new light on Palestine's ethnic cleansing
Maureen Clare Murphy, The Electronic Intifada, 28 September 2009
In recent years, a growing number of accounts of the 1948 war have corrected and exposed the founding myths of Israel, including claims by its leaders that the Palestinian people did not exist or were invented. The latest addition to this genre is independent scholar Rosemarie M. Esber's meticulously documented history Under the Cover of War: The Zionist Expulsion of the Palestinians. While other recent books on the subject have relied on Israeli and Zionist archival sources, Esber uses British archives and oral testimonies from Palestinian survivors as well as previously used sources to demonstrate that there was a purposeful, systematic pattern by which Zionist forces depopulated Palestinian cities and villages before the end of the British mandate on 15 May 1948 and the subsequent intervention of Arab armies.
Orientalism and Islamophobia in the American left Joseph Shahadi, The Electronic Intifada, 15 October 2009
Steven Salaita's new collection of political essays,The Uncultured Wars, Arabs, Muslims and the Poverty of Liberal Thought exposes orientalism and Islamophobia on the American left. Salaita draws his title and premise from the notion that in the Western imagination Middle Eastern societies and people are considered barbarous and therefore essentially uncultured. It is this assumption that implicates all Arabs and Muslims in the "War on Terror" and justifies the grotesque excesses of the American right -- the expansion of presidential powers, the attendant decrease in civil liberties and the legalization of torture. But Salaita argues that this discourse also has currency on the left and over the course of 13 essays he targets liberal icons like Barbara Ehrenreich, Michael Moore, Michael Lerner and Katha Pollitt among others, for their anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia. Salaita characterizes his book-length engagement with these thinkers -- and the "chattering and intellectual classes" (2) they represent, whose liberal politics usually exempt them from such critiques -- as his emergence into the uncultured wars.
Unfortunately, I have not gotten around to reading any of these books, and I probably won't too soon for many reasons. One is, that first I really need to get a copy of this book, which will happen by the end of the month, one way or another. But until then, do enjoy this video,
The last book to mention I did read, and it is quite good, as a basic primer on Palestine & Zionism; initially, I was going to spend some time going through the details of the book's presentation, but time is a ticking away, and I think I'll need to put that off for another diary. But a few quick words,
Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide (Paperback) by Ben White (Author)
Review
"This book provides one of the best introductions to the Israel/Palestine conflict. It reveals what mainstream media in the West seeks to conceal from the public: that Israel has an apartheid regime which has been obsessed with demographic racism and ethnic cleansing for six decades. The book provides an indispensable context for understanding the origins and consequences of the conflict. It also makes by far the most compelling case for peace with justice-not apartheid." --Nur Masalha, Reader in Religion and Politics, St. Mary's University College (UK), and author of The Bible and Zionism (2007)
Product Description
Indispensable for the Palestinian solidarity movement, Israeli Apartheid distills the work of academics and experts into a highly readable introduction. This is the book to read if you want to understand the root of the conflict and how apartheid applies to the situation in Palestine. Ben White begins by succinctly explaining the origins of Zionist theory and colonisation and details the treatment of Palestinians during the creation of Israel in 1948 then proceeds to examine current examples of Israeli apartheid. Packed with absorbing content, the book is rooted in the author's extensive on-the-ground experience in the region. It also includes short testimonies by Palestinians who describe how Israeli apartheid affects their daily lives.
Again, the book is very good, well put together and covers quite a bit of ground for a very succinct work. Then again, it can almost be a bit too much of the facts, and I could see it freaking people out that are not ready for the breadth and depth of Israel's oppression of Palestinians. I usualy opt for more personal narratives to start with, such as Joe Sacco's Palestine graphic novel, or Susan Nathan's excellent book, and many many more. But it is very good, no doubt, and I really like the dedication
إلى الصامدين
To the steadfast ones