Palestine a new UN member
By: JAMAL KANJ*
November 29, 2012
TODAY, Mahmoud Abbas the president of the Palestinian
Authority (PA) will formally request the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)
to vote on Palestine’s application for an Observer member state at the
international club.
This comes exactly 65 years to the day after the Assembly
voted to partition Palestine between its native inhabitants and new Jewish
immigrants.
On November 29, 1947 guilt-ridden Western cohorts, the Soviet Union
and a bunch of newly independent vassal states voted in favor of granting 55
per cent of historical Palestine to Jews fleeing the European Holocaust.
The vote to divide Palestine was originally planned for
November 26. Failing to garner the two-thirds majority needed to pass the
resolution, the meeting was postponed by three days.
Several nations spoke of pressure orchestrated by the
Zionist Organization (ZO) in New York to get them switch their vote.
ZO headquarter was established in Berlin at the turn of the
20th century. At the time, Germany represented the center of European
power and the country with the greatest influence over the Ottoman Empire who
had control over Palestine.
Following WWI victory, Great Britain became the new center
of power and the Mandate Authority over Palestine. ZO abandoned Berlin and
moved its headquarter to London.
WWII propelled the US to a new preeminence on the world
stage. In a predictable fashion, ZO made New York its new home.
From its new headquarter ZO succeeded in enlisting 26 US
Senators- many with strong influence on foreign bills- to send a telegram
urging wavering nations to support the partition plan.
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India expressed
frustrations with Zionist attempts to buy India’s vote. Liberian Ambassador to
Washington spoke of threats to cut US foreign aid.
The Philippines’ representative General Carlos Romulo warned
the UN not to embrace “a policy which is clearly repugnant to the valid
nationalist aspirations of the people of Palestine.” Following pressure
from the US, the Ambassador was recalled and the Philippines' vote changed.
After guaranteeing a favoring vote, the 56 Assembly members
met on November 29. Thirty three countries were in support of the partition,
thirteen opposing, ten abstained and one absent.
After 65 years of being stateless and more than 20 years of
serpentine negotiations, the Palestinians are seeking UN recognition on merely
less than 22 per cent of historical Palestine.
The UNGA has changed dramatically since 1947. The
organization today is about four times larger. To be admitted to the UN, a new
state must receive support from more than 127 nations.
But one thing remained unchanged. The Israeli lobby is again
using US Congress to blackmail the international community to block Palestine’s
admission at the UN.
To that end, the World Zionist Organization’s lobbying arm-
ZO changed its name in 1960- coerced Congress to pass special law (22 USC 287e)
prohibiting US funding “for the United Nations or any specialized agency
thereof which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing
as member states”
Last September, a US communique warned European countries
that granting Observer status to Palestinians will force the US to stop ”financial
support for the Palestinian Authority.”
It is almost certain the PA is posed to get the 2/3 majority
for seat number 194 at the UN. A year ago, the Israeli proxy US veto at the
Security Council delayed the inevitable course of history for one year.
Today however, the US fruitless opposition for Palestine’s
membership at the UN will go down in the annals of history- along with the
ill-treatment of Native Americans and slavery- as one of the most abominable
and darkest eras in American history.
Gaza needs deeds, not visits
By: Jamal Kanj
November 21, 2012
ISRAEL’S wars on Gaza have never ceased since Palestinians
exercised their free democratic election in 2006. The relentless warfare has
taken alternating facets of bloody and muted wars for at least six years.
Let’s first clarify some distortions.
Contradictory to most Western media reporting the current
escalation was sparked by Israel’s extra judicial assassination of Ahmad Al Jabari,
a Hamas military leader, not by rockets from Gaza.
The targeted killing came 48 hours following an Egyptian
mediated ceasefire between Israel and militant Palestinian organizations.
In fact, news reports three weeks ago indicated that the
assassinated Hamas leader was negotiating a long term ceasefire with Israel. Moreover, Mr. Al Jabari was instrumental in
limiting Hamas’ retaliation to repeated Israeli violations of a previous
ceasefire.
What motivated Israeli to violate the latest agreement?
Israeli governing political parties thrive on conflict. Almost every major war waged in the last 15
years, whether in Palestine or Lebanon coincided with a scheduled election
(1996, 2006, 2009.) As a militaristic society, Israeli polls correspond favorably
by voting for the party of war.
A second political objective is preempting and reframing Obama’s
peace agenda during his second term.
Third motive is to distract attention or delay Palestinian bid
for an Observer status at the United Nations later this month.
On the military level, Zionist warmongers sacrificing
Palestinian and Jewish blood to test US financed Iron Dom in preparation for their
more destructive war with Hezbollah and Iran.
In a week of clashes, the American made and taxpayers paid
smart technology targeted residential areas killing more than 140 Palestinians;
a “collateral damage” of mostly innocent women, children.
The current carnage is inseparable from Israel’s 64 years
old violent attempts to subjugate the Palestinian people.
War crimes rationalized by the US and most European
countries as self-defense. These are the same nations which ostensibly back
Arab’s trot towards democracy.
This is beyond hypocritical.
While pontificating on Arabs to embrace democratic values,
they had been nonchalant to the inhumane blockade on Gaza or Israeli suzerainty
on the rest of Palestine. Occupation is the worst form of rules, combined with
a military siege, it is the highest level of aggression.
Other form of aggression is Israel’s silent war manifested
by its military supervised starvation “diet” rationing the entry of food and
preventing fishermen in Gaza from accessing 85 pc of sea fishery
resources.
A study prepared for the United Nations Conference of Trade
and Development (UNCTAD) last September predicted that under current
conditions, Gaza would become “fundamentally unlivable” city by 2020.
Israeli evil have continued only because the international
community remained indifferent to Israeli illegal settlements in the West Bank and
a wicked siege on more than 1.4 million people in Gaza.
This was also possible because Arab governments choose to do
very little. Rhetoric speeches and feel good visits to Gaza may raise morale.
Financial support, if dispensed, is recycled in the never-ending rebuilding
process.
What Gaza needs are deeds to compel Western powers to come
back to their senses and stop defending Israel’s malevolent policies.
For example, minor tweaking in oil production or delay in
delivery lots would be enough to jiggle vulnerable Western economies forcing
leaders to become more attuned to their national interests, not Israeli lobby.
For a ceasefire to take footing, its final outcome must be
inclusive of halting all forms of warfare, ending the blockade on Gaza and a
cessation in building illegal Jewish only settlements in the West Bank.
Israelis should not continue to enjoy peace while
Palestinians suffer under occupation. Reconciliation and repression are
incongruent.
US elections, a diminishing democracy
JAMAL KANJ*
November 7, 2012
THE results of US elections are eccentric. While re-electing
Obama for the White House, voters also chose members of the opposing party as
their Representatives. Pundits refer to this as division of powers at its best.
Today, next to President Barack Obama, Abigael Evans, the
four-year-old from Fort Collins Colorado must be the second happiest person presidential
election is finally over.
Last week leading to election, Abigael became an instantaneous
American celebrity after her mom posted on Youtube her tearful 22 second clip
declaring “I am tired of Bronco Bama and Mitt Romney." As of yesterday, her
video received more than 13 million hits.
She was not alone.
Living in a swing state, the little girl was the recipient
of the brunt of an estimated one million presidential election ad. For anyone
who lived through a US election, the immediate relief is not the polling’s
outcome, but the end of incessant bombardment of primetime slanted commercials advising
electorates of who not to vote for instead of who they should elect.
In this election cycle, presidential candidates and Super
Political Action Committees (SuperPACs) broke a new record raising and spending
more than $2 billion.
US election laws do not allow citizens to contribute more
than $2,500 to a candidate in an election year. SuperPACs however were
permitted in a 2010 Supreme Court ruling to raise money from undeclared individuals
or corporations and spend unlimited cash during an election cycle.
This gives more significance for this election as Obama could
potentially fill more than half of the seats on the high court, the first time
since President Dwight Eisenhower.
In October alone SuperPACs supporting both political parties
invested more than $526 million in US election.
The main Republican inclined Super PACs were Mitt Romney
Restore Our Future, American Crossroads, and Crossroads GPS. An important financier
for Romney’s PAC was casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
Adelson, who brags of being "the richest Jew in the world”
was cited by the British Guardian on November 1st to support the
hawkish current Israeli prime minister as a “necessary bulwark” to peace talks
and “Palestinian statehood, a prospect he abhors.”
On the Democratic side, the Pro Obama Super PAC Priorities
USA Action funded among others by Hollywood tycoons like Haim Saban, of Saban
Entertainment and DreamWorks founders Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Saban, according to New York Times on April 9, 2009, threatened
to withhold campaign contributions to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if Israeli
firster Jane Harman was not appointed to an intelligence post in a
Congressional committee.
DreamWorks presented Israeli president Shimon Peres last
March with the original piece of artwork from their first animated feature film
"Prince of Egypt." Peres in turn applauded Hollywood influence on youth
for "children believe the actors more than the politicians."
Ironically, the above major Bankrollers for elections’ winners
and losers share one thing: special affinity to Israel; ensuring that
irrespective of the victor, an Israel-first financier will have special access
to the resident of the White House.
The Economist Magazine special report on October 12 suggested
that 80% of the total SuperPACs money “comes from fewer than 200 donors.” Statistically,
this means that less than 0.0000007% of the US population has the largest
impact in shaping the outcome of US elections.
Chrystia Freeland editor of Thomson Reuters Digital sees newfangled
status symbol transformation for the super-rich from “conspicuous consumption”
to influencing “public policy.”
She cautioned that "Democracy is supposed to be one
person, one vote. But when economic disparity grows and transfers into
political disparity, well, you have to ask where it's going."
Netanyahu: intoxicated by arrogance
Jamal Kanj
October 30, 2012
IN my weekly column last August I predicted “Closer to
Election Day and as the President’s reelection becomes certain, a credible
scenario would be for Israel to strike Iran preempting Obama’s new term at the
White House.”
Benjamin Netanyahu’s performance at the United Nation’s (UN)
opening session deflated that possibility. The cartoon’s bomb spectacle was the
ex-furniture salesman’s final desperate stunt before conceding.
Concluding from Netanyahu’s speech an Israeli strike is now less
likely. Not only since Obama’s reelection next Tuesday was becoming uncertain, but
because Netanyahu was a victim of his vain swaggering arrogance.
Politicians tend to get intoxicated in private room meetings
losing their inhibition when articulating, off the record, their candid opinions.
In a 2001 closed room meeting, unbeknown to him, Netanyahu was
caught on video bragging to an Israeli settler’s family on how easily he can
manipulate the US “I know what America is… America is a thing you can move very
easily.”
He boasted on his plans to sabotage the Oslo Peace Accord
with Palestinians: “I'm going to interpret the accords in such a way that would
allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the '67 borders.”
Netanyahu was however side blinded by his condescension view
of American democracy- in the Iran case- where he failed to appreciate the role
US military might play over war issues.
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is undeniably
one of the strongest lobbying groups in Washington and arguably the undisputed
foreign lobby leader in the nation’s capital. It remains however of no match to
the US military’s influence.
Preempting Netanyahu, AIPAC and Israeli firsters from both parties,
Obama mobilized his military by sending the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs
Martin Dempsey to Tel Aviv in late January reiterating the President’s demand for
Israeli refrain from any unilateral military move without prior notice to
Washington.
In a characteristic salesman bluff, Netanyahu responded by
canceling the largest ever US-Israel war exercise that was scheduled to take
place in April. The Prime Minister wanted to send an indirect message to the
Obama administration of a possible unilateral strike during spring 2012.
The US military was unmoved by the Israeli tactics and
continued to verbalize its opposition to war. The American military public
position neutralized Israeli supporters and war advocates in both houses.
Israeli lobby’s inability to exert political pressure on the
US military, a backpedaling Netanyahu surrogate told Ynet news on August 11
that Israel is willing to “reconsider” unilateral attack if Obama would set an
ultimatum to stop Iran’s enrichment.
Refusing to abate, the military went on the offensive. US Joint
Chiefs Dempsey was quoted in the British Guardian on August 30 that an Israeli
strike would only succeed in unraveling the “crippling international sanctions”
against the Iranian government.
He went further making a statement no US politician would dare
to utter: “I don't want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it."
Only American military leaders are invulnerable to political
intimidation from Israeli firsters and its lobbying arm. Unlike the myopic view
of elected officials, military leaders understand the cost of war and the
limitation of its own might in what could be a very costly protracted conflict.
Next Wednesday America will wake up to a new term president
at the White House. To the chagrin of Israeli leaders, the US military might
have derailed for now another world disaster.
*Jamal Kanj writes frequently on
Arab
World issues and the author of “Children of Catastrophe, Journey from
a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America”, Garnet Publishing,
UK. Jamal’s articles can be read at www.jamalkanj.com, his email address
is jkanj@yahoo.com
