Saturday, December 01, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Isolated in Syria...Again
Susan Brannon
29 November 2012
Here we go again. While Syrians are fighting and loosing their lives for democracy. While the people fight for important freedoms, while there are daily massacres killing men, women and children…the Syrian government decided to shut down the Internet.
Now, it will be impossible to find the truths and realities of the horrible situation in Syria. It will be difficult to filter out the difference between propaganda that leaks through from the reality. I call it the media war. This is a new type of war that destabilizes societies from taking action, from gathering together in protection from gross injustices and isolates people from the rest of the world.
Shutting down communication platforms reduces the resources needed to remain safe, to find refuge for the children by not being able to monitor the movements of those who hold guns and drive tanks who are more than ready to pull the trigger and attack.
The American news is blasting numbers like 2/3rds of the networks are shut down while others report 100%. It doesn't make sense, the Syrian government used the internet as tool for tracking dissidents and rebels. With this being the case, it could be signs that the Syrian government may be making plans to enter into attack at the rebels. The regime should enter into emergency mode and move forward in their movements with extreme caution. Already it seems that the country has As a response, EgyptAir canceled flights to Damascus, it is already rumored that the rebels are battling for the airport, and fights broke out all over the capital.
In the past, when Syria shut down the internet in February 2011, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made remarks condemning the shutdown. Rumors inundated the Internet in the rest of the world and left us wondering what was really going on inside. America has remained "uninvolved" in the Syrian dilemma and it is a concern that this lack of involvement, sends the wrong message to the government of Syria giving them a carte blanche to do just about anything that they want to do to their people.
Activists told the AP that cell phone networks and landlines were also unavailable in parts of Damascus and this cuts off even more communication to the outside world.
What resources can we use on the outside to try to follow the events in Syria? Here are a few:
Syria Live Reuters
@Bambuser_Alert Twitter
#Damascus
#Syria
Related Links:
Washington Post
29 November 2012
Here we go again. While Syrians are fighting and loosing their lives for democracy. While the people fight for important freedoms, while there are daily massacres killing men, women and children…the Syrian government decided to shut down the Internet.
Now, it will be impossible to find the truths and realities of the horrible situation in Syria. It will be difficult to filter out the difference between propaganda that leaks through from the reality. I call it the media war. This is a new type of war that destabilizes societies from taking action, from gathering together in protection from gross injustices and isolates people from the rest of the world.
Shutting down communication platforms reduces the resources needed to remain safe, to find refuge for the children by not being able to monitor the movements of those who hold guns and drive tanks who are more than ready to pull the trigger and attack.
The American news is blasting numbers like 2/3rds of the networks are shut down while others report 100%. It doesn't make sense, the Syrian government used the internet as tool for tracking dissidents and rebels. With this being the case, it could be signs that the Syrian government may be making plans to enter into attack at the rebels. The regime should enter into emergency mode and move forward in their movements with extreme caution. Already it seems that the country has As a response, EgyptAir canceled flights to Damascus, it is already rumored that the rebels are battling for the airport, and fights broke out all over the capital.
In the past, when Syria shut down the internet in February 2011, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made remarks condemning the shutdown. Rumors inundated the Internet in the rest of the world and left us wondering what was really going on inside. America has remained "uninvolved" in the Syrian dilemma and it is a concern that this lack of involvement, sends the wrong message to the government of Syria giving them a carte blanche to do just about anything that they want to do to their people.
Activists told the AP that cell phone networks and landlines were also unavailable in parts of Damascus and this cuts off even more communication to the outside world.
What resources can we use on the outside to try to follow the events in Syria? Here are a few:
Syria Live Reuters
@Bambuser_Alert Twitter
#Damascus
#Syria
Related Links:
Washington Post
New Financial Overseer Looks for Advice in all the Wrong Places
"This month, it announced its advisory committee. Thirty big names charged with giving the fledgling operation direction and gravitas. But these same people have also compromised it."
The financial industry is obsessed with President Obama's second-term regulatory appointments. Who will be Treasury secretary? Who could head the Federal Housing Finance Administration? But hardly anyone is paying much attention to the Office of Financial Research.
This entity was created by the Dodd-Frank Act to conduct independent research on the sweeping risks to the financial system. Ah, right, another group of Washington wonks who will issue reports carrying vague warnings of risks looming sometime in the uncertain future. Yawn. I hadn't paid much attention either.
But then I spoke to Ross Levine, an economist and specialist in regulation at Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and I finally got it. The Office of Financial Research is a great idea. And as I grasped it, I felt a minor sense of horror, as when you see a precious ring slip off a finger in slow motion and go down the drain while you are powerless to stop it.
The office is looking as if it will be a tool of the financial services industry, instead of a check on it. Its main role is to serve the Financial Stability Oversight Council, providing the systemic risk overseer with data and analysis of where the nukes are buried.
But the Office of Financial Research was hobbled from the get-go by a poor design. It is housed in the Treasury Department, while ostensibly being independent of it. It has a small budget. And it has to report to the very regulators it is supposed to report on.
This month, it announced its advisory committee. Thirty big names charged with giving the fledgling operation direction and gravitas. But these same people have also compromised it.
By my count, 19 of the 30 committee members work directly in financial services or for private sector entities that are dependent on the industry. There are academics, but many of them have lucrative ties to the financial services industry. I noted only one financial industry critic: Damon A. Silvers, the policy director for the A.F.L.-C.I.O.
"Academics with a history of challenging regulators are not there," said Anat R. Admati, a finance professor at Stanford and the co-author, with Martin Hellwig, of the forthcoming call to arms, "The Banker's New Clothes" (Princeton University Press). She was among several prominent banking critics who had applied but didn't make the cut.
The Treasury Department sees it differently.
"We were not looking for critics or proponents. That wasn't the goal," said Neal S. Wolin, the Treasury deputy secretary. "We were looking for people with a range of perspectives who understand keenly the systemic risks in the financial system."
Mr. Wolin said that the office would be independent despite its home. The argument for being housed in the Treasury Department is that if it were all by its lonesome, brand new and small, it would be much easier to be squashed like a bug.
Maybe. But it's not as if there isn't a precedent for creating a better advisory council: Sheila Bair did it for another regulator, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. That panel, the Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee, has Professor Admati; Paul A. Volcker; John S. Reed, the former co-chief executive of Citigroup and now a prominent banking apostate; and Simon Johnson, the former head economist for the International Monetary Fund and outspoken banking nemesis.
Perhaps Professor Admati and Mr. Johnson and Mr. Volcker were busy. The world is teeming with expert critics of Big Banking; they just aren't heard from much in the halls of Washington. The Federal Reserve Banks of Kansas City and Dallas have candidates. The economist Joseph Stiglitz would make a good choice. The Bank of England houses two prominent banking critics, Andy Haldane and Robert Jenkins. Outfits like Better Markets or Demos could nominate people who would give Jamie Dimon some indigestion.
Certainly, financiers are not a monolithic lot. Investors often have differing interests from those of banks, and investment banks from commercial banks, and the small from the large. Even in big institutions, there are secret sharers of anti-Wall Street sentiment. And obviously, an advisory committee requires a certain number of experts with real-world experience.
Clearly, there is a place for finance professionals. But shouldn't the balance of the committee be tilted in the opposite direction and give greater voice to the critics and the banking skeptics? This is a panel that is supposed to identify giant risks in the system that bankers ignore in their pursuit of profit and bonuses and to spot flaws in regulations that could cost the public and economy trillions.
It's not as if the poor bankers don't have a voice in Washington, after all. The bankers have the resources. And they are focused. Bankers are in the trenches all day, fighting regulation. The public only glances at these battles.
So why does yet another Washington advisory panel of worthies matter? Mr. Levine has a subtle and fascinating answer. He starts by pointing to the mystery of the home-team advantage in sports, which has long puzzled researchers.
It turns out that umpires are biased toward the home team not out of conscious or recognizable bias. Rather, they subconsciously gravitate toward their immediate "community" — in this case, the home-field crowd, especially at crucial moments in a game. (Researchers will next study how this appears to have no effect whatsoever on the New York Jets.)
To minimize the bias, you can tell the umpires that they are being monitored. Introduce instant replay. With that, you have expanded the community that is watching the umpires to an audience far beyond the home crowd.
Mr. Levine believes that the Office of Financial Research could do the same for regulators. If it independently examined and publicized not just systemic risks, but — crucially — the flaws in how the regulators were approaching those risks, that could have the effect of expanding the regulators' community. Regulators, he said, "operate within financial services industry. They are surrounded by it."
"That means that the home-field crowd is the financial services industry," he said. "The public, if it has a ticket at all, is way up in bleachers, and its voice can't be heard."
The Office of Financial Research is well on its way to barring the gate.
Before the crisis, the consensus was that the Office of Thrift Supervision was the regulator most in the pocket of Big Banking. For its efforts, it got shut down as part of the postcrisis regulatory overhaul.
"Now, the title of ‘Most Captured' is up for grabs," Mr. Johnson said. "And I think we have a contender."
reposted: Pro Publica.org
Monday, November 26, 2012
On Memorials: Berlin: Remembering
Memorials can bring Peace and a sense of Justice: See this video:
by Tony Coll, "The Restaurant at the End of the Third Reich"
by Tony Coll, "The Restaurant at the End of the Third Reich"
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Max Keiser Report: Banks renting homes
Disclose.tv - Max Keiser: 'Colossal Collapse Coming!' [Ian Williams © KeiserReport]
Banks still have 0% interest rates, but still charge much more to the common person, other than the 1%. Banks are now renting the homes and raising the prices even though the incomes are going down and the lack of jobs.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Where do the Homeless Sleep?
From Portland Rescue Mission posted from Change.org
Living without a home of your own is a devastating experience. But sleeping without a home is downright difficult. Some of these places receive media attention. Others may surprise you. But all of these overnight accommodations are completely unacceptable for regular human habitation.
1. Storage Units
Many have called storage units the modern-day cardboard box. Sure, they’re not ideal, but they’re dry, secure and beat the dangers of the street. And they offer a way for people to keep some of their belongings rather than abandon them or have them stolen.
2. Cars
Living out of a vehicle may seem like a bearable solution to losing one’s home. But when your home is on four wheels, it’s impossible to sit still. Each day, you must be on the go to evade authorities and the expensive citations for illegal parking or sleeping in a vehicle (Yes, there are ordinances against this.). You sleep with one eye open; you can never be perfectly at ease. And the nomadic lifestyle makes it difficult for homeless organizations to stay in touch to provide help.
3. Motels
Cheap motels became the newest thing in subsidized housing and the de facto shelter for families affected by the recession in 2009. For families, it’s an affordable alternative to shelter and safer than the streets. But with cramped rooms, unsafe conditions, and little space for cooking, it is far from a good alternative to safe, decent housing. And when money runs out, families are back on the street.
4. Tent Cities
Since the economy has been hurting, homeless encampments have sprung up in communities across the U.S. Some – like Sacramento, Providence, or Nickelsville – garner lots of media attention; others go quietly unnoticed. As diverse the residents and characteristics of these communities may be, they all have on thing in common: they are cloaked in controversy. Portland’s tent city is Dignity Village (http://www.dignityvillage.org).
5. Parks
After walking all day or night, it’s tempting for a homeless man or woman to stretch out on the lawn or a bench for some rest. Parks are open to the public and a decent place to get a nap during the day. But sleeping in the park at night is usually interrupted by police asking offenders to move along.
6. Streets
While it may seem counter-intuitive that a homeless person would choose to stay on the streets rather than in a homeless shelter, there are understandable reasons for doing so. Shelters tend to attract people who are chronically homeless and addicted. This can be frightening to someone newly homeless or to those who struggle with mental illness or social phobias.
7. Foreclosed Houses
Across the country, hundreds of thousands of foreclosed homes are boarded up, idle and empty. At the same time, homelessness has been on the rise and the need for decent affordable housing is as great as ever. It comes as no surprise that homeless men and women choose to become squatters in vacant homes.
8. Abandoned Buildings
Much like the situation with foreclosed homes, there’s no shortage of empty warehouses and other business buildings where homeless men and women take shelter.
9. Couches
When homelessness strikes, friends and relatives are often the first place of refuge. Homeless families and individuals sleep on couches, in garages/sheds and backyard tents. Although they are technically homeless, they are unseen and left uncounted in an official homeless census – until the hospitality wears out. Then, they end up on the street.
10. We Don’t Know
For all of those homeless individuals whose unfortunate living situations are documented, recorded, and broadcast to the public, there are hundreds more who remain anonymous. The methodology for finding and counting homeless people is imperfect; we simply do not find everyone.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
ITF Delivers WalMart Warning November 2012
reposted
ITF delivers Walmart warning
21 November 2012
ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) ship inspectors have been visiting ships carrying Walmart cargoes this week to pass on warnings that the company may be experiencing industrial action in the run up to Christmas. The ITF is asking captains and companies working with Walmart to raise with it widespread concerns about the retail giant’s treatment of its US staff.
Industrial action is likely among Walmart workers on Friday November 23, which is known as ‘Black Friday’, the day after the Thanksgiving holiday in the USA.
The move by the global union federation is in support of five US organisations campaigning for justice for Walmart workers: Making Change at Walmart, OUR Walmart, UNI Global Union Walmart Alliance, Warehouse Workers United, and Warehouse Workers for Justice*. They charge the company with paying poverty wages and dragging down pay and work conditions.
ITF acting general secretary Steve Cotton commented: “Walmart is a major customer of the shipping industry, and we feel it is important that transport companies – with whom we strive to build the same kind of collaborative industrial relations we would like to see Walmart embrace – are aware of potential industrial disruption.”
He continued: “We are seriously concerned by Walmart’s attitudes towards its workers. It has been widely reported that workers in its warehouse and retail operations have been subject to firings, threats to terminate employment, and reduced hours.”
The letter that has been delivered to ships this week by ITF inspectors says:
Dear Captain,
The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) is a Global Union Federation of 780 transport trade unions who collectively represent over 4.6 million workers worldwide.
We wish to bring to your attention a serious matter regarding Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., which has been reported to engage in unlawful retaliation against workers employed in their US retail and warehouse operations.
As Walmart cargo is carried by your company, you may wish to inform your management of these developments – particularly as there are reports of planned industrial disruptions in Walmart’s retail and warehouse operations in the upcoming Christmas holiday period. Your company may also be concerned about violations of labour rights and wish to raise this with Walmart.
Regarding the details of the matter, the ITF has learnt from its sister federation, UNI Global Union, that Walmart has retaliated against members of OUR Walmart, Warehouse Workers United, and Warehouse Workers for Justice when they have attempted to raise the following issues:
• Freedom of association
• Safe workplaces with safe equipment
• Provision of a policy manual for every employee, equal enforcement of policy and no discrimination
• Dependable and predictable work schedules
• Provision of affordable healthcare
• Wages and benefits that ensure that no employee has to rely on government assistance.
Reports show that workers raising these issues have been subject to unlawful firings, threats of employment termination, and reduced hours. These actions are thought to involve violations of both US law and ILO International Labour Standards. Walmart’s alleged retaliation also comes in the context of persistent wage and working hours violations. Since December 2008, the company has been involved in class action settlements and verdicts totaling US$1.18 billion (including a $187.6 claim currently under appeal).
The ITF is very concerned about the reported actions of Walmart against its workers. Walmart is a major customer of many companies across the shipping, ports, and contract logistics sectors, where numerous members of ITF affiliated unions work.
The ITF believes the positive industrial relations between employers and unions in many of these companies sets a standard to which Walmart should aspire.
We would therefore like to draw the attention of your company to this serious situation.
Thanking you in solidarity,
More information
Walmart is the largest company in the world. It has 2.2 million employees in 28 countries. Only the US Department of Defence and China’s People’s Liberation Army are bigger. Walmart has grown by driving down costs and working conditions, and is strongly anti-union. Former executive John Tate, an influential figure in the company’s history, said “labor unions are nothing but blood sucking parasites”.
Walmart workers in the US are fighting for a fair deal. Retail and warehouse workers are demanding the right to collectively organise, fair wages, and affordable health care. The US remains the largest part of Walmart’s business, with 1.4 million workers.
This is the first large scale union organising by workers in Walmart’s history. In September there were strikes in Walmart warehouse operations in Los Angeles and Chicago. And October saw the first ever strikes in US Walmart stores, with workers in 28 stores walking out in protest over their conditions and unfair labour practices.
About the ITF
The ITF is a global union federation representing around four and a half million transport workers worldwide. Unions – currently 708 from 154 countries – affiliate to the ITF, which is able to carry their interests into the global arena.
Related Articles:
WalMart Stirs Concern over Compensation System
Wal Mart Blips List
ITF delivers Walmart warning
21 November 2012
ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) ship inspectors have been visiting ships carrying Walmart cargoes this week to pass on warnings that the company may be experiencing industrial action in the run up to Christmas. The ITF is asking captains and companies working with Walmart to raise with it widespread concerns about the retail giant’s treatment of its US staff.
Industrial action is likely among Walmart workers on Friday November 23, which is known as ‘Black Friday’, the day after the Thanksgiving holiday in the USA.
The move by the global union federation is in support of five US organisations campaigning for justice for Walmart workers: Making Change at Walmart, OUR Walmart, UNI Global Union Walmart Alliance, Warehouse Workers United, and Warehouse Workers for Justice*. They charge the company with paying poverty wages and dragging down pay and work conditions.
ITF acting general secretary Steve Cotton commented: “Walmart is a major customer of the shipping industry, and we feel it is important that transport companies – with whom we strive to build the same kind of collaborative industrial relations we would like to see Walmart embrace – are aware of potential industrial disruption.”
He continued: “We are seriously concerned by Walmart’s attitudes towards its workers. It has been widely reported that workers in its warehouse and retail operations have been subject to firings, threats to terminate employment, and reduced hours.”
The letter that has been delivered to ships this week by ITF inspectors says:
Dear Captain,
The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) is a Global Union Federation of 780 transport trade unions who collectively represent over 4.6 million workers worldwide.
We wish to bring to your attention a serious matter regarding Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., which has been reported to engage in unlawful retaliation against workers employed in their US retail and warehouse operations.
As Walmart cargo is carried by your company, you may wish to inform your management of these developments – particularly as there are reports of planned industrial disruptions in Walmart’s retail and warehouse operations in the upcoming Christmas holiday period. Your company may also be concerned about violations of labour rights and wish to raise this with Walmart.
Regarding the details of the matter, the ITF has learnt from its sister federation, UNI Global Union, that Walmart has retaliated against members of OUR Walmart, Warehouse Workers United, and Warehouse Workers for Justice when they have attempted to raise the following issues:
• Freedom of association
• Safe workplaces with safe equipment
• Provision of a policy manual for every employee, equal enforcement of policy and no discrimination
• Dependable and predictable work schedules
• Provision of affordable healthcare
• Wages and benefits that ensure that no employee has to rely on government assistance.
Reports show that workers raising these issues have been subject to unlawful firings, threats of employment termination, and reduced hours. These actions are thought to involve violations of both US law and ILO International Labour Standards. Walmart’s alleged retaliation also comes in the context of persistent wage and working hours violations. Since December 2008, the company has been involved in class action settlements and verdicts totaling US$1.18 billion (including a $187.6 claim currently under appeal).
The ITF is very concerned about the reported actions of Walmart against its workers. Walmart is a major customer of many companies across the shipping, ports, and contract logistics sectors, where numerous members of ITF affiliated unions work.
The ITF believes the positive industrial relations between employers and unions in many of these companies sets a standard to which Walmart should aspire.
We would therefore like to draw the attention of your company to this serious situation.
Thanking you in solidarity,
More information
Walmart is the largest company in the world. It has 2.2 million employees in 28 countries. Only the US Department of Defence and China’s People’s Liberation Army are bigger. Walmart has grown by driving down costs and working conditions, and is strongly anti-union. Former executive John Tate, an influential figure in the company’s history, said “labor unions are nothing but blood sucking parasites”.
Walmart workers in the US are fighting for a fair deal. Retail and warehouse workers are demanding the right to collectively organise, fair wages, and affordable health care. The US remains the largest part of Walmart’s business, with 1.4 million workers.
This is the first large scale union organising by workers in Walmart’s history. In September there were strikes in Walmart warehouse operations in Los Angeles and Chicago. And October saw the first ever strikes in US Walmart stores, with workers in 28 stores walking out in protest over their conditions and unfair labour practices.
About the ITF
The ITF is a global union federation representing around four and a half million transport workers worldwide. Unions – currently 708 from 154 countries – affiliate to the ITF, which is able to carry their interests into the global arena.
Related Articles:
WalMart Stirs Concern over Compensation System
Wal Mart Blips List
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Dec 3rd 2012 - Petition Free and Open Internet
Meetings are happening behind closed doors that take away our freedom of speech and when they take away our freedoms, they take away the right to gather peacefully to voice our concerns, they take away our rights to communicate with those in other parts of the world. They take away our rights to knowledge, to take actions and to be a democracy.
Please, Please, Please take the few minutes and click on the link understand what is at stake and to sign this important request:
https://www.google.com/takeaction/whats-at-stake/index.html
Please, Please, Please take the few minutes and click on the link understand what is at stake and to sign this important request:
https://www.google.com/takeaction/whats-at-stake/index.html
Pakistani view on Palestine
Editor: Sir Zafrulla Khan on Palestine
Now that Israeli slaughter is underway yet again, it is an appropriate moment for Pakistanis to show solidarity with Palestinians by recalling what Sir Zafrulla Khan – the author of thePakistan Resolution – had to say about the “partition” of Palestine in the year of the Nakbah. Lamentably, due to the predicament of our own country under the second amendment, Sir Zafrulla Khan (KCSI, 1893 – 1985, our first foreign minister, representative at the UN, judge at the ICJ and of course the Pakistan Resolution’s draftsman), an adherent of the reformist Ahmadi Muslim community, would be considered a “non-Muslim”.
Yet the perversion of the meaning of the word “Muslim” to appease the mullahstreet is incapable of denting Sir Zafrulla’s arguments in support of Palestinians. It remains very much the case that Sir Zafrulla wrote Palestine in the U.N.O. as aMusalman. Of that there is no doubt. Equally, he wrote to expose the truth about what happened in the UN. But in the context of our own country, no doubt much to his torment, Sir Zafrulla also lived to see his (and Mr Jinnah’s) dream of asecular Pakistan being destroyed.
Our focus today, however, is not the vile state of the law in Pakistan. (But we nonetheless urge our politicians to repeal all non-secular enactments immediately.) Rather, we seek to show solidarity with the people of Palestine who are again being slaughtered by the Israelis: the latest attacks in Gaza have already claimed 67 lives (including pregnant women and more than a dozen children) and no doubt many more innocents will perish under Israel’s merciless and random attacks.
Sir Zafrulla’s seminal 1948 account of how things went in the UN in respect of the problem of Palestine is strikingly similar to later analyses by western journalists and Palestinian activists (see for example David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch, 1977; Sari Nusseibeh, Once Upon A Country, 2003). Land grabbing was the issue at the heart of the problem. And it was facilitated by Jewish immigration. The Palestinians were not the “problem” and the Jews were the “terrorists”: Lord Moyne’s assassination by Lehi in 1944, the bombing of the King David Hotel by Irgun in 1946 and Count Bernadotte’s murder by Lehi in 1948 (headed by none other than Yitzhak Shamir, who went on to become Israel’s prime minister) confirm this fact. So not much has changed. And although the British, who bear the responsibility of creating the conflict, would no longer call the Israelis “terrorists”, had he still been alive Sir Zafrulla would continue to call them just that. What else can a professional army intentionally bombing a civilian population be called?
Clearly, the approach is not working and the people firing the rockets remain unaffected by “Operation Pillar of Defence.” We have heard so much from the White House about the atrocities committed by the Syrian regime. But why, even in the face of repeated slaughter of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli military, is the Palestine issue always on the backburner?
Perhaps we can find some answers by returning to Sir Zafrulla’s monograph. His point of departure was the British pledge regarding Arab independence after the First World War: in exchange, of course, for Arab support against OttomanTurkey. Observing the betrayal of this promise through the Balfour Declaration – set out in a 2nd November 1917 letter from Arthur Balfour, the then British foreign secretary, to Walter Rothschild – Sir Zafrulla remarked that “thereafter the Jewish immigration into Palestine started and the struggle between the Jews and the Arabs began.”
Equally, Sir Zafrulla also thought that His Majesty’s Government’s commitment to establishing in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people was a bad idea because the civil and religious rights of the Palestinian people (reduced by the stroke of Balfour’s pen to the “existing non-Jewish communities”!) would never be upheld. When the British finally promised to limit Jewish immigration to 75,000 people (between 1939 – 1949), president Roosevelt wrecked the settlement (achieved by Ernest Bevin) by demanding a mandatory entry of 100,000 Jews into Palestine.
So “an agreed settlement” to the problem was “prevented” by the Americans. “In the meantime”, explains Sir Zafrulla, “Great Britain was getting sick of the whole business.” Special sessions of the UN General Assembly followed and two reports were produced by 11 members of the UN which visited Palestine. The two reports – the “majority” and the “minority” report(s) – put forward solutions on the grounds of a partition of Palestine or a federal state with two units, one Arab and the other Jewish. While the Arabs refused to accept either report, “the Jews declared that they were prepared to accept the majority scheme.”
Subsequently, Sir Zafrulla observed two trends in the General Assembly. One in favour of the majority report which would mean that the Arabs would be in-charge because they outnumbered the Jews: in those days, the population of Palestine was 2,000,000; composed of 1,300,000 Arabs and 700,000 Jews. The two “solutions” were a unitary state with safeguards for minorities (minority report) or a partition with economic union (majority report).
The two proposals were committed to the two sub-committees of the Committee on Palestine. Sir Zafrulla, was elected as the chairman of sub-committee two and the Polish delegate headed sub-committee one. Sir Zafrulla’s sub-committee concluded that the UN “had no legal or juristic authority to partition Palestine.” Most delegates agreed that this was the true position in law and everyone agreeed that the problem could have been resolved “very easily” by Britain. But, as the mandatory member, she conveniently maintained:
Whatever solution the Assembly adopts, we ourselves will not support either partition or any other solution that may be suggested unless it is a solution which the Arabs and Jews are both willing to accept.
When the question “are you willing to help in what this scheme visualises?” was asked, Britain’s reply was “no; we won’t. Whatever you suggest will have to be done by the U.N.O.” Moreover, “the ultimate British attitude was”:
Upto the date on which we terminate the mandate – and we shall decide that date – we shall not share authority for the administration of Palestine with anybody else. We shall be the sole authority as the responsibility is ours and it is our troops that have to keep and maintain law and order. From the date of the termination of the mandate upto the date of the evacuation of our troops from Palestine, we shall be responsible for law and order only in our military camps to which we shall have withdrawn our troops. With regard to the rest of our country, we shall not be responsible and we shall withdraw our troops from Palestine at the latest by the 1st of August 1948. (They have since announced that they will terminate the mandate in May 1948.)
The proposals of the special committee sent to Palestine by the General Assembly desperately tried to mitigate the humanitarian dilemmas posed by the hasty British departure. Despite some attempts to stay partition (to search for a better solution) by the French and the rejection of it altogether by the Columbians, Sir Zafarulla recorded that the Americans were able to coerce a majority in favour of partition. The Haitian delegate – “there were actually tears in his eyes and he said: I have announced that we shall vote against partition and I have now received instructions to vote for partition” – was made to change his country’s vote because “pressure was being put on some delegations to vote in favour of partition against their will.”
As a Musalman, Sir Zafrulla knew that partition – “a very sad decision” – was the worst option and that the Nakbah was its inevitable consequence. He ended his monograph by noting that “most delegations, even some those that had voted in favour of it, were very unhappy.”
With the above in mind it is obvious that in addition to the Israelis, the Americans and British have a lot of blood on their hands. Maybe, to make amends, they can wash some of it off now by restraining Israel from attacking civilian populations and killing innocent women, children and non-combatants/journalists. It is high time the west, which is responsible for creating an absolutely horrific predicament for the Palestinians, held Israel accountable for its crimes rather than hiding behind Hamas’s skirt and, following Sir Zafrulla, we urge America’s president Obama to stop supporting the wholesale slaughter of innocent Palestinians by backing Israel’s murderous ways.
Monday, November 19, 2012
500 Egyptians protest in support of Gaza يديو
19 November 2012
At the break of dawn over 500 Egyptians stood in support of Gaza it is not clear exactly where this occurred, in Gaza or at the border.
At the break of dawn over 500 Egyptians stood in support of Gaza it is not clear exactly where this occurred, in Gaza or at the border.
Gaza Video- strike on journalist building (18 Nov 2012)
RT's Arabic-language sister channel — Rusiya Al-Yaum — was struck by the Israeli forces in Gaza Strip in the early hours of November 18, approximately at 01.30 am local time. RT's reporter Saed Suerki and cameraman Mustafa Al-Bayati were not injured as they had left the building one hour before the attack. The channel's media center was located at the top level of the 11-floor building among other media offices.
Israel targets Hamas compound 19 november 2012
Israeli missiles hit the headquarters of the Palestinian National Security Forces. The air strike caused a huge explosion, leaving one building in flames. Elsewhere in Gaza City on Monday, an air strike leveled two houses belonging to a single family, killing at least 11 civilians, including four children and toddlers. This was before, Anderson Cooper did his report on CNN.
Bomb explodes near Anderson Cooper while reporting
Yesterday the Israelis bombed a building that housed international media reporters and a bomb exploded while Anderson Cooper was reporting.
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