Jefferson Corner

Why PALESTINE AGENCY and Why Now?
Introduction and background:
(leaders of militias that kills and murder Palestinians have no place and is unfit to represent let alone lead the Palestinians to freedom).
Ever since chosen by Arab heads of states, most of whom were of questionable legitimacy, the PLO and its leadership have lead the Palestinian people from one disaster to another, from one failure to another, from one “strategic mistake” to another. Even when it has a chance to negotiate with Israel under the Oslo Accord, it negotiated for itself a role, recognition of Israel, while failing to negotiate the most important issues; ending the Israeli Military Occupation, freedom and independence for the Palestinian people and addressing the rights of all Palestinian in the Diaspora.
Over the last 35 year, the PLO leadership has always acted not in the best interest of the Palestinian people, but in the best interest of the PLO as an organization with vested interest for its leadership and cadre and it’s so called “institutions”. This was the case in Jordan, in Lebanon, in Kuwait and now in the Occupied Territories, after Oslo Accord.
The Palestine National Congress as the representative body of all Palestinians in Occupied Palestine and in the Diaspora, never lived up to its name and responsibilities of faithful representations of the people, failed to exercise its duties of checks and balances, accepted decisions and actions of the PLO and its leadership without critical assessment of the issues and decisions, and for the most part remained silent, on status and decisions affecting the Palestinians in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Libya and the Gulf States especially Kuwait. The daily needs and interests of millions of Palestinian gave way to the more pressing interest of the leadership perpetuating its role and of course its selfish benefits and interests and failed to call the leadership to accounts for its actions and failures, in Jordan, in Lebanon, in Libya, in Kuwait and under Oslo.
Palestinian intellectuals, thinkers, artists, and businessmen for the most part, went along with the leadership and never challenging the leaderships on its failures. After Oslo few Palestinian intellectuals dared to challenge Arafat questioning his leadership and his actions. The Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestine National Congress forfeited the privilege and right to represent the Palestinians in the Diaspora.
No one takes responsibilities for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians killed or murdered, and no one knows where are the billions of dollars raised by the PLO from Diaspora Palestinians and donations from Arab nations; yet, there was never any accounting of any of these funds and actions. Arafat death and the possible loss of billions of dollars of the “people money” demand immediate actions making sure that the public and people interest are protected. It is time to renegotiate the relationship between the Palestinians of the Diaspora and the PLO and the PNC.
Moreover, under Oslo Accord, the PLO for all practical and legal purposes merged into the Palestinian Authority, leaving millions of Palestinians around the world without any legal representation. Thus the urgent need for the Palestinians of the Diaspora to organize.
The death of Yaser Arafat and the assumption of Mahmoud Abbas may bring about a change, yet to be responsive and accountable leadership. However, it is unlikely that Mahmoud Abbas and his team of old guards, or for that matter any one else, can make fundamental changes in the way the PLO, Fatah or the Palestine National Council operate.
With Mahomud Abbas busy with the task of trying to put an end to the militia war going on in Gaza, in which his own private militia is a party to and with Hamas failing to live up to its commitments to change and cleaning house, getting more involved in regional alliances that do not service the cause of liberation and having proved it is but another militia, not to mention living in time past and with rhetoric that is over 1400 years old. The Palestinian leadership inside the Occupied Territories depending for the most part on militias that does not serve the cause of liberation, it is time to let go of the PLO.
Instead of focusing on ending the Israeli Occupation, putting an end to the expansions of Israeli settlements and stopping the building of the Apartheid Wall, and of course putting in place effective administrative and financial reforms and putting those whose fleeced the citizens behind bars, we see the Palestinian leaderships whether of that of Hamas, Fatah or the PLO all are drowning in a cup of Turkish coffee. How can such a leadership that could not manage the mundane day-to-day things under the Occupation provide the leadership and vision of representing the interests of the Palestinians in the Diaspora?
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This morning while reading the online edition of the Washington Post, I was pleasantly surprised to read an article written by Tim Craig, a Washington Post Staff Writer, that the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia passed a resolution last Friday expressing “ profound regret” for the state role in the slavery of Africans, and African-Americans. Of course the ‘profound regret” is not yet complete until such time the State Senate approves a similar resolution and the governor signs it.
This story coming out of Richmond, makes me and should make all Virginians very proud that the House of Delegates takes such an important, courageous and leading role and be the first legislative body within the United States to address more than 400 years of shameful, disgraceful and immoral and inhuman acts of enslavement not to mention the destructions of American Indians communities.
This “ profound regret” of course does not come with recognition of the state’s involvement and sanctions in the salve trade, with Republican (no doubt God fearful) legislatures reluctant to participate in an out right apology, which they are afraid, will lay the ground for reparations and compensations. Perhaps the trillion of dollars, Republicans are spending on the war on Iraq can have a better use going toward reparations and compensations to Blacks who no doubts suffered from the most and cruelest crimes ever committed. How could any one imagine, let alone accept the ownership of one human being of another.
This “profound regret” should be a nice and a good way to celebrate the 400 anniversary of the establishment of the settlement of Jamestown. Few years after arriving and settling in Jamestown, these God fearing and good White Christians began to import and trade in “stolen” African slaves, flooding the nation with Black slaves.
It is not so surprising that America, the strongest and most powerful nation and no doubt God fearing nation with profound Judea-Christian values have yet to recognize the wrongs inflicted on tens of millions of Africans and African-Americans, and dare not face its ugly history in promoting and sanctioning 350 years of slavery. We must not forget the fact that it was not until 1968 with the introduction of a series of civil right legislations that America began to over come such a disgraceful history. While the Blacks are no longer owned by Whites, they are never the less entrapped and imprisoned in poor, dangerous, drug infested ghettos, where the very few and the very determined are able to escape the cycle of daily humiliation. Of course, we must not put all of the blames on White America, we must also put the blame on the Black leadership within the African-American community who failed in over 50 years to make a difference and change the lives of the tens of millions trapped in these ghettos. It seems that successful Black leaders once they make it in life, they get the hell out of the ghetto and move to whiter neighborhoods and send their kids to whiter schools forgetting to do something about those less fortunate left behind. With tens of billions of dollars put in the war on poverty, the US records is as dismal as its record on the war on terror and the war on drugs. That should not speak well of the different administrations handling of the issues of poverty and empowerment of Blacks. Of course the only beneficiaries of these programs where the management and the so called “ community leaders” who made it like bandits.
Perhaps it is also never too late for the Arabs and Muslims to admit their role in such business of trading in slaves and perhaps it is never too late for the Japanese to admit their role in the murder of millions of Chinese and Philippines, and it is never too late for the Turks to admit and apologies for the murder of more than 1.5 million Armenians and it is never too late for the Europeans to admit to and apologize for the hundreds of years of colonization of African and Asia and the Middle East. It is also never too late for the French to admit to and apologize for their ruthless and criminal behavior in Algeria and Morocco. And it is never too late for Spain to apologize for its years of Christian Inquisition. Now the next sentence will no doubt generate the most debate and will over shadow the spirit of this posting. I am calling on Israel and world Jewry to admit to and apologize to the Palestinians for the crimes committed by the European Jewish Zionist settlers and the forced exiles of hundreds of thousands of native Palestinians. And of course to apologize for one of the longest inhuman military occupation in modern times and apologize to some 250,000 Palestinians who were wrongfully imprisoned by Israel and of course we need not mentioned the apology for the hundreds of thousands of uprooted trees and the hundreds of thousands of stolen parcels of land and apartments and homes. Thank you Virginia for setting the pace for the rest of the country, perhaps the rest of the world.

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As I got us this morning at 6 am the first thing I did was to take a look at Asharqalawsat newspaper to see the headlines and to see the number of dead and injured in Gaza. Well, the numbers are not like Baghdad, but getting up there. 22 dead and couple of hundreds injured and of course both sides of the conflict Hamas and Fatah used the best weapons the Israeli Occupation can provide to kill each other. Read the rest of this entry »

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24 January 2007
In Israel it is “targeted assasinations” in the US it is “character assasinations” victimes are liquidated
In Israel, it is called “targeted assasinations” where subjects are killed and murdered. In the US, it is not targetted assasinations, but “character assasinations” where any one, even if percieved to be critical of Israel let alone questions any of its actions is targeted and while not physically killed or murder they are assasinated never the less. In Israel they can debate any thing and every thing, even Israel and its actions and behavior. In the US, the lobby makes sure they we do not enjoy the same privileges they enjoy in Israel, the freedom of speech. Perhaps Congress need to reconsider our First Amendement Rights and reconsider the appointment of the lobby as a trustee of our rights to free speech.
Sami Jadallah
Subject: Very Good! Counterpunch: Alex Cockburn “First Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran!”
Weekend EditionJanuary 20/21 2007
First Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran!
The Israel Lobby Trips and Tilts
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
http://www.counterpunch.org/
Suppose the movers and shakers in the Israel lobby here — Abe Foxman, Alan Dershowitz and the rest of the crew — had simply decided to leave Jimmy Carter’s Palestine Peace Not Apartheid alone. How long before the book would have been gathering dust on the remainder shelves? Suppose even that Dershowitz had rounded up his unacknowledged co-authors in all their tens of thousands and sallied forth to buy up every copy of Carter’s book and toss each one into the Charles River, would not that have been a more successful suppressor than the blitzkrieg strategy they did adopt?
Of course it would. For weeks now the lobby has hurled its legions into battle against Carter. He has been stigmatized as an anti-Semite, a Holocaust denier, a patron of former concentration camp killers, a Christian madman, a pawn of the Arabs who “flatly condones mass murder” of Israeli Jews. (This last was from Murdoch’s New York Post editorial, relayed to its mailing list by the Zionist Organization of America.)
Any day now I expect some janitors at the Carter Center to resign, declaring that they can no longer in all conscience mop bathrooms that might have been used by the former President, their letter of protest duly front-paged by the New York Times, just like the famous fourteen members of the Carter Center’s Board of Councilors. Actually there were, at the time of resignations, 224 people on this board, where membership is mostly a thank you for a financial donation to the center. So the headlines could be saying, “Nearly 95 per cent of Carter Center Board Members Back Former President.”
But the assault on Carter is all to no avail. With each gust of abuse, Carter’s book soars higher and higher on the bestseller lists, reaching number 4 on Amazon itself. This doesn’t prove the lobby has no power. It proves the lobby can be dumb. Adroit lobbying consists in preventing unpleasing material reaching the light of day. Lobbying thrives in furtive darkness: slipping language into a bill at the last moment, threatening to back a campaign opponent, making quiet phone calls to the Polish embassy. Pressure is now being exerted on Farrar, Straus and Giroux to abandon its impending publication of Mearsheimer and Walt’s attack on the lobby.
The Israel lobby retains its grip inside the Beltway, but it’s starting to lose its hold on the broader public debate. Why? You can’t brutalize the Palestinian people in the full light of day, decade after decade, without claims that Israel is a light among the nations getting more than a few serious dents. In the old days, Mearsheimer and Walt’s tract would have been deep-sixed by the University of Chicago and the Kennedy School long before it reached its final draft, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux wouldn’t have considered offering a six-figure advance for it.

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