Former Bush administration official: Israel may be behind use of chemical arms in Syria
General (Retired) James David (who is mentioned on the cover of the third edition of former Republican Congressman Paul Findley’s ‘They Dare to Speak Out’ book about the power/influence of the pro-Israel lobby on the US political system and media) sent through the following yesterday:
James David wrote:
Former Bush administration official: Israel may be behind use of chemical arms in Syria
Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, says Israel may have conducted ‘false flag’ operation. Describes its government as inept and Netanyahu as ‘clueless’
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General Wesley Clark recently conveyed at UCLA that a Mossad contact had told him that Israel was operating in Iraq!
Inside the White House debate over Syria.
Israel lobby pushing Syrian regime change/civil war like it did with Iraq:
‘Valentino’s Ghost’ film makes US theatrical debut in Los Angeles and New York
‘Valentino’s Ghost’ film makes US theatrical debut in Los Angeles and New York
‘Valentino’s Ghost’ film (http://www.valentinosghost.com) makes its US theatrical debut in Los Angeles (at Laemmle Playhouse 7 in Pasadena: https://www.laemmle.com/films/37079 and at the Quad Cinema (http://www.quadcinema.com/#1903) in Greenwich Village (New York City) from May 17th-23rd (James Morris is in the film as well from the http://tinyurl.com/911motivation youtube with over half a million views).
VALENTINO‘S GHOST a documentary by Michael Singh:
http://www.coveringmedia.com/movie/2013/05/valentinos-ghost.html
Following is the Facebook picture for ‘Valentino’s Ghost’ screening in Los Angeles and New York City:
New York Times: Hollywood Does Arabia, From A to B
‘Valentino’s Ghost,’ a Documentary by Michael Singh
http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/movies/valentinos-ghost-a-documentary-by-michael-singh.html
Los Angeles Times Review: ‘Valentino’s Ghost’ hits media’s portrayal of Arabs, Muslims
Tracing America’s Relationship to the Middle East in Valentino’s Ghost
Why We Hate Them: Arabs in Western Eyes (by Philip Giraldi)
A new PBS documentary reveals how films and other media have shaped an anti-Muslim narrative (see the comments at bottom as well):
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-we-hate-them-arabs-in-western-eyes/
‘Valentino’s Ghost’ screened to standing ovations last year at the Venice Film Festival (world’s oldest and most prestigious) and at the Doha Tribeca Film Festival in Qatar:
PBS is sending a shortened one hour version of ‘Valentino’s Ghost’ to its national affiliates on June 1st. However, please consider sending an email to KOCE/PBS SoCal programming director Patricia Petric at ppetric@pbssocal.org insisting that KOCE (PBS SoCal) broadcast ‘Valentino’s Ghost’ in the Los Angeles/southern California market after they receive it on June 1st as KOCE is currently not going to!
Benghazi Was Blowback. And That’s Why Obama Covered It Up
Benghazi Was Blowback. And That’s Why Obama Covered It Up:
http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/05/09/benghazi-was-blowback-and-thats-why-obama-covered-it-up/
Fmr CIA Bin Laden unit head Michael Scheuer warned of Al Qaeda terrorism motivation via http://tinyurl.com/911motivemediabetrayal
Rand Paul accuses Hillary Clinton of ‘dereliction of duty’ on Libya
Geraldo Rivera: My Sources Tell Me Benghazi Was About Running Missiles to Syrian Rebels
Israel lobby pushing Syrian regime change/civil like it did with Iraq: http://tinyurl.com/jamesmorrisoncrosstalk
Philip Giraldi: Gatekeeping for Zion
Gatekeeping for Zion
http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2013/05/09/gatekeeping-for-zion-2/
Posted By Philip Giraldi On May 9, 2013 @ 11:00 pm In Uncategorized | 5 Comments
People like myself who are either paleoconservatives or libertarians generally base their opposition to Israel and its Lobby on the costs of the de facto alliance, both financial and in terms of the wars and political chaos it has triggered. We try to demonstrate how damage to rule of law and actual U.S. interests has been a byproduct of the relationship and seek to explain what a sane U.S. foreign policy might actually look like, end of story. But it is different sensibility coming from the more humanitarian inclined political left of the spectrum, which one would assume to have a natural inclination to oppose purveyors of oppression and human suffering. With that in mind, I would observe it is remarkable how ineffective the left has been in mobilizing any serious opposition to Israel’s policies.
There is a kind of groupthink that might provide an explanation for the lack of results in spite of what sometimes appears to be frenzied activity on the part of the cluster of liberal groups that focus on the Middle East. Gatherings to “Expose AIPAC” often focus on strategy and training, hardly discussing or challenging the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) at all. They also frequently fail to confront the full array of predominantly Jewish groups actively promoting Israel to include The Hudson Institute, WINEP, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, MEMRI, the American Enterprise Institute’s foreign policy wing, and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The plethora of well-resourced and actively engaged Jewish groups involved in foreign policy and more particularly Israel promotion is a fact of life inside the Beltway and a critical element supporting the interventionist narrative in spite of the country as a whole becoming decidedly war weary.
At the same time, most American Jews are actually either cool or even hostile to the policies of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Peter Beinart has called for a boycott of goods produced in the Israeli settlements while Jeffrey Goldberg has denounced a coalition partner in Netanyahu’s government, writing “The Jewish Home party advances an ideology that will bring about the destruction (the self-destruction) of Israel.” This reaction to the Israeli drift rightwards politically speaking probably explains why most organizations on the political left that are critical of Israel are themselves led by American Jews and, to their credit, they are very outspoken regarding Israel’s human rights violations and its policies towards the Palestinians. But it sometimes seems that they are restrained in their critiques, something that might be attributed to what could be referred to as Jewish identity politics. Instead of biting the bullet and confronting the fact that it is leading Jewish organizations and their in-the-pocket politicians that have quite plausibly been the sine qua non in unleashing a series of actual and impending wars against the Muslim world, they instead sometimes serve as gatekeepers to frame and divert an uncomfortable truth while looking for alternative explanations.
Part of the problem is that even though major Jewish organizations’ support of interventionism represents what is only a minority opinion among Americans in general, they pretend to represent everyone who is Jewish and have successfully sold that canard to both congress and the media. And make no mistake, it is the financial and political muscle of Jewish groups like Anti-Defamation League, Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, The American Jewish Committee, and the AIPAC that have given the green light to the hard line Israeli governments that have done so much damage to U.S. interests over the past decade. Christian Zionists are highly visible and are frequently cited to demonstrate the diversity of the Israeli Lobby, but they are largely irrelevant in terms of the actual dynamics of the pro-Israel effort. The reality is that no other national lobby can gather 13,000 of the faithful to its convention and count on the enthusiastic presence of numerous politicians from both parties as AIPAC does every year. But in spite of the quite visible power of the Jewish organizations it is sometimes more convenient and less troubling to look instead for other reasons to explain Tel Aviv’s misbehavior.
Progressives who are nervous about mentioning the shameless politicking of Jewish organizations frequently parrot what I call the Noam Chomsky rationalization, engaging actively in criticizing Israeli behavior while at the same time blaming the Middle East farrago on outside forces like American imperialism, capitalism, or oil. This approach largely exonerates Israel from actual blame for what it does and it also by extension minimizes the role of the Jewish groups that constitute the core of the pro-Israel lobby because it is claimed that Washington drives the Israeli government’s behavior based on its own self-interest not vice versa. As a result, the critics seldom question the legitimacy of the self-defined Jewish state and they are sometimes reluctant to support any measures that would actually do damage to Israel and its perceived interests.
Norman Finkelstein, a reliable progressive critic of Israeli actions, is of the Chomsky persuasion. He believes that the United States would have attacked Iraq anyway based on its own interests whether or not the fervently pro-Israel neocons had occupied key positions in the Pentagon, National Security Council, and White House. Finkelstein, in an article on the Israel Lobby, maintains that “fundamental U.S. policy in the Middle East hasn’t been affected by the Lobby,” rejects the view that Israel is a liability for U.S. national interests and states instead that it is a “unique and irreplaceable American asset.” He describes American Jewish elites as only “’pro’ an Israel that is useful to the U.S.” He insists that the neocons do not “generally have a primary allegiance to Israel [or] in fact, any allegiance to Israel.” The evidence, however, suggests otherwise: even agreeing that the Iraq war had a number of godfathers, the folks in the Pentagon and White House who cooked the books and led the charge had extremely well documented strong personal and even financial ties to Israel, so much so that several of them were accused of passing classified information to the Israeli Embassy.
The shaping of the narrative to minimize the role of organizations that are demonstrably Jewish – albeit unrepresentative of Jewish opinion in America -has also been very effective in some media circles. An April 2007 ninety minute presentation on PBS’s Frontpage with Bill Moyers “Buying the War,” a critical look at the genesis of the Iraq invasion, did not mention Israel’s supporters even once. And one only has consider the recent Obama trip to Israel as well as the interrogation at the Chuck Hagel nomination, which was driven by organizations like AIPAC from behind the scenes, to realize that the United States government is no free agent when it comes to Middle Eastern policy. Ignoring the dominant role of “Jewish leaders” and the well-funded organizations that they head which falsely pretend to represent their entire community is a convenient obfuscation if one does not want to address causality, a bit like being concerned about global warming without looking at the actual science.
President Obama recognizes the power represented by Jewish groups acting as a cohesive and focused political entity when he meets with them collectively in the White House, so why the reluctance in recognizing and confronting their persistent pro-war, pro-intervention agenda? At a March 7th session, shortly before his trip to Israel, Obama met with Alan Solow, Lee Rosenberg and Michael Kassen of AIPAC; Barry Curtiss-Lusher of the Anti-Defamation League; David Harris of the American Jewish Committee; Jerry Silverman of Jewish Federations of North America; Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz; former Congressman Robert Wexler; Dan Mariaschin of B’nai B’rith; Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street; and Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Admittedly the linking of Jewish organizations’ easy access to policymakers with their possible role in launching a string of failed wars in Asia and still more in the offing on behalf of Israel makes many people uncomfortable because it invites the dual loyalty critique and even more extreme commentary that is ultimately racist in nature, but there you have it. The president knows who is pulling his strings and so should the rest of us.
Americans can either confront the ugly realities of what has been going on for the past twelve years or they can pretend that what they are seeing is not really there. The gatekeepers are understandably concerned lest Washington’s next war be blamed on American Jews so it is far better to suggest against all evidence that Israel is a pawn of American imperialism or that recent wars have been about oil or capitalist exploitation. The reality is that if progressives (and the rest of us) really want to stop a proxy war against Syria followed by a catastrophic conflict with Iran we have to take the blinkers off and be willing to confront Jewish groups like AIPAC and the ADL directly and persistently.
Read more by Philip Giraldi
- Kristol Clear – May 1st, 2013
- What Has Bibi Been Doing? – April 24th, 2013
- Drones and Death Lists: The New Face of Warfare – April 17th, 2013
- Just One Left Behind – April 10th, 2013
- Failed by the Fourth Estate – April 3rd, 2013
Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2013/05/09/gatekeeping-for-zion-2/
Senate Resolution: U.S. Will Go to War With Iran if Israel Does
Senate Resolution: U.S. Will Go to War With Iran if Israel Does
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/senate-resolution-us-will_b_3099788.html
MJ Rosenberg wrote:
I worked on Capitol Hill for 15 years. The purpose of these nonbinding resolutions is to send a message to the president that going to war is what Congress wants and that he better pay attention, and two, to have language in place that lays groundwork for binding resolutions. Obama now knows that if Israel attacks Iran and the U.S. does not join in, he will have hell to pay with Congress.
AIPAC does not waste its time with meaningless resolution. This is serious.
U.S. Senate committee passes AIPAC resolution to back Israel in conflict with Iran
Will Israel Blow Up Something and Falsely Blame It On Iran?
Pentagon Bulks Up ‘Bunker Buster’ Bomb to Combat Iran:
Pentagon Bulks Up ‘Bunker Buster’ Bomb to Combat Iran:
AIPAC’s WINEP pushing Syrian intervention for Israel
Listen to what Israel lobby (AIPAC) spin-off think tank (Washington Institute for Near East Policy – WINEP) mouthpiece Jeffrey White said about Syria on C-SPAN’s ‘Washington Journal’ this morning (also fits with what James Morris said on Russia Today’s ’Crosstalk’ via http://tinyurl.com/jamesmorrisoncrosstalk with regard to going after Syria to weaken Iran and cut off Hezbollah!):
WINEP’s Jeffrey White on Latest Developments on Syria:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Whiteon
Additional on AIPAC’s influence on the US political system and media at http://tinyurl.com/mearsheimer
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CBS News correspondent Allan Pizzey just mentioned (at the end of the following CBS News segment which didn’t include his ending comments to Scott Pelley which I heard on air) that civil war in Syria would be good for Israel (such is why the Israel lobby has been encouraging such in accordance with Israeli Likudnik Oded Yinon’s ‘Strategy for Israel in the 1980′s’ via http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0005345.html which James Morris mentioned on Russia Today via http://tinyurl.com/jamesmorrisoncrosstalk as well during his Press TV interviews at http://tinyurl.com/ronpaulvsmittromney):
Former Israeli general: “Best timing” for Syria attack
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57583139/former-israeli-general-best-timing-for-syria-attack/
Jewish Israel 1st neocon warmonger Bill Kristol pushes rest of ‘Clean Break’ vs Syria
Jewish Israel 1st neocon warmonger Bill Kristol pushes rest of ‘Clean Break’ (http://tinyurl.com/cleanbreak) war for Israel vs Syria:
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/hardball/51723200
Israel lobby pushing Syrian regime change vs Syria like it did vs Iraq:
http://tinyurl.com/jamesmorrisoncrosstalk
Kristol Clear:
http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2013/05/01/kristol-clear/
30 Years Ago, Neocons Were More Candid About Their Israel-Centered Views
http://mondoweiss.net/2007/05/30_years_ago_ne.html
White House says the US may use military force against Syria
White House says the US may use military force against Syria
http://rt.com/usa/white-house-syria-force-463/
Israel lobby pushing Syrian regime change to weaken Iran!:
Cynthia McKinney on the influence of the Israel lobby
Following was sent through by General (Ret) James David who is mentioned on the cover of the third edition of former Republican Paul Findley’s ‘They Dare to Speak Out’ book about the influence of the Israel lobby on the US political system and media!:
This is a letter sent to me by former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. Regardless what you may think of her, and I am one who respects her, this speech she gave before the United Nations is very impressive. She is one of the few members of Congress to speak out against the Israeli lobby when she was in office, but just like so many others who have done the same, they commit political suicide to do such a brave act. Too bad. I asked Cynthia for permission to send this to others and her answer just a few minutes ago was as such. “Yes, ABSOLUTELY, please share it far and wide. The word needs to get out. Sparks are already flying down here. I might not get invited back, but the message has been delivered and the people have been told.” So, here it is.
In a message dated 4/29/2013 12:52:36 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
Cynthia McKinney wrote:
It is fitting that on the same day as this headline appeared, “Pro-Israeli US lawmakers urge bombing Syria air bases, arming militants, invasion” I delivered the following remarks to the United Nations International Meeting on the Question of Palestine:
From Cynthia McKinney: Remarks at the UN International Meeting on Palestine in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
1. My name is Cynthia McKinney and I served as a Member of the U.S. Congress for 12 years. During my time in Congress, I strove to make respect for human rights a central feature in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy. Amid minor successes, I have to say that my efforts while, broadly appreciated by many, failed miserably. That failure stems in part from the peculiarities of U.S. politics that allow policy formulation to deviate from and in many cases become diametrically opposed to the values of the people of the U.S. Sadly, what we in the U.S. call “special interests” are able to buy public policy by way of campaign contributions and misleading media campaigns. These “special interests” are aided and abetted in the U.S. by a concentrated media that has no obligation according to U.S. court decisions to tell the public the truth. In other words, U.S. media have won in U.S. court the right to knowingly lie to the people they ostensibly serve. I will briefly delve into this unusual and anti-”democratic” state of affairs now controlling in the U.S. once again before I conclude my remarks.
2. After my tenure in Congress, I became involved in international human rights activism. During Israel’s Operation Cast Lead (which was its war against Hamas and others), I joined with a group of human rights activists who tried to deliver medical supplies to the people of Gaza; the Israeli Military stopped us. While in international waters, an Israeli Defense Forces warship rammed the pleasure boat that I was on with the other volunteers, and totally destroyed our boat. Neither the medical supplies nor us volunteers reached Gaza.
3. Approximately six months later, we, the volunteers from the first thwarted effort, reassembled in order to make another attempt to reach Gaza by sea, traveling through international waters, with the hopes of entering into Palestine by way of Gaza’s territorial waters. By this time, Operation Cast Lead had ended, President Barack Obama had been sworn in, and he had appealed publicly for an easing of the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Gazans had made an appeal for school supplies for the children still reeling from the trauma of three weeks of what the United Nations called “one of the most violent episodes in the recent history of the Palestinian territory.” So, some of us answered that call with school supplies for the children and building supplies for the adults so that Gaza could rebuild from the devastation after Operation Cast Lead. On this effort to answer a humanitarian call for help, I, along with 20 other volunteers, was kidnapped by the Israeli military while in international waters, our boat was seized, we were taken by an extremely circuitous route to Israel where we never intended to go, and I was incarcerated in an Israeli prison for 7 days. Sadly, what I witnessed while in Israeli prison pointed to Israel as an apartheid state and the gross mistreatment of, particularly, Ethiopian women who had been lured to the “Holy Land” for job opportunities that vaporized because they were not of the correct religion. In addition to that, my observation at the time was that Ethiopian Jews are used as an important pillar–even enforcer, ironically, of Israeli apartheid. I can expand on this aspect of my observations later if there are specific questions or requests for more information from this body or from individuals in attendance at this Conference.
4. Needless to say, for a second time, I was prevented from entering Gaza. Upon hearing of my ordeal, Member of Parliament George Galloway who was in Cairo leading “Viva Palestina USA,” contacted me and invited me to come to Cairo and enter Gaza by land, which I did. Upon entering Gaza, I was able to see the destruction inflicted on the people by Israel’s Operation Cast Lead. I scooped up a bit of the soil and put it in this container. Sadly, as noted in the Goldstone Report and admitted by the Israeli Defense Forces, this Gaza soil is probably contaminated with whatever remains of the chemicals that were used by the Israelis against the people of Gaza: chemicals ranging from white phosphorus to inert metals. And while I unsuccessfully tried to pass legislation in Congress to end the use of depleted uranium in U.S. munitions because of the health effects, the Goldstone Report mentions that allegations were made that Israel used depleted uranium during Operation Cast Lead, which also might be in this soil. The United Nations Division for Palestinian Rights is also aware that civilian targets were bombed and totally destroyed. I visited a few of those targets.
5. One stop on my private tour of the destruction in Gaza was the American International School and amid the rubble I spotted a bright yellow something that I couldn’t quite make out what it was. So, I climbed through the jutted shards of concrete and exposed rebar to retrieve the object. This is that object: an English language children’s art book stamped with the initials of the American International School in Gaza., “AISG.” I was standing in what was left of the School’s library.
6. Another stop on my tour of the effects of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead was a neighborhood school, not nearly as big and grand as the American School. There, I could see the path of one missile that blew a hole clear through several walls of the school. There were markings on the chalkboard, including the Star of David. I saw several cans of peanuts on the floor. This is one of them. It is written in Hebrew. The Israeli soldiers blew up the school and then sat down in its ruins and enjoyed peanuts and drew religious and political markings on the chalkboard.
7. Both boats that I was on were seized by the Israelis and destroyed by them. The humanitarian aid on the boats did not reach Gaza and only token aid was delivered by the land convoy to the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza., the bulk of it stranded in Egypt, not allowed into Gaza by the Egyptians or the Israelis.
8. What is amazing is not only that this happens over and over again, but that Israeli leaders who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, leave office, and are never held accountable for their policies., as was done by victims of Augusto Pinochet, and as is being done currently by the International Criminal Court. Another aspect of this impunity is that Israel continues to receive U.S. weapons and technology which it uses against civilians in contravention of U.S. law. As these weapons are used or become outdated, the U.S. replenishes Israel’s weapons stock every year.
9. One measure of this impunity is brought to bear by the pro-Israel Lobby that operates in the political sphere of the U.S. I am a former Member of Congress because pro-Israel sympathizers known as the “pro-Israel Lobby” ensured my ouster from Congress and that of many other Members of Congress who dared to try and draw attention to U.S. law, Israel’s human rights violations, Israel’s misuse of U.S. weapons, or any other inconvenient facts that were better buried and left unknown.
10. What many of you might not know, because these things just aren’t discussed as widely as they should be, is that many of those Members of Congress who were put out of office by the pro-Israel Lobby were the stolen children of Africa, descendants of Africans trafficked in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. I will call the names of a few and tell you where you can find information about them as they tell their own stories:
· Gus Savage, Member of Congress from Chicago, Illinois was targeted for defeat by the pro-Israel Lobby because he dared to engage in foreign relations within the purview of a Member of Congress on the African Continent, in Egypt among other places. He recounted his ordeal on the Floor of the House of Representatives and revealed the secrets of the pro-Israel Lobby on the Congressional Record where students and others interested in this topic can find his words today: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r101:20:./temp/~r101lw459S:e0:
· Earl Hilliard, Member of Congress from Birmingham, Alabama was the first Black Member of Congress to serve the people of Alabama since the U.S. Civil War’s Reconstruction Era. He was ejected from the Congress by the pro-Israel Lobby because he, like Gus Savage, traveled to Africa, and in particular to Libya. He also traveled to Lebanon and learned of new weapons for that time, that had been used there by Israel. For this transgression, Earl Hilliard had to go. He is interviewed in a Dutch documentary that is available on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ6WLB9oRUk) where he describes the vicious campaign that was run against him by the pro-Israel Lobby.
· And then, there’s me. Just this month, I published a book entitled, “Ain’t Nothing Like Freedom,” (http://www.claritypress.com/McKinneyII.html) in which I describe just a few of the tactics that were used against me by the pro-Israel Lobby to destroy my career in Congress.
· These three political “take-downs” were very publicly done in order to send a message to others who might also be inclined to speak up out of moral conviction, as Savage, Hilliard, and I did.
· This weeding out also occurs on the local level with state and local elected officials like my father and others targeted for defeat because of the potential threat to the interests of the pro-Israel Lobby that they pose.
· In addition, on a public and private level, targeted individuals have to endure soft repression that makes life difficult. All of this needs to be put on the record if one is to fully understand the power of the pro-Israel Lobby and the pall that it casts on the political process in the U.S. and from what I have been told, also in Europe.
· Finally, the political landscape for Blacks in the U.S. is negatively affected by this weeding out process, because their strongest and most outspoken authentic leaders are vulnerable to the challenges from candidates that are well funded by outside “special interests.”
11. In light of this, I would like to put this thought to you: can you even imagine what U.S. policy would be like at the United Nations if the will of the people were carried out without the interference of the pro-Israel Lobby? The Durban World Conference Against Racism was a watershed that could be revisited time and time again with U.S. support and participation, except that powerful Lobbies want otherwise. I know, it’s hard to imagine things differently. But it is not hard for me and that is one vision that keeps me going: U.S. policy made in the image of the values of the people of the U.S. At a Conference whose theme is African solidarity with the Palestinian people, I thought it was important to mention not only how the pro-Israel Lobby skews politics in the U.S. against the Palestinians, but also against African-descendants inside the U.S.
12. I focus on this important aspect of policymaking by focusing on who gets to make the policy because I believe that this is one key reason why Palestinians are forced to suffer while, at best platitudes and delay, serve as the effective policies of the US and European countries.
13. The short version of this tragic story is that pro-Israel forces inside the U.S. are willing to use their money to buy political influence and protection for Israel across the political spectrum while the same cannot be said of pro-peace, pro-justice forces. I liken the situation to game day when one team shows up in beautiful new uniforms with all of the latest and best equipment, primed and ready to execute its strategy in the game of play, while the other team doesn’t even show up on the pitch. I believe that one remaining untested justice frontier is the political battleground in U.S. and European capitals. It is inside these essential capitals that pro-Israel Lobbies have become comfortable operating with very little opposition from the other side.
14. I am tired of losing when, I believe, we really do not have to lose. I fundamentally believe that the people of this world are good and want peace. I have spoken to Afghanis and Pakistanis, to Yemenis and to Somalis, Palestinians and Americans, and I find them to be peace-loving peoples.
15. So, how do we move from where we are to where we need to be? That is the fundamental question. I focus on the political because the political creates the legal. And the political creates impunity.
16. Just in my personal experiences, I have outlined breaches of international humanitarian law, international human rights law, international law, and U.S. law by the occupying power: Israel.
17. I served as a juror on the Bertrand Russell Tribunal on Palestine that recently concluded its Sessions with a finding that both the U.S. and Europe are guilty of contributing to the atmosphere of impunity with which apartheid Israel carries out its policies against Palestinians and anyone who stands in its way.
18. I also recently served as an Official Observer as the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission received testimony from Palestinians on their treatment inside Israel as well as in the Occupied Territories.
19. Through my service with both of these organizations, I have met too many courageous Palestinians and Israelis who want to live peacefully with each other and who put their lives and their livelihoods on the line every day for peace and the rule of law. I do believe that much of the suffering could be alleviated if we would put sufficient energy and resources behind putting out in public view how the pro-Israel Lobby misdirects U.S. and European policies and prevents pro-peace and justice politicians from ever having the opportunity to put those values, along with our basic human dignity, permanently on the table for public debate.
20. Finally, I am not Palestinian. I am not Arab. I am not Muslim. But I am human. And that is enough for me to acknowledge the dignity of others who are oppressed and to epitomize what this Conference is all about: African Solidarity with the Palestinian People for the Achievement of its inalienable rights, including the sovereignty and independence of the State of Palestine.
21. Thank you.
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