The JvL Bi-Weekly for 022809

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Saturday, February 28th, 2009

Volume 8, No. 4

7 Articles, 21 Pages

1. Israel Is A Terrorist State by Definition: Chomsky

2. Lobby Whistles Up Cordesman to "Prove" Israel Waged a Clean War In Gaza

3. 10,000 Americans going into Foreclosure Every Day3. 10,000

4. Chomsky: Obama Okayed Israel's Gaza War

5. Lawyers Condemn UK Over Torture in 'War On Terror'

6. U.S. "War on Terror: Eroded Rights Worldwide: Experts

7. Saving Social Security




1. ISRAEL IS A TERROIST STATE BY DEFINITION: CHOMSKY

(Following is an excerpt of Professor Chomsky’s interview with Christiana Voniati)

CHRISTIANA VONIATI



Voniati: The international public opinion and especially the Muslim world seem to have great expectations from the historic election of Obama. Can we, in your opinion, expect any real change regarding the US approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Chomsky: Not much. Quite the contrary: it may be harsher than before. In the case of Gaza, Obama maintained silence, he didn’t say a word. He said well there’s only one president so I can’t talk about it. Of course he was talking about a lot of other things but he chose not to talk about this. His campaign did repeat a statement that he had made while visiting Israel six months earlier –he had visited Sderot where the rockets hit- and he said “if this where happening to my daughters, I wouldn’t think of any reaction as legitimate”, but he couldn’t say anything about Palestinian children. Now, the attack on Gaza was at time so that it ended right before the inauguration, which is what I expected. I presume that the point was so that they could make sure that Obama didn’t have to say something, so he didn’t. And then he gave his first foreign policy declaration, it was a couple of days later when he appointed George Mitchell as his emissary, and he said nothing about Gaza except that “our paramount interest is preserving the security of Israel”. Palestine apparently doesn’t have any requirement of security. And then in his declaration he said of course we are not going to deal with Hamas -the elected government the US immediately, as soon as the government was elected in a free election the US and Israel with the help of European Union immediately started severely punishing the Palestinian population for voting in the “wrong way” in a free election and that’s what we mean by democracy. The only substantive comment he made in the declaration was to say that the Arab peace plan had constructive elements, because it called for a normalization of relations with Israel and he urged the Arab states to proceed with the normalization of relations. Now, he is an intelligent person, he knows that that was not what the Arab peace plan said. The Arab peace plan called for a two state settlement on the international border that is in accord with the long standing international consensus that the US has blocked for over 30 years and in that context of the two state settlement we should even proceed further and move towards a normalization of relations with Israel. Well, Obama carefully excluded the main content about the two state settlement and just talked about the corollary, for which a two state settlement is a precondition. Now that’s not an oversight, it can’t be. That’s a careful wording, sending the message that we are not going to change their (Israel’s) rejectionist policy. We'll continue to be opposed to the international consensus on this issue, and everything else he said accords with it. We will continue in other words to support Israel’s settlement policies- those policies are undermining any possible opportunity or hope for a viable Palestinian entity of some kind. And it’s a continued reliance on force in both parts of occupied Palestine. That’s the only conclusion you could draw.

Voniati: Let us talk about the timing of the assault on the Gaza Strip. Was it accidental or did it purposefully happen in a vacuum of power? To explain myself, the global financial crisis has challenged the almost absolute US global hegemony. Furthermore, the attack on Gaza was launched during the presidential change of guard. So, did this vacuum of power benefit the Israeli assault on Gaza?

Chomsky: Well, the timing was certainly convenient since attention was focused elsewhere. There was no strong pressure on the president or other high officials of the US to say anything about it. I mean Bush was on his way out, and Obama could hide behind the pretext that he’s not yet in. And pretty much the same was in Europe, so that they could just say, well we can’t talk about it now, it’s too difficult a time. The assault was well chosen in that respect. It was well chosen in other respects too: the bombing began shortly after Hamas had offered a return to the 2005 agreement, which in fact was supported by the US. They said, ok, let’s go back to the 2005 agreement that was before Hamas was elected. That means no violence and open the borders. Closing the borders is a siege, it’s an act of war……… not very harmful but it’s an act of war. Israel of all countries insists on that. I mean Israel went to war twice in 1956 and 1967 on the grounds, it claimed, that its access to the outside world was being hampered. It wasn’t a siege, its access through the Gulf of Aqaba was being hampered. Well if that is an act of war then certainly a siege is, and so it’s understood.

So Khaled Mashaal asked for an end of the state of the war, which would include opening the borders. Well, a couple of days later, when Israel didn’t react to that, Israel attacked. The attack was timed for Saturday morning – the Sabbath day in Israel – at about 11:30, which happens to be the moment when children are leaving school and crowds are milling in the streets of this very heavily crowded city… The explicit target was police cadets… Now, there are civilians, in fact we now know that for several months the legal department of the Israeli army had been arguing against this plan because it said it was a direct attack against civilians. And of course, plenty civilians will be killed if you bomb a crowded city, especially at a time like that. But finally the legal department was sort of bludgeoned into silence by the military so they said alright. So that’s when they opened –on a Sabbath morning. Now two weeks later, Israel – on Saturday as well- blocked the humanitarian aid because they didn’t want to disgrace Sabbath. Well, that’s interesting too. But the main point about the timing was that there was an effort to undercut the efforts for a peaceful settlement and it was terminated just in time to prevent pressure on Obama to say something about it. It’s hard to believe that this isn’t conscious. We know that it was very meticulously planned for many months beforehand.

Voniati: In a recent interview with LBC, you said that the policies of Hamas are more conducive to peace than the US’s or Israel’s.

Chomsky: Oh yes, that’s clear.

Voniati: Also, that the policies of Hamas are closer to international consensus on a political peaceful settlement than those of Israel and the US. Can you explain your stance?

Chomsky: Well for several years Hamas has been very clear and explicit, repeatedly, that they favor a two state settlement on the international border. They said they would not recognize Israel but they would accept a two state settlement and a prolonged truce, maybe decades, maybe 50 years. Now, that’s not exactly the international consensus but it’s pretty close to it. On the other hand, the United States and Israel flatly reject it. They reject it in deeds, that’s why they are building all the construction development activities in the West Bank, not only in violation of international laws, US and Israel know that the illegal constructions are designed explicitly to convert the West Bank into what the architect of the policy, Arial Sharon, called Bantustan. Israel takes over what it wants, break up Palestine into unviable fragments. That’s undermining a political settlement. So in deeds, yes of course they are undermining it, but also in words: that goes back to 1976 when the US vetoed the Security Council resolution put forward by the Arab states which called for a two state settlement and it goes around until today. In December, last December, at the meetings of the UN’s General Assembly there were many resolutions passed. One of them was a resolution calling for recognition of the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people. It didn’t call for a state, just the right of self-determination. It passed with 173 to 5. The 5 were the US, Israel and a few small pacific islands. Of course that can’t be reported in the US. So they are rejecting it even in words, as well as –more significantly- in acts. On the other hand, Hamas comes pretty close to accepting it. Now, the demand which Obama repeated on Hamas is that they must meet three conditions: they must recognize Israel’s right to exist, they must renounce violence and they must accept past agreements, and in particular the Road Map. Well, what about the US and Israel? I mean, obviously they don’t renounce violence, they reject the Road Map – technically they accepted it but Israel immediately entered 14 reservations (which weren’t reported here) which completely eliminated its content, and the US went along. So the US and Israel completely violate those two conditions, and of course they violate the first, they don’t recognize Palestine. So sure, there’s a lot to criticize about Hamas, but on these matters they seem to be much closer to –not only international opinion- but even to a just settlement than the US and Israel are.

Voniati: On the other hand, Hamas has been accused of using human shields to hide and protect itself. Israel insists that the war was a matter of defense. Is Hamas a terrorist organization, as it is accused to be? Is Israel a terrorist state?

Chomsky: Well, Hamas is accused of using human shields, rightly or wrongly. But we know that Israel does it all the time. Is Israel a terrorist state? Well yes according to official definitions. I mean, one of the main things holding up cease fire right now is that Israel insists that it will not allow a cease fire until Hamas returns a captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit - he’s very famous in the West everybody knows he was captured. Well, one day before Gilad Shalit was captured, Israeli forces went into Gaza City and kidnapped two Palestinian civilians (the Muamar Brothers) and brought them across the border to Israel in violation of international law and hid them somewhere in the huge Israeli prisons. Nobody knows what happened to them since. I mean, kidnapping civilians is a much worse crime than capturing a soldier of an attacking army. And furthermore this has been regular Israeli practice for decades. They’ve been kidnapping civilians in Lebanon or on the high seas…They take them to Israel, put them into prisons, sometimes keeping them as hostages for long periods. So you know, if the capturing of Gilad Shalit is a terrorist act, well, then israel’s regular practice supported by the US is incomparably worse. And that’s quite apart from repeated aggression and other crimes. I don’t like Hamas by any means, there is plenty to criticize about them, but if you compare their actions with US and Israel, they are minor criminals.

Voniati: Though of Jewish decent, you have been repeatedly accused of anti-Semitism. How do you respond?

Chomsky: The most important comment about that was made by the distinguished statesman Abba Eban, maybe 35 years ago, in an address to the American people. He said that there are two kinds of criticism of Zionism (by Zionism I mean the policies of the state of Israel). One is criticism by anti-Semites and the other is criticism by neurotic self-hating Jews. That eliminates 100% of possible criticism. The neurotic self-hating Jews, he actually mentioned two, I was one and I.F. Stone, a well-known writer was another). I mean that’s the kind of thing that would come out of a communist party in its worst days. But you see, I can’t really be called anti-Semite because I’m Jewish so I must be a neurotic self-hating Jew, by definition. The assumption is that the policies of the state of Israel are perfect, so therefore any kind of criticism must be illegitimate. And that’s from Abba Eban, one of the most distinguished figures in Israel, the most westernized … praised, considered a dove.

Voniati: How do you comment on the Davos incident concerning Erdogan’s verbal attack against Peres?

Chomsky: It was impolite. You are not supposed to behave like that at Davos. But the idea that Peres was given 25 minutes to justify major atrocities and aggression, that’s what’s shocking. Why have that at Davos? I mean, do you allow Saddam Hussein in such a gathering to justify the invasion of Kuwait? So Erdogan reacted, in my view, not in accord with the gentile atmosphere of the collection of the people who but basically appropriate under the circumstances.

Voniati: Have you, by any chance, been informed about the Cypriot-flagged vessel "Monchegorsk" that is docked in Limassol and seems to have been carrying weapons to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip? Israel and the United States requested that the vessel be stopped...

Chomsky: I don’t know about the Iranian vessel but I do know that right in the middle of the Gaza attack, Dignity was blocked in international waters and attacked by the Israeli navy and almost sunk. Now, that’s a major crime. That’s much worse than piracy off the coast of Somalia for example. If the Iranian vessel was stopped in international waters, that’s completely illegitimate. Israel has no authority to do anything in international waters. And the talk about not sending arms to Gaza …I mean, do they stop sending arms to Israel? I mean right in the middle of the Gaza war, the pentagon announced that it was sending a huge shipman of armaments to Israel. Did anybody stop that? They should say that those armaments are not intended for use by the Israeli army. The pentagon also announced that they are being prepositioned, that is, that they re being placed in Israel for the use of the US army In other words what they re saying is –and it’s been true for a long time- is that the US regards Israel as an offshore military base of its own, which they can use for their aggressive acts throughout the region.

2. LOBBY WHISTLES UP CORDESMAN TO "PROVE" ISRAEL WAGED A CLEAN WAR IN GAZA

(The Cleanser)

BY

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN

Anthony H. Cordesman, a leading military analyst from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has published a “strategic analysis” of the Gaza massacre. He reaches the remarkable conclusion that “Israel did not violate the laws of war.” The report is based on “briefings in Israeli [sic] during and immediately after the fighting made possible by a visit sponsored by Project Interchange, and using day-to-day reporting issued by the Israeli Defense Spokesman.” Cordesman omits mention that Project Interchange is funded by the American Jewish Committee.

Cordesman’s faith in the pronouncements of Israeli notwithstanding, respected Israeli analysts exhibit less confidence. “The state authorities, including the defense establishment and its branches,” Uzi Benziman observed in Ha'aretz, “have acquired for themselves a shady reputation when it comes to their credibility.” The “official communiqués published by the IDF have progressively liberated themselves from the constraints of truth,” B. Michael wrote in Yediot Ahronot, and the “heart of the power structure”—police, army, intelligence—has been infected by a “culture of lying.” During the Gaza massacre Israel was repeatedly caught lying among many other things about its use of white phosphorus. Recalling Israel’s train of lies during both the 2006 Lebanon war and the Gaza massacre, Human Rights Watch senior military analyst Marc Garlasco rhetorically asked, “How can anyone trust the Israeli military?”

A chunk of Cordesman’s “strategic analysis” consists of recycling verbatim the daily press releases of the Israeli air force and army spokesmen, which he then dubs “chronologies” of the war. He asserts that these statements provide “considerable insight” and “important insights” into what happened. Some of these statements provide so much insight that he reproduces them multiple times. For example he reiterates over and over again versions of each of these statements: “The IDF will continue operating against terror operatives and anyone involved, including those sponsoring and hosting terrorists, in addition to those that send innocent women and children to be used as human shields”; “The IDF will not hesitate to strike those involved both directly and indirectly in attacks against the citizens of the State of Israel”; “The IDF will continue to operate against Hamas terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip according to plans in order to reduce the rocket fire on the south of Israel”; “IDF Infantry Corps, Armored Corps, Engineering Corps, Artillery Corps and Intelligence Corps forces continued to operate during the night against Hamas terrorist infrastructure throughout the Gaza Strip.”

Cordesman reproduces without comment the December 30, 2008 Israeli press release claiming that Israel hit “a vehicle transporting a stockpile of Grad missiles,” although a B’Tselem investigation found that they were almost certainly oxygen canisters. Cordesman alleges that official Israeli data are “far more credible” than non-Israeli data such as from U.N. sources, one reason being that “many Israelis feel that such UN sources are strongly biased in favor of the Palestinians.” So, if Israel claims that two-thirds of those killed in Gaza were Hamas fighters, who can doubt the figure’s veracity—just as who can doubt the veracity of Israel’s claim that sixty percent of those killed in the 2006 Lebanon war were Hezbollah fighters, even if all independent sources put the figure at closer to twenty percent?

Although exculpating Israel of any wrongdoing, Cordesman also enters the “key caveat” that he is not passing a “legal or moral” judgment on Israel’s conduct and that “analysts without training in the complex laws of war” (presumably including himself) should not render such judgments.



Cordesman’s exculpation and caveat do not sit well together. Again, although he avers that neither the “laws of war” nor “historical precedents” barred “Israel’s use of massive amounts of force,” Cordesman also cautions that he will not pass legal or moral judgment on the “issue of proportionality.” How can both statements be true? Cordesman is sharply critical of the laws of war. He alleges that they are “often difficult or impossible to apply.” Perhaps so but, then, whence his certainty that Israel did not violate them? He also alleges that the laws of war are biased because in practice they “do not bind or restrain non-state actors like Hamas.” It is not readily apparent that they have bound or restrained Israel either.

Cordesman repeatedly trumpets Israel’s extraordinary care to limit civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure. For example he asserts that “every aspect” of the Israeli air force’s targeting plan “was based on a detailed target analysis that explicitly evaluated the risk to civilians and the location of sensitive sites like schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, and other holy sites,” while the “smallest possible weapon” coupled with precision intelligence and guidance systems were used to “deconflict military targeting from damage to civilian facilities.” And again: “Israel did plan its air and air-land campaigns in ways that clearly discriminated between military and civilian targets and that were intended to limit civilian casualties and collateral damage.” He knows these things because that is what his Israeli hosts told him and that is what the Israeli press releases repeatedly stated. He also knows that “many Hamas targets were so deeply embedded in densely populated areas and located so close to civilian buildings that it was impossible to avoid collateral damage” because that is what he saw on “the IDF Spokesman’s web site.” He also knows that “IDF forces almost certainly were correct in reporting that Hamas used mosques and other sensitive site[s] in combat” because that is what his “chronologies” based on IDF press releases state. (It seems telling that although the initial Israeli press releases allege secondary explosions after mosques were hit, later ones did not even bother to make this claim.)

Israel destroyed or damaged 15,000 homes (50,000 Gazans were left homeless), 160 schools, 1,500 factories and workshops, and 80 percent of agricultural crops. If, as Cordesman says, Israel used precision intelligence and weaponry, then the massive destruction must overwhelmingly have been intentional. In fact such destruction was critical and integral to the success of Operation Cast Lead. The operation’s goal, according to Cordesman, was to “restore Israeli deterrence, and show the Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria that it was too dangerous to challenge Israel.” But Israel could not restore its deterrence by inflicting a narrowly military defeat because Hamas was manifestly not a military power. To quote Cordesman, “It…is not clear that any opponent of Israel felt Hamas was really strong enough to be a serious test of Israeli ground forces.” Thus Israel could only restore its deterrence by demonstrating the amount of sheer destruction it was ready and willing to inflict. Again, in Cordesman’s words, Israel “had [to] make its enemies feel it was ‘crazy,’” and was prepared to inflict destruction on a “scale [that] is unpredictable” and heedless of “world opinion.” In all fairness it is also possible that Israel targeted so many homes because, according to the IDF spokesman Cordesman uncritically quotes, “Hamas is booby-trapping every home that is abandoned by its residents.” Shouldn’t Hamas then be listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for “most homes booby-trapped in the heat of battle”? As it happens, after the massacre was over the IDF itself conceded that the “scale of destruction” was legally indefensible.

Cordesman also plays up Israel’s humanitarian relief efforts during the massacre. Lest there be doubt about the genuineness of Israeli concerns, he repeatedly cites Israeli press statements as well as “Israeli Ministry of Defense claims” affirming it. He also includes an unimpeachable statement from none other than Defense Minister Ehud Barak, “We are well aware of the humanitarian concerns; we are doing and will continue to do everything possible to provide all humanitarian needs to the residents of Gaza.” The reality on the ground looked rather different, however. “UN agencies and humanitarian NGOs continued to carry out operations despite extreme insecurity,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) observed.

In the course of the three weeks of hostilities, five UNRWA staff and three of its contractors were killed while on duty, and another 11 staff and four contractors were injured; four incidents of aid convoys being shot at have been reported; at least 53 United Nations buildings sustained damage….In one of the gravest incidents, which occurred on the morning of 15 January, the main UNRWA compound in Gaza City was directly hit several times by Israeli shells. As a result, the warehouse of the building was set ablaze destroying hundreds of tones of food and medicine, some of which was scheduled for distribution that day….Approximately 700 Palestinians taking refuge in the building had to be evacuated. According to UNRWA’s Director of Operations, John Ging, the shells hitting the building contained white phosphorus. This incident occurred despite explicit assurances given by the IDF to UNRWA prior to the attack, according to which the building would not be hit.

Following a visit to the UNRWA building, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said, “I am just appalled…it is an outrageous and totally unacceptable attack against the United Nations.” The normally discreet International Committee of the Red Cross issued a public rebuke to Israel after the “shocking incident” when Israeli soldiers turned back an ICRC rescue team dispatched to aid injured Palestinians, leaving them to die. Although entering some generic caveats acknowledging Israel’s “delays and mistakes,” Cordesman could not find the space amidst his numberless Israeli press releases to quote these or any other critical statements by the relief organizations and U.N. officials. Although asserting as fact the highly dubious Israeli accusation that Hamas “prevent[ed] medical evacuation of Palestinians to Israel” during the war, he also could not find the space to mention that because of the Israeli blockade only 34 patients with permits to get medical treatment abroad out of 113 who applied for permits were able to leave in January 2009. Cordesman highlights that Israel “coordinated the movement” of ambulances, but he does not report that “even where coordination was arranged soldiers reportedly fired at ambulances” (B’Tselem). He asserts without evidence and apparently basing himself on Israeli press releases that Hamas made “use of ambulances to mobilize terrorists,” despite the fact that “the argument that Palestinians abused ambulances has been raised numerous times by Israeli officials…, although Israel has almost never presented evidence to prove it” (B’Tselem). During the 2006 Lebanon war Israel also targeted clearly marked Lebanese ambulances with missile fire, even though according to Human Rights Watch there was “no basis for concluding that Hezbollah was making use of the ambulances for a military purpose.” Cordesman might also have mentioned that the Israeli bombardment damaged or destroyed 29 ambulances and nearly half of 122 health facilities (including 15 hospitals and 43 clinics), and that 16 medical personnel were killed and 26 injured while on duty. After the massacre ended, Israel continued to block humanitarian assistance, including shipments of chickpeas, dates, tea bags, macaroni, children’s puzzles, paper needed to print schoolchildren’s textbooks, and plastic bags to distribute food.

Cordesman endeavors to depict the Gaza massacre as a genuine military contest. He delineates in ominous detail enhanced by tables, graphs and figures (courtesy of “IDF Defense Spokesman”) the vast arsenal of rockets, mortars, air defense missiles and other weapons that Hamas allegedly manufactured and smuggled in through tunnels (including “Iranian-made rockets” that could “strike at much of Southern Israel” and “hit key infrastructure”), and the “spider web of prepared strong points, underground and hidden shelters, and ambush points” Hamas allegedly constructed. He reports that according to “Israeli senior officials” Hamas had 6,000-10,000 “core fighters.” He juxtaposes the “Gaza war” with the June 1967 war, the October 1973 war and the 2006 war. He expatiates on Israel’s complex war plans and preparations, and he proposes that Israel’s victory was partly owing to its “high levels of secrecy”—as if the outcome would have been different if Israel had not benefited from the element of surprise.

Nonetheless Cordesman is forced to concede, if only by indirection, that what Israel fought was scarcely a war. He says that Hamas was a “weak non-state actor” whereas Israel possessed a massive armory of state-of-the-art weaponry; that the Israeli air force “faced limited threats from Hamas’s primitive land-based air defense”; that “sustained ground fighting was limited”; that the Israeli army avoided engagements where it “would be likely to suffer” significant casualties; that “the IDF used night warfare for most combat operations because Hamas did not have the technology or training to fight at night.” In the final tally 1,300-1,400 Palestinians were killed, between one-quarter and one-third children, while total Israeli casualties came to 10 combatants (four killed by friendly fire) and three civilians. The ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed was 100:1. These figures attest not to a war but a massacre.

Cordesman asserts that Israel had shown “it could fight an air campaign successfully in crowded urban areas” and “could fight an extended land battle against a non-state actor.” But its air campaign was not a “fight” anymore than shooting fish in a barrel is a fight. As if to bring home this analogy, he quotes a senior Israeli air force officer, “the IAF had flown some 3,000 successful sorties over a small dense area during three weeks of fighting without a single accident or loss.” Neither did it “fight” a land battle if the other side was poorly armed and engaged only when it could not fight back.

Cordesman asserts that except for hitting possibly without justification “some” civilian targets “including important United Nations targets like an UNRWA school where 42 Palestinians died”—these civilian targetings rate a two-sentence mention in his 92-page report—“There is no evidence that any abuses of the other narrow limits imposed by [the] laws of war occurred, aside from a few limited cases,” and that “the only significant incident that had as yet emerged was the possible misuse of 20 phosphorus shells in built up areas in Beit Lahiya.” Leaving aside that Israel reportedly used white phosphorus in other built up areas of the Gaza Strip, and leaving aside that it reportedly also used flechette shells in built up areas, Cordesman so exhausted himself perusing the Israeli press releases that he missed credible reports of human rights organizations and journalists that, apart from the massive violations of the laws of war already cited, Israeli soldiers were “intentionally aiming gunfire directly at civilians who were not involved in the hostilities and who did not endanger the soldiers’ lives in any way….In some of the cases, they fired even though the civilians were waving white cloth,” and Israeli soldiers were using Palestinians as human shields. (B’Tselem; Los Angeles Times).

Upon his return from a visit to Gaza after the massacre, the U.N. Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs stated, “The destruction I saw was devastating—both in human and material terms.” But according to Cordesman, the problem was not what Israel perpetrated in Gaza but that it did not properly manage the “war of perceptions”: it “did little to explain the steps it was taking to minimize civilian casualties and collateral damage on the world stage”; it “certainly could—and should—have done far more to show its level of military restraint and make it credible.” In fact Israel began its hasbara (propaganda) preparations six months before the massacre and a centralized body in the Prime Minister’s Office, the National Information Directorate, was specifically tasked with coordinating Israeli hasbara.

If the carefully orchestrated p.r. blitz ultimately did not convince, the problem was perhaps not that the whole world misperceived what happened or that Israel failed to convey adequately its humanitarian mission but rather that the scope of the massacre was so appalling that no amount of propaganda could disguise it, especially after the massacre was over and foreign reporters could no longer be barred on spurious pretexts. Alas, this preposterous, barely literate “analysis” Cordesman cobbled together after his junket is unlikely to fool anyone, although in fairness to camp follower Cordesman it must be said that he plainly did his best to please and the American Jewish Committee plainly got its money’s worth from him.

3. 10,000 AMERICANS GOING INTO FORCLOSURE EVERY DAY

(It's Time to Treat America's Homeowners as Well as We've Been Treating Wall Street's Bankers)
BY

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON

If you were to make a pie chart showing the amount of attention given to the banking part of the financial crisis -- both by the government and by the media -- and the amount of attention given to the foreclosure part, the catastrophe being faced by millions of American homeowners would barely rate a sliver.

But we are facing nothing less than a national emergency, with 10,000 Americans going into foreclosure every day and 2.3 million homeowners having faced foreclosure proceedings in 2008.

When we put flesh and blood on these numbers, the suffering they represent is enormous and so is the social disintegration they entail.

For a small sample, check out Brave New Foundation's new site, Fighting For Our Homes, where you can see video of people doing just that. People like Debra from Pennsylvania who, due to health care costs, is facing foreclosure on her home of 33 years or Penny from Texas who has been pushed to the brink of homelessness as the result of costly repairs necessitated by Hurricane Ike.

"The banks are too big to fail" has been the mantra we've been hearing since September. But when you consider the millions of American homeowners facing foreclosure, aren't they also too big to be allowed to fail?

Despite being treated like an afterthought, foreclosures are actually a gateway calamity: every foreclosure is a crisis that begets a whole other set of crises.

Someone loses his or her home. It sits vacant. Surrounding home values drop. Others move out. Squatters move in. Crime goes up. Tax revenues plummet, taking school budgets down with them. For a devastating look at what foreclosures do to a community, read this brilliant New Yorker piece by George Packer.

So why hasn't the foreclosure crisis gotten the attention it deserves? A combination of perverse priorities and flawed thinking.

At the congressional celebration of Lincoln's birthday, the Senate chaplain thanked God for our 16th president who, as he put it, was able to "transcend the flawed thinking of his time."

Flawed thinking has been on full display in the way we have approached the foreclosure crisis -- particularly the notion that we can postpone dealing with the crisis while we focus our attention (and hundreds of billions of dollars) on saving Citi, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

Clearly, this thinking has been deeply -- and disastrously -- flawed. The public interest -- people being able to keep their houses -- is not aligned with the banks' interest. Banks don't want to adjust nonperforming mortgages down to their actual current value because it would lead to marking down the value of the massive asset pools they have rolled the mortgages into.

This conflict between the banks' interest and the public interest is why the Wall Street-centric focus of Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Ben Bernanke, etc. is so troubling. This focus has included the marginalizing of Sheila Bair, the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (and a Republican) who has been ringing the alarm bell about the foreclosure crisis for two years now. She was ignored by George Bush and Henry Paulson -- and there are worrisome Washington whispers that Tim Geithner is following in their footsteps.

On Wednesday, President Obama is set to unveil his foreclosure relief plan in hard-hit Phoenix. According to David Axelrod, it will be a "good, solid" plan.

Given the enormity of the crisis, and the delay in finally putting foreclosures on the front burner, it needs to be good and solid and big and bold.

Obama clearly responds to the pain involved in the statistics. We saw how he reacted to Henrietta Hughes, the homeless woman who stood up at his town hall meeting in Florida and talked about her dire circumstances. And on Meet the Press this weekend, Axelrod mentioned a "heart wrenching" letter Obama had received from a woman in Arizona whose husband lost his job, and had to take another job for one-third the pay. "They are really struggling to make their payments and meet their responsibilities," he said. "And she was emblematic of people all over the country."

Hopefully the nuts and bolts of the plan will match the empathy. Among the features the plan should include is a provision allowing bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of home loans. This modification is called a cram down (who gave it that name, Frank Luntz?).

Until 1978, allowing cram downs was standard practice. Subsequent court battles eventually eliminated their use. The mortgage industry, not surprisingly (and for the reasons stated above), is vehemently opposed to bringing the cram down back. Helping fight that battle, again not surprisingly, are Republican members of Congress. A bill to bring it back was approved by the House Judiciary committee in late January -- but only after chairman John Conyers agreed to key concessions to the banking industry, including making the legislation only apply to existing mortgages and not to future ones (even though cram downs could help stabilize the residential mortgage market in the long term. The late, great financial blogger Tanta explains why here.

Obama has said that it "makes no sense" to keep judges from having the authority to rescue underwater homeowners. He should push to make cram downs ongoing and permanent.

His plan should also include mandatory mediation between homeowners and lenders prior to any final foreclosures. A pilot program along these lines, the Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Program, started in Philadelphia, has proven very successful. According to one account, the program has prevented or delayed foreclosures in 75 to 80 percent of the cases that have made it to mediation. Currently, many homeowners don't even talk to their lenders until they have been foreclosed on -- partly because the lenders often make it next to impossible to reach them.

"I've been to the City Hall Courtroom where the mediation hearings take place," Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey told me, "and they are crammed with lenders and borrowers and counselors and lawyers, and they are remarkably effective." Judge Annette Rizzo has been working hard to keep Philadelphians in their homes. She told Dan Geringer of the Philadelphia Daily News:

There is hand-to-hand outreach to each client here. There is individual caretaking here. The lender lawyers get to know the homeowners as people here. We put a human face on this and they embrace it. So as I work the room, I feel a humanism here on both sides. If necessary, our volunteer lawyers pick up clients and bring them here. Housing counselors make house calls. Our mission is to save lives, one address at a time.

The foreclosure prevention program has worked so well in Philadelphia, it has spread to Boston, Pittsburgh, Cook County, Prince George's County, Louisville and the state of New Jersey. The administration should take this model and apply it on a national level.

It's time to start treating America's homeowners as well as we've been treating Wall Street's bankers.

4. CHOMSKY: OBAMA OKAYED ISRAEL'S GAZA WAR

BY

AUTHOR UNKNOWN



Renowned US intellectual Noam Chomsky says Barack Obama did not comment on Israel's war on Gaza, as it was part of the "premeditated" plan. We have been informed by an Israeli source that the recent invasion of the Gaza Strip was completely premeditated, Chomsky said in an interview with the French Al-Ahram daily.

The plan was to deliver the maximum blow to Gaza before the new US president took office, so that he could put these matters behind him added the famous intellectual, referring to Obama's pledge to resolve the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

According to Chomsky, while Israel was pounding the Gaza Strip -- during which over 1300 Palestinians were killed --, Obama excused his silence by saying that "There's only one president at a time."

This, however, did not prevent the then president-elect from commenting on other leading issues of US domestic and foreign policy, Chomsky argued.

The recognized political analyst also criticized Obama for repeating the notion that defending Israel is a US priority. He predicted that during the Obama presidency US will hold the same policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

5. LAWYERS CONDEMN UK OVER TORTURE IN 'WAR ON TERROR'
BY

AFUA HIRSCH

The United Kingdom is one of a number of countries that has undermined international law and fallen into a "trap set by terrorists", according to a three-year study by senior international jurists released today.

The report, by the International Commission of Jurists, expresses "deep concern" over the findings of changes to the legal landscape since September 11 in more than 40 countries including the UK, the US, and countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Singling out the UK's use of a wide range of counterterrorism laws, the report highlights allegations of complicity in torture and intelligence sharing, the practice of rendition, and the system of control orders, as areas of particular concern.

"We have been shocked by the extent of the damage done over the past seven years by excessive or abusive counterterrorism measures," said Justice Arthur Chaskalson, former president of the South African constitutional court, who headed the study.



The report comes as the case of Binyam Mohamed continues to draw attention to the role of the UK intelligence services in questioning detainees alleged to have been tortured in Pakistan and Guantánamo Bay.



"UK security services facilitated in various ways the questioning of Binyam Mohamed in Pakistan and the US detention, while being held incommunicado and subjected to ill-treatment," the report says. "The relationship between the UK government and the US authorities was far beyond that of a bystander or witness to the alleged wrongdoing."



The report also comes as former senior law lord, Lord Bingham, writes in tomorrow's Guardian that the UK government has taken "tough repressive measures" including the laws for indefinite detention of foreign nationals without charge, and the failed proposals for 42 days detention without charge. "The government's ill-judged and ill-fated attempts to detain terror suspects ... [were] pills which parliament declined to swallow," Lord Bingham writes.

However, a number of oppressive measures continue to present a threat to the rule of law in the UK, according to the report. The include rendition – the practice of seizing and transferring terrorist suspects – described as a measure which "violates numerous human rights".

"It was clear to the panel that the practice of rendition and extraordinary rendition ... involved a 'spider's web' of cooperative endeavours," the report states. "Many states have allegedly facilitated extraordinary renditions including ... the UK".

The report also points to the system of control orders, developed by the UK and copied by other countries including Canada, and described in damning terms as "missing ... many important safeguards" and raising "concerns about real and perceived discrimination".

"Seven years after 9/11 it is time to take stock and to repeal abusive laws and policies enacted in recent years," said the former president of Ireland and president of the commission, Mary Robinson. "It is now absolutely essential that all states restore their commitment to human rights ... If we fail to act now, the damage to international law risks becoming permanent."

The Foreign Office denied today that the UK had subordinated the rule of law, stating that "while arrest and prosecution remain the primary goals of our counterterrorism policy, we still need to pursue terrorists through all available means, and we work hard to ensure that the tools we deploy are consistent with human rights".

"The UK unreservedly condemns the use of torture," a spokesman added. "We have consistently made clear our absolute opposition to torture and our determination to combat it wherever and whenever it occurs." However, the commission, which visited the UK and met government representatives as part of the study, raises wider questions of the necessity of new counterterrorism laws.

"The legal framework that existed prior to 9/11 is extremely robust and effective," the report says. "The framework of international law is being actively undermined ... creating a dangerous situation wherein terrorism, and the fear of terrorism, are undermining basic principles of international human rights law."

The damning tone of the report is likely to raise further questions about the response of the UK government to terrorism and its cooperation with the Bush government's "war on terror", a concept condemned by the commission as "legally flawed" and setting "a dangerous precedent".

"The erosion of international law principles is being led by some of those liberal democratic states that in the past have loudly proclaimed the importance of human rights," the report warns.


6. U.S. "WAR ON TERROR" ERODED RIGHTS WORLDWIDE: EXPERTS
BY

LAURA MACINNIS



Washington's "war on terror" after the September 11 attacks has eroded human rights worldwide, creating lingering cynicism that the United Nations must now combat, international law experts said on Monday.

Mary Robinson, who was the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights when al Qaeda militants flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, said the United States caused harm with some of the ways it responded.

"Seven years after 9/11 it is time to take stock and repeal abusive laws and policies," the former Irish president said, warning that harsh U.S. detentions and interrogations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba gave a dangerous signal to other countries that could easily follow suit.

While new U.S. President Barack Obama has announced he will close Guantanamo to break from the practices of his predecessor George W. Bush, Robinson said sweeping changes needed to take place to ensure Washington abandons its "war paradigm."

"There has been severe damage and it needs to be addressed," she told a news conference in Geneva. "We are not more secure. We are more divided, and people are more cynical about the operation of laws."

Arthur Chaskalson, former chief justice of South Africa, said that the United States should launch an inquiry into its counter-terrorism practices, including acts of torture by individual security and intelligence agents.

Although counter-terrorism issues have faded from the front pages since the change of government in Washington, Chaskalson said such practices have shifted around the world and could keep restricting liberties if they are not confronted head-on.

"We all have less rights today than we had five or 10 years ago, and if nothing happens, we will have even less," he told a Geneva briefing to launch an International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) report on counter-terrorism and human rights.

ABUSE MONITORING

The report found that many undemocratic states have referred to U.S. counter-terrorism practices to justify their own abuses, a trend Robinson said was particularly alarming.

She called on the U.N. Security Council and Human Rights Council to step up their abuse monitoring and to assist poorer nations with police training to better target rights violators.

Counter-terrorism policies worldwide should also be put under the microscope, according to Robinson. "It could warrant a special session of the Human Rights Council," she said.

The 47-member-state body has previously had special sessions on Israel and the Palestinians, Sudan's Darfur region, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and high food prices, and will assess the global financial crisis on Friday.

Robinson also questioned the effectiveness of the Council's universal periodic review, under which every U.N. member has its rights record assessed on a regular rotation.

"We have looked at some of the universal periodic reviews of countries that we know from our hearings have severely abused human rights in their counter-terrorism measures, and it is a soft review, there is no accountability," she said. "There is a necessity now for leadership at the United Nations."

Countries recently reviewed by the Council include China, Russia, Germany, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico. Hearings for the ICJ report took place in Bogotá, Nairobi, Sydney, Belfast, London, Rabat, Washington, Buenos Aires, Jakarta, Moscow, Delhi, Islamabad, Toronto, Ottawa, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Brussels.

7. SAVING SOCIAL SECURITY

(Here's a cheap and effective form of economic stimulus – tell America's baby boomers that their welfare benefits are safe)

BY

DEAN BAKER

The stimulus bill approved by Congress last week - and due to be signed into law by President Obama [today] - is a very good first step toward slowing the economy's decline, but it clearly is not large enough to accomplish the job. The US economy will be seeing a loss of close to $2.6 trillion in demand over this year and next due to the collapse of housing and commercial property bubbles.

To counteract this collapse, Congress gave President Obama just over $700bn in real stimulus. President Obama will have to make further requests from Congress to close the gap between what the economy needs and the stimulus package approved last week.

However, there is one step that President Obama can take to boost the economy without going through Congress: he can reaffirm his support for social security, and assure the baby boomers nearing retirement that he will not allow their benefits to be cut. If this huge cohort - now in their late 40s, 50s and early 60s - know that they can count on getting their promised benefits, they will feel more comfortable spending and supporting the economy at a time when it badly needs a boost.

The impact of social security on boosting consumption has long been touted by economists, most importantly Harvard economics professor Martin Feldstein, who had been Ronald Reagan's chief economist and is now an advisor to President Obama. (We will ignore the fact that his early results on this topic were driven by a programming error and that his later results disappeared with government data revisions.)

Feldstein claimed that workers spent more money during their working years than they would have otherwise because they expected to receive social security benefits when they retired. Therefore they had less need to save for retirement.

However, many workers may not be expecting to receive their social security benefits because there has been a concerted effort over the last quarter of a century to undermine confidence in the programme and to cut the level of benefits. If workers question whether they will get the social security benefits they have paid for, they will feel more need to save rather than spend.

Workers are likely to be especially fearful about the prospects of getting their social security benefits now due to an all out assault on the program financed by billionaire banker Peter Peterson. Peterson has spent much of the last two decades trying to cut social security, Medicare and other benefits for the elderly. He recently contributed a billion dollars to a foundation bearing his name that is primarily committed to this goal.

Peterson's investment has paid off both in exposure from the media and more importantly attention from many members of Congress and their staffers. There are now dozens of senators, congress people and their staff running around Capitol Hill crafting creative new ways to cut social security. Baby boomers are right to fear that Peterson and his crew will take away their benefits.

While the idea of taking away benefits for which workers had already paid was always outrageous, it especially outrageous at a time when these workers have just seen much of the wealth in their homes and their retirement savings disappear in the housing crash and the collapse of the stock market. Making matters even worse is that fact that Peterson's friends in the financial industry, along with many of the economists who would like to cut Social Security, were the primary culprits in this disaster story.

But, President Obama can quickly get us beyond this attempted heist to the benefit of both older workers and the economy. He can simply assure the baby boomers that he will not allow the Peter Petersons of the world attack their benefits.

In fact, he should assure the baby boom cohorts that their social security benefits are safer than having money in the banks (even the government insured ones) and that they can plan accordingly. This may not lead to a huge burst of new spending, but baby boomers will spend more confidently through time knowing that they can count on getting the benefits they have earned.

President Obama will clearly have to take other steps to get the economy fully back on its feet, but a simple speech assuring baby boomers that social security is safe will be an important step in the right direction. This speech also has the additional advantage that, unlike other forms of stimulus, it doesn't cost anything. As we all know, talk is cheap.