Pamela Geller: Israeli Secret Agent?

Pamela Geller poses.

(Originally published at Ground Report, September, 2010).

Recently, I have come across a number of rightwing blogs and have heard Fox News guests and hosts repeating many of Pamela Geller’s favorite talking points verbatim. For example, here is a quote from a recent article I read opposing the 51Park St. mosque from a citizen journalist website, “The argument among those who oppose the mosque is from a humanitarian stand point. Followers of the cult (of) Islam have a history of attacking then building a mosque on the site of their victory. Look at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem as a prime example.” [1]

On Saturday, June 5, 2010 Pamela Geller gave a rousing one hour lecture in Gatlinburg to the Tennessee Tea Party. In the speech, you will find nearly every talking point and the rightwing extremists and Islamophobes have been recently pushing on Americans. Does this sound familiar “I’m Pamela Geller and contraire to popular beliefs, I’m a human rights activist.” She later goes on, “In Islamic history, symbolism is very import, every time they conquer a land they always take the church or the temple or synagogue and they build right over it…Look want they did…to the Jewish holiest site in the world, which is the Temple Mount… and this is what this mosque is…it is the ultimate flag of conquest.”? [2]

Geller goes on in her lecture to make herself out to be a martyr. She cries and whines about how people have called her a bigot and an Islamophobe and tells her audience “Truth is the new hate speech.” All the while Geller claims, “Obama has more Arab blood than black (blood).” She goes on to claim, “It is in the Qur’an that the Jews must be annihilated …any Jew you see hiding behind a tree you must kill them. Everything that has been coming to you visa via from the government or the media has literally been vetted by the Muslim Brotherhood. They have literally infiltrated senior levels of the pentagon, the executive branch … and State Department.” And she continues to spread fear in her audience, “There is an academic Jihad in where they are rewriting history. Anyone with children in grade school go look at the book, go look at the book and see the three chapters on Islam. One is on the prophet Mohammad.” Of course when someone in the audience calls out, “What book?” Geller responds, “They won’t let the books come home. You have to get them out.” And then conveniently moves quickly onto how when she was growing up “there use to be the Brady Bunch and Cheetos.” Ah, someone needs to tell Geller Cheetos is still on the shelves and you can watch Brady Bunch reruns on Hulu.

Geller claims “Free speech is on attack… Go to the Huffington Post…, I’m telling you that is a hate site, an anti-Semitic speech, a leftist, I mean it is so out there, that kind of invective, would have been so far out of the margin twenty five years ago. Something has happened. The left has completely taken over the dialogue, because there is a leftist Islamic alliance … they are mosquing the workplace. They are importing Somalian’s into meatpacking sites which is now imposing Sharia law in the workplace.” Geller claims that throughout America workers and whole industries are now being forced shut down five times a day and everyone regardless of religion must get on their knees and prey to Allah. Of course she doesn’t provide any real proof to most of her wild claims. But they sure seem to do a good job of scaring many in her Tennessee Tea Party audience. And the problem is these wild stories are being spread like wild fire across the rightwing blogosphere.

Geller ends her speech by concluded that “You have to buy my book, you have to get your news from the internet, and you have to support Israel. (To a roaring applause she sticks out her tongue like a snake and continues on.) You have to support Israel for a number of reasons. First between a civilized man and a savage, you always side with the civilized man. The IDF is the most benevolent army in the world.”

Now most people would say that this is all just the rantings of a crazy woman. However, mainstream media and especially Fox News have been giving Geller a platform to preach her conspiracy theory for a number of months now. And as a result, we have now thousands of rightwing bloggers repeating, nearly verbatim, many of the wacky and dangerous lies Geller is spewing.

But is Pamela Geller really an Israeli spy? As Geller says, “At the end of the day it is Israel. It is Israel. And Hamas must be crushed, eradicated… I hope cooler heads prevail and they wipe out that nest of Islamic terror (Hamas.)” Geller claims those living in Palestine today are nothing but Arab invading and occupying Jewish holy land. She states, “What is a Palestinian? A Palestinian is a Jew. Yeah, they stole that word from the Jews. Palestine is Israel. It is the Jews, the Jews, the Jews, the Jews… And why would you elect Obama… a man more Arab than black.” The fact that the word Palestine comes from the Biblical city of Philistine which was in the land of Cannon (not Jewish) means nothing to Geller and the Israeli revisionist history tellers. [4]

Read her blog sites Atlas Shrugs or Stop the Islamazation of America and you will find Geller’s obsession with Israel. You will also find her none stop spreading of hatred and fear towards Muslims. Geller claims the civilized world is at “War with Islam.” And she has actively been working to drag Americans into her “War against Islam.”

What Pam Geller doesn’t understand is that the United States is not at war with Islam. The United States was not attacked by Islam. We were criminally attacked by religious extremists. Geller claims, “All Muslims are the same.” That is like saying all Jews or all Christians are the same. It is as ridiculous a claim as saying grade school kids in the U.S. have textbooks with three chapters on Islam and the teachers (nationwide) are keeping the children from bringing home their books.

Geller denies that she is religiously bigoted and Islamophic because she claims Islam in not a religion, rather it is a cult, sound familiar? However, just imagine if some “Leftard” (as she calls us) started a website called Stop the Jewry of America. Just imagine how many people would come out onto the streets in protest if MSNBC or CNN gave a Leftard like that a mainstream microphone. The rightwing blogosphere would go crazy talking about the anti-Semitic given a platform to preach his hate across America. Yet, it has not only been Fox News, MSNBC and CNN that have given Geller a platform to demonize Muslims, she is also a featured columnist for Newsmax Corp. and has had her op-eds published in many newspapers nationwide.

All the while, in her holiday video card to the soldiers, made just before Obama’s presidency, she claims she is grateful to the troops for allowing her to sit on the beach, in her bikini (Geller has done several video blogs wearing bikinis or in bedrooms draped in a robe with her hair tussled and her body somewhat exposed), reading a glamour magazine, in south Florida. She thanks the troops for allowing her to say anything she likes because, “In New York, if I was doing what I was doing, I would be in jail. That’s right those Eurowings would throw me in jail and let the country be run by Islamists, Sunni Islamists.” Then Geller goes off on, amongst other things, how “Obama is a Muslim” and the “Antichrist.” [5]

I have to ask, Who is this woman working for? To tell the troops that their soon to be President of the United States is the Antichrist is not a good message to the troops. But wait a minute, let’s remember Geller has repeated called for people to “Support Israel.” Geller claims, “The IDF is the most benevolent army in the world… (and) It all about the Jews, the Jews, the Jews, the Jews.” All the while she calls the President of the United States “the Antichrist.” Geller wants to divide and draw Americans into her war on Islam and gain their unconditional support for Israel. And apparently, some seem to have fallen for her rhetoric and are repeating whole sentences and paragraphs of Pamela Geller’s insanity. Geller claims on websites, videos, and in her lectures that she is a “human rights activist.” Then she goes off on how Hamas and the Palestinians need to be “crushed,” “eradicated”, and “annihilated.” These are not the words of a human rights activist. Rather, these are the words of her so called “benevolent” Israeli Defense Force and Zionist extremists. And so I have to ask once again, Who does Pamela Geller really work for?

[1] http://www.broowaha.com/articles/7755/you-can%E2%80%99t-blame-bush-anymore

[2] http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/06/full-video-pamela-geller-speaks-at-tennessee-tea-party-coalition-despite-demands-by-hamas-linked-uni.html

[3] http://www.broowaha.com/articles/7721/peace-talk-overture-hamas-kills-four-israeli-civilians

[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qftK5ROBVH4&feature=related

[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0A0aQ3ntAQ&feature=related

 

Update 1/12/12: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/12/marines-urinating-on-taliban-pamela-geller-video_n_1202848.html

 

Palestinian Statehood: The Bid

 Originally published at the Daily Censored for Project Censored.

This past week, President Barack Obama gave a speech at the 66^th gathering of United Nations General Assembly. In part, the speech focused on his attempt to deny the Palestinians their right to U.N recognized statehood. Obama stated, “I am convinced that there is no shortcut to the end of a conflict that has endured for decades. Peace is hard work. Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations. If it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now. Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians who must live side by side. Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians, not us, who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them, on borders and on security, on refugees and Jerusalem.”

What Obama didn’t mention is that Israel was created by the United Nations. Repeatedly, Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have voiced disapproval of Palestian’s bid for U.N. recognition of statehood. There essential argument has been, only through negotiations can there be a peaceful resolution to the ongoing conflict. While that might be true, why block the Palestinian’s bid for U.N. recognition of statehood? (More on this question later in the series).

Prime Minster Netanyahu repeated Obama’s point about negotiations during his recent General Assembly speech: “The status of the settlements will be decided only in negotiations.  But we must also be honest.  So I am saying today something that should be said publicly by anyone serious about peace.  In any peace agreement that ends the conflict, some settlements will end up beyond Israel’s borders.  The precise delineation of those borders must be negotiated.  We will be very generous on the size of a future Palestinian state. But as President Obama said, the border will be different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967.”

While I agree negotiations will eventually bring this conflict to an end, haven’t the Palestinians and Israeli’s been negotiating, all be it on and off, for decades now? Why has peace been so allusive? Netanyahu asks that same question in his speech: “So why has peace not been achieved?  Because so far, the Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a Palestinian state, if it meant accepting a Jewish state alongside it.

You see, our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state. This is what this conflict is about.  In 1947, the United Nations voted to partition the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews said yes.  The Palestinians said no.  In recent years, the Palestinians twice refused generous offers by Israeli Prime Ministers, to establish a Palestinian state on virtually all the territory won by Israel in the Six Day War”.

Not surprisingly, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas believes there is a different reason for the ongoing conflict. Here is an excerpt from Abbas’ General Assembly speech as he explains why peace has remained allusive: “The core issue here is that the Israeli government refuses to commit to terms of reference for the negotiations that are based on international law and United Nations resolutions, and that it frantically continues to intensify building of settlements on the territory of the State of Palestine.

Settlement activities embody the core of the policy of colonial military occupation of the land of the Palestinian people and all of the brutality of aggression and racial discrimination against our people that this policy entails.”

So to summarize, Netanyahu claims peace has been allusive because the Palestinians refuse Israel’s right to exist and have “refused generous offers” to negotiate a peace settlement. Abbas, on the other than, states Israel “refuses to commit to terms of reference” and “continues to intensify building of settlements.”

Unfortunately for Netanyahu, both of his points fail to hold up under close inspection. First of all, ever since 1988, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority have recognized Israel’s right to exist. The fact is, the Palestinian Authority, with Abbas as President, is the official representatives of the Palestinians living in the Occupied Territory. Therefore, the Palestinian government has recognized Israel’s right to exists.

Certainly, the shamefully militant religious and political Islamic organizations like Hamas have openly questioned Israel’s right to exist. That said, there are militant religious and political Jewish organizations, living in illegal settlements, that do not believe the Palestinians Arabs have a right to exist. Neither Hamas nor the racist illegal settlements are recognized as the legitimate governments of Palestine and Israel respectively.

The second point is a little trickier. Who is telling the truth? Netanyahu claims Israel have made “generous offers” and the Palestinians have refused. All the while Abbas claims Israel “refuses to commit to terms of reference.”

For decades now, Netanyahu and the pro-Israeli lobby have claimed they have made concession after concession and the Palestinians keep walking away from the table. The truth is, over the last twenty plus years, the U.S. and Israel has done everything they can to stall the “peace process” (which had not resulted in peace) and prevent a two-state solution (which would establish Palestinian statehood).

For example, in 1989, the UN General Assembly resolution titled Question of Palestine, called for “the withdrawal of Israel to the 1967 borders” passed by a vote of 153 to 3. The only dissenting were the U.S., Israel, and the island state of Dominica. Then, in 2004, the General Assembly resolution titled Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine called for “the necessity for a commitment to the vision of the two-State solution” and “the withdrawal of Israel from the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.” This passed by a vote of 160 to 6. This time the dissenting votes came from the U.S., Israel, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Palau, and Uganda.

Besides the fact that the U.S. and Israel has blocked every General Assembly resolution calling for a two-State solution, the whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks and the Guardian have revealed a treasure trove of classified U.S. State Department and Palestinian documents that have exposed an astonishing amount of concessions the Palestinians have offered, over the last twenty plus years. According to the Guardian, the extraordinary concessions the PLO were willing to make included:

“As well as the annexation of all East Jerusalem settlements except Har Homa, the Palestine papers show PLO leaders privately suggested swapping part of the flashpoint East Jerusalem Arab neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah for land elsewhere.

Most controversially, they also proposed a joint committee to take over the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount holy sites in Jerusalem’s Old City – the neuralgic issue that helped sink the Camp David talks in 2000 after Yasser Arafat refused to concede sovereignty around the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques.

The offers were made in 2008-9, in the wake of George Bush’s Annapolis conference, and were privately hailed by the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, as giving Israel “the biggest Yerushalayim [the Hebrew name for Jerusalem] in history” in order to resolve the world’s most intractable conflict. Israeli leaders, backed by the US government, said the offers were inadequate.”

The Palestine papers expose a vast contradiction in what Netanyahu and the pro-Israeli lobby has been saying, and what has actually been going on behind closed doors at the negotiating table. However, the Palestine papers support Abbas’ assertion that Israel “refuses to commit to terms of reference”.

Last week, the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, declared, “I support … the statehood of Palestinians, an independent, sovereign state of Palestine. It has been long overdue”. This position seems to be overwhelmingly supported by the general public in both Israel and Palestine.

According to a joint Israeli/Palestinian poll published in the Jerusalem Post, nearly 70% of Israeli’s believe Israel should support the Palestinians bid for U.N. recognition of statehood. In the Occupied Territories of Palestine the support for statehood shoots up to over 80%.

This week, the U.S. is putting pressure on fellow U.N Security Council members to reject the Palestinians bid for U.N. recognitions of statehood. The U.S. Congress has been working on several pieces of legislation to punish nations that support Palestinian recognition of statehood. However, a Security Council veto will not prevent the Palestinians from moving forward in their bid for statehood. Going through the motions, if a problem (like a veto) occurs in the Security Council, the Palestinians can evoke the “Uniting for Peace Resolution” which will bring the vote for Palestinian statehood to the full General Assembly. According to a number of polls, including one from the Financial Times, the Palestinians have roughly 170 votes in the General Assembly. This is more than enough to achieve the two-thirds votes needed to win approval.

Palestinian Statehood: Misuse of Anti-Semitism

Originally published at the Daily Censored for Project Censored

Before I can explore the issue of Palestinian statehood, it is now almost obligatory for human rights activists to discuss what Israeli scholar Norman G. Finkelstein calls the “misuse of anti-Semitism.” This article is the first of no less than three quick articles that explores the question of the Palestinians recent bid for the recognition of statehood. As the title implies, the first article addresses the issue of anti-Semitism. This is important because, as you will see, some believe all criticism of Israeli policy is essentially anti-Semitic.

In essence, this article serves as a Preface to the following articles. The reason it is necessary is because the following articles are critical of Israel, U.S.,  and the U.N.  This quick series of articles will serve no nation. Rather, this series relies on history, the Geneva Convention, and analysis of non-partisan, non-governmental human rights organizations. In addition, this series of articles relies on the works of many Jewish scholars that go against the grain of the main-stream narrative.

Norman G. Finkelstein, the son of holocaust survivors, has made it his life’s work to document the history of Israel, dispel Israeli nationalist myths, and expose the tactics used by the pro-Israeli lobby. His book, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, is perhaps his magnums opus on the subject.

In the book, Finkelstein documents how Jewish American right-winged thinkers began to redefine the meaning of the word anti-Semitic. In particular, Finkelstein points to a book published by Nathan and Ruth Ann Perlmutter titled The Real Anti-Semitism (1982). In a nutshell, Finkelstein explains, “Classical anti-Semitism of the type that targeted Jews simply for being Jewish, according to the Perlmutters, no long posed a potent danger in the United States…A new type of anti-Semitism, however, had replaced it. This ‘real’ anti-Semitism was defined by the Perlumetters as any challenge inimical to Jewish interests…Practically, this meant pinning the epithet ‘anti-Semitic’ on domestic challenges to Jewish class privilege and political power as well as on global challenges to Israeli hegemony.”

Finkelstein goes on, “American Jewish elites were, in effect and in plain sight, cynically appropriating ‘anti-Semitism’ –a historical phenomenon replete with suffering and martyrdom, on the one hand, and hatred and genocide, on the other- as an ideological weapon to defend and facilitate ethnic aggrandizement. ‘Unchallenged and unchecked’ real anti-Semitism, the Perlmutters warned, ‘can lose once again classical anti-Semitism.’ In fact the reverse comes closer to the truth: it is the mislabeling of legitimate challenges to Jewish privilege and powers as anti-Semitism that breeds irrational resentment of Jews.”

The Perlmutters misappropriation of the word anti-Semitism has gone so far the right it’s now off the cliff and floating around in the sphere of right-wing dementia. One glaring flaw in the Perlmutters’ ideology is that not all Jews agree with what the Perlmutters’ definition of “Jewish interests”. In order overcome this problem, the Jewish elites created another new term for Jews, like Finkelstein, that challenged the Perlmutters ‘real anti-Semitism’ thesis. They began to label Jews that disagreed with their new definition of anti-Semitism as “self-hating Jews.” Of course Finkelstein, the guy that helped bring this cynical strategy to light, has long been attacked by the pro-Israeli extremists as one of those “self-hating Jews.”

Finkelstein points out that this tactic of calling anyone critical of Israel’s policies an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew was designed to “stifle” anyone that dares to challenge Israel’s actions. Finkelstein essentially concludes, that the right-wing, pro-Israel lobby’s ‘real anti-Semitism’ strategy has been damaging to Judaism and akin to spitting on the ashes of holocaust victims. Finkelstein argues anti-Semitism is a word that needs to be persevered, not perverted.

American writer Alice Walker wrote about the effects this shameful appropriation of the word anti-Semitism in her book, Overcoming Speechlessness. In the book, Walker, coming off visits to Rwanda and Congo, goes on a tour of Gaza, in support of a few non-profit women’s rights organizations. On the bus ride from Israel to Gaza, Walker begins interviewing the passengers on the bus. Walker writes, “It was moving to hear the stories of why the Jews on our Gaza-bound bus were going to Palestine. Many of them simply said they couldn’t bear the injustice, or the hypocrisy. Having spoken out against racism, terrorism, apartheid elsewhere, how could they be silent about Palestine and Israel? Someone said her friends claimed everyone who spoke out against Israeli treatment of Palestinians was a self-hating Jew (if Jewish) or anti-Semitic (though Palestinians are Semites, too). She said it never seemed to dawn on the persons making the anti-Semitic charge that it is Israel’s behavior people are objecting to and not its religion.”

It is sad that human rights activists have to go into great detail about the history of the use and misuse of the word anti-Semitic. However, thanks to right leaning thinkers like the Perlmutters, anyone that criticizes Israeli policies are now subject to attack.

This series of articles will explore the Palestinian petition for statehood and consider the Quartet options, the U.S., Israel, and Palestinian positions, the history of the conflict, and ideological influences. I will continue to favor and therefore be bias toward the position that respects the Geneva Convention and other international laws, along with internationally recognized human rights organizations. I reject the Perlmutters’ obscene appropriation of the word anti-Semitism. As Finkelstein points out, the abuse the word anti-Semite, only adds further insult to the true victims.

The Assassination of Alice Walker

Photo of Alice Walker by aalbc.com

(Originally published at the Daily Censored for Project Censored.)

Is Israel planning to assassinate Alice Walker? Has Secretary of State Hillary Clinton essentially given Israel the green-light for such an operation? Most people know, Alice Walker (no relation to me) is a national treasure. She is best known for her Pulitzer Prize winning book The Color Purple. Growing up in Georgia, during the Jim Crow era, Walker’s father was a sharecropper and her mother a maid.

In spite of the oppression of black people living in the deep-south, Walker’s parents scrapped together enough money to put their daughter Alice to college. In the early 60’s, while attending Spelman College in Atlanta, Walker met Martin Luther King Jr. and became active in the Civil Rights movement. Ever since then, Walker has been an outspoken activist for human rights and social justice.

This week, Alice Walker plans on boarding the ship The Audacity of Hope in Athens, Greece, which is headed to Gaza. However, the nation of Israel is planning on doing everything in their power to stop the ship. In fact, they seem to be willing to even sink the ship, kill everyone on board, including Alice Walker.

Hillary Clinton, and by proxy President Obama, has called Walker’s actions “provocative.”  Thus, U.S. State Department has essentially given the Israeli government the reasoning and authorization to massacre those involved in the Freedom Flotilla Two humanitarian aid campaign. Late last week, Clinton commented, quote: “Well, we do not believe that the flotilla is a necessary or useful effort to try to assist the people of Gaza. Just this week, the Israeli government approved a significant commitment to housing in Gaza. There will be construction materials entering Gaza. And we think that it’s not helpful for there to be flotillas that, you know, try to provoke actions by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves.” The State Department later released a statement calling the flotilla “irresponsible and provocative” and warned of possible “fines and incarceration” for U.S. citizens participating in the humanitarian relief mission.

There are two glaring problems with Clinton’s and the State Department’s comments. First is the fact that the flotilla has no interest in entering into Israeli’s waters, the intention is for the ships to dock in Gaza. Second, the flotilla is only carrying humanitarian aid and letters of support. The State Department has thus far also refused to answer just how this threatens Israeli or would permit them to attack unarmed ship in international waters under the false pretense of “defending themselves”.

Earlier this week it was reported in the Israeli newspaper Harretz that the propellers on a Swedish Norwegian Greek ship participating in this year’s flotilla was sabotaged. Then yesterday, it was discovered the propellers on a second boat, Irish owned, had also had it propellers tempered along with the vessel’s engine. The saboteurs had designed the damage on the engine to cause the ship to sink while out to sea, potentially killing all those on board. In an interview on DemocracyNow!, former Israeli Air-Force pilot and crewmember on the American ship the Audacity of Hope, Yonatan Shapira explains what happened:

“What they did is they cut, small cuts in both of the shuts that goes to the propellers and as soon as the captain of their boat, just for checking the engine, turned it on it completely “bended” it. The boat is now dry docked and they hope to be ready in maybe a couple of days or so.

They are definitely trying whatever they can not to let us go. Yesterday as an act of safety I dived around the boat in this quite filthy water, but we wanted to make sure that our boat is still fine, but we have to guard 24 hours a day and make sure that no one is sabotaging our boat, which of course is an act of crime, it’s a completely criminal thing to sabotage engines, propellers of a boat, it can create an accident, it can create a very very dangerous potential harm for passengers or crew. So we have to be very very careful, but determined with a lot of audacity and a lot of hope.”

It has been reported plastic explosives were involved. However, sabotaging the ships is not all that Israel is doing. The Israeli military (IDF) has once again turned-up the propaganda machine. On Monday, IDF spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovitz announced that there were “radical elements involved in the flotilla, “It has come to our attention recently that the organizers of the flotilla are more violent than it was first perceived. We know for a fact that the organizers of the flotilla are planning to use sulphuric acids against IDF soldiers.”

Of course the flotilla participants emphatically deny Israel’s outlandish accusations. According to the Israeli newspaper, Maariv, Israeli ministers have accused the army of peddling in disinformation and several unnamed members of Israel’s security cabinet have reportedly claimed the army is engaged in “media spin” and “public relations hysteria.”

It should be remembered that during last year’s Freedom Flotilla attack nine humanitarian activists were summarily executed by IDF commandos. All the while Israel confiscated all the recording equipment from reporters and crewmembers. Then Israel the released highly edited videos in which they intentionally distorted the facts and shamefully dubbed in anti-Semitic language to further cover-up their massacre. The United Nations Human Rights Council investigated last year’s Flotilla killings and concluded that “a series of violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, were committed by the Israeli forces during the interception of the flotilla and during the detention of passengers in Israel prior to deportation.”

It is now clear that Israel is planning a repeat campaign of lies, media spin, disinformation and mass murder. The fact that Israel has sabotaged a ship in a way that it would sink while at sea is a moral outrage. The fact that Hillary Clinton and the Obama Administration support Israel’s actions and promote Israel’s lies is equally outrageous.

A few days ago, Alice Walker participated in a press conference in which she explains her choice to join the Freedom Flotilla Two. It is a bit of a long excerpt, but I felt it is important to provide the full speech:

“My name is Alice Walker, and I am with the U.S. boat to Gaza and very happy to be a part of our delegation, which is very soulful and making wonderful sounds. And thank you very much. I am going to Gaza because my government has failed, it has failed us, it has failed to understand or to care about the Gazan people. But worse than that, our government is ignorant of our own history in the United States. For instance, when black people were enslaved for 300 years, it took a lot of people from outside of our communities to come to help free us. And also, during the period of the civil rights movement, which was 19—in the 1960s, again, it took people from outside of our own communities to come and help us free ourselves. This is a fine tradition of going to people who need us wherever they exist on the planet. This is our responsibility. This is what we are here for as human beings.

And so, I just would like to say that we are on our way, that Hillary Clinton may put up all of the protests that she likes, and she may say that we should not travel, that it is dangerous. We know it is dangerous. We know, for instance, that climate change is probably just as dangerous as getting on a boat to Gaza and that people should be paying attention to that, too.

I also feel that when our government, in the person of our president, can make a speech about this area, and really speak only to the Israelis and not to the Palestinians, this is unacceptable. We cannot accept this. I mean, we look at what has happened to the Palestinian people for all of these decades, and it is insufferable. We will not accept it. We will not. As Americans, with our history of enslavement of people, of segregation, of apartheid, of brutalization, of lynching, we will not accept this. We will not.

So, Gazans, and especially the children, we are on our way. We are coming. We hear you. We are coming.

And I look at you in this room, and I realize that this is what—you know, if we have a salvation as human kind, it is in this room. It is the people who have gathered here for what is one of the hardest tasks for us. This situation is one of the hardest on the planet, and it is up to us to try to solve it, to bring some comfort, to bring some light, because, otherwise, what chance do we have with all the other problems? I mean, we now have tornadoes that are a mile wide. There has to be somebody to help take care of things like Gaza, so that we will be strong enough to deal with tornadoes, earthquakes, floods. You know, this is our future. This is our present. This is our future. So, in a sense, if we work on these issues, you know, that we are beginning to see, I mean, we are freeing ourselves of the myths that have crippled us, but we’re beginning to see what is the truth. And if we can see what is the truth about this situation, we will free ourselves to work on the real issue for humanity, which is protecting earth. Thank you.”

Tomorrow, July 1, 2011, Alice Walker and fifty other mostly American citizens will board the Audacity of Hope and head off to Gaza. To learn more about the other passengers and crew, check out this link.

What can you do to protect Alice Walker and the other brave humanitarian activists from around the world who are participating the Freedom Flotilla Two campaign? Email President Obama.  Remind Obama that he has sworn an oath to protect Americans and it is his responsibility to abide by international laws and treaties the U.S. have signed onto. Remind Obama that last year the U.N Human Rights Council determined Israel had violated international laws and summarily executed nine human rights activists, including an American photographer Furkan Dogan. Remind Obama that Dogan was shot in the face at point blank range while lying wounded, face-down on the deck of the ship. Israeli commandos executed Dogan for the unthinkable crime of video recording the Israeli massacre.

This past weekend, the Israeli government warned journalists that they will be barred from Israel for 10 years if they board a Gaza-bound ship. The Foreign Press Association stated the warnings, “sends a chilling message to the international media and raises serious questions about Israel’s commitment to freedom of the press.” It has been reported that former U.S. State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley Tweeted a response, quote, “Israel is working against its own self-interest by pressuring journalists not to cover the Gaza flotilla, clearly a newsworthy event.”

There is only one reason why Israel does not want the Freedom Flotilla Two campaign to be reported on, Israel is planning another massacre. Once again, Israel is planning to blame unarmed, humanitarian activists for “blood and confrontation.” Hillary Clinton and the State Department is backing-up Israel in this disinformation campaign. To prevent “blood and confrontation” and the potential assassination of one of America’s greatest literary treasures, email the president today. Demand Obama instruct Israel not to attack the humanitarian activists. Simply, tell Obama to let the flotilla deliver the letters and aid to the people of Gaza.

The Audacity of Hope logo

Freedom Flotilla Two: Another Massacre Looms?

Originally published at the Daily Censored for Project Censored

On June 21, 2011 some 40 to 50 American peace activists will gather in Athens Greece to join up with the 2^nd International Freedom Flotilla headed to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid and essential building materials. The Americans have named their ship “The Audacity of Hope” after President Obama’s book with the same title. According to organizers, at least 1,000 people on no less than 10 boats will take part in this year’s flotilla. Other western nations sending boats to support the Freedom Flotilla include Canada, Ireland, Spain, and the Swiss.

Many people will remember, last year Israeli sailors and commandos illegally attacked the ships in international waters, summarily executed 9 peace activists and wounded dozens more. Most people are likely to remember the highly edited and misleading videos and press releases put out by the Israeli’s.

The first grainy video clips of the Freedom Flotilla massacre came from the Israeli military. They showed what appeared to be a group of men from the Mavi Marmara assaulting Israeli commandos with what appeared to be pipes and clubs. After releasing the videos, the Israeli’s released a highly distorted propaganda campaign. They falsely claimed that after they had boarded the ship they were violently attacked with knifes and pipes and the Israeli soldiers were forced to defend themselves. Israelis even went so far as to dub in anti-Semitic and holocaust related comments in the videos in order to manipulate the emotions of unsuspecting viewers.

Just after the 2010 Freedom Flotilla massacre, I wrote a couple articles about why Israel can’t be trusted. I followed NGO’s like Human Rights Watch as they investigated the IDF propaganda videos, press releases and other related outright lies high ranking Israeli officials spread to the corporate controlled mainstream media.

In October, 2010, the Human Rights Council (HRC) released a report and the forensic evidence of the dead activists were published around the same time. The horrific details of the massacre were finally revealed. However, the corporate controlled media had already run Israeli’s false portrayal of events and decided to just let the government’s distortions stand uncorrected. I wrote a follow up article titled, Israel Found Guilty of Massacre after  the forensic evidence was released the HRC report became available. In the report, the HRC officially concluded:

“Insofar as the Israeli interception of the flotilla was unlawful—and the Mission considers that it was unlawful—the use of force by the Israeli forces in seizing control of the Mavi Marmara and other vessels was also prima facie unlawful since there was no legal basis for the Israeli forces to conduct an assault and interception in international waters. Moreover, in undertaking these operations and regardless of the legality of the operation, the Israeli forces were obliged to do so in accordance with the law, including Israel’s international human rights obligations…”

Now here are parts of the forensic evidence on massacred peace activists:

“…All of the entry wounds were on the back of his body, except for the face wound which entered to the right of his nose. According to forensic analysis, tattooing around the wound in his face indicates that the shot was delivered at point blank range. Furthermore, the trajectory of the wound, from bottom to top, together with a vital abrasion to the left shoulder that could be consistent with the bullet exit point, is compatible with the shot being received while he was lying on the ground on his back.”

And here are some of the details from another victim:

“Forensic evidence shows that he was shot in the side of the head with a soft baton round at such close proximity and that an entire bean bag and its wadding penetrated the skull and lodged in the brain. He had a further bruise on the right flank consistent with another beanbag wound. The wounds are consistent with the deceased initially being shot from soldiers on board the helicopter above and receiving a further wound to the head while lying on the ground, already wounded.”

According to the reports, (as I reported in October) once Israeli soldiers gained control of the top deck they turned their weapons down on the folks on the second deck and made a turkey shoot of the people scrambling below as they ducked for cover. Several activists grabbed chairs, poles and perhaps a kitchen knife (although that has not been confirmed) and began defending themselves from the Israeli soldiers murderous rampage. Wounded activists on the top deck of the ship had no chance of survival. Once the commandos, repelled down and boarded the vessel, at point blank range, the Israeli soldiers summarily executed the wounded peace activists.

This year, the 1,000 brave peace activists should expect nothing less from the Israeli government. Israel has repeatedly shown little to no regard for the lives of civilians, non-violent peace activists, or anyone else that gets in their way of “strangling” (Netanyahu’s word) the entire population of Gaza. Israeli’s goal to reduce all 1.5 million men, women, and children of Gaza to the least possible level of existence without outright killing them. Under international law, Israeli’s blockade is clearly a despicable act of collective punishment and a crime against humanity.

The list of American crew members in this year’s Freedom Flotilla is impressive. A cofounding member of Code Pink, Media Benjamin will be on the ship. Another noted, beautiful and powerful woman planning on board The Audacity of Hope” is Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Alice Walker (unfortunately, no known relationship to me). Walker visited Gaza in 2008 and said upon returning to the U.S., “Going to Gaza was our opportunity to remind the people of Gaza and ourselves that we belong to the same world: the world where grief is not only acknowledged, but shared; where we see injustice and call it by its name; where we see suffering and know the one who stands and sees is also harmed, but not nearly so much as the one who stands and sees and says and does nothing.”

Another passenger on the American ship will be Richard Levy. Levy is the former president of the North East District of the B’nai Brith Youth Organization. A graduate of Cornell U. and the NYU School of Law, he has practiced labor and civil rights law for more than 40 years. Levy points out, “Because Israel occupies Gaza, and accordingly has obligations under the Geneva Conventions, it cannot legally blockade Gaza.” Therefore, he continued, “attempts by the Israeli government to prevent ships from going to Gaza are equally illegal.”

After President Obama gave his recent speech on the middle east, passengers and crew members of  the ship “The Audacity of Hope” signed onto a letter drafted by passenger Ray McGovern. According to his biography, “McGovern served as an Army infantry/intelligence officer in the early 1960s and then as a CIA analyst for the next 27 years. In the early 1980s, he prepared and presented The President’s Daily Brief one-on-one to Vice President Bush and other senior officials. He now works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.”

In the letter, McGovern calls on Obama to back up his words with actions regarding the universal application of international law and human rights. McGovern reminds the president:

“Gaza is a sequestered, crowded open-air prison, in which Israel keeps “inmates” at a subsistence level of existence. This amounts to the kind of collective punishment banned by international law and is enforced by an equally illegal Israeli naval blockade.

Many Americans have long been puzzled that you choose to exempt Gazans from your stated concern about universal rights; and, frankly, we have tired of waiting for a cogent explanation. So we ask you to look upon our voyage to Gaza as our attempt to implement your rhetoric about what ordinary citizens can do – not only to “speak,” but also to act to meet the broader aspirations of the ordinary people of Gaza.”

The entire list of passengers and crew of the ship The Audacity of Hope reflects a broad swath of Americans from a wide range of backgrounds. For example, amongst the passenger list there is 22 year social justice activist Max Suchan along with 86 year old Hedy Epstein, a holocaust survivor that worked as a research analyst at the Nuremberg trials. There will be construction workers, healthcare providers, lawyers, artists, scholars, diplomats, former military members, and peace activists on board the ship. For the complete list of confirmed passengers and crew, check out this link.

It has been reported that Israel has already been working behind the scenes in Washington and worldwide to discredit the Freedom Flotilla 2 campaign. Considering Israel’s past record on the Gaza blockade and the massacre on the first flotilla, we should all be expecting a well orchestrated disinformation campaign to come out, of what I predict to be an impending assault.

As for what activists can do, the passengers and crew members of The Audacity of Hope are encouraging people to learn more about the illegal Israeli blockade and write letters of support to the people of Gaza. Along with the passengers and crew, I’m encouraging the Israeli’s to simply let the Freedom Flotilla peacefully land in Gaza and unload their cargo. To follow the upcoming voyage and learn more about the campaign, visit the ship’s website at ustogaza.org.