Here are the headlines from Mondoweiss for 09/05/2010:
While Netanyahu harped on 'the blood of innocents,' Mitchell seemed to warn of Israel's demise
Sep 04, 2010 01:36 pm | Philip Weiss I watched Thursday's State Department show on the peace talks on C-Span the other night and was left with a sense of despair. There were very few people in the fancy rooms and little sense of excitement. The leaders all seemed motheaten, except for Netanyahu, who always reminds me of a landlord or a mob boss. George Mitchell is the most impressive, but even he looks out of date and a little hard of hearing. (Here's a link to the Clinton, Netanyahu, Abbas table. And here to George Mitchell.) Clinton seems to know she's screwed. She appealed over the heads of Abbas and Netanyahu to real people over there-- and implicitly to you and me at our dinner tables-- not to desert her. I want to conclude by just saying a few words directly to the people of the region. Your leaders may be sitting at the negotiating table, but you are the ones who will ultimately decide the future. You hold the future of your families, your communities, your people, this region, in your hands. For the efforts here to succeed, we need your support and your patience. Today, as ever, people have to rally to the cause of peace, and peace needs champions on every street corner and around every kitchen table. I understand very well the disappointments of the past. I share them. But I also know we have it within our power today to move forward into a different kind of future, and we cannot do this without you. Translation: these guys can't deliver a newspaper. Abbas has dignity and Netanyahu is frightening. Abbas spoke concretely of the final-status issues, including water, and called on Israel to honor its commitment re settlement building, while Netanyahu spoke emotionally about his only real topic, Israel's security: In these 12 years, new forces have risen in our region, and we've had the rise of Iran and its proxies and the rise of missile warfare. And so a peace agreement must take into account a security arrangement against these real threats that have been directed against my country, threats that have been realized with 12,000 rockets that have been fired on our territory, and terrorist attacks that go unabated.
Translation: We have remote control machine guns in towers set up to kill Gazans, and we will never give up the Jordan Valley. Then Netanyahu ratcheted it up, with "the blood of innocents": The last two days have been difficult. They were exceedingly difficult for my people and for me. Blood has been shed, the blood of innocents: four innocent Israelis gunned down brutally, two people wounded, seven new orphans. President Abbas, you condemned this killing. That's important. No less important is to find the killers, and equally to make sure that we can stop other killers. They seek to kill our people, kill our state, kill our peace. And so achieving security is a must.
Kill kill kill. Or as Sydney Levy of Jewish Voice for Peace says, "while the U.S. government condemned Tuesday's brutal attack, it never condemned even the assault on Gaza almost two years ago, when over 1400 people, mostly civilian, including over 400 children, were killed. This disproportionate response is an indicator of the apparent inability of the U.S. to be an 'honest broker' in these talks." No wonder the rooms seem empty. It is common to hear the analysis that Israel needs nothing from these talks because the conflict is being managed, while the Palestinians need a deal to get freedom. I don't buy this and neither does George Mitchell. The Palestinians haven't had freedom in their entire history. Most Israelis may be complacent, but the soul of their society is shriveling, and any intelligent Israeli senses the loss of the world's good opinion. Israel is stuck in an earlier era of history and daily losing legitimacy, due to rightwing ethnocentric politicians like Netanyahu. Mitchell said as much at the end, when he appealed for a sudden shift in the weather: we believe that there are dynamic changes that [can] occur. There are more obvious difficulties that lie ahead for both sides if they don't reach agreement that may be even more obvious than they were five or eight or 12 years ago. You have to remember that these leaders must weigh two things. They must weigh the difficulties they face in getting agreement and they must weigh the difficulties they will face if they don't get an agreement. And we believe it's a very powerful argument that if you subject these to careful, reasoned, and rational analysis, to conclude that the latter difficulties, if they don't get an agreement, will be much greater and have a much more profound impact on their societies than those they face in trying to get an agreement.
Mitchell wasn't talking about the Palestinians there. He was saying that if Israel doesn't make sacrifices, in a hurry, it faces a choice of official apartheid, ethnic cleansing or one-state. He understands that the 62-year-old Jewish state is now at risk; he is despairing too. 
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Report finds US policy toward Israel/Palestine contradicts American values
Sep 04, 2010 12:22 pm | Adam Horowitz In April the American Friends Service Committee organized an important daylong mock Congressional hearing on whether US foreign policy towards Israel/Palestine upholds American values. The organizers explain: Rather than wait for Congress to debate the morality and utility of U.S. policy towards Israel and Palestine, we decided to hold an independent hearing, calling upon people who have directly experienced or witnessed the effects of the occupation to tell their stories. We invited Israelis, Palestinians and Americans to testify and assembled a distinguished panel of listeners, composed of academics, clergy and a Senate staff member, to question and draw out the ramifications of these testimonies. We sought to lift up the voices and hopes of those people who are never seen on television or discussed with compassion in Congress.
They have just released a 29-page report on the conference findings to coincide with the resumption of US-led talks between Israel and the Palestinians. In an AFSC press release Middle East Program director Miryam Rashid says, "We feel this report is critical reading for all who are concerned about finding a just solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. American values are not being upheld in our government's policies in Israel and Palestine, and the reality is that negotiations will only succeed when human rights and international laws are no longer ignored." Here's the report:
ChicagoHearingReport20100903
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The settler killings– morality and effectiveness
Sep 04, 2010 10:21 am | David Samel The recent killing of four West Bank settlers by Palestinian gunmen raises the ever-present issue of violence in resistance to occupation and oppression. I write in respectful response to Seham, who has expressed some understanding and perhaps sympathy for the killers, and disagreement with my analysis. It seems to me that there are two principal issues here: morality and effectiveness. Let me first deal with the more contested issue of morality. So many of the arguments I hear in defense of this murder seem like the mirror image of Israeli claims. We have been driven to the point of desperation. What else could we do? These people aren't really civilians; on the continuum of civilianality, they lean toward the military end and are therefore more killable than other civilians. We live under a constant threat of terrorism, where everyone in the country knows someone who died in the wars or were victims of terror, thousands of people going about their daily business until their bodies were suddenly blown apart. Until you've had to live like this, we are told, don't tell us how to act. Seham, you no doubt feel that your arguments are more cogent and theirs more hypocritical and dishonest, that you are fighting evil oppression and they are perpetrating and defending it. Indeed, I am in complete agreement with those positions. But just as I feel that Israel's use of double standards is wrong, so is ours. If we are going to adopt an ethos that excuses killing civilians in certain circumstances, that same ethos can be used by Israel. Perhaps because I am a lawyer I am very sensitive to the question of universally applied principles. If I accept a principle of conduct, I anticipate that there may be other applications of that principle that I might not like so much. The principle here seems to be that if a group of civilians generally acts in brutal fashion toward fellow human beings, it may be OK to kill a random sample of them to teach the collective a lesson. I absolutely reject that principle. For one thing, it certainly has been a driving force of Israeli ideology for many decades. They rationalize that Palestinian civilians overwhelmingly support terrorist attacks, so it's perfectly reasonable to kill Palestinian civilians in an attempt to reduce that support. Let me propose another hypothetical. For the past decade, Americans, who have the electoral power to control their government, have obliviously gone about their daily business while their government and military has wreaked havoc in Iraq and Afghanistan. In sheer numbers – well over a million dead and several million forced to flee their homes, not to mention all sorts of consequent suffering -- these catastrophes have dwarfed the awful experience of the Palestinians over the last six decades. It would not be surprising if some of the many millions adversely affected by our government's actions (and our citizenry's near-total indifference) retaliated with another terrorist attack directed at random US civilians. In my opinion, though it would be heretical to say so in the wake of such an attack, the US would be partially responsible for fomenting such anger, but I certainly would not excuse or forgive the terrorists themselves. My bottom line is that I don't want to parse those circumstances that give rise to justifiable homicide of civilians. In my view, it's never justified, period – not in Lebanon, Gaza, New York, Hiroshima, Dresden, and no, not even among the settlers of the West Bank, a good percentage of whom are surely loathsome and reprehensible. The shooting victims were not killed in the course of perpetrating an act of violence themselves. The people who killed them knew only one thing about them, that they were probably settlers. They might well have been vicious racist settlers. But maybe not. Maybe they were recent immigrants from Russia who were offered generous subsidies by the government to settle in the West Bank. Maybe they were human rights activists who live within the green line and had just come from a meeting with Palestinian counterparts, and were attacked because of the mistaken assumptions made about their Israeli license plate. We may now know that this wasn't the case, but the gunmen most probably had no idea who they were killing. Maybe these were four parents who left behind 16 children who are going to grow up with the same anger that you have, Seham, but more power to translate that anger into physical brutality directed at Palestinians. Which brings me to your personal story. You have been commenting here for quite some time without revealing this memory before, and I am truly sorry that I played any role in compelling you to publicly recall this horrible experience if you were reluctant to do so. I'm sure you know it was not my intention to cause any discomfort. Please accept my sincere condolences, however belated and ineffective they may be. Finally, this distance between us may be smaller than it first appears . We both think the settlers are willing participants in an international crime. We both think their brutal treatment of Palestinians inevitably leads to shocking acts such as this. You are angrier than I am because you are a Palestinian who has suffered a grievous wound at the hands of Israel's insistence on its right to control your people's lives. I don't deny your right to anger, nor do I resent your refusal to join me in condemning the gunmen in this case. I do have much less tolerance for those who would agree with me in this instance of Palestinians killing Israelis, but ignore, excuse or even praise Israel's violence which has been so much more costly and destructive. Now to the question of effectiveness. Even some of those, such as yourself, who have expressed understanding for the perpetrators' hatred of their victims, have noted that there seems to be no good that can come of this. Many have observed that the attack appears to be a gift to the Israeli government, and some have even theorized that Israel might have been surreptitiously behind it. I think there is no evidence to support that speculation, but I understand its source, because the potential benefit to Israel is quite significant. Will this killing convince settlers that they can never be safe, and that they had better evacuate to a location where their legal right to reside is recognized by at least somebody outside Israel? Of course not. It will steel their resolve to never budge from "their" land to which they have a divine right that definitively trumps world opinion. Even greater repression of Palestinians and settlement building are far more likely outcomes than panicky flight, whether or not that was a motivation for the gunmen. A spokesman was quoted as saying the killing demonstrates that the "armed Palestinian resistance is present in the West Bank despite the war to uproot it." Great, so you're still here, and they're dead. Excellent point. The attack came on the eve of the Washington peace conference, and it's hard to view this as a coincidence. As I argued in my original post, and Richard Silverstein argued as well, the peace conference is bound to fail anyway, and this incident was hardly necessary to push it over a cliff. In fact, many have commented that each party appears to be primarily concerned with the PR chore of blaming the other party for failure. One of the actual reasons for failure is that the Palestinians are not adequately represented by Abbas, and that Hamas has been shut out of the negotiations. There are all sorts of persuasive reasons why Hamas should have been included, but now, the decision to exclude it – supposedly because they are murderous thugs who can't act civilized like we do – seems a little more justified. Moreover, it will be easier for Netanyahu & co. to argue that the talks failed because they couldn't recover from the initial trauma of the terrorist murder of four Israelis designed to derail the talks. Once again, Palestinian intransigence has destroyed whatever chance their was for peace ... missed opportunities ... blah, blah blah. A few years ago, the great Israeli columnist, Ran HaCohen, persuasively argued that Ariel Sharon, when faced with periods of cessation of violence against Israeli civilians, initiated some new horror to provoke further terrorist attacks. Ask yourself why Sharon would risk Jewish life and limb, which you know he valued far higher than others'? It's because of the public relations bonanza reaped by Israel whenever Israelis, especially civilians, are attacked. Palestinians may well feel that non-violence has not worked, that it has never been rewarded with an alleviation, much less elimination, of their hell. That's true, but maybe things are changing. Israel's hold on public opinion has been sharply eroding, with its murderous wars in Lebanon and Gaza, the Goldstone report, and the Mavi Marmara massacre. Why, in the midst of Israel's series of self-inflicted wounds, does Hamas (or whoever) remind the world that Palestinians are capable of shocking violence? People sympathize with those who are victimized by intolerable crimes; why at this point did the gunmen shift that sympathy from Palestinians to Israelis? In the absence of violence, Israel must be forced to explain, in ever more shrill and transparently dishonest ways, why a few people the world over who believe they have an ancient connection to this strip of land have superior rights to it over those who have lived there for centuries. Let them explain why native Palestinians must accept domination and subjugation in perpetuity by this more recently arrived ethno-religious group. There are no reasonable arguments likely to appeal to those with no stake in the conflict. In fact, more and more Jews such as myself are rejecting this undeserved privilege because it is so indefensible, because we could not tolerate living as second-class citizens or worse, and we must not impose such civil liabilities upon others, especially based on accident of birth. Ahmed Moor no doubt is correct when he states that superior morality is infinitely more likely than guns to win Palestinian freedom. I haven't seen any defense of this killing on the ground that it is likely to be strategically effective. There is no way this incident could be viewed as a positive step forward in the liberation of the Palestinians, and it might very well be a giant step backward. On this issue alone, the decision to carry out this operation is inexcusable. This was not an act perpetrated in the heat of the moment, but a well-planned execution perpetrated in cold blood. Some people got together in a room and hashed this out. As I stated in the title of my original post, what were they thinking? Postscript: I anticipate that some will criticize my right, as a person who lives in complete comfort and security, to "lecture" oppressed people on the acceptable methods they may utilize to win their freedom. I don't look at it that way at all. I'm merely expressing my opinion, and do not need to earn the right to do so. Moreover, I have taken rather strong stands against the barbarity unleashed by Israelis against Palestinians, and I'm perfectly entitled to identify which responsive measures I endorse and those that I condemn. 
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I.F. Stone supported state force to kill a racist movement before it poisoned society
Sep 04, 2010 10:12 am | Philip Weiss I haven't gotten into the debate over non-violence on this site for a few reasons, mainly because other articulate voices are engaged, though I tend to be on the non-violent side, because this moment is just too important in reaching out to Americans who are finally opening their eyes but are turned off by the cycle of violence. And when people say, But look, you're a privileged American, I say, You're right, and we want privileged Americans engaged. That said, I've been reading I.F. Stone from the '50s and it interests me that when it came to the Jim Crow South--a situation somewhat similar in the American experience to what the West Bank represents today (let alone Gaza)-- he was for the use of force to bring about integration. His writings leave me no doubt that he would have called for state force to evict the settlers from the West Bank, long ago, to save Israeli society. And now? Let's go to the videotape. I'm reading Stone's book The Haunted Fifties. Two columns are of interest. Back in '56, white mobs for a time prevented the integration of schools in Alabama and Kentucky. In both cases, Stone called for the state to crush the mob. In the University of Alabama case, Stone even likened blacks to Arabs. He viewed the white mob as similar to French hoodlums in then-colonial Algeria, who in 1956 kept a liberal French minister from assuming power and granting more freedom to the Arab elite. That French mob cut the ground from under the French-educated Arabs... That Tuscaloosa mob, and the cowardly way the University and Governor Folsom gave in to it, is doing the same to the moderate elements in our Negro community. The longer that responsible white leadership delays the unpopular step of enforcing educational integration which is now law, the harder it will become, the stronger the mob will grow. This lawlessness is a monster best killed in its cradle.
Later on in September 1956, in the case of an elementary school in Clay, Kentucky, Stone went even further in his denunciation of racism and its effects (and pushed for Adlai Stevenson over Eisenhower): There will be no orderly determination without some show of force. A false dichotomy has been set up about force and persuasion. Both are needed... mobs can never be merely persuaded. They will overwhelm the good people of the community unless dealt with firmly. What progress has been made in Kentucky and Tennessee was made because Governors Chandler and Clement to their credit called out the militia to show that they meant business... Unless some firm moves toward enforcing compliance are soon made from Washington, the lines may harden for a long, long fight in which the South, its destiny and its good people, will more and more come under the control of the worst elements and poison the political life of the whole country. Behind the school struggle is the shadow of a conflict as grave as slavery created. The South must become either truly democratic or the base of a new racist and Fascist movement which could threaten the whole country and its institutions. On this, more than any other issue, fresh leadership in the White House is urgent.
Wow, what a scenario Stone foresaw! Some may call it paranoid, but I call it wisdom when applied to Israel. The thrust of Stone's thoughts must be clear even to liberal Zionists. A racist movement representing the worst of Israel (the settlers) has been allowed to grow. Their mob rule of an entire region should have been prevented by force. It has not, and it has poisoned the whole society and truly threatened all Israeli institutions. Stone clearly would have supported the use of force against the settlers by the state. Would he condone the murder of settlers? I am sure he would not. But as he indicates in the southern situation, the problem has so degenerated in the Jim Crow West Bank-- lack of freedom for millions of Palestinians for decades now, as the advanced world is moving toward multicultural democracy-- that we have a political problem as bad as slavery in the U.S. I am not even talking about Gaza; and again leading U.S. institutions are corrupted by it. I pray for a bloodless transition to democracy. But reading Stone, it's hard to imagine such a transition without a strong militia making its appearance. P.S. I'm stuck on Stone in the '50. In Prophets Outcast, a fine collection of Jewish non-Zionist thought, edited by Adam Shatz of the LRB, Stone in the 60s urges his beloved Israel to climb the "steep and arid mountains of prejudice" against Arabs. I'll get to that later.... 
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