Putin Instructs Ministry to seek diplomacy on Iran Nuclear Issue

I have been away for quite a while, due to illness and other family matters.  I don't watch cable TV.  I don't have it in my house.  I don't believe anything from the mainstream media.  Here there is no TV, radio, newspapers...  Today, I came online and went to PressTV, based in Iran and I see that the sharks haven't given up on attacking Iran if they only could....  "Iran's nuclear issue" is such a farce and sheer hypocrisy.  While we know for a fact that Israel is loaded with nuclear weapons, it is Iran, a country that as a member of the IAEA and a signatory to the NPT has all the right to peaceful nuclear energy.....  The world is indeed a very strange place...

 

Crystal-Ayah

 

 

 

 

 

 

Putin instructs ministry to seek diplomacy on Iran nuclear issue

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Thu May 10, 2012 3:55PM GMT

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed the country’s Foreign Ministry to examine, find and promote ways for an ‘exclusively diplomatic’ settlement of the dispute over Iran’s nuclear energy program.

According to a presidential decree, On Measures to Implement the Russian Federation Foreign Policy signed by Putin, the Russian Foreign Ministry has been instructed to seek a settlement for the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program relying exclusively on political and diplomatic means.

The executive order “aims to implement a coherent foreign policy of the Russian Federation that would protect its national interests,” according to the official website of the Russian president.

The development comes as Iran and the P5+1 group of nations- Britain, China, France, Russia, and the US plus Germany - are engaged in negotiations.

The latest round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 was held in the Turkish city of Istanbul on April 14. Both sides hailed the discussions as constructive.

The next round of the negotiations is scheduled to take place in the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad on May 23, 2012.

The United States, Israel and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear energy program. Washington and Tel Aviv have time and again threatened Tehran with the "option" of a military strike against its civilian nuclear facilities.

Iran argues that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

The IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence indicating that Tehran's nuclear energy program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.

MP/HJL/IS

 

Source:  PressTV.ir

WHAT MUST BE SAID

WHAT MUST BE SAID Why have I kept silent, held back so long, on something openly practised in war games, at the end of which those of us who survive will at best be footnotes? It's the alleged right to a first strike that could destroy an Iranian people subjugated by a loudmouth and gathered in organized rallies, because an atom bomb may be being developed within his arc of power. Yet why do I hesitate to name that other land in which for years – although kept secret – a growing nuclear power has existed beyond supervision or verification, subject to no inspection of any kind? This general silence on the facts, before which my own silence has bowed, seems to me a troubling, enforced lie, leading to a likely punishment the moment it's broken: the verdict "Anti-semitism" falls easily. But now that my own country, brought in time after time for questioning about its own crimes, profound and beyond compare, has delivered yet another submarine to Israel (in what is purely a business transaction, though glibly declared an act of reparation) whose speciality consists in its ability to direct nuclear warheads toward an area in which not a single atom bomb has yet been proved to exist, its feared existence proof enough, I'll say what must be said. But why have I kept silent till now? Because I thought my own origins, tarnished by a stain that can never be removed, meant I could not expect Israel, a land to which I am, and always will be, attached, to accept this open declaration of the truth. Why only now, grown old, and with what ink remains, do I say: Israel's atomic power endangers an already fragile world peace? Because what must be said may be too late tomorrow; and because – burdened enough as Germans – we may be providing material for a crime that is foreseeable, so that our complicity will not be expunged by any of the usual excuses. And granted: I've broken my silence because I'm sick of the West's hypocrisy; and I hope too that many may be freed from their silence, may demand that those responsible for the open danger we face renounce the use of force, may insist that the governments of both Iran and Israel allow an international authority free and open inspection of the nuclear potential and capability of both. No other course offers help to Israelis and Palestinians alike, to all those living side by side in enmity in this region occupied by illusions, and ultimately, to all of us. Günter Grass The English translation was published by the Guardian. Translated by Breon Mitchell. You can read the poem in the original German here.  This poem was amended on 10 and 11 April 2012 after it was revised by the translator. This was further amended on 13 April 2012 to include a link to the original poem in German.

 Published on Global Research Website.

Explaining the F-35 fiasco: The 'Yes Minister Defence' | rabble.ca

A Conservative Member of Parliament from Alberta has helpfully offered what we might term the "Yes Minister Defence" for his government's spectacular mishandling of the F-35 fiasco.
The Conservatives were just too dumb to understand the F-35 file, Brent Rathgeber, the MP Edmonton-St. Albert, who is best known for his belief that the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. should be run as a charity, seems to be suggesting in a recent edition of his blog.
Lest Rathgeber assert that this characterization of his April 5 post is one of those periodic defamations he is forced to endure as our public-spirited Parliamentarian, let us quote from Brent's Blog directly:
"As I watched Bob Rae's admittedly thoughtful question of Privilege tabled earlier today in the House of Commons alleging Ministerial impropriety regarding the F-35 Fighter Jet (non) procurement, I was reminded of the British sitcom/mocumentary 'Yes Minister'," Rathgeber wrote. "In it, a rather hapless politician is routinely ‘managed’ by his more intelligent Deputy Minister. Although a clever British satirical sitcom, 'Yes Minister' parodies the reality that the bureaucracy has the expertise and experience that few politicians will ever achieve in any given subject matter."
Now, while I have no doubt Defence Minister Peter MacKay will not be pleased to learn he has been depicted by one of his caucus mates as "rather hapless" and by implication less intelligent than his departmental staff, a charitable interpretation of the F-35 procurement mess would suggest this is a fair comment on Rathgeber's part.
That is, at least, to those of us who are not persuaded that MacKay merely intentionally misled us, the hapless members of the public, because he thought we were too stupid to figure out the multi-billion-dollar costs of the single-engine stealth fighter that needs a million-dollar paint job every time you have to change a spark plug and add a quart of oil, and also doesn't carry enough fuel to intercept a Russian bomber until it's practically within sight of the Peace Tower.
For his part, according to the Toronto Star, MacKay says he knew the so-called fighters would cost $10-billion or so more than Ottawa told taxpayers, and he didn't mean to mislead us when he didn't tell us about it. He just didn't feel he needed to say anything because it was only an accounting difference, he explained to CTV’s Question Period.

Getting back to Rathgeber's novel Yes Minister Defence, the Edmonton-area MP concedes that “something as significant as a $10-billion underestimate in Canada’s then largest military procurement would theoretically call for a Minister’s resignation.” (Emphasis added.)
However, he asks, is it really reasonable to expect the minister to resign "given the highly technical and unique market regarding military procurement." Apparently he thinks not, as he goes on: "is it realistic to expect politicians to have the requisite technical expertise regarding said purchase?"
After all, he explained, there are only a few makers of multi-billion-dollar stealth fighters with radios that don't work when it's cold, or too close to the North Pole, or something, and only a few governments rich enough and dumb enough to contemplate buying them. So "this is not a normal operating market and therefore the suggestion of a truly competitive process is largely irrelevant."
Moreover, Rathgeber suggests, this whole matter was really all the fault of a bunch of nameless Department of Defence bureaucrats. He asks, complete with double question marks: "Is Parliament entitled to accurate information to hold the Government to account and assure the public purse is spent wisely? Or can a bureaucracy with superior technical expertise 'manage' Ministers and in turn Parliament with impunity??”
Most of us would agree that the answer to the first question is yes and the answer to the second ought to be no. Regardless, from MacKay's response to the second question we can infer that he did understand the difference and that Rathgeber's attempt to pass the buck (hundreds of millions of 'em, actually) to the civil service doesn’t really fly, as it were.
However, Rathgeber's blog does contain a couple of other tidbits worth repeating. First is his admission that the allegedly perfect workings of the market, which Prime Minister Stephen Harper believes in with such near-religious faith, are not so perfect when the requirements are too technical for mere ministers of the Crown to understand.
Actually, a lot of us who do not share the PM's market-fundamentalist convictions have been saying this for a long time, and it is nice to hear it said by a member of the Reform Party caucus in Ottawa.
Second, Rathgeber notes that given the economic relevance of military procurement contracts so huge the sums are barely comprehensible even to those of us who are not members of Cabinet, they are also used "for non-military purposes such as industrial benefits, regional development and job creation."
This is a point we can heartily agree is a reasonable role of government, although in the knowledge that it is a worthwhile activity of the sort usually dismissed by Rathgeber's caucus colleagues as "picking winners and losers."
It is good to know that at least one member of Harper's caucus understands that such matters as industrial benefits, regional development and job creation are too important to be left to the vagaries of "the market."
Of course, none of this answers why the Conservatives were so set on purchasing an aircraft that so manifestly does not meet Canada's defence needs.
This post also appears on David Climenhaga's blog, Alberta Diary.

Explaining the F-35 fiasco: The 'Yes Minister Defence' | rabble.ca

Military tribunals and assassination

This is not only inacceptable, it is an abomination...  Orwell's vision becoming true... What a disappointment Obama is to the American people...  The following article was published on March 7th on the World Socialist Website wsws.com.

Crystal Ayah

Military tribunals and assassination

7 March 2012

In a speech Monday at Northwestern University Law School in Chicago, Attorney General Eric Holder painted a chilling picture of the future of the United States as envisioned by the Obama administration, in which military tribunals and extrajudicial assassinations are permanent, codified features of the American judicial landscape.
Holder’s speech included a sweeping assertion of quasi-dictatorial presidential powers, including the power of the president to secretly sign death warrants for any person, including US citizens, without any form of judicial review. Holder also defended the power of the president to order the abduction and imprisonment of any person, anywhere in the world, and to try that person before a military tribunal.
The speech was a response to pressure for the administration to provide a legal rationale for the killing last fall of three US citizens by American drone missile strikes in Yemen. On September 30 of last year, the Obama administration assassinated US citizen and alleged Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen after placing him on a secret “kill list.” (See: “The legal implications of the al-Awlaki assassination.”) Other US citizens killed by US missile strikes include Samir Khan and Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, the 16-year-old son of Anwar Al-Awlaki.
The political and media establishment responded to Holder’s speech with complete indifference. Articles on the speech were relegated to the inside pages of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, and none of the network evening news programs commented on it. No politician or public figure, Republican or Democrat, emerged to denounce the speech, and no reporters asked about it Tuesday at Obama’s first press conference of the year.
This response confirms the absence of any commitment to core democratic rights within the American ruling class.
In his speech, Holder praised the Guantánamo Bay military tribunals, holding them up as a model. “I have faith in the framework and promise of our military commissions,” he proclaimed.
On the subject of assassination, Holder declared that “our government has the clear authority to defend the United States with lethal force.” He argued repeatedly that the president requires no “judicial approval” to exercise that power.
Arguing in favor of the constitutionality of assassination, Holder made a distinction between “due process” and “judicial process.” “The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process,” he said. This formulation is staggering in its implications.
The Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the US Constitution, all ratified in 1791—contains numerous guarantees of judicial process: the right to a speedy and public trial, the right to an impartial jury, the right to an attorney, the right to exclude evidence obtained through torture or other unlawful means, the right to confront one’s accuser, and the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, among others.
The Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process itself—“No person… shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”—is a cornerstone of the American constitutional system as it has existed for centuries. On its face it clearly prohibits extrajudicial assassination.
Due process, which dates from the Magna Carta, is a right upon which other civil liberties depend. Holder’s distinction between due process and judicial process is an attempt to formulate a pseudo-constitutional rationale for stripping the population of its democratic rights. The implication is that the state can seize people and hold them indefinitely without trial, or kill them, without violating the constitutional requirement of due process. The establishment of a police state, according to this doctrine, would be compatible with the Constitution.
Holder’s principal justification for all of this is the so-called “war on terror.” “We are a nation at war,” he declared. The United States is in an “hour of danger.”
The “war on terror” is a phony war. It is a political, legal and propaganda device to justify a vast expansion of American militarism and a frontal assault on democratic rights. Never declared by Congress, it has no definite objective or end. It is a means of justifying a permanent siege on basic democratic rights in the name of “national security.”
Holder’s pseudo-legal arguments in favor of military tribunals and assassinations bear more than a passing similarity to Nazi jurisprudence. Under legal doctrines developed by Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, whose ideas enjoy growing interest and influence in America’s legal academia, national security and military urgency can justify a “state of exception,” under which basic democratic rights can be abrogated, the rule of law suspended, and the executive branch granted exceptional powers.
In similar fashion, the “war on terror” has been used to justify an expanding assault on centuries-old democratic legal protections. The past decade has witnessed assassination, torture, rendition, detention without trial, military tribunals, monitoring and surveillance of the population, state secrets, warrantless and intrusive searches, the militarization of the police, attacks on free speech, crackdowns on anti-war groups, an expansion of the operations of intelligence agencies, attacks on immigrants, and a wholesale flouting of international law.
The assault on democratic rights that began in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 has continued through three congressional elections and two presidential elections, regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans were elected. This demonstrates that the collapse of American democracy is rooted in profound and objective historical and social processes.
It is fundamentally the outcome of the crisis of world capitalism, which is centered in the decay of American capitalism. The protracted decline of the global economic position of the United States is expressed internally in the decay of the industrial and social infrastructure, the growth of financial parasitism and social inequality, the decline in the living standards of the working class—all of which has been accelerated by the systemic breakdown inaugurated by the Wall Street crash of September 2008.
The eruption of popular opposition around the world—from the revolutionary upsurge in Egypt to the strikes and protests in Greece and a host of other countries, to the mass protests last year in Wisconsin and the Occupy Wall Street movement—has convinced the US ruling class that it will not be able to carry through the impoverishment of the working class within the framework of its traditional forms of rule. It must move toward dictatorship and mass repression. The real target of the permanent military tribunals and the presidential death warrants defended by Holder is not Al Qaeda, but the American working class.
That these police-state measures are being expanded and institutionalized by the Obama administration and the Democratic Party underscores the fact that the defense of democratic rights requires a break with the two-party system and the building of an independent mass socialist movement of the working class.
Tom Carter










Military tribunals and assassination

"The Mother of All Bombs": a “great weapon” to use on Iran, says US air force chief

A top US Air Force general has described the biggest conventional warhead – the 30,000-pound bunker buster bomb – as “great” for a military strike on Iran.
Such glib comment about a massive killing device comes in the same week that US President Barack Obama appeared to caution against “loose talk” about war in the Persian Gulf.
“The massive ordnance penetrator [MOP] is a great weapon,” said Lieutenant General Herbert Carlisle, the US Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations, who added that the bomb would likely be used in any attack on Iran ordered by Washington.
The MOP also referred to as "The Mother of All Bombs" is designed to drill through 200 feet of reinforced concrete before detonating its massive warhead. It is believed to be the biggest conventional, non-nuclear, weapon in the American arsenal. In terms of destructive capability, it can be said to be the most fearsome explosive weapon among a range of massive-blast ordnance developed by the Pentagon over the past decade.

"A 30,000-pound (13,600-kg) bunker buster bomb designed to smash through some 200 feet of concrete before exploding is a "great weapon" that could be used by U.S. forces in a clash with Iran over its nuclear program, an Air Force general said on Thursday.
....
The Pentagon has begun working on military options if sanctions and diplomacy fail to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear weapon.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the National Journal in an interview on Thursday that planning had been going on "for a long time."
....
The tough rhetoric from the Pentagon came despite President Barack Obama's effort this week to tamp down "loose talk" and "bluster" about possible military action, saying there was still an opportunity for diplomacy.
Carlisle also told the Credit Suisse-McAleese defense conference that a conflict with Syria or Iran could see U.S. military operations influenced by new tactical thinking at the Pentagon known as Air-Sea Battle.
That approach aims to take advantage of highly networked and integrated U.S. forces.
Carlisle said the tactics focus on operating in multiple domains, from air and sea to space and cyberspace, while networking and integrating information from the different areas, like satellites and sensors on stealth fighters and unmanned aircraft.
"There's a space capability, there's a cyber capability, there's fifth-generation, low-signature force capability," he said.
"All those things are on the table and being thought about as we do this operational planning," Carlisle added, noting that Syria and Iran have developed significant defenses aimed at keeping potential attackers at a distance, a strategy Air-Sea Battle was designed to circumvent.
Carlisle said cyberspace could be a factor in a conflict with the two countries. "All of the leadership has said nothing is off the table with respect to what we would employ and use," he said. (Reuters, 9 March 2012) 


The development and deployment against Iran of the MOP was documented in a 2009 Global Research article by Michel Chossudovsky:

Of military significance within the US conventional weapons arsenal is the 21,500-pound "monster weapon" nicknamed the "mother of all bombs" The GBU-43/B or Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB) was categorized "as the most powerful non-nuclear weapon ever designed" with the the largest yield in the US conventional arsenal. The MOAB was tested in early March 2003 before being deployed to the Iraq war theater. According to US military sources, The Joint Chiefs of Staff  had advised the government of  Saddam Hussein prior to launching the 2003 that the "mother of all bombs" was to be used against Iraq. (There were unconfirmed reports that it had been used in Iraq).

The US Department of Defence has confirmed in October 2009 that it intends to use the "Mother of All Bombs" (MOAB) against Iran. The MOAB is said to be  "ideally suited to hit deeply buried nuclear facilities such as Natanz or Qom in Iran" (Jonathan Karl, Is the U.S. Preparing to Bomb Iran? ABC News, October 9, 2009). The truth of the matter is that the MOAB, given its explosive capacity, would result in extremely large civilian casualties. It is a conventional "killing machine" with a nuclear type mushroom cloud. 

The procurement of four MOABs was commissioned in October 2009 at the hefty cost of $58.4 million, ($14.6 million for each bomb). This amount  includes the costs of development and testing as well as integration of the MOAB bombs onto B-2 stealth bombers.(Ibid). This procurement is directly linked to war preparations in relation to Iran. The notification was contained in a 93-page "reprogramming memo" which included the following instructions:

"The Department has an Urgent Operational Need (UON) for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high threat environments. The MOP [Mother of All Bombs] is the weapon of choice to meet the requirements of the UON [Urgent Operational Need]." It further states that the request is endorsed by Pacific Command (which has responsibility over North Korea) and Central Command (which has responsibility over Iran)." (ABC News,  op cit, emphasis added). To consult the reprogramming request (pdf) click here

The Pentagon is planning on a process of extensive destruction of Iran's infrastructure and mass civilian casualties through the combined use of tactical nukes and monster conventional mushroom cloud bombs, including the MOAB and the larger GBU-57A/B or Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), which surpasses the MOAB in terms of explosive capacity.

The MOP is described as "a powerful new bomb aimed squarely at the underground nuclear facilities of Iran and North Korea. The gargantuan bomb—longer than 11 persons standing shoulder-to-shoulder [see image below] or more than 20 feet base to nose" (See Edwin Black, "Super Bunker-Buster Bombs Fast-Tracked for Possible Use Against Iran and North Korea Nuclear Programs", Cutting Edge, September 21 2009)

These are WMDs in the true sense of the word. The not so hidden objective of the MOAB and MOP, including the American nickname used to casually describe the MOAB ("mother of all bombs'), is "mass destruction" and mass civilian casualties with a view to instilling fear and despair. See Towards a World War III Scenario? The Role of Israel in Triggering an Attack on Iran, Part II The Military Road Map, Global Research, August 13, 2010
  



"Mother of All Bombs" (MOAB)

GBU-57A/B Mass Ordnance Penetrator (MOP)
 

MOAB: screen shots of test: explosion and mushroom cloud
















"The Mother of All Bombs": a “great weapon” to use on Iran, says US air force chief

PACBI-An Appeal for Action: End Cornell University Collaboration with Technion

An Appeal for Action: End Cornell University Collaboration with Technion

The Palestinian academic community was deeply disturbed by the recently revealed plan of collaboration between Cornell University and Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.  The two institutions have won a multi-billion-dollar competition held by the City of New York to establish “a 2 million square foot engineering and applied sciences university campus” on Roosevelt Island, NY [1].  Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Cornell University have petitioned the City of New York and Cornell University to end this collaboration with an Israeli institution that is "directly implicated in war crimes [2]."  Similarly, the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) has launched an appeal calling on students and faculty to put pressure on their university to withdraw from this troubling partnership [3].
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) would like to join these groups in deploring the collaboration between US higher institutions of learning and Israeli Academic institutions complicit in Israel’s violations of international law and the rights of Palestinians.  In view of our focus this year on academic boycott, we call on US civil society to bring the injustices of this venture to light.  In the first instance, all New York City residents should, rightfully, be outraged that their tax dollars are being apportioned in the service of such an endeavor, and we appeal to them to pressure the City of New York administration to end this collaboration.  Moreover, we ask students, staff, and faculty at institutions around the country, including student groups such as SJP, as well as workers, labor unions, and other civil society organizations in New York City, to mobilize against the administration of Cornell University to end its partnership with Technion.  More importantly, we call on people of conscience to mobilize on the issue of the Cornell-Technion partnership, and academic boycott more broadly, through street protests, educational venues, media presence and other such mobilizations.
Technion Complicity
Technion's record of complicity in Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian rights is too long to reproduce here, but here are some highlights:
-    It has a partnership with Elbit Systems, which is one of Israel’s largest private weapons manufacturers.  Elbit manufactured the drones that Israel used in its crimes against civilians in Lebanon 2006 and Gaza 2008-09. This partnership has played a leading role not only in the construction and surveillance of the apartheid wall in Palestine, but also along the U.S.-Mexico border through its subsidiary, Kollsman.

-    Technion trains its engineering students to work with companies dealing “directly in the development of complex weapons in the process of researching their academic theses” [4].  In one example with Elbit Systems, the reward has been the funding of research grants in upwards of half a million dollars to Technion’s students conducting research [5].

-    One of the institute’s most notorious projects resulted in the development of a remote-control function on the Caterpillar’s 'D9’ bulldozer “used by the Israeli army to demolish Palestinian houses and farms and the development of a method for detecting underground tunnels, specifically developed in order to assist the Israeli army in its continued siege on the Gaza Strip” [6]

-    Technion has deep relations with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, one of Israel’s largest government-sponsored weapons manufacturers famous for its “advanced hybrid armor protection system” used in Israel’s Merkava tanks [7]. The institute has developed an “MBA program tailored specifically for Rafael managers” which further solidifies its relationship between academia and Israel’s military-industrial complex [8].

-    Technion rewards its students who perform their compulsory military service.  It also granted Israeli army reservists who participated in the Israeli massacre of Gaza in 2008-2009 “academic benefits in addition to the usual benefits for reservists” [9].

Why Academic Boycott?
In 2004, Palestinian civil society called for an academic boycott in the spirit of the South African anti-apartheid movement.  In our statement, we have maintained that a boycott of Israeli academic institutions is necessary due to the complicity of these institutions in the system of oppression that has denied Palestinians their basic rights guaranteed by international law.
In our 2004 call we stated that the academic boycott

is in line with the authoritative call by the Palestinian Council for Higher Education (CHE) for "non-cooperation in the scientific and technical fields between Palestinian and Israeli universities." Academic institutions in particular are part of the ideological and institutional scaffolding of the Zionist settler-colonial project in Palestine, and as such are deeply implicated in maintaining the structures of domination and oppression over the Palestinian people. Since its founding, the Israeli academy has cast its lot with the hegemonic political-military establishment in Israel, and notwithstanding the efforts of a handful of principled academics, is deeply implicated in supporting and perpetuating the status quo. [10]

While it is common to think of universities as ivory towers separate from society, this view ignores the deep roots of the academy in society, and in shaping our knowledge of the world.  Universities influence political power, shape future generations, and structure the moral and ideological underpinnings of our societies.  In the case of Israel, the academy gives the state a veneer of being liberal, tolerant, and just.  This is an image that serves to combat and whitewash the state’s ongoing occupation, colonialism and apartheid.

Why Israeli Institutions?
In response to a call for academic boycott of Israel, one might respond that US academic institutions collaborate with other academic institutions around the world, as well as with their own government that is involved in human rights abuses, war and occupation.  This argument is often used as a red herring to distract activists, and as an attempt to delegitimize the movement.  However, it is critical for us to recognize this as a legitimate concern when it comes from truly conscientious activists and observers, and from people who are invested in advancing ethical forms of resistance against all kinds of oppression.
The above argument can be broken into three parts.  First, we must recognize the voice of Palestinians who suffer under Israel’s intricate multi-tiered system of oppression.  In this sense, an important element is the call by an overwhelming majority of Palestinian civil society for an international boycott of Israel that is embodied in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.  In the 70s and 80s, no ethically minded person would have screamed that the anti-apartheid movement was hypocritical for asking for the boycott of South Africa and not, say, Israel, the U.S. or the Soviet Union.  Thus, it rings hollow and suspicious when people question Palestinians and international solidarity activists for applying the boycott to Israel but not other places.  The BDS movement is explicit in its solidarity with oppressed people around the world fighting against all forms of oppression.  It similarly calls on others to stand with Palestinians in their time of resistance.
Second, we are keenly aware that US academic institutions partner with other foreign academic institutions.  To the extent that these foreign institutions are complicit in their governments’ abuses of international law and human rights, in ways similar to the complicity of Israeli academic institutions, then we also condemn such partnerships.  We doubt, however, that there are, as of yet, any joint ventures within US borders between Saudi Arabian academic institutions, for example, and a US institution.  It is no coincidence that Israeli institutions enjoy greater access to US academic networks, including the funding that these networks enable.  This is what makes the tactic of boycott crucial, effective, and urgent when applied to Israel.  We also stress again that Israel’s atrocious violations of international law remain violations even if there are other countries that commit the same.
This leads to our third argument, where it should not be denied that academic institutions in the US collaborate with their own government, arguably the world's leading and most violent violator of human rights, if we take Iraq and Afghanistan as case studies.  We believe these partnerships should end, and a campaign against Cornell-Technion should strive to raise awareness on US academic complicity, inviting various sectors of local communities to share their experiences and build mutual solidarities.  However, this should not prevent a serious and legitimate call to boycott collaborations with Israeli institutions.  The herculean task of disengaging US academia from the US military industrial complex should not deter or demobilize activists from a call to boycott Israel and its complicit institutions.  Did any morally conscientious person call on US academia to boycott its government before boycotting the apartheid South African regime?  Could American university administrations, morally speaking, argue against the boycott of apartheid South Africa, simply because their own institutions were developing technology for the US government?  We hardly think so.  We cannot defer the rights of people around the world as we wait for the US superpower to clean its house.  However, we must also not hold back from our collective struggles against the abuses of the US government.
In this way, we, at PACBI, along with our coalition partners in Palestinian civil society wish to express our solidarity with oppressed segments of US civil society, and ask that you hear our call and put pressure on your academic institutions and city councils to boycott apartheid Israel.  This is what we ask for in our struggle for freedom, justice and equality.

Notes:
[1] http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/new-york-host-israels-top-drone-lab
[2] http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/in-opposition-to-cornell-universitys/
[3] http://www.usacbi.org/2011/12/open-letter-to-cornell-university-dont-collaborate-with-apartheid/
[4] Uri Yacobi Keller, The Economy of the Occupation: A Socioeconomic Bulletin. (Jerusalem: Alternative Information Center, 2009), 10. http://usacbi.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/economy_of_the_occupation_23-24.pdf.
[5] ibid, 10-11
[6] ibid, 9
[7] “Structures of Oppression: Why McGill and Concordia Universities Must Sever their Links with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology,” 4. http://www.tadamon.ca/wp-content/uploads/Technion-English.pdf
[8] Ibid., 3-4
[9] Keller, 12-13 (see link above)
[10] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1108
Posted on 04-03-2012

PACBI-An Appeal for Action: End Cornell University Collaboration with Technion

Israeli Attack Kill 13 Gazans

Israeli attacks kill 13 Gazans

Hamas policemen inspect the wrecage of a vehicle after it was attacked by an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip on March 9, 2012.

Sat Mar 10, 2012 3:32AM GMT

LAST UPDATE

At least 13 Palestinians have been killed and many more wounded in Israeli aerial and land attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip, Press TV reports.

In the first attack, missiles fired from an Israeli drone struck a car in the Tel El-Hawa neighborhood, west of Gaza City, killing both its passengers and severely injuring another person on Friday.

The Israeli army has confirmed the attack, saying it was a targeted assassination.

An Israeli military spokesman said that Zohair al-Qaisi, the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), and PRC member Mahmoud Hanini were killed in the attack, adding that Israeli officials ordered the assassination because they had allegedly received reports that al-Qaisi was planning attacks against Israeli targets.

Hanini had been freed from an Israeli jail last year as part of a prisoner swap deal to gain the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Islamic Jihad of Palestine said in a statement issued on Friday that Obeid al-Gharabli, Mohammed Harara, Hazem Qoureqa, and Shadi Seqali of the al-Quds Brigades, the military arm of Islamic Jihad, were killed in a second airstrike on the east side of the city.

Palestinian security officials said that a third airstrike on Zeitoun, east of the city, caused no casualties.

In addition, at least four other Palestinians were killed and over 20 injured by Israeli tanks, which pounded areas in the west and north of the besieged coastal enclave.

Three other Palestinians were also killed in additional airstrikes across Gaza.

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has condemned the attacks, describing them as barbaric.

Israeli war planes and ground forces have frequently attacked Gaza since the end of the December 2008-January 2009 war on the people of the Gaza Strip. Most victims of the attacks are civilians, including women and children.