Category Archives: Politics

Israel’s war on Gazan sports

Politics, Sports, , , , , , ,

Dave Zirin asks us to consider why the Israeli Air Force has once again destroyed Gaza’s soccer stadium:

For those attending daily demonstrations against the carnage, this news of a stadium’s destruction must also be seen as an irrelevancy. After all according to The Wall Street Journal, 90 Palestinians, including 50 civilians, have been killed in Gaza. 225 children are among the more than 700 injured and these numbers are climbing. Israeli ground troops are massing at the border and President Obama can only bring himself to defend Israel without criticism. There is only so much concern for a stadium people can be expected to muster.

I think however that we should all take a moment to ask the question, “Why?” Why has the Palestinian sports infrastructure, not to mention Palestinian athletes, always been a target of the Israeli military? Why has the Palestinian domestic soccer league only completed seven seasons since its founding in 1977? Why are players commonly subjected to harassment and violence, not to mention curfews, checkpoints, and all sorts of legal restrictions on their movement? Why were national team players Ayman Alkurd, Shadi Sbakhe and Wajeh Moshate killed by the Israeli Defense Forces during the 2009 military campaign? Why did imprisoned national team player Mahmoud Sarsak require a hunger strike, the international solidarity campaign of Amnesty International, and a formal protest from both FIFA and the 50,000-player soccer union FIFpro to just to win his freedom after three years behind bars?

The answer is simple. Sports is more than loved in Gaza (and it is loved.) It’s an expression of humanity for those living under occupation. It’s not just soccer and it’s not just the boys. Everyone plays, with handball, volleyball, and basketball joining soccer as the most popular choices. To have several thousand people gather to watch a girls sporting event is a way of life. It’s a community event designed not only to cheer those on the field, but cheer those in the stands. As one Palestinian man from Gaza said to me, “[Sports] is our time to forget where we are and remember who we are.”

Attacking the athletic infrastructure is about attacking the idea that joy, normalcy, or a universally recognizable humanity could ever be a part of life for a Palestinian child. This is a critical for Israel both internationally and at home. The only way the Israeli government and its allies can continue to act with such brazen disregard for civilian life is if they convince the world that their adversaries collectively are less than human. The subway ads calling Muslims “savages”, the Islamophobic cartoons and videos that are held up as examples of free speech, are all part of a quilt that says some deaths are not to be mourned.

At home, attacking sports is about nothing less than killing hope. Israel’s total war, underwritten by the United States, is a war not only on Hamas or military installations but on the idea that life can ever be so carefree in Gaza as to involve play. The objective instead is to hear these words of a young girl outside Al Shifa Hospital on November 18th who said, “To the world and people: Why should we be killed and why shouldn’t we have a normal childhood? What did we do to face all this?”

Israel, however, claims that rockets were being fired from the stadium.

Fanaticism in the Israeli mainstream

Politics, , , , , , ,

Gilad Sharon, the youngest son of Ariel Sharon, penned an op-ed for the Jerusalem Post yesterday:

Why do our citizens have to live with rocket fire from Gaza while we fight with our hands tied? Why are the citizens of Gaza immune? If the Syrians were to open fire on our towns, would we not attack Damascus? If the Cubans were to fire at Miami, wouldn’t Havana suffer the consequences? That’s what’s called “deterrence” – if you shoot at me, I’ll shoot at you. There is no justification for the State of Gaza being able to shoot at our towns with impunity. We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.

There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. Then they’d really call for a ceasefire.

Were this to happen, the images from Gaza might be unpleasant – but victory would be swift, and the lives of our soldiers and civilians spared.

IF THE government isn’t prepared to go all the way on this, it will mean reoccupying the entire Gaza Strip. Not a few neighborhoods in the suburbs, as with Cast Lead, but the entire Strip, like in Defensive Shield, so that rockets can no longer be fired.

There is no middle path here – either the Gazans and their infrastructure are made to pay the price, or we reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip. Otherwise there will be no decisive victory. And we’re running out of time – we must achieve victory quickly. The Netanyahu government is on a short international leash. Soon the pressure will start – and a million civilians can’t live under fire for long. This needs to end quickly – with a bang, not a whimper.

Meanwhile, deputy prime minister Eli Yishai was quoted as saying, “We must blow Gaza back to the Middle Ages, destroying all the infrastructure including roads and water.”

The Israelis who condemn Palestinian children’s education for its alleged anti-Semitism should be that much more horrified by their own adult politicians’ behavior.

Elizabeth Warren: scaring banks since 2008

Politics, , , , , , , ,

And rightly so. These days, the fight has moved from her Senate candidacy to a battle over her possible appointment to the Senate banking committee:

Not even two weeks have passed since Democrat Elizabeth Warren rode a wave of grassroots support to victory in the US Senate race in Massachusetts, ousting Republican incumbent Scott Brown. Senator-elect Warren has not yet hired her staff. She has not yet moved into her Senate office. But the banking industry is already taking aim at her, scurrying to curb her future clout on Capitol Hill.

Lobbyists and trade groups for Wall Street and other major banking players are pressuring lawmakers to deny Warren a seat on the powerful Senate banking committee. With the impending departures of Sens. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) and Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Democrats have two spots to fill on the committee before the 113th Congress gavels in next year. Warren has yet said whether she wants to serve on the committee. But she would be a natural: she’s a bankruptcy law expert, she served as Congress’ lead watchdog overseeing the $700 billion bank bailout from 2008 to 2010, and she conceived of and helped launch the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

But the big banks are not fans of Warren, and their representatives in Washington have her in their crosshairs. Aides to two senators on the banking committee tell Mother Jones the industry has already moved to block Warren from joining the committee, which is charged with drafting legislation regulating much of the financial industry. “Downtown”—shorthand for Washington’s lobbying corridor—”has been going nuts” to keep her off the committee, another Senate aide says.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a banking committee member, has been angling to get Warren on the committee, “but there are many bank lobbyists pushing to keep her off,” a top Democratic Senate aide told Politico‘s Morning Money tipsheet. But the aide added, “If she really wants banking, it will be very tough politically to keep her off.”

Several banking trade groups—including the American Bankers Association, Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, and the Mortgage Bankers Association—declined or didn’t respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Warren also declined to comment.

The big banks’ opposition to Warren, a fierce consumer advocate, is no shocker. She supported the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, and she blasted Brown, who did vote for Dodd-Frank, for launching a “guerrilla war” to undermine its implementation. She backs the Volcker Rule, a limit on how much banks can trade with their own money. What may trouble the big banks most is Warren’s call for revisiting the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated riskier investment banks from more staid commercial banks. Reinstating Glass-Steagall would mean breaking up sprawling Wall Street institutions such as JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America.

This is an important moment for the Democratic Party. Its leaders — specifically, Harry Reid, who makes the committee appointments — have a great opportunity to try to demonstrate that they are not beholden to their myriad financial interests and that they do support the sterling work done by Elizabeth Warren to protect consumers and hold financial firms accountable. If they cave on this one, as they very well might, it will be a bad omen for this next session of Congress generally on all sorts of issues.

The other war in Gaza

Media, Politics, , , , , , , ,
[tweet http://twitter.com/IDFSpokesperson/statuses/268780918209118208]

It’s the one being fought in — and sometimes on — the media. The Israel Defense Forces have not only tweeted up a storm since beginning their air strikes days ago, but they’ve even maintained a much-debated liveblog of their operations, complete with “chest-thumping” and over-the-top imagery (see graphic at right).

Meanwhile, amidst reports that nine women and small children were killed in an airstrike today, journalists in the region are increasingly concerned that they’re becoming targets as well:

Seven journalists were injured in the first attack, around 1:40 a.m., in the Shawa and Hossari Building in downtown Gaza City. It houses two local radio stations — one run by the militant Islamic Jihad — and the offices of the Ma’an Palestinian news agency as well as the German broadcaster ARD.

One of the journalists injured on Sunday, Khader Zahar of the Beirut-based Al Quds satellite channel, was said to have lost a leg in the explosion, which hit its 11th-floor studio.

The Israeli military referred to the two sites as “Hamas operational communication sites that were identified by precise intelligence…”

It urged “international journalists and correspondents who operate in the Gaza Strip carrying out their duties, to stay clear of Hamas’s bases and facilities — which serve them in their activity against the citizens of Israel.”

Ayman Amar, a spokesman for the Al Quds television, said seven camera operators and editors were resting on couches in their offices around 1:30 a.m. when a missile fired from an Israeli helicopter ripped through the roof. They fled, and three more bombs dropped around 10 minutes later, Mr. Amar said.

Al Quds, an independent channel with 50 employees in the Gaza Strip, has had offices in the building since 2007, and on its top floor since 2011. Since the conflict escalated, journalists have been working around the clock and catching naps in the office. Some of its employees were back out on the streets on Sunday, Mr. Amar said, and others were trying to clear the wreckage from the five-room editing studio.

“We never expected that it would hit us,” he added. “So far we don’t know why; there are no reasons. We will not stop. It is our duty toward our cause to support the Palestinian people.”

Later, a missile that was dropped from an Apache helicopter hit the top of the 15-story Al Shoruq Building, which is also downtown, witnesses said.

The target was the Hamas channel that broadcasts locally, Al Aqsa, but the building also contains offices of the Al Arabiya television network and the Middle East Broadcast Center, which runs it, as well as the live studio of an Iranian television station and two production companies — the Gaza Media Center and Mayadeen — that provide services for Fox News, Sky News, CBS and Al Jazeera.

No one was injured in that attack. Witnesses said that everyone in the building fled after a warning missile was fired in the stairwell, two minutes before the attack on the roof.

The Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem said it was “concerned” by the attacks, recalling a United Nations ruling that “journalists, media professionals and associated personnel engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict shall be considered civilians, to be respected and protected as such.”

More on the alleged media intimidation and targeting here.

More on Rupert Murdoch’s media conspiracies

Media, Politics, , , ,

Peter Beinart at Open Zion takes on Rupert Murdoch’s tweet from last night:

It’s offensive to journalists because it implies that institutions of the “press” should reflect the ideological biases of their owners. Reading Murdoch’s tweet, it would be logical to conclude that he believes that any newspaper he owns should reflect his right-wing views, even in its news coverage. The FCC might want to consider that when evaluating Murdoch’s reported bid to buy the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times.

Murdoch’s tweet is offensive to Jews because he’s suggesting that when it comes to Israel, Jewish media-owners should let their Jewishness guide their journalism. In the last couple of years, some on the left have gotten into trouble for using the phrase “Israel-firster,” thus implying that some American Jews place loyalty to Israel above individual conscience or loyalty to the United States. Murdoch seems upset that Jewish media owners are not Israel-firsters. He wants their tribal loyalty to a Jewish state to trump their professional obligation to oversee fair-minded, unbiased journalism.

As a smart friend points out, Murdoch’s tweet is the equivalent of saying “Why don’t Jewish bankers loan more money to Jews?” What’s offensive is the suggestion that Jewish bankers should make professional decisions not as bankers, but as Jews.

The twist, of course, is that Murdoch is upset at Jewish media owners for not favoring Israel. It’s possible, therefore, to read his tweet as a back-handed acknowledgment that Jewish media owners do act according to professional obligation, not tribal loyalty. That, however, would be too charitable. Had Murdoch merely observed that the “Jewish owned press” isn’t “consistently” pro-Israel, the implication might be that, true to journalistic obligation, Jewish media owners let their reporters follow the facts wherever they lead.

But Murdoch said something different: that the “Jewish owned press” is “consistently” anti-Israel. The implication is that Jewish media owners do indeed let their Jewishness define their Israel coverage. That’s why the coverage is “consistently” anti-Israel in “in every crisis.” It’s just that journalistically, their Jewishness expresses itself as hostility to Israel.

Living in a war zone

Politics, , , , , , ,

If you spend too much time reading big-picture reports and analyses of the current IDF/Hamas showdown in Gaza and southern Israel, it’s easy to forget just how terrifying it must be for the people that live on both sides of the border.

Below are two truly incredible videos (as seen on the New York Times‘ excellent “Lede” blog) of the Israeli Iron Dome (funded in large part by the United States) intercepting missiles coming from Gaza. The apparent lack of concern on the part of the applauding audiences is surreal, as well as a good reminder of just how much baseline stress these populations live under on a daily basis.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kAyqbKwd1o] [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLi4l5Vxc6A]

The real David Petraeus scandal

Law, Politics, , , , , , , , , ,
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF9u6SuKKE8]

It’s not the adultery, it’s the invasion of privacy:

The fishing expedition into Broadwell’s emails should, on its face, be considered a violation of the Fourth Amendment—while the FBI apparently had a search warrant, it’s hard to see how this warrant was obtained with the “probable cause” the Constitution requires. But the real scandal here is what’s currently considered to be legal. After a 180-day period has elapsed, private emails are currently considered public and require only a subpeona to a provider to be accessed. Even worse, the government contends that even inside the 180-day window opened emails carry no expectation of privacy. As Adam Serwer of Mother Jones puts it, “If you think the feds need a warrant to start looking at your email, you’re dead wrong.” The standards created by the The Electronic Communications Privacy Act from a time when most emails were downloaded rather than stored on a third-party server remain in place. In the current technological context, these standards are privacy shredding.

The invasions of privacy in this case make the need for major changes in the law clear. First of all, the federal courts should make clear that there is the same Fourth Amendment right to privacy in electronic communication that there is in telephone calls. The government should have access to emails only after obtaining a warrant after the showing of probably cause. Cases like the investigation of Broadwell’s email—in which “evidence” of wrongdoing that would not be considered adequate cause if applied to snail mail was enough to obtain a warrant—should not go forward.

And much more needs to be done to protect the privacy of employees. A recent decision by the Supreme Court of Canada provides a valuable road map. “Canadians may therefore reasonably expect privacy in the information contained [workplace] computers, at least where personal use is permitted or reasonably expected,” wrote Justice Morris Day. This is the right approach. The Fourth Amendment should give government employees a presumptive expectation of privacy in their electronic communications, including those on workplace computers. And the privacy of private employees should have a similar expectation of privacy established by federal statute. The fact that emails and text messages are stored on third-party servers should not be used to immolate the privacy of individuals.

The dark side of Hamas

Politics, , , , , ,

Another overt execution of a suspected collaborator occurred today in a public area in Gaza. The New York Times reports:

Masked gunmen in Gaza summarily executed a man here on Friday as a suspected collaborator with Israel on the third day of its deadly aerial bombardments, shooting him multiple times and leaving his body beneath a billboard featuring a Hamas fighter holding a rocket.

The executed man, identified as Ashraf Ouaida, had a poster hung around his neck accusing him of cooperating with the Israelis in the killing of 15 Palestinian leaders.

Wael Mohammed, a taxi driver who was standing on the steps of the Aman Mosque in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, said that around 11:45 a.m. he saw a Jeep pull up on Al Jalla Street, from which two masked men dragged Mr. Ouaida to the dirt circle under the Hamas billboard.

“They took him out from the Jeep with his hands cuffed behind his back, they pushed him under the poster and fired three gunshots at his head from the back,” Mr. Mohammed said. “He was still alive. Then they set his cuffs free and turned him upside down and fired on him again.”

One of the gunmen, Mr. Mohammed said, hung a poster in which Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility and cited Mr. Ouaida’s alleged crimes.

You’d think this type of behavior would eventually backfire with the population of Gaza. Hopefully it will.

An impending ground war in Gaza?

Politics, , , , ,

Andrew Sullivan laments the direction the Israel/Palestine conflict has gone in recent years:

As I wrote yesterday, it is impossible and wrong to blame Israel for self-defense against Hamas rockets with greater range and power, if not much greater accuracy, than the past. There is no defense of Hamas’s use of terrorism. Equally, the kind of ground assault that now looks inevitable is yet another iteration of the same dead end. Except, this time, for Israel, the region is shifting against it. The visit to Gaza by the Egyptian prime minister yesterday – he and Hamas’s leader together beheld the body of a Gazan boy killed by Israeli firepower yesterday – represents a tectonic shift. And the deeper regional and international isolation of Israel is pregnant with foreboding. If we see another civilian bloodbath in Gaza, four years after the last one, the failures of the Israeli government to seize the opportunity Obama offered them four years ago – indeed to treat the United States president with contempt combined with an open attempt to elect his opponent – will haunt the Jewish state. Greater Israel is as unsustainable as it appears to be inevitable. There was, and maybe still is, a ramp off this conflagration. But Netanyahu and Hamas feed off it domestically – a gruesome and ominous fact.