One of my most unpleasant tasks as president of the Graduate Student Senate at UMass was having to interact with university executives. It would be only a slight overgeneralization to call them a bunch of snakes who combine the cleverness of academics with the slipperiness and amorality of corporate executives. They profess high-minded principles like intellectual achievement, academic freedom and humanistic values, while their actual concern is primarily to manage universities to respond to the technological, personnel and even ideological needs of the corporate and military sectors.

In 2007, hundreds of presidents of American universities signed a statement opposing a proposed boycott of Israeli academic institutions for their role in Israeli war crimes. The list of signatories is here:

http://www.ajc.org/atf/cf/%7B42D75369-D582-4380-8395-D25925B85EAF%7D/NYTimes_College_Presidents_Full.pdf

In 2008-09, zero American university presidents condemned the incomparably worse Israeli bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza and the headquarters of its faculty association.

Many of us have been desensitized to this kind of vile double standard, but publicly pointing them out can still be a powerful moral action.

If your university’s president was among those who signed the statement, you might like to hold them accountable by making a public statement. I have written the following open letter, which for various strategic reasons, we have decided not to publish on my campus. Feel free to adapt it and use it on your own university campus. Remember to add a salutation and signature.

In 2007, you signed an open letter condemning an effort by British academics to hold Israeli academic institutions accountable for their collusion with the criminal Israeli occupation of Palestine. The academics opted for a selective boycott, which aimed to target culpable institutions while exempting Israeli academics who oppose Israel’s crimes.

Because of your open letter’s patent silliness - it called on the British academics to boycott American colleges and universities for not engaging in discrimination - and because it trivialized opposition to Israel’s severe war crimes as “political disagreements of the moment,” we assumed, along with the rest of the justice community, that you and the other signatories were motivated not by “fundamental values of the academy” such as “intellectual exchange,” as you claimed, but by the cheap, cynical Zionist partisanship that we have come to expect from the American elite.

We are pleased to present you with an opportunity to prove us wrong, by condemning the recent Israeli bombing of Palestinian academic institutions.

Several weeks ago, the Israeli Air Force bombed several academic buildings of the Islamic University of Gaza in six air strikes, including the science laboratory building and the “Ladies’ Building,” where women attend classes. More recently, Israel bombed the headquarters of the University Teachers’ Association.

Media reports on the Israeli bombing of the Islamic University were in near unanimous agreement that the university was targeted because it is a cultural symbol of Hamas. Astute observers have noted that these bombings are consistent with Israel’s policy of scholasticide - the systematic destruction of Palestinian education institutions, including, in the last several weeks, the destruction of at least four schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

The Israeli government has made the unsubstantiated claim, disputed by Islamic University officials, that the university was used by Hamas for military purposes. In view of the Israeli government’s history of lying about its wartime actions, its extensive targeting of educational and other civilian institutions, and its refusal to permit independent observers into Gaza to verify its allegations, this claim cannot be taken seriously. The Israeli academic institutions targeted by the British boycott, in contrast, are known to made substantive contributions to Israel’s criminal aggression and occupation.

There can be no doubt that bombing universities and faculty buildings are a more severe form of interference with the “fundamental values of the academy” and with “intellectual exchange” than a nonviolent, targeted boycott, and therefore at least as worthy of condemnation. We invite you to publicly condemn these bombings.

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In a New York Times story posted Tuesday, it appears that Hamid Karzai, the “Mayor of Kabul” and former (current?) CIA operative, is on the outs with the new Obama administration.  Apparently Karzai’s complaining about the U.S. at-will blowing up of Afghan civilians, compounded with his failure to rein in the warlords and unseemly elements of the government has left him much less useful than embarassing to the new administration.

No doubt, Karzai has been little more than a pawn to make the Bush administration look like it was doing something, but as Obama plans on escalating the war in the country, he seems to be looking for a more competent ringleader.  In any case, Karzai’s days are numbered as Afghan head of state.

Mr. Obama is preparing to increase the number of American troops in Afghanistan over the next two years, perhaps to more than 60,000 from about 34,000 now… He [Gates] outlined plans for an increase of about 12,000 troops by midsummer but cautioned that any decision on more troops beyond that might have to wait until late 2009, given the need for barracks and other infrastructure.

So one campaign promise that Obama is living up to is upping the ass-whooping on Afghanistan.  I hate to bring up inconvenient lessons in history, but didn’t yet another superpower put all its eggs in the Afghan basket (while experiencing severe economic strains) and end up becoming a moot point?

Mr. Gates added that the United States should focus on limited goals. “My own personal view is that our primary goal is to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base for terrorists and extremists to attack the United States and our allies, and whatever else we need to do flows from that objective,” he said.

Here’s a good thought experiment - did Gates make the above statement 6 years ago, or yesterday?  (Hint: We’ve seen this foreign policy already, and it hasn’t turned out so good).

I recommend Bill Quigley’s “Letter to a Law Student Interested in Social Justice” to anybody considering a legal career and interested in justice.

Also recommended is the book “Against the Tide,” by Debbie Hagan,to those who want to understand the social role of lawyers. It is the story of Lawrence Velvel, Dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, who dreamed of running a law school in the public interest but met resistance at every step from the legal establishment.

Also recommended is a book I’m in the middle of reading, Unequal Justice, which explores the political interests behind the origins of many of the legal institutions we are familiar with, such as law schools, the big law firm, the bar exam, the American Bar Association, and the National Lawyers Guild. It’s dated (from the mid-1970s), but still very interesting and useful.

The comments section here might be a good place to compile recommended resources on this subject.

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So it’s the day after President Obama’s inauguration. How’s everyone feeling? I’m still pretty damn excited, though it doesn’t quite feel real yet… I came to political awareness under Bush’s reign; I’m more than eager to see how such awareness might evolve alongside this administrative change.

On this day after, I second Jay Smooth in “Why I’m Happy, Why I’m Not Satisfied”:

Time to get to work! (Or, rather, to continue working, with enthusiasm!).

Refreshingly, it seems the Obama administration agrees. Already, Team Obama has ordered a 120 day halt on the prosecutions of detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

Such a request may not be automatically granted by military judges, and not all defense attorneys agree to such a suspension. But the move is a first step toward closing a detention facility and system of military trials that became a worldwide symbol of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism and its unyielding attitude toward foreign and domestic critics.

The legal maneuver appears designed to provide the Obama administration time to refashion the prosecution system and potentially treat detainees as criminal defendants in federal court or have them face war-crimes charges in military courts-martial. It is also possible that the administration could re-form and relocate the military commissions before resuming trials.

So it might be difficult to foretell direct results, to say the least.

“This is a good step in the right direction, although we still think that the unconditional withdrawal of all charges and shutting down this tainted system is warranted,” said Jamil Dakwar, director of the human rights program at the American Civil Liberties Union. “The president’s order leaves open the option of this discredited system remaining in existence.”

Jamil Dakwar is right, of course. This action is not nearly enough. However, I don’t believe that the urgency and necessity of successive steps distracts from the urgency and necessity of this first one. I commend it!

President Obama has acknowledged in recent interviews that shutting the facility is likely to be prolonged an complex. And the administration now faces a number of potentially daunting challenges to following through on the president’s campaign promise. Obama is expected to sign an executive order soon that will lay out in detail his plan to empty the facility.

I look forward to learning all about it.

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It may be a leftist cliche by now, but Dr. King’s radical legacy needs to be rescued from those who would paint him as a cuddly let’s-all-just-get-along figure.

So let’s remember Dr. King’s revolutionary spirit, in his own words.

The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality…and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing “clergy and laymen concerned” committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

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This post was written by Uri on January 19, 2009

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I don’t normally report news, but since I haven’t seen this information elsewhere, I thought it was worth a blog post.  - Uri

Sent out by the Free Gaza Movement

www.freegaza.org

Jennifer Loewenstein; Beirut, Hamra; 1.10.09. 2:30am

Here are some newsworthy items out of Gaza that are unlikely to be making it to the Western presses. I received this information directly from one of the staff of the Mezan Center for Human Rights about twenty minutes ago.

1. Israel has begun a new policy in Gaza in the past two days called the “roof knock”. This is when a “small” rocket is fired from Israeli military aircraft that is strong enough to blast open the roof of a targeted building. It is sent as a “warning message” to the building’s inhabitants giving them between 2 and 3 minutes to evacuate before the building is completely destroyed. A number of cases of this new technique have been reported recently.

2. While the UN continues to claim that “only” 25% of the casualties from the attacks on Gaza are civilian, the Mezan Center for Human Rights (known for the care it takes not to overstate the numbers and for its strict verification policies) estimates that the number of civilian casualties is approximately 85%. In particular, the number of children has increased to over 200, and the number of women has surpassed 75. One reason for the lower civilian casualty figures used by the UN has to do with the reluctance to consider men -other than the elderly and sick- as non-combatants. In fact the overwhelming majority of men killed in “Operation Cast Lead” up to now have been non-combatants, including fathers, teachers, shopkeepers, construction workers, laborers, students, as well as the civil policemen. The vast majority are not “Hamas militants.” Note that the civil police are considered ‘non-combatants’ under international law and are therefore not ‘legitimate’ targets in any military confrontation any more than traffic cops or firemen.

3. The UN announced this evening that “almost everyone in the Gaza Strip” is now in need of humanitarian aid. Indeed, even those with adequate food supplies are a) handing out what they have to people in “shelters” (which have been targeted consistently by Israeli war machines in the past); Even those with adequate food supplies are b) unable to obtain bread anywhere. Many are using rice or spaghetti to substitute for carbohydrates — when these are availabe and when there is water and electricity to allow for cooking these items.

4. There are widespread reports now of forced evacuations of entire neighborhoods of people who go mainly to nearby schools or other public buildings not yet destroyed. These are considered no more secure than their homes but remain the only other places to go (other than to move into crowded dwellings with relatives; or places no more secure than their own homes). The congregation of so many people in these enclosed spaces increases the likelihood of major civilian casualties when airstrikes target the area.

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My own position on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has been one of distaste for either side.  I find I am sympathetic to motivations and unsympathetic to rationalizations for violence.  I don’t think the Palestinians or the Israelis have a sound basis for the acts of violence they commit.

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It’s difficult to say anything particularly constructive or helpful about the ongoing massacre in Gaza, so this will be limited to simply a few observations that appear abundantly clear.

• The state of Israel has lost its moral standing for its existence.  The original Zionist concept of a collaborative, diverse haven for an oppressed class of people has mutated into an ultra-militaristic state which has violently oppressed the people whose land was taken for that purpose.  No state has an inherent right to exist (did the Soviet Union?  Do countries whose borders have been drawn by occupying forces?), and for many well outside of the Middle East, Israel is losing any legitimacy it may have possessed.
• The perpetrators of this 40 year-long genocide - Israel and the United States - have increasingly backed themselves into a very small corner in the public opinion of the world.  Given the U.S.’ unparalleled economic and military power in the 70s, 80s, and even the 90s, it could afford to overlook the destruction of a small population with little possibility of a threat to its own power.  But economic spheres have and are arising in South America, East Asia, and even Western Europe, and its military force is not as singularly persuasive as it once was.  Empires can crumble, and while the U.S. is currently the only superpower, that can change.  Especially with the whole world against it, minus its client state.

Donate to the Middle East Children's Alliance

• We should fear for our lives.  Violence begets violence, and between Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine, the U.S. is responsible for more violence now than before the attacks of 9/11.  A future in the United States without some form of violent retaliation is not likely.  However critical one might be of those in the anti-war movement, an implicit aim in every protest and petition is to make the people of this country (and others) safer.  The legacy of our government, on the other hand, is to make us less safe, regardless of the number of times we might have to take off our shoes at the airport or how many Muslims we imprison at Guantanamo.

Why shouldn’t we think that we might be next?  What makes our lives - our children’s lives - less important than that of those children who hear the whirring of planes overhead, followed by the silence of death?  If they can be exterminated, what moral claim to life do we have?

• Apologists for the violence cannot be taken seriously.  At current count, the death toll of Israelis to Palestinians is 5 to 530.  One country is the occupier of the other.  One country has an arsenal greater than any member of NATO (save the U.S.).  One country has a blockade of food and medical supplies of the other.  There is no such thing as parity in this situation.  Any sentence that begins, “Israel has the right to defend itself …” does not merit being finished.  Occupying countries have no rights; they simply have responsibilities.

Apologists include not only those who defend Israeli violence, but those who defend whatever diminutive forces are still launching rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel.  This has nothing to with the right of an occupied people to resist - such rocket attacks are not resistance.  The rocket attacks from Gaza have no logical basis.  Engaging in war, engaging in violence, should at the least have a rational basis in the expectation that it will improve one’s situation.  However, it is abundantly clear (and has been for some time) that not only are such attacks not improving the plight of Gazans, but with a grand total of 5 fatalities, while providing a pretext for Israel to respond, are almost completely ineffective while increasingly contributing to the decimation of the civilian population of Gaza.  One might even suggest that those behind the rocket attacks are in collusion with Israeli military planners, so ineffective are such tactics.

For those of us who live in the countries of Israel and the U.S., both alleged democracies, the responsibilities of our governments are that much more heavy.  We are supposed to have a degree of control over the actions of our leaders.  Our “freedom” and “democracy” are touted as admirable and prominent aspects of our countries.  If we do not use our freedom and democracy to bring an end to the homicidal inclinations of our governments, who can fault the acts of revenge on us by the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles of the innocent who have perished?  After all this bloodshed in a world where violence has become the new universal language, who doubts it is coming?

UPDATE (Thursday, January 8): Apparently Avi Shlaim, who wrote in the Guardian on January 7, also came to the same conclusion regarding Israel’s “right to exist”:

This brief review of Israel’s record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders”. A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practises terrorism - the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel’s real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination. It keeps compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones. Politicians, like everyone else, are of course free to repeat the lies and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.

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1. The Magnes Zionist runs an unpublished op-ed by Joseph Levine, a UMass philosopher and an excellent commentator on the Israel/Palestine conflict. Levine suggests a thought experiment: imagine that in the targets that Israel is attacking, all civilians were Israelis and not Palestinian. Would you then support the attacks? If not, then you are immoral if you support the actual Israeli attacks.

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Barack Obama is a very intelligent man.  Which is why his invitation of Rick Warren is such a confusing move.  Its his latest fuck you note pinned to the hope that swept him into office  (Jesus’ General has a short and brilliant synopsis).  It would also appear to be a fundamentally naive misunderstanding of what Rick Warren represents.  Rick Warren is an ultra conservative Christian who is actively working to put a mainstream spin on fundamentalist ideas.  As Lindsey Beyerstein notes:

Giving Warren even more mainstream cred is not just a cost-free nod to evangelicals. It’s a boost for someone who actively opposes Obama’s agenda and who is eager to influence secular affairs.

That mainstream cred may be cost-free to the evangelicals, but it comes at a deadly cost to the LGBT community…

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