235 The anti-War Movement vs the 9/11Truth movement

The anti-War Movement vs the 9/11Truth movement

These Anti-War people who oppose 9/11 Truth are Left Gatekeepers. Trotskyists, although some may call themselves "Anarchists" - by which they mean not Bakunin's type, but "left wing Communists".

I will be in Sydney on Feb 18-21. Sydneysiders are welcome to get in touch. My phone# there will be 98743333; best to email first.

(1) The anti-War Movement vs the 9/11Truth movement
(2) Antiwar sites, in accepting the 9/11 explanation, undermine opposition to the war -  Paul Craig Roberts
(3) Palestinians petition UN over Wiesenthal plan to build Museum of Tolerance over Muslim cemetery
(4) Israel wants troops on Palestinian state's eastern border
(5) Spitting on Christians in Jerusalem draws rabbinic rebuke

(1) The anti-War Movement vs the 9/11Truth movement

From: Gary Kohls <gkohls@cpinternet.com> Date: 12.02.2010 08:08 AM

“Once you accept that Muslim terrorists did it, it is difficult to oppose punishing them for the event. [Anti-war activists] do not understand that if you grant the government its premise for war, it is impossible to oppose the war.”—Paul Craig Roberts

“When those who “study peace” have had eight years to invest just an hour or two looking into the overwhelming evidence that the official conspiracy theory of 9/11 cannot possibly be true…and… when members of the peace movement avow that they are committed to truth, justice and peace but fail in their commitment to truth in connection with 9/11 -- arguably the most pivotal war-triggering event of modern times – we’re entitled to question the authenticity of their commitment.”--Barry Zwicker

“speak[ing] truth to power is outdated, because power never listens.”

The Peace Movement versus the 9/11Truth movement

by Barrie Zwicker

http://www.911blogger.com/node/22525

What goes with the “split” between the anti-war movement and the 9/11Truth movement? Some light was shed on this regrettable reality in Boston the weekend of Jan. 30-31, 2010. On Saturday New England United (NEU), an umbrella group, held an anti-war strategy conference. The next day Northeast 9/11Truth held its strategy conference, in part an analysis of the previous day’s events.

As both a lifelong member of the peace movement, and a committed 9/11Truther, I attended all of the Saturday conference where I was a workshop leader, and the first half of the Sunday conference (having to leave early because of travel arrangements). My main points:

1) There is a split, but it has not been initiated, nor is it maintained, by members of the 9/11Truth movement. Truthers stand just as proudly and tall in their opposition to war as anyone in the peace movement. Truthers also are just as fully dedicated to the goals of justice, equality and environmentalism as are anti-war activists.

2) The split is unilateral from the anti-war movement’s side, especially from leaders and organizers. Those at the grassroots level trust and take their cues from the leaders. The result is a widespread attitude toward 9/11Truth that ranges from skepticism to outright hostility. This is why I choose the heading “The Peace Movement versus the 9/11Truth Movement.”

3) A leading cause of the unilateral split is the work of planted agents of the state – spooks -- whose instructions are to do this splitting. The Chinese call such agents “splittists.” The peace movement has been around for decades, so there’s been loads of time for the national security state to install numerous agents within it. Added to their usual instructions to slyly foment divisiveness within peace groups and derail effective anti-war actions are new orders to combat the dynamic truth movement.

Point 3 is tough, I know. But it’s an issue that must be confronted and in no way should be taken as an across-the-board slam at all members of the peace movement. I am not alone in my assessment. At the Sunday Truthers conference the first topic was “How explain the resistance to 9/11Truth in the peace movement?” Paul Zarembka, Professor of Economics at the University of Buffalo and editor of The Hidden History of 9/11, offered four reasons. His first: “agents and gatekeepers among us.” Sander Hicks, author of The Big Wedding: 9/11, the Whistleblowers, and the Cover-Up, offered seven reasons. His first: “The state, COINTELPRO.”

Of course, activities by state infiltrators do not completely explain the split. Other reasons include fears of all kinds, ignorance of history, a powerful culture of militaristic nationalism in the USA and the largest reason everywhere, the treasonous complicity of corporate mainstream media and almost all so-called alternative media. They conspire in de facto censorship, deliberate avoidance of investigative reporting plus psychological warfare against the Truth movement.

These explanations for denial of or hostility to 9/11Truth also apply to the population at large and across issues. Peter Phillips is a professor of sociology at Sonoma State University in California, president of the Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored and serves on the 9/11Truth steering committee. Phillips and Mickey Huff in a recent article state: “An international truth emergency, now in evidence, is the result of a lack of fact-based, transparent, and truthful reporting on fraudulent elections, compromised 9/11 investigations, illegal pre-emptive wars, compounded by top down corporate media propaganda across the spectrum on public issues.” They add: “Consumers of corporate news media—especially those whose understandings are framed primarily from that medium alone—are embedded in a state of excited delirium of knowinglessness.”

In my estimation the black operations of government moles are a key reason for the malfeasance of the media as well as the main explanation for the peace movement’s antagonism against 9/11Truth. The undoubted existence of undercover operatives and agents provocateur has not been discussed nearly to the extent justified. A major elevation of this topic is way overdue.

Followers in the anti-war movement “do not realize,” as Paul Craig Roberts wrote Sept. 15th, 2009, in Information Clearing House, “that by accepting the [government’s] 9/11 explanation they have undermined their own opposition to the war. Once you accept that Muslim terrorists did it, it is difficult to oppose punishing them for the event. [Anti-war activists] do not understand that if you grant the government its premise for war, it is impossible to oppose the war.”

It’s tough to prove agentry. Agents do not “out” themselves. Covert activity is their game. Deception and betrayal are their tools. Other approaches, however, are available to spot spooks. “By their fruits ye shall know them” is helpful. When ostensible peaceniks committed to peace and democracy engage in name-calling, we are entitled to ask whether they are simply individuals lacking civility and self-control, or are individuals deliberately causing tensions. When those who “study peace” have had eight years to invest just an hour or two looking into the overwhelming evidence that the official conspiracy theory of 9/11 cannot possibly be true, and have failed to do so, we are entitled to theorize beyond the explanation that we are simply “puzzled.” When members of the peace movement avow that they are committed to truth, justice and peace but fail in their commitment to truth in connection with 9/11 -- arguably the most pivotal war-triggering event of modern times – we’re entitled to question the authenticity of their commitment. It would be insulting to explain their shortcoming as due to stupidity. And if the explanation is ignorance, after eight years during which all persons interested in current affairs must have encountered evidence of 9/11Truth, it must be in most cases some variation of willful ignorance.

Consider how easy it is for agents of the state to operate. First, the state has virtually unlimited resources for recruiting, training and deploying agents. Second, agents have no legal or moral restraints. They act with complete impunity. (It’s gratifying that there now is an International Coalition Against Impunity, www.icaihokok.org). Volunteer organizations are easy as pie to infiltrate. All it takes is a trained sneak with a believable “legend” to lie his or her way into the confidence of the group.

The world of “guerrilla marketing” provides examples of the ease with which groups can be manipulated. A vodka company identifies heavy vodka drinkers -- those who already drink their brand and others they entice to try it. The drinkers are all friends together. The heavy users are “opinion leaders.” By their drink orders at bars they are “role models” who trigger others to order the same brand they do. It’s called peer group pressure. Even more effective is a conscious agent following sophisticated instructions in swaying a peer group.

There was an illuminating lead-up to the conference of New England United. Only after months-long effective lobbying by an indefatigable member of Northeast 9/11Truth did NEU organizers agree that a person identified with the 9/11Truth movement could be one of four panelists in the afternoon. This was Peter Dale Scott, former Canadian diplomat, an English professor at the University of California in Berkeley and author of The Road to 9/11. Scott, whose work I much admire, in fact has drawn short of fully recognizing and endorsing the voluminous evidence that 9/11 was an inside job. Nevertheless, his acceptance at an anti-war gathering in 2010 was generally agreed to be a “breakthrough.”

It turned out that he had to cancel scant days before, as his wife took seriously ill. The Northeast Truthers proposed that, should an attempt to have Scott address the NEU conference by video-over-Skype fail, that I be the stand-in. The organizers rejected me (believe me, this account is not motivated by sour grapes) on the basis, after alleged “extensive research,” of my alleged “extreme right-wing” views and my alleged long and close association with historian and writer Webster Tarpley. He in turn was identified only as a LaRouchite. For anyone who knows me this description was bizarrely incorrect. If news of my “extreme right-wing views” reaches the Mounties it will puzzle the hell out of them.

As it turned out Scott’s addressing the audience in Boston from California via Skype worked. Relevant to this report, he made this comment: “This brings us to 9/11. […] before the last plane had crashed in Pennsylvania, the White House authorized the institution of so-called Continuity of Government [COG] changes. There is no doubt that COG was introduced – the 9/11 Report confirms it twice, on pages 38 and 326. And I have little doubt that the COG plans, still in force today under President Obama, are the justification for the surveillance agents who are with you in the room as I speak to you at this moment.”

The 300 or so attendees at the NEU conference studiously avoided the 9/11Truth literature table. Book sales are a key indicator of interest. I sold three of the 20 copies I had brought of my book Towers of Deception: The Media Cover-Up of 9/11 (fortunately the rest sold to Truthers the next day). Other Truther materials similarly were mainly passed by.

After the speakers of the Saturday morning panel had been heard, the floor was opened for questions. The first questioner was a young man in a green tee shirt. I’d say he was a plant. With reference to nothing any of the panelists had said, he claimed to be “disturbed” by “the logic” of the 9/11Truth movement, and asked the panelists what they thought. Glen Ford of the Glen Ford Black Agenda (radio) Report responded that “the inside job [theory] doesn’t fly” and that “we have all the dirt on what they [the oligarchy] [has] already done.” This garnered a great deal of enthusiastic applause, accompanied by a few boos. The next day Sander Hicks reported a conversation he had subsequently with Ford, who told him that he answered the question the way he did “out of deference to the organizers.”

Nevertheless, the workshop session entitled “Covert and False Flag Operations and 9/11: Pretext for the Continuing War on Terror” was standing room only with about 65 in attendance. My poll of those attending showed that only two believed the official 9/11 story. All the others raised their hands for “inside job.”

At the Sunday Northeast Truthers conference Hicks suggested that part of the reason for peace movement members’ antagonism to 9/11Truth is that they know they are the “fading sunset left” who have “lost the passion,” whereas the Truther movement is fresh and passionate. Along the same line of thought Frank Tolopko, producer of the bi-weekly radio program “The 9/11 Report” on WBCR in Great Barrington, Mass. suggested a fundamental reason that a left gatekeeper such as Amy Goodman would reject 9/11Truth is that she is promoting “a concept of bourgeois democracy that is over.” As I quoted Chris Hedges from his new book Empire of Illusion: the US form of governance has become “participatory fascism.” Goodman takes foundation money to promote democracy now on Democracy Now. Said Tolopko: “If the system can’t be reformed, if 9/11 is an inside job, then she’s out of a job. Goodman is terrified.”

Alphonse Olszewski of St. Louis, Missouri, founder of Veterans for 9/11Truth, knows the power of naming. One contribution he’s made to anti-splittism is renaming his group Veterans for 9/11 Truth, Peace and Justice. There cannot be peace without justice and there cannot be justice without truth. Anything that underscores the primacy of truth, in my view, is to the good. And anything that builds bridges of common understanding and respect between people of peace who understand the significance of the fraudulent nature of 9/11 and people of peace who have not yet connected that dot to the anti-war dot is to the good. I was gratified to see somewhere over the weekend that the admonition “speak truth to power” is outdated, because “power never listens.” The suggested update: “Challenge Power With Truth.”

For those members of the peace movement who are sincere, think for themselves, and are open, I can’t recommend too highly a videotape of a short talk given by Graeme MacQueen at the “We Demand Transparency” conference organized by Sander Hicks in New York City Sept. 12 and 13 of 2009. MacQueen is an associate professor in the Religious Studies Department in Hamilton and former director of McMaster’s Centre for Peace Studies. In concluding his talk, addressed to “not just people in the peace movement but everybody,” he said: “This is the worst time in history to inflame societies with the spirit of war; it is the worst time to be taken in by fraudulent trigger incidents, the most important time to reject the war system, and to co-operate with the rest of humanity to solve the grave ecological problems we face, which collectively threaten our civilization.” He went on to quote the testimony of a New York fireman, Kenneth Rogers. Rogers testified he looked directly at the collapsing towers on 9/11, hearing explosions and seeing evidence of them. “The reasons he saw things the others didn’t see,” MacQueen said, “was because he didn’t leave the scene and he didn’t turn his head away. He stood there and he looked at it. That’s all I’m asking members of the peace movement to do. Stop turning your head away; don’t flee the scene. Look at it, please.” The video can be found at http://www.boston911truth.org

(2) Antiwar sites, in accepting the 9/11 explanation, undermine opposition to the war -  Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23498.htm

Why Propaganda Trumps Truth

By Paul Craig Roberts

September 15, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- -An article in the journal, Sociological Inquiry, casts light on the effectiveness of propaganda.  Researchers examined why big lies succeed where little lies fail.  Governments can get away with mass deceptions, but politicians cannot get away with sexual affairs. 

The researchers explain why so many Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, years after it has become obvious that Iraq had nothing to do with the event. Americans developed elaborate rationalizations based on Bush administration propaganda that alleged Iraqi involvement and became deeply attached to their beliefs.  Their emotional involvement became wrapped up in their personal identity and sense of morality.  They looked for information that supported their beliefs and avoided information that challenged them, regardless of the facts of the matter.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained the believability of the Big Lie as compared to the small lie: “In the simplicity of their minds, people more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.  It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have such impudence.  Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and continue to think that there may be some other explanation.”

What the sociologists and Hitler are telling us is that by the time facts become clear, people are emotionally wedded to the beliefs planted by the propaganda and find it a wrenching experience to free themselves.  It is more comfortable, instead, to denounce the truth-tellers than the liars whom the truth-tellers expose.

The psychology of belief retention even when those beliefs are wrong is a pillar of social cohesion and stability.  It explains why, once change is effected, even revolutionary governments become conservative. The downside of belief retention is its prevention of the recognition of facts.  Belief retention in the Soviet Union made the system unable to adjust to economic reality, and the Soviet Union collapsed.  Today in the United States millions find it easier to chant “USA, USA, USA” than to accept facts that indicate the need for change.

The staying power of the Big Lie is the barrier through which the 9/11 Truth Movement is finding it difficult to break.  The assertion that the 9/11 Truth Movement consists of conspiracy theorists and crackpots is obviously untrue.  The leaders of the movement are highly qualified professionals, such as demolition experts, physicists, structural architects, engineers, pilots, and former high officials in the government.  Unlike their critics parroting the government’s line, they know what they are talking about.

Here is a link to a presentation by the architect, Richard Gage, to a Canadian university audience: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13242   The video of the presentation is two hours long and seems to have been edited to shorten it down to two hours.  Gage is low-key, but not a dazzling personality or a very articulate presenter. Perhaps that is because he is speaking to a university audience and takes for granted their familiarity with terms and concepts.

Those who believe the official 9/11 story and dismiss skeptics as kooks can test the validity of the sociologists’ findings and Hitler’s observation by watching the video and experiencing their reaction to evidence that challenges their beliefs. Are you able to watch the presentation without scoffing at someone who knows far more about it than you do?  What is your response when you find that you cannot defend your beliefs against the evidence presented?  Scoff some more?  Become enraged?

Another problem that the 9/11 Truth Movement faces is that few people have the education to follow the technical and scientific aspects.  The side that they believe tells them one thing; the side that they don’t believe tells them another. Most Americans have no basis to judge the relative merits of the arguments.

For example, consider the case of the Lockerbie bomber.  One piece of “evidence” that was used to convict Magrahi was a piece of circuit board from a device that allegedly contained the Semtex that exploded the airliner.  None of the people, who have very firm beliefs in Magrahi’s and Libya’s guilt and in the offense of the Scottish authorities in releasing Magrahi on allegedly humanitarian grounds, know that circuit boards of those days have very low combustion temperatures and go up in flames easily.  Semtex produces very high temperatures.  There would be nothing whatsoever left of a device that contained Semtex.  It is obvious to an expert that the piece of circuit board was planted after the event.

I have asked on several occasions and have never had an answer, which does not mean that there isn’t one, how millions of pieces of unburnt, uncharred paper can be floating over lower Manhatten from the destruction of the WTC towers when the official explanation of the destruction is fires so hot and evenly distributed that they caused the massive steel structures to weaken and fail simultaneously so that the buildings fell in free fall time just as they would if they had been brought down by controlled demolition.

What is the explanation of fires so hot that steel fails but paper does not combust?

People don’t even notice the contradictions.  Recently, an international team of scientists, who studied for 18 months dust samples produced by the twin towers’ destruction collected from three separate sources, reported their finding of nano-thermite  in the dust.  The US government had scientists dependent on the US government to debunk the finding on the grounds that the authenticity of custody of the samples could not be verified.  In other words, someone had tampered with the samples and added the nano-thermite.  This is all it took to discredit the finding, despite the obvious fact that access to thermite is strictly controlled and NO ONE except the US military and possibly Israel has access to nano-thermite.

The physicist, Steven Jones, has produced overwhelming evidence that explosives were used to bring down the buildings.  His evidence is not engaged, examined, tested, and refuted.  It is simply ignored. 

Dr. Jones’ experience reminds me of that of my Oxford professor, the distinguished physical chemist and philosopher, Michael Polanyi.  Polanyi was one of the 20th centuries great scientists.  At one time every section chairman of the Royal Society was a Polanyi student.  Many of his students won Nobel Prizes for their scientific work, such as Eugene Wigner at Princeton and Melvin Calvin at UC, Berkeley, and his son, John Polanyi, at the University of Toronto.

As a young man in the early years of the 20th century, Michael Polanyi discovered the explanation for chemical absorbtion. Scientific authority found the new theory too much of a challenge to existing beliefs and dismissed it.  Even when Polanyi was one of the UK’s ranking scientists, he was unable to teach his theory.  One half-century later his discovery was re-discovered by scientists at UC, Berkeley.  The discovery was hailed, but then older scientists said that it was “Polanyi’s old error.”  It turned out not to be an error.  Polanyi was asked to address scientists on this half-century failure of science to recognize the truth.  How had science, which is based on examining the evidence, gone so wrong.  Polanyi’s answer was that science is a belief system just like everything else, and that his theory was outside the belief system.

That is what we observe all around us, not just about the perfidy of Muslims and 9/11.

As an economics scholar I had a very difficult time making my points about the Soviet economy, about Karl Marx’s theories, and about the supply-side impact of fiscal policy.  Today I experience readers who become enraged just because I report on someone else’s work that is outside their belief system.  Some readers think I should suppress work that is inconsistent with their beliefs and drive the author of the work into the ground.  These readers never have any comprehension of the subject.  They are simply emotionally offended.

What I find puzzling is the people I know who do not believe a word the government says about anything except 9/11.  For reasons that escape me, they believe that the government that lies to them about everything else tells them the truth about 9/11.  How can this be, I ask them.  Did the government slip up once and tell the truth?  My question does not cause them to rethink their belief in the government’s 9/11 story.  Instead, they get angry with me for doubting their intelligence or their integrity or some such hallowed trait.

The problem faced by truth is the emotional needs of people.  With 9/11 many Americans feel that they must believe their government so that they don’t feel like they are being unsupportive or unpatriotic, and they are very fearful of being called “terrorist sympathizers.”  Others on the left-wing have emotional needs to believe that peoples oppressed by the US have delivered “blowbacks.”  Some leftists think that America deserves these blowbacks and thus believe the government’s propaganda that Muslims attacked the US.

Naive people think that if the US government’s explanation of 9/11 was wrong, physicists and engineers would all speak up.  Some have (see above). However, for most physicists and engineers this would be an act of suicide. Physicists owe their careers to government grants, and their departments are critically dependent on government funding.  A physicist who speaks up essentially ends his university career.  If he is a tenured professor, to appease Washington the university would buy out his tenure as BYU did in the case of the outspoken Steven Jones.

An engineering firm that spoke out would never again be awarded a government contract.  In addition, its patriotic, flag-waving customers would regard the firm as a terrorist apologist and cease to do business with it.

In New York today there is an enormous push by 9/11 families for a real and independent investigation of the 9/11 events.  Tens of thousands of New Yorkers have provided the necessary signatures on petitions that require the state to put the proposal for an independent commission up to vote. However, the state, so far, is not obeying the law.

Why are the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who are demanding a real investigation dismissed as conspiracy theorists?  The 9/11 skeptics know far more about the events of that day than do the uninformed people who call them names.  Most of the people I know who are content with the government’s official explanation have never examined the evidence.  Yet, these no-nothings shout down those who have studied the matter closely.

There are, of course, some kooks.  I have often wondered if these kooks are intentionally ridiculous in order to discredit knowledgeable skeptics.

Another problem that the 9/11 Truth Movement faces is that their natural allies, those who oppose the Bush/Obama wars and the internet sites that the antiwar movement maintains, are fearful of being branded traitorous and anti-American.  It is hard enough to oppose a war against those the US government has successfully demonized.  Antiwar sites believe that if they permit 9/11 to be questioned, it would brand them as "terrorist sympathizers" and discredit their opposition to the war. An exception is Information Clearing House. 

Antiwar sites do not realize that, by accepting the 9/11 explanation, they have undermined their own opposition to the war. Once you accept that Muslim terrorists did it, it is difficult to oppose punishing them for the event.  In recent months, important antiwar sites, such as antiwar.com, have had difficulty with their fundraising, with their fundraising campaigns going on far longer than previously.  They do not understand that if you grant the government its premise for war, it is impossible to oppose the war.

As far as I can tell, most Americans have far greater confidence in the government than they do in the truth. During the Great Depression the liberals with their New Deal succeeded in teaching Americans to trust the government as their protector.  This took with the left and the right.  Neither end of the political spectrum is capable of fundamental questioning of the government.  This explains the ease with which our government routinely deceives the people.

Democracy is based on the assumption that people are rational beings who factually examine arguments and are not easily manipulated. Studies are not finding this to be the case.  In my own experience in scholarship, public policy, and journalism, I have learned that everyone from professors to high school dropouts has difficulty with facts and analyses that do not fit with what they already believe.   The notion that "we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead" is an extremely romantic and idealistic notion.  I have seldom experienced open minds even in academic discourse or in the highest levels of government.  Among the public at large, the ability to follow the truth wherever it may lead is almost non-existent.

The US government's response to 9/11, regardless of who is responsible, has altered our country forever.  Our civil liberties will never again be as safe as they were.  America's financial capability and living standards are forever lower.  Our country's prestige and world leadership are forever damaged.  The first decade of the 21st century has been squandered in pointless wars, and it appears the second decade will also be squandered in the same pointless and bankrupting pursuit.

The most disturbing fact of all remains:  The 9/11 event responsible for these adverse happenings has not been investigated.

(3) Palestinians petition UN over Wiesenthal plan to build Museum of Tolerance over Muslim cemetery

From: IHR News <news@ihr.org> Date: 12.02.2010 06:06 PM

Democracy Now
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/10/palestinian_families_appeal_to_un_over

Palestinian Families Appeal to UN Over Israeli Construction of “Museum of Tolerance” on Jerusalem’s Historic Mamilla Cemetery

Palestinian families have filed a petition with the United Nations over the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s plans to build a “Museum of Tolerance” over the historic Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem. Opponents of the project have long questioned how a monument to tolerance can be built on the remains of the graves of generations of Palestinian Muslims. We speak to Columbia University professor and author Rashid Khalidi, a petitioner whose ancestors were buried at the Mamilla Cemetery; and Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is representing the families in their petition. [includes rush transcript]

Guests:

Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University’s Department of History and the author of several books, including Sowing Crisis: American Dominance and the Cold War in the Middle East and Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood.

Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights also joins us here in New York.

AMY GOODMAN: A controversy over the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s project to build a “Museum of Tolerance” on a historic Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem has gone all the way to the United Nations. Today, families defending the twelfth century Ma’man Allah or Mamilla Cemetery from desecration by Israeli authorities filed their case before the United Nations in Geneva, with news conferences in Geneva, Los Angeles and Jerusalem. The petitioners include descendants from fifteen of the oldest families in Jerusalem whose ancestors have been buried at the cemetery for centuries.

Opponents of the project have long questioned how a monument to tolerance can be built on the remains of the graves of generations of Palestinian Muslims. But the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in favor of its construction in November 2008.

The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights is representing the families in their petition to the UN to safeguard their international human rights and urge Israel to halt construction of the museum.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, who is the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, declined our invitation to come on the program, but sent a statement saying, quote, “The Museum of Tolerance project is not being built on the Mamilla Cemetery. It is being built on Jerusalem’s former municipal car park, where every day for nearly half a century, thousands of Muslims, Christians and Jews parked their cars without any protest whatsoever from the Muslim community.”

Well, in response to criticism that the construction on the cemetery grounds has resulted in the disinterment of graves and human remains, Rabbi Hier added, quote, “The Israeli Antiquities Authority has confirmed that there are no bones or remains on the site, which is currently undergoing infrastructure work. Remains found on the site, which have now been reinterred in a nearby Muslim cemetery were between 300-400 years old. No remains from the 12th century era were found,” he wrote.

Well, I’m joined now by one of the petitioners whose ancestors were buried at the Mamilla Cemetery. Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, the Department of History, and the author of a number of books, including Sowing Crisis: American Dominance in the Cold War in the Middle East and Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood.

Michael Ratner is also with us, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

We welcome you both.

RASHID KHALIDI: Thanks, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Professor Khalidi, members of your family are buried there? Explain.

RASHID KHALIDI: This is a cemetery where people have been buried since the twelfth century. People who fought with Saladin in the Crusades are buried there. In fact, one of the descendants of one of the leading figures in the twelfth century is buried in that cemetery. And contrary to what Rabbi Hier said, that parking lot was built over a cemetery, part of it. And so, the Israeli authorities are basically pushing ahead with the desecration of a cemetery that they have been, unfortunately, slowly nibbling away at for over three decades. We and other families are taking action as a group of families to try and stop this, after other families failed in the Israeli Supreme Court.

AMY GOODMAN: The fact that he said this has been a parking lot that no one has protested for years?

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, many protests were made. There were protests made from the early ’60s, when the first of these desecrations started. That’s false. And the fact that it was desecrated in the ’60s doesn’t mean that it’s right to desecrate it further. What happened in the 1960s was that part of the cemetery was paved over for this parking lot. What they have now done is to dig down and disinter four layers, according to the chief archaeologist for the Israeli Archaeological Authority, four layers of graves. There are more probably beneath those, according to his report, which was suppressed in the submissions to the Israeli Supreme Court.

AMY GOODMAN: And that they’re saying there are no bodies buried there?

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, the chief archaeologist’s report contradicts what Rabbi Hier says. I would go with the chief Israeli archaeologist over the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, frankly. ...

(4) Israel wants troops on Palestinian state's eastern border

January 21, 2010

http://jta.org/news/article/2010/01/21/1010258/israel-wants-troops-on-palestinian-states-eastern-border

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Israel wants to keep troops on the West Bank's border with Jordan, even after the formation of a Palestinian state, its prime minister said.

Benjamin Netanyahu made the statement during a news conference with foreign reporters Wednesday, just hours before the arrival in Israel of United States' Mideast envoy George Mitchell. He said the presence was necessary to prevent weapons being smuggled into the new state, and to prevent rockets from being fired at Israel.

The idea was rejected by chief Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat Thursday during an interview on Israel Radio.

"The borders of the state of Palestine will be Jordan. The Jordan Valley is ours, is Palestine. Why do they insist on being on our territory?" he said.

"The Palestinian leadership will not accept the presence of a single Israeli soldier in the Palestinian territories after the end of the occupation," Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman for PA President Mahmoud Abbas, told AFP. "We will not accept anything less than a completely sovereign Palestinian state on all the territories with its own borders, resources and airspace."

Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with Mitchell in Tel Aviv Thursday, where the two discussed moving forward the political process with the Palestinians. Mitchell was scheduled to meet with Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman later in the day.

Erekat also denied news reports that the Palestinian Authority had asked the United States to negotiate a final peace settlement with Israel on its behalf.

(5) Spitting on Christians in Jerusalem draws rabbinic rebuke

From: Kristoffer Larsson <kristoffer.larsson@sobernet.nu> Date: 22.01.2010 06:04 PM

http://jta.org/news/article/2010/01/17/1010205/spitting-on-christians-in-jerusalem-raises-eyebrows

By Ben Harris · January 17, 2010

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- From his ceramics gallery along Armenian Patriarchate Road, Garo Sandrouni has a sweeping view of one of the Old City of Jerusalem's longest thoroughfares, stretching from Jaffa Gate deep into the Jewish Quarter.

Jewish worshipers heading to and from the Western Wall jostle for space along the narrow passage with Armenian priests and seminarians, and Sandrouni says about once a week he finds himself breaking up fights between them.

Typically the skirmishes begin when a young yeshiva student spits on or near a group of teenage seminarians, who occasionally respond by beating up their attacker. Several years ago, a young religious man pulled a gun when Sandrouni moved to intervene in a fight.

"Most of the incidents that happen, unfortunately, they happen in front of my store," said Sandrouni, who more than once has come to the aid of a yeshiva student bloodied after a run-in with a group of seminarians."Almost everybody, after the fight, they apologized," Sandrouni said. "They say, 'We are sorry. We didn't know that their reaction would be so strong.' "

Attacks on Christian clergyman in Jerusalem are not a new phenomenon, and may result from an extreme interpretation of the Bible's injunction to "abhor" idol worshipers.

But several people familiar with the issue say the attacks recently have reached epidemic proportions -- or at least enough that government officials and Orthodox rabbinic figures have begun to take notice.

A recent meeting between Foreign Ministry officials, the Jerusalem municipality and fervently Orthodox, or haredi, leaders resulted in a statement by Beth Din Tzedek, a haredi rabbinic tribunal, denouncing the phenomenon. In a sign of the ministry's concern over the issue, both the meeting and the statement were publicized on the Web site of Israel's diplomatic mission to the Vatican.

"Besides desecrating the Holy Name, which in itself represents a very grave sin, provoking gentiles is, according to our sages -- blessed be their holy and righteous memory -- forbidden and is liable to bring tragic consequences upon our own community, may God have mercy," said the statement.

The incident that appears to have gotten the ministry's attention occurred last September, when a pair of teenage Armenian seminarians reportedly fought with a young yeshiva student who spit on them. Police intervened, arrested the seminarians and referred the matter to the Interior Ministry.

According to George Hintlian, a spokesman for the Armenian community in Jerusalem, the seminarians are now facing deportation -- a decision the Armenians have officially protested. Carrying out the order would require the police to seize the boys from their seminary in the Old City, Hintlian said, which likely would result in a public relations disaster.

"It won't happen easily," Hintlian said. "They'll think twice."

Christian leaders stress that the problem is not one of Christian-Jewish relations in Israel. Most Israelis, they say, are peaceful and welcoming. In an interview with several Armenian Jerusalemites, they emphasized repeatedly that their relations with the largely religious community in the Old City's Jewish Quarter are normal.

The assaults, according to George Hintlian, a spokesman for the Armenian community in Jerusalem, are carried out by people from the outside -- visitors to Jerusalem from other towns, and even from abroad.

Though they may bear the brunt of the phenomenon, given the proximity of the Armenian and Jewish quarters, cases of spitting are confined neither to Armenian clergy nor the Old City.

Athanasius Macora, a Texas-born Franciscan friar who lives in western Jerusalem, frequently has been the target of spitting during his nearly two decades residing in the Israeli capital.

Macora, whose brown habit easily identifies him as a Christian clergyman, says that while he has not endured any spitting incidents recently, recollections of past incidents started flowing over the course of 30-minute interview.

In a sitting room at Terra Sancta College, where he is the superior, Macora recalled the blond-haired man who spit at him on Agron Street, not far from the U.S. Consulate. Another time, walking with an Armenian priest in the same area, a man in a car opened his window to let the spittle fly. Once it was a group of yeshiva students in the Old City, another time a young girl.

Five years ago, in what many say is the worst incident on record, a crucifix hanging from the neck of the Armenian archbishop, Nourhan Manougian, was broken in the course of an altercation with a yeshiva student who had spit on him.

Sometimes the assailants are clad in distinctive haredi garb; other times the attackers are wearing the knitted yarmulkes of the national religious camp. In almost all cases, though, they are young religious men.

A Franciscan church just outside the Old City walls was vandalized recently with anti-Christian graffiti, Macora said.

"I think it's just a small group of people who are hostile, and a very small group of people," Macora said. "If I go to offices or other places, a lot of people are very friendly."

Meanwhile, the Beth Din Tzedek statement, and an earlier one from Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, have impressed the Christians and raised hopes that the spitting may soon end.

"We hope that this problem will be solved one day," Sandrouni said, "for the sake of mutual coexistence."