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MARCH 21 "MARCH ON THE PENTAGON" PLANNING MEETING FOR SAN FRANCISCO PROTEST
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2009, 2:00 P.M.
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO (UPSTAIRS)
474 VALENCIA STREET (NEAR 16TH STREET)
SAN FRANCISCO
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Doctors report Israel using DIME (Dense Inert Metal Explosive) weapons in Gaza
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=_IhXSNTG_k0&feature=related
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Gaza, Qaddafi, and Starbucks
http://www.linktv.org/video/3517
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Israeli TV airs Gaza doctor's pleas after children killed - ENGLISH SUBTITLES
[Please note, our tax dollars pay for this! End ALL U.S. Aid to Israel NOW! Not one more dollar, not one more dime!...BW]
Dr. Izzeldin Abuleish and his family were hit by an Israeli shell killing 3 of his daughters,a niece, his brother and nephew and injuring others. He called Israeli TV to plead for ambulances for the wounded, although his children and family members were already dead from the bombing.
It is sickening to listen to him on Dr. Izzeldin on Youtube lamenting his family and pleading for the shelling to stop. He called the TV station reporter as the hit happend.
If you cannot see the subtitles do the following [although you do not need to understand his words to feel his torturous pain]:
1. Play the video
2. Click the triangle button at the bottom-right corner of the video
3. Click the Turn on captions button that looks like the letters CC.
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=OLUJ4fF2HN4
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New Year, Gaza 2008/2009
Call out the names of the dead
so that we may mourn.
Call out the names
of the dead.
Call out the names of their kllers
so that we may rage
as we mourn.
Call out the names
of their killers.
Call out the names of those
who march in protest
So that we may give thanks
as we rage
and mourn
Call out the names
of those who march in protest.
Call out the names "Peace,"
"Justice," "Freedom," "Palestine"
so that we may hope
as we give thanks,
rage,
and mourn.
Call out the names
"Peace," "Justice,"
"Freedom," "Palestine."
And when the time has come
to call out the names
of all who remain silent
as we are calling out these names
let us pray that yours
will not be among them.
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Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
Sign the Statement | View list of Signers | Donate
http://www.iacenter.org/palestine/jewsinsolidarity/#signon
Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
Stop the U.S.-backed genocidal Israeli war on Gaza
* Nearly a thousand women, men and children killed by U.S.-made Israeli bombs
* Thousands more wounded
* 1.5 million under siege for the past 18 months, without food, water, medicine, fuel
* Collective punishment for resisting occupation; emergency aid blocked
* Massive violations of international law
* Apartheid wall
* Racist oppression
* Homes and land stolen
* Forced into refugee camps
* 60 years of occupation, from the river to the sea
We Say Enough!
We Are
Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
No to Israel! Yes To Self-Determination, Democracy & Freedom!
Stop U.S. Funding of the War on Palestine!
The whole world is horrified by the murderous Israeli assault against the suffering people of Gaza. From Seoul to Caracas, from Johannesburg to Amman to London, millions of people have poured into the streets to demand an end to this genocidal campaign, which is funded by the United States and carried out with U.S.-supplied weaponry.
There have also been protests in U.S. cities. While most of those marching are Arab-Americans, many African Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans and whites have joined in. Many Jewish people, outraged at Israel's war crimes and anguished that they are carried out in their name, are speaking out.
It's good that Jewish people of conscience are disassociating themselves from the Gaza aggression. But it's not enough. This atrocity is only the latest, and it's no aberration. It reflects the program of the Israeli settler state -- which is based on the theft of Palestine, the ouster and suppression of the Palestinian people, and the racist ideology of Zionism -- and of its primary sponsor, the Pentagon and U.S. business establishment.
It's not enough to oppose the bombing. It's not enough to demand an end to the 41-year occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. We stand in complete and unconditional support for the self-determination of the Palestinian people. This includes the right to return to Palestine, from the river to the sea, and the right to democratically determine the form and the future of the Palestinian state.
Nothing less will undo the historic crime of al Nakba -- the 1948 catastrophe of the establishment of the state of Israel based on the ouster of the Palestinian people from their homeland, oppression and inequality.
That crime betrayed the whole history of the Jewish people. From helping topple the czar in Russia and build the unions in New York, to resisting pogroms and fighting to the last breath in the Warsaw Ghetto, opposition to persecution, oppression and racism was central to the Jewish heritage.
We call on Jewish people around the world, including those inside Israel, to join us in reclaiming that heritage. Reject racism and genocide. Reject the Zionist state, the very concept of which is racist to the core. Take the hand of our Palestinian sisters and brothers. Defend their righteous struggle to restore their stolen land and build a democratic Palestine.
This is not an impossible quest. Remember how mighty the settler state in South Africa seemed, only a little over two decades ago? The racist regime there was buttressed by U.S. -- and Israeli -- support. But it was battered by the unstoppable political and military struggle against apartheid, which gained worldwide support. Apartheid fell, replaced by a new state based on legal equality.
A future of equality for all is possible in Palestine too. Until this future is won, the Palestinian struggle will go on. We stand with that struggle.
We Are
Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
No to Israel! Yes To Self-Determination, Democracy & Freedom!
Stop U.S. Funding of the War on Palestine!
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GAZA CHILDREN'S VIGIL AND MEMORIAL
Come to show your support and share your message to the children of Gaza who have been killed that we will never forget them, and that the children who are alive have our love and support!
Everyone is welcome, but we are extending a special invitation to children and their families, and those who have suffered from or lost loved ones due to state-sponsored or local police violence.
Saturday, January 17th @ 3PM
AT Union Square -
Powell & Geary in San Francisco (if you're taking BART get off on Powell St. exit).
PLEASE BRING:
Candles for children to hold (extra candles will be provided)
Old children's shoes (to represent the children who have been killed) to leave as part memorial.
Signs, banners and children's artwork about Palestine, messages and poems of peace, love and support for Gaza.
Wear all white shirts as a symbol of mourning and peace.
Sponsored by the Gaza Action Coalition: Al-Awda, Palestine Right of Return Coalition, American Friends Service Committee, American Muslims for Palestine, ANSWER Coalition, Arab American Union Members Council, Arab Resource & Organizing Center, Direct Action to Stop the War, East Side Arts Alliance, Free Palestine Alliance, General Union of Palestine Students, Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth, International Action Center, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, International League of Peoples Struggles, International Socialist Organization, Bayan USA, Just Cause Oakland, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Middle East Childrens Alliance, Palestinian Youth Network, Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, SF Women in Black, St. Peters Housing, U.S. Palestine Community Network-Bay Area Committee.
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Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
LET GAZA LIVE!
Fourth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference
Sunday February 8, 2009 at The University of California in San Diego (UCSD)
hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine
Save the Date! Mark Your Calendars! Plan to Attend!
The Palestine Right to Return Coalition's Al-Awda chapters in Los Angeles, Orange County, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego thank all who took part in the Mass Rally and March in Los Angeles yesterday January 10 as part of the Let Gaza Live National Emergency Day of Mass Action and Protest that took place around the country. Thousands took to the streets demanding an immediate end to the carnage that is being carried out by the 'Israeli' military against our people in the Gaza Strip, and to demand an end to the political, economic and military support it has received from the US administration.
As announced at the protests, please take note that the Fourth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference, LET GAZA LIVE!, will take place Sunday February 8, 2009 at The University of California in San Diego (UCSD). This conference will be hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine. All members and supporters of the Right to Return movement on the West Coast are urged to participate in this important and timely one day conference.
Save the Date, Mark Your Calendars, and Plan to Attend.
Further details will be posted over the next few days and as soon as they become available.
Until Return,
Al-Awda Chapters in Southern California
The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-918-9441
Fax: 760-918-9442
E-mail: info@al-awda.org
WWW: http://al-awda.org
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC) is the largest network of grassroots activists and students dedicated to Palestinian human rights. We are a not for profit tax-exempt educational and charitable 501(c)(3) organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States of America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations to PRRC are tax-deductible.
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March on the Pentagon! March 21, 2009
The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations is joining with other coalitions, organizations, and networks in a united MARCH 21 NATIONAL COALITION to organize the broadest mobilization of people across the United States to take part in a March on the Pentagon on the sixth year of the military invasion and occupation of the Iraq War: Saturday, March 21.
To endorse the March 21 March on the Pentagon, please click here.
http://natassembly.org/Continuation.html#March21
To send a contribution to support the National Assembly's work, please click here.
http://natassembly.org/donate.html
For more information, please visit the National Assembly's website at www.natassembly.org or write natassembly@aol.com or call 216-736-4704.
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MARCH 21 NATIONAL COALITION FOR A MARCH ON THE PENTAGON
ON THE SIXTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE IRAQ WAR
SATURDAY, MARCH 21, DC, SF, LA AND SEATTLE
To endorse the March 21 March on the Pentagon, click here. To sign up to be a Transportation Organizing Center, click here.
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=4580&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS
To sign up to be a Transportation Organizing Center, click here.
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=4680&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS
P.S. You can make a difference. Please continue to support the ANSWER Coalition's crucial anti-war work by making your end-of-the-year tax-deductible donation online using our secure server by clicking here, where you can also find information on how to donate by check.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
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The DAILY SHOW with Jon Stewart
Strip Maul
Israel gets their bombing in before the January 20th hope and change deadline.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=213380&title=strip-maul
Gallery: Gaza Demonstration Montreal
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Gallery+Gaza+Demonstration+Montreal/1141378/story.html
We will not go down (Song for Gaza)
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=dlfhoU66s4Y
MY LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRONICLE PROTESTING THE TOTALLY
INACCURATE REPORT OF THE JAN. 10 "LET GAZA LIVE" DEMONSTRATION--
FULL ARTICLE BELOW:
Peaceful S.F. protest of Israel's Gaza bombing
Deborah Gage, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, January 11, 2009
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/11/MNK6157880.DTL
Here's a link to some great photos of yesterdays protest:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/01/10/18561295.php
Dear Editor,
Deborah Gage's article reporting on the January 10 "Let Gaza Live" demonstration sighting "More than 1,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators and a few hundred pro-Israel demonstrators" was in the ballpark only on the number of pro-Israeli demonstrators; but was off by at least ten-to-one on the number of those demonstrating against Israel!
Even your own photos on your website can testify to this fact! There were at least seven to ten thousand people marching in protest of this most horrible and criminal assault upon a defenseless and imprisoned people.
As one of many Jewish woman and men at this demonstration-and there were many more pro--Palestinian Jewish people protesting Israel than the tiny group of pro-Israeli Zionists that stood on half-a-sidewalk directly outside of City Hall--clearly, the Israeli Zionists do NOT speak for us!
We will keep to the streets demanding END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL! NOT ONE MORE DOLLAR! NOT ONE MORE DIME! STOP THE HORROR! STOP THE CRIME! LONG LIVE PALESTINE!
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein
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Stop the Bombing and Blockade of Gaza!
End all U.S. Aid to Israel!
Bring the Troops Home Now from Iraq and Afghanistan!
Read the Statement Issued by the National Assembly to
End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations at:
natassembly.org
Join with the National Assembly and other coalitions, networks and organizations on March 21, 2009 for a national mass March on the Pentagon in D.C. (and actions in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities) to demand:
Stop the Wars Against Iraq and Afghanistan! -Bring the Troops Home Now!
End U.S. Support for the Occupation of Palestine!
No to U.S. Wars Against Iran and Pakistan!
Money for Jobs, Health Care, Housing, Pensions, and Education-Not for Wars and Corporate Bailouts!
For further information contact:
National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations
natassembly.org, natassembly@aol.com, 216-736-4704
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Labor Boycott Of Israel Backed By Bay Area Trade Unionists
To Stop Invasion/Occupation Of Gaza/Palestine
On Junuary 10, 2009 thousands of people in the bay area protested the US supported attack by Israel on the people of Gaza at a rally and march in San Francisco. Trade unionists including leaders of the Oakland Education Association and ILWU Local 10 and a leader of the California Peace and Freedom party condemned the attack and supported a labor boycott of Israel by the world trade union movement. Labor Video Project P.O. Box 720027 San Francisco, CA 94172 (415)282-1908 www.laborvideo.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEB2aY0ByQM&feature=
Labor Video Project
P.O. Box 720027
San Francisco, CA 94172
(415)282-1908
www.laborvideo.org
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Israelis Soldiers refuse to serve in Gaza
January 13, 2009
http://www.zcommunications.org/zvideo/2978
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Open Letter to Israeli Soldiers
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY
Friends,
As you may know, American Jews for a Just Peace has written an Open Letter to Israeli soldiers calling on them to refuse to take part in war crimes and atrocities in Gaza. We are gathering signatures from Jews all over the world, and hope to raise enough money to publish the Open Letter as an ad in Ha'aretz in the coming days. The views of "World Jewry" still carry some weight in Israel, and we owe it to both the people of Gaza and to the Israeli soldiers to try to raise our voices in opposition to the horror we are watching unfold day by day.
If you haven't already done so, I invite you to read and sign the Open Letter. If you can contribute even a small amount, it will help us toward the total advertisement cost. Organizational signers are invited to email info@ajjp.org to authorize organizational participation.
A link to the Open Letter is on the front page of AJJP's website:
www.ajjp.org
In these dark days, it is good to be able to do something -- anything. I hope you will join this effort.
Hannah Schwarzschild
for the Coordinating Committee
AMERICAN JEWS FOR A JUST PEACE
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U.S. resisters' solidarity with Israeli "shministim" refusers
Courage to Resist
Statement signed by over two dozen U.S. military war resisters. Reprinted by AlterNet, Democracy Now, The Progressive, Common Dreams, Indymedia, and Daily Kos.
We are U.S. military servicemembers and veterans who have refused or are currently refusing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We stand in solidarity with the Israeli Shministim (Hebrew for "12th graders") who are also resisting military service. About 100 Israeli high school students have signed an open letter declaring their refusal to serve in the Israeli army and their opposition to "Israeli occupation and oppression policy in the occupied territories and the territories of Israel." In Israel, military service is mandatory for all graduating high school seniors, and resisters face the possibility of years in prison.
Read more at:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) Speech by Christine Gauvreau, representing the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, at the January 10 Let Gaza Live rally at the White House.
natassembly.org
2) U.N. Building in Gaza Strip Is Hit by Strike From Israel
By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and ISABEL KERSHNER
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16mideast.html?hp
3) Family and Lawyer Fear for Reporter Who Threw His Shoes at Bush
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16iraq.html?ref=world
4) Court Affirms Wiretapping Without Warrants
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/washington/16fisa.html?ref=us
5) U.S. Issues Scathing Report on Immigrant Who Died in Detention
By NINA BERNSTEIN
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/us/16detain.html?ref=us
6) IJAN (International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network)
Call to Action on Gaza
http://www.ijsn.net/home/
7) Jewish rights activist threatened
By Josh Spiro
January 16, 2009
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/01/16/1002304/jewish-rights-activist-threatened
8) How to sell 'ethical warfare'
Claim moral superiority, intimidate enemies and crush dissent – Israel 's media management is not just impressive, it's terrifying
By Neve Gordon
Friday 16 January 2009 20.30 GMT
guardian.co. uk
http://www.guardian .co.uk/commentis free/2009/ jan/16/gaza- middleeast1
9) Israelis Confer on Cease-Fire; U.N. School Is Hit, Killing 2
"...a three-week-old war that has killed at least 1,200 Palestinians, with more buried under rubble, and 13 Israelis"
By STEVEN ERLANGER
January 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/world/middleeast/18mideast.html?hp
10) Bailout Is a Windfall to Bankers, if Not to Borrowers
By MIKE MCINTIRE
January 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/business/18bank.html?hp
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1) Speech by Christine Gauvreau, representing the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, at the January 10 Let Gaza Live rally at the White House.
natassembly.org
I am here today because if the U.S. antiwar movement does not embrace fully and passionately the cause of ending US backing for the murderous assault on Gaza, we will never succeed in ending ANY of the US military adventures in the Middle East. Solidarity with the victims of US backed aggression in Gaza, and solidarity with YOU, is the most important task facing the antiwar movement today.
To whom can we look to end the barbaric attacks on the refugee camp called Gaza?
Not the president and certainly not the Congress.
Yesterday the U.S. Congress voted to openly celebrate their support for the horrific and criminal massacres carried out in Gaza. Read the resolutions-- they CHEERED the murderous effectiveness of the army of their most valued proxy in the Middle East They CELEBRATED the carnage wrought by their military gifts to Israel--the F-16's, the helicopters, the munitions.
While the whole world mourned the loss of innocent life in GAZA, the US government instead theatrically APPLAUDED the mowing down of nearly 1000 starving, encircled, and utterly trapped civilians. And with Orwellian language, they designated the colonizer's methods as self-defense. They perversely defined a brutally occupied people as the aggressor and instigator of war.
Congress uses this double speak for the same reason they went along with the lie of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. In the end, it is all about the same thing. It is all about the willingness of the US government to use the bloodiest means to create a Middle East and Central Asia where Arab and Afghani self-determination, where national sovereignty, is a thing of the past. Where the United States has control over energy resources at any human cost.
That is why they cannot stand the proud and defiant people of Palestine. Their unwillingness to bend in the face of attack makes the Gazans a giant obstacle to US war aims in the greater Middle East. Their fight is our fight.
We say NO to US backed aggression against the people of Gaza.
The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations is so honored and grateful to be here today with the movement to end the siege of Gaza and to defend the right of Palestinians to self -determination. This movement to defend the people of Gaza from the US backed Israeli invasion is opening a new stage in US politics. YOU are opening a new stage in US politics. A stage where those from the Palestine solidarity movement and those who have been active to end the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan will come together as a powerful force to end the US-Israeli military adventure in the Middle East.
A force independent of the war -making political parties in Congress. A force that can grow exponentially due to our unity. A force that can attract millions because we remain visible in the streets. A force that will first be able to manifest itself on March 21 here in DC and bring us a much closer to ending US support for the occupation of Palestine. To ending the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. To getting money for jobs, pensions, housing, healthcare, not for wars, occupations, and corporate bailouts.
Let us pledge to take the next weeks, to use every day, to use every hour, to use every minute between now and March 21 to fight together to take the truth about Gaza, the truth about Iraq, the truth about Afghanistan to the millions of Americans not yet active in the struggle.
Let Gaza Live
Out Now
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2) U.N. Building in Gaza Strip Is Hit by Strike From Israel
By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and ISABEL KERSHNER
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16mideast.html?hp
GAZA - Israeli forces shelled areas deep inside Gaza City on Thursday, hitting the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and injuring at least three people among the hundreds taking shelter in the compound, according to United Nations officials and witnesses.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel expressed regret for the strike but said that Israeli forces were fired on by Hamas militants from just outside the United Nations compound and the militants then ran inside to take cover, according to Mr. Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev.
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had told him the strike on the United Nations compound was a "grave mistake." Mr. Ban, who was in Israel Thursday to press for a cease-fire, said he expressed "strong protest and outrage" to Israel. Relations between Israel and the United Nations offices in Palestinian territory, long strained, have worsened during the Israeli campaign.
On the 20th day of fighting, Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into Gaza City and intensified shelling in both outlying neighborhoods and central districts, sending thousands of panicked residents fleeing from their homes, witnesses said. Al Shurouq Tower, a high-rise media center, was hit by shells, witnesses said. At least two television cameramen were hospitalized.
In what appeared to be a breakthrough for the Israeli military, Israeli and Palestinian media reported that Israel had killed a senior Hamas official in the bombing of his home. Two days ago, Israeli officials said, despite heavy air and ground assaults, Israel had yet to cripple the military wing of Hamas or halt its rocket fire into Israel.
The slain official, Said Siam, was the interior minister in Hamas-run Gaza, and was in charge of security. Islamic Jihad radio said Mr. Siam's brother and son had also been killed. In addition, the strike killed four members of a family next door, Gaza hospital officials said.
The intensified Israeli campaign came as cease-fire talks in Egypt appeared to be moving forward. A senior Israeli defense official, Amos Gilad, returned from Cairo after a day of talks with Egyptian officials. He was due to report to the Israeli leadership later Thursday.
"We are trying to find a durable solution and hopefully that durable solution seems closer than ever before," Mr. Regev said.
Within two hours on Thursday morning, militants in Gaza launched 15 rockets and mortars against Israel, the Israeli military said, a marked increase in fire compared to Wednesday when there were 16 launches during the entire day. Later Thursday, the military reported that 25 rockets and mortars had been fired. One struck the Israeli city of Beersheba, directly hitting a car and wounding six people, the Israeli military said. Among them was a 7-year-old boy, whose injuries were serious.
The death toll among Palestinians rose to at least 1,076, according to Reuters, which quoted the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. At least 13 Israelis have been killed.
Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is charged with helping Palestinian refugees, said that the Israelis had been provided with the GPS coordinates of all United Nations facilities in Gaza. He said that in the strike on the United Nations compound two buildings had been set ablaze and that there were five fully laden fuel vehicles at the site.
He rejected the Israeli claim that militants had fired from in or near the compound as "entirely baseless."
"With every false allegation, the credibility of those accusing us is incrementally diminished," he said. He said that Israel had used three shells of white phosphorous at the compound, according to people at the site, citing the fact that fires caused by the shells had burned all day as evidence that the chemical was used. White phosphorous creates smoke on a battlefield and can burn like a kind of napalm. There was no immediate response from Israel.
The strike on the compound resembled an earlier incident in Israel's campaign against Hamas, when Israeli mortar shells landed outside a United Nations school compound in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, killing at least 40 Palestinians, according to United Nations and hospital officials.
In that attack, the Israeli military said it was responding to mortars fired by Hamas militants from a yard next to the school compound, and that one of the shells it fired back fell off the mark.
The attacks have worsened the decades-long tensions between Israel and the United Nations. Israel views some branches of the United Nations as hostile and unfair, particularly the Relief and Works Agency, with its focus on helping Palestinians.
Mr. Regev, Mr. Olmert's spokesman, played down the tensions, saying that Israel "fully supports the United Nations' humanitarian mission." But Yigal Palmor, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that a large number of the local workers for the United Nations refugee agency "one way or another are affiliated with Hamas," which presents problems at a time of confrontation.
The Israeli military gave only limited information about its latest ground operations in Gaza City on Thursday, but a spokesman said that "fierce fighting" was under way "relatively deep inside Gaza."
Overnight, the military said, Israeli planes struck around 70 targets, including a mosque in the southern town of Rafah that it said was used to stockpile rockets, and several squads of gunmen.
Palestinians arrived with injured relatives at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Thursday, some barefoot and in nightgowns. They told of intense Israeli shelling in several neighborhoods, including the Sabra and Tufah districts. The two television cameramen arrived for treatment after the tower in central Gaza housing the media offices was hit. They had been filming from a window balcony when they were injured, they said.
Residents of the Tel el-Hawa district in south-western Gaza City said Israeli shelling and shooting had gone on all night and that the local Quds Hospital was under fire.
Amid rising concern about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, the aid group CARE said that Israeli bombs were falling around its warehouses and distribution sites in Gaza, forcing it to cancel the dissemination of food and medical supplies.
The group said in a statement that it had been planning to give emergency medical supplies to hospitals and clinics, and get baby food and blankets to newborns in shelters.
Martha Myers, CARE's director for the West Bank and Gaza, said that on Wednesday bombs fell near a care warehouse and "our staff had to drop and run."
"This is not humanitarian access," she said in the CARE statement.
Taghreed el-Khodary reported from Gaza, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Reporting was contributed by Ethan Bronner and Sabrina Tavernise from Jerusalem, Souad Mekhennet from Frankfurt, Michael Slackman from Cairo, Alan Cowell from London, and Graham Bowley from New York.
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3) Family and Lawyer Fear for Reporter Who Threw His Shoes at Bush
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16iraq.html?ref=world
BAGHDAD - More than a month has passed since an Iraqi television reporter threw his shoes at President Bush during a Baghdad news conference held to highlight what Mr. Bush called a successful American military effort to pacify Iraq.
The journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, 29, who was immediately arrested, has been allowed only two visitors - and none since Dec. 21, according to those close to him. His family and his lawyer say that they do not know where he is being held and that they are gravely concerned about his well-being because they have not been allowed to speak with him by telephone.
On Thursday, Dhiyaa al-Saadi, Mr. Zaidi's lawyer, said he had recently seen medical records that were part of Mr. Zaidi's court file, which he said added credence to the journalist's claim that he had been beaten and tortured after his arrest by the security detail of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, on Dec. 14.
Mr. Saadi said two medical reports conducted by government physicians within a week of Mr. Zaidi's arrest described bruising that covered the reporter's face and body, but was especially severe on his legs and arms; a missing tooth; a gash on the bridge of his nose; and what appeared to be a burn mark on his ear.
Mr. Saadi said he had not been permitted to remove the records from the office of the judge investigating the case, so the existence of the documents could not be verified independently. But the account of Mr. Zaidi's wounds matches injuries described by one of Mr. Zaidi's brothers after his prison visit last month.
Uday al-Zaidi, 33, the brother, said Thursday that he feared that Mr. Zaidi, who faces up to seven years in prison for the criminal charge of aggression against a visiting head of state, might never emerge from government custody.
"I don't know his fate," said Mr. Zaidi. "I am sure they will kill him in prison."
But Dr. Fadhil Mohammed Jawad, the legal adviser for Mr. Maliki, said Thursday that Mr. Zaidi had not been tortured and would receive a fair trial.
"Judicially, Iraq is just and the law will handle this case with justice," Dr. Jawad said.
A trial date for Mr. Zaidi had been scheduled for Dec. 31, but was delayed at the request of his lawyer, who is seeking a reduced charge with a shorter prison term. A new date has not been set.
The shoe-hurling episode took place during a news conference with Mr. Bush and Mr. Maliki in Baghdad's heavily secured Green Zone. Mr. Zaidi rose from his seat, threw a shoe at Mr. Bush and shouted, "This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!"
Mr. Zaidi threw his second shoe at the president before security guards restrained him. Both shoes missed. As he was pulled from the room by the guards, Mr. Zaidi was seen being beaten.
In Iraq, throwing a shoe at someone is considered a grave insult. But Mr. Bush's unpopularity here made Mr. Zaidi an instant celebrity and folk hero, not only in Iraq but also elsewhere in the Arab world.
Mr. Maliki was acutely embarrassed, however, and several days later, he said Mr. Zaidi had been put up to the act by a man the prime minister described as a "head cutter" - apparently a reference to a member of the Sunni extremist group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, known for beheading people.
Mr. Zaidi's family, however, has insisted that the reporter has no ties to any political group and that he acted solely out of his opposition to the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Since his arrest, the reporter has been seen by only a few people, including one visit each by his lawyer and brother, both on Dec. 21.
Subsequent visit requests have been rejected or ignored by the government and the judiciary, the men said.
It remains unclear who is responsible for clearing visits to Mr. Zaidi. While Dr. Jawad, the prime minister's legal adviser, said such matters were handled by the investigating judge and the suspect's lawyer, a spokesman for the judge said the issue was one reserved "for the executive branch."
During a telephone interview, Abdul Sattar al-Biriqdar, the spokesman for the High Judicial Council, which administers Iraq's court system, said Dhiyaa al-Kinani, the investigating judge, had not been aware that Mr. Zaidi's lawyer and family members had repeatedly sought to visit Mr. Zaidi in prison.
At first, Mr. Biriqdar denied knowing Mr. Zaidi's whereabouts, but later he said Mr. Zaidi was at an Iraqi detention center in the Green Zone operated by the Baghdad Brigade, a military unit that answers to the prime minister's office.
Mr. Biriqdar said anyone who sought to see Mr. Zaidi would be permitted to do so.
But during a recent visit to the complex, an Iraqi Army guard told a reporter who requested a visit to leave immediately. The guard also said it was "dangerous" to seek to meet Mr. Zaidi.
The soldier, who did not identify himself, said he did not know whether Mr. Zaidi was being held there.
On Thursday, an e-mail message sent to Mr. Maliki requesting a visit with Mr. Zaidi received no reply.
Mr. Biriqdar, the judicial spokesman, said that Mr. Zaidi had not told the investigating judge about being tortured or beaten while in custody and that during a meeting with Mr. Zaidi last month the judge had seen no signs of physical abuse.
"The investigating judge said he had not noticed if he had been tortured or beaten," Mr. Biriqdar said. "Muntader did not say he was beaten and did not ask to be referred to a medical committee."
But a few days after that meeting, both Mr. Zaidi's lawyer and brother Uday said during their respective visits that it had been clear that Mr. Zaidi had been beaten.
Reporting was contributed by Riyadh Mohammed, Alissa J. Rubin, Atheer Kakan and Suadad al-Salhy.
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4) Court Affirms Wiretapping Without Warrants
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/washington/16fisa.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - In a rare public ruling, a secret federal appeals court has said telecommunications companies must cooperate with the government to intercept international phone calls and e-mail of American citizens suspected of being spies or terrorists.
The ruling came in a case involving an unidentified company's challenge to 2007 legislation that expanded the president's legal power to conduct wiretapping without warrants for intelligence purposes.
But the ruling, handed down in August 2008 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review and made public Thursday, did not directly address whether President Bush was within his constitutional powers in ordering domestic wiretapping without warrants, without first getting Congressional approval, after the terrorist attacks of 2001.
Several legal experts cautioned that the ruling had limited application, since it dealt narrowly with the carrying out of a law that had been superseded by new legislation. But the ruling is still the first by an appeals court that says the Fourth Amendment's requirement for warrants does not apply to the foreign collection of intelligence involving Americans. That finding could have broad implications for United States national security law.
The court ruled that eavesdropping on Americans believed to be agents of a foreign power "possesses characteristics that qualify it for such an exception."
Bruce M. Selya, the chief judge of the review court, wrote in the opinion that "our decision recognizes that where the government has instituted several layers of serviceable safeguards to protect individuals against unwarranted harms and to minimize incidental intrusions, its efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts."
The three-judge court, which hears rare appeals from the full Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, addressed provisions of the Protect America Act, passed by Congress in 2007 amid the controversy over Mr. Bush's program of wiretapping without warrants. It found that the administration had put in place sufficient privacy safeguards to meet the constitutional standards of the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches. Because of that, the company had to cooperate, the court said.
That finding bolstered the Bush administration's broader arguments on wiretapping without warrants, both critics and supporters said.
William C. Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University who has criticized the administration's legal position on eavesdropping, said that while the ruling did not address Mr. Bush's surveillance without warrants directly, "it does bolster his case" by recognizing that eavesdropping for national security purposes did not always require warrants.
Coming in the final days of the Bush administration, the ruling was hailed by the administration and conservatives as a victory for an aggressive approach to counterterrorism. The Justice Department said in a statement that it was "pleased with this important ruling."
"It provides a very good result; it reaffirms the president's right to conduct warrantless searches," said David Rivkin, a Washington lawyer who has served in Republican administrations.
Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said the ruling "reinforces the significant, bipartisan political consensus" in favor of the president's broad assertions of wiretapping powers.
But others were cautious about the significance of the ruling.
"I think this kind of maintains the status quo," said Scott Silliman, an expert on national security law at Duke University. "I don't think it is a surprise that the FISA court found that the legislation was constitutional. They are going to defer to Congress, especially since there was a lot of discussion when the law was passed about the ability of the government to compel providers."
The ruling is the latest legal chapter in a dispute dating back to the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, when Mr. Bush secretly ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the international communications of American citizens without the approval of Congress or the courts. After the agency's program was publicly disclosed in December 2005, critics said it violated a 1978 law. The White House initially opposed any new legislation to regulate surveillance, arguing that it would be an infringement of the president's powers.
But after the Democrats took control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections, the administration agreed to bring the N.S.A. program under the jurisdiction of the FISA court. In 2007, Congress passed the Protect America Act, which was replaced in 2008 by another surveillance law.
The case arose in 2007, when a telecommunications company refused to comply with the government's demands that it cooperate without warrants under the terms of the Protect America Act. The company was forced to comply, under threat of contempt, while it challenged the law in the FISA court, the opinion noted.
The company argued that the law violated the constitutional rights of its customers and that the act placed too much power and discretion in the hands of the executive branch. It also raised specific privacy problems, which the court ruling did not identify, that could occur under the surveillance directives it had received from the government.
In rejecting the company's complaint, the FISA appeals court found that the administration had so carefully carried out the Protect America Act that it was not in violation of the Fourth Amendment. It concluded that the procedures put in place under the law properly balanced the constitutional rights of American citizens and the national security interests of the government.
The company argued that "by placing discretion entirely in the hands of the executive branch without prior judicial involvement, the procedures cede to that branch overly broad power that invites abuse," the court wrote.
But, the court ruled, "this is little more than a lament about the risk that government officials will not operate in good faith.'
"That sort of risk exists even when a warrant is required," it said.
Scott Shane contributed reporting.
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5) U.S. Issues Scathing Report on Immigrant Who Died in Detention
By NINA BERNSTEIN
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/us/16detain.html?ref=us
Federal immigration officials investigating the death of a New York computer engineer from China who died in their custody last summer said Thursday that supervisors at a Rhode Island detention center had denied the ailing man appropriate medical treatment on multiple occasions and that employees had dragged him from his cell to a van as he screamed in pain.
As they disclosed their findings, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ordered an end to their contract with the center, the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., a locally owned jail where the engineer, Hiu Lui Ng, spent his final month after a year in immigration detention. They said they had asked that the United States attorney in Boston review the case for possible criminal prosecution.
The federal investigation began last summer, soon after The New York Times reported on the death of Mr. Ng, 34. His extensive cancer and fractured spine had gone undiagnosed, despite his pleas for help, until shortly before he died in custody on Aug. 6.
Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for the federal agency, said the investigation showed that supervisors at the Wyatt detention center had in effect prevented Mr. Ng from meeting with his lawyer by refusing him the use of a wheelchair when he was too ill and in too much pain to walk.
The 33-page investigation report also found that the guards and medical staff, acting on orders of the warden, violated the jail's policy on the use of force when Mr. Ng was dragged to a van for a trip to Hartford, where his lawyers say he was pressured to withdraw all his appeals and accept deportation.
The jail's overhead surveillance video cameras captured everything. But another, hand-held camcorder turned on and off 13 times at a signal from the captain in charge, according to the report, created another version of the episode, apparently in an effort to document that Mr. Ng was faking his illness and refusing to go to the hospital for a CT scan.
Investigators interviewed 158 people in the course of their inquiry, but the surveillance videotapes clearly told them most of what they needed to know. At one point, they wrote, the captain cursed Mr. Ng, calling him an idiot, and ordered him to "stop whining."
Mr. Ng kept saying that he could not walk, begged for a wheelchair, and "continued to scream," the report said, as he was pulled under his armpits from his bed, and to another part of the jail to be shackled.
John J. McConnell Jr., the lawyer representing Mr. Ng's family in a planned lawsuit against the jail and the federal immigration agency, called the report "damning" but added that the investigating agency shared the blame because Mr. Ng "should not have been detained in the first place."
"The people involved in that torturous treatment," he said, "should be ashamed of themselves."
Dante Bellini, a spokesman for Wyatt, called the results of the investigation "disappointing." Last month, citing its investigation, the immigration agency removed all of its detainees from Wyatt.
"We will continue to look at ways to reverse this," Mr. Bellini said. "We will continue to look at all our options and filling our beds. But we will steadfastly maintain that we had nothing to do with the detainee's death."
Last week, Wyatt announced that it was punishing seven employees in connection with the case, with penalties ranging from termination to reprimand. "We took stern and appropriate action," Mr. Bellini said.
Mr. Ng, who had no criminal record, overstayed a visa years ago and had been applying for a green card through his wife, a United States citizen, when he was taken into detention in July 2007 and shuttled through jails and detention centers in three New England states.
One of the most harrowing parts of the federal report is its detailed description of the videos made as Mr. Ng was forcibly taken from his cell to a van.
The tape from the hand-held camcorder begins with the captain's instructing Mr. Ng that "he needed to move on his own," telling him he would not be given a wheelchair and repeatedly ordering him to stand up.
"Mr. Ng was visibly crying and appeared to have difficulty standing," the report said, adding that the captain then appeared to signal the officer holding the camcorder to stop recording.
"Mr. Ng asked captain to believe him that he could not move his legs," the report went on. As he struggled to put on his shoes, apparently in pain, the captain urged him to hurry up. When Mr. Ng told a nurse that he wanted to go to the hospital to take the medical test to determine the cause of his pain and disability, but needed a wheelchair, she was dismissive: "She stated that he could go; he was just refusing to go."
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6) 2 Undercover Narcotics Officers Are Accused of Faking Charges Against 4 Men
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/nyregion/16narcotics.html?ref=nyregion
Two undercover narcotics officers have been charged with lying about a sting operation in Queens after one of the men they accused of selling drugs produced video evidence showing the officers had had no contact with him or three other men they arrested.
The two, Police Officer Henry Tavarez, 27, and Detective Stephen Anderson, 33, surrendered to the authorities on Thursday and were arraigned in Queens Supreme Court.
The charges include conspiracy, unlawful imprisonment and official misconduct, he said. If convicted, they face up to nine years in state prison.
Officer Tavarez and Detective Anderson, who were released on $15,000 and $25,000 bail respectively, declined to comment after the arraignment.
Bruce Wegner, Detective Anderson's lawyer, said: "There is more to this case that will come out. Do not rush to judgment."
The district attorney said all arrests made by the two officers were being reviewed. After four officers in the Brooklyn South narcotics bureau were arrested in late 2007 and early 2008 in a case that involved accusations they traded drugs for information, prosecutors in Brooklyn threw out more than 150 cases in which at least one of the officers played a significant role.
Detective Anderson and Officer Tavarez were part of a team on a "buy-and-bust" operation at Club Delicioso, at 43-24 91st Place in Elmhurst, on Jan. 4, 2008. The operation, which started at night and ended the next morning, resulted in six drug arrests.
According to the indictment, Detective Anderson told his supervisor and said in police paperwork that he bought a Ziploc bag of cocaine for $40 from two men: Gabriel Lira and Julian Martinez. Instead, Detective Anderson had bought three bags of cocaine for $60 from the two men, the statement said.
Officer Tavarez said he bought two bags of cocaine for $100 from four men: Jose Colon, 24; his brother Maximo Colon, 27; Raul Duchimasa; and Luis Rodriguez. But the indictment says Officer Tavarez did not buy cocaine from them, and instead used the cocaine from Detective Anderson as evidence for his own case.
Detective Anderson also later told Officer Tavarez to claim that he had forgotten the details of the arrest of the four men, said the Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown.
Five of the men were released without bail the day they were arrested; Maximo Colon was released three days later after posting $2,500 bail. Jose Colon went back to the club and made a copy of the security video showing that the officers did not have any contact with the Colons, Mr. Duchimasa and Mr. Rodriguez, Mr. Brown's statement said. The charges against the four were later dismissed.
The officers "are accused of knowingly engaging in criminal activity that could have resulted in lengthy prison terms for four innocent men," Mr. Brown said.
The other two, Mr. Lira and Mr. Martinez, pleaded guilty to drug sales charges and are awaiting sentencing, the district attorney's statement said.
Officer Tavarez is on modified assignment without his badge or gun while the Police Department does an internal investigation. His lawyer, Lawrence J. Fredella, said that he was merely "in training that night" and that Detective Anderson had led the operation.
Detective Anderson joined the Nassau County Police Department in May as a recruit but resigned late last year before graduating from the academy, said Detective Sgt. Anthony Repalone of the Nassau County police.
The Colon brothers have filed separate $5 million federal lawsuits, said Maximo Colon's lawyer, Christina A. Hall.
Maximo Colon said he was strip-searched in the precinct station house after the arrest and was held in a dark van for hours. When he asked why he had been arrested, he said the police told him, "Relax, you're going to get out of here soon."
Ms. Hall said, "When you haven't committed a crime and haven't even been told why you are being arrested, it's nightmarish."
Brad Wolk, a lawyer for Mr. Duchimasa, said "controls are needed" on buy-and-bust cases. "Juries want to believe these cops in these cases," he said.
Mick Meenan contributed reporting.
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6) IJAN (International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network)
Call to Action on Gaza
http://www.ijsn.net/home/
We stand with the majority.
We will not be silent on Gaza.
We write with grief and rage as we watch the horrifying Israeli air and ground attacks on Gaza. As Jews committed to ending Zionism, the founding ideology of Israel, and all forms of colonialism, we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, who continue to struggle in the face of these attacks, much as they have against more than 60 years of ethnic cleansing and racism. As Joseph Massad recently wrote, Gaza is in uprising against genocide, and is receiving today the same indifference from the capitals of the West that the rebels in the Warsaw Ghetto received in 1943.
We stand with the hundreds of thousands who have taken the streets in solidarity with Gaza’s resistance. We stand with all those who struggle against racism, dispossession and genocide.
We stand with the majority. We will not be silent on Gaza.
We reject Israel’s pretense to act in response to rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas. Israel broke the ceasefire on November 4, 2008, while world attention was focused on U.S. elections.
What the Israeli government calls “security” is fundamentally opposed to the real safety of all people living in the region. Residents of Sderot and other towns bordering Gaza have begged the government of Israel to maintain the cease-fire and accused it of “wasting that period of calm, instead of using it to advance understanding and begin negotiations.” With United States, European Union, and Egyptian collusion, Israel imposed on Gaza a siege and blockade for over two years, intentionally preventing its economic recovery, degrading its civilian infrastructure, attempting to dismantle self-governance, and preventing travel and obstructing humanitarian aid. That siege, which was and continues to be a gross violation of human rights and a crime against humanity, led directly to the present escalation. As of today, Israeli forces have killed over 700 people and injured thousands. Israel has bombed mosques, universities, police headquarters, roads, office buildings, and residential neighborhoods, and schools, causing indescribable and horrible destruction. This isn’t defense. This isn’t a war between two sides. This is terrorism. This is genocide.
We stand with the majority. We will not be silent on Gaza.
As Jews, we have an additional responsibility to speak and to act against these despicable acts, because we are heirs to the victims of a genocide, because Israel is claiming to “defend” us through the ethnic cleansing of Palestine with the ultimate goal of erasing the Palestinian people, and also because of the role played by the Jewish organizations in the United States and the West in justifying, perpetrating, and escalating Israeli state terrorism against Palestinians.
We recall that the violence in Gaza today is the inevitable outcome—the latest link in a chain of terror—that results from an ideology based on the dispossession of the indigenous people of Palestine in favor of European Jews. Just as the ideology of White racism was the backbone of Apartheid in South Africa, so the ideology of Zionism explains the history of violence in Palestine, the ethnic cleansing of 1948, the occupation of the West bank and Gaza in 1967, and the many massacres that Israel perpetrated periodically since 1948 to the present one in Gaza. The maintenance of the Israeli state as a state founded on and perpetuating Jewish privilege requires the denial and attempted annihilation of the Palestinian people.
We recall that unless this ideology is delegitimized and defeated, the violence in the Middle East will continue to escalate until either Palestinian or Jewish existence in the area ends, and possibly both. Racism and colonial domination will never be the basis for peace.
We stand with the majority. We will not be silent on Gaza.
We insist on an immediate end to Israel’s assault, a complete withdrawal of all Israeli forces, a complete and unconditional end to the siege, and the restoration and extension of the ceasefire. We insist on the establishment of a special international tribunal for investigating the crimes of the Israeli leadership of this siege.
We affirm the urgent need for Jewish resistance to Zionism and stand committed to the extrication of Jewish history, politics, community, and culture from the grip of Zionism.
We situate our work in a long legacy of Jewish people throughout history who have stood in solidarity with others in common struggles against all forms of racism, empire building, and repression. As a growing sector of the Palestine solidarity movement, we call upon all Jews of conscience to take a strong stand against the current escalation of violence, as well as the murderous ground upon which Zionist ideology and the Israeli state has been constructed. We call on Jews to put an end to complicity, to break the silence, and to confront the fallacy of a Zionist consensus. We call on anti-Zionist Jews around the world to organize in escalation against the massacres on Gaza, and to continue to support Palestinian resistance through campaigns of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, and through actions that target their own governments’ financial and political support for Israel.
We stand with the majority. We will not be silent on Gaza.
WE call on you to JOIN US in continued ACTION!
READ MORE AT:
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN)
http://www.ijsn.net/home/
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7) Jewish rights activist threatened
By Josh Spiro
January 16, 2009
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/01/16/1002304/jewish-rights-activist-threatened
NEW YORK (JTA) -- The Jewish Defense Organization distributed threatening fliers targeting a pro-Palestinian Jewish activist.
The fliers focused on Adam Shapiro, an activist and documentary filmmaker, who spoke Tuesday at the New York Society for Ethical Culture about the conflict in Gaza. They were distributed in the vicinity of the talk and posted in the window of Revolution Books, one of the sponsoring organizations.
Shapiro claimed that the fliers "named me as a traitor, an enemy, as a self-hating Jew, all that kind of stuff, a Nazi, said I needed to be eliminated, and gave out my home address."
As the co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, Shapiro has long drawn fire from critics who accuse him of being an apologist for Palestinian terrorism. He has written that Palestinian "resistance" should be both violent and non-violent, and that "Nonviolent resistance is no less noble than carrying out a suicide operation."
In a 2002 interview with CNN, Shapiro said the quote was taken out of context.
Mordechai Levy, the national director of the JDO, alleged that the fliers did not call for Shapiro's "elimination" but confirmed that they included his home address. A copy of the flier, which Levy provided to JTA, contained the line, "These enemies of the Jews will pay very soon for their act of treachery!!!"
Levy openly acknowledged the JDO's intentions for Shapiro and other public figures they have blacklisted such as Norman Finkelstein. We're "getting them evicted from their houses, fired from their jobs and run out of the Jewish community," he said.
Shapiro also claimed that his family received threats from the JDO while he was in the West Bank in 2002. Yet despite the additional police presence at Tuesday's talk, Shapiro said he's been exposed to more perilous situations. "I can't say I ignore [the threats] totally but to put it in perspective, I've been in very dangerous situations both as an activist and a filmmaker," including in Iraq and Darfur.
Levy said that the fliers were distributed by high school and college volunteers from Brooklyn and Queens, some of the JDO's purported 5,000 members across the United States.
Shapiro thought that the JDO and other groups felt the liberty to threaten him because of the vocal support New York politicians like Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. David Paterson had given to Israel.
"Public officials are specifically on one side of this issue that has divided public opinion," he said. "I think that lends an air of sort of sanctioning one side versus the other and so anyone who acts on that side feels like they ... have official endorsement of what they want to do."
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8) How to sell 'ethical warfare'
Claim moral superiority, intimidate enemies and crush dissent – Israel 's media management is not just impressive, it's terrifying
By Neve Gordon
Friday 16 January 2009 20.30 GMT
guardian.co. uk
http://www.guardian .co.uk/commentis free/2009/ jan/16/gaza- middleeast1
One of my students was arrested yesterday and spent the night in a prison cell. R's offence was protesting the Israeli assault on Gaza . He joins over 700 other Israelis who have been detained since the beginning of Israel 's ruthless war on Gaza : an estimated 230 of whom are still behind bars. Within the Israeli context, this strategy of quelling protest and stifling resistance is unprecedented, and it is quite disturbing that the international media has failed to comment on it.
Simultaneously, the Israeli media has been towing the government line to such a degree that no criticism of the war has been voiced on any of the three local television stations. Indeed, the situation has become so absurd that reporters and anchors are currently less critical of the war than the military spokespeople. In the absence of any critical analysis, it is not so surprising that 78% of Israelis, or about 98% of all Jewish Israelis, support the war.
But eliding critical voices is not the only way that public support has been secured. Support has also been manufactured through ostensibly logical argumentation. One of the ways the media, military and government have been convincing Israelis to rally behind the assault is by claiming that Israel is carrying out a moral military campaign against Hamas. The logic, as Eyal Weizman has cogently observed in his groundbreaking book Hollow Land , is one of restraint.
The Israeli media continuously emphasises Israel 's restraint by underscoring the gap between what the military forces could do to the Palestinians and what they actually do. Here are a few examples of the refrains Israelis hear daily while listening to the news:
• Israel could bomb houses from the air without warning, but it has military personnel contact – by phone no less – the residents 10 minutes in advance of an attack to alert them that their house is about to be destroyed. The military, so the subtext goes, could demolish houses without such forewarnings, but it does not do so because it values human life.
• Israel deploys teaser bombs – ones that do not actually ruin houses – a few minutes before it fires lethal missiles; again, to show that it could kill more Palestinians but chooses not to do so.
• Israel knows that Hamas leaders are hiding in al-Shifa hospital. The intimation is that it does not raze the medical centre to the ground even though it has the capacity to do so.
• Due to the humanitarian crisis the Israeli military stops its attacks for a few hours each day and allows humanitarian convoys to enter the Gaza Strip. Again, the unspoken claim is that it could have barred these convoys from entering.
The message Israel conveys through these refrains has two different meanings depending on the target audience.
To the Palestinians, the message is one that carries a clear threat: Israel 's restraint could end and there is always the possibility of further escalation. Regardless of how lethal Israel 's military attacks are now, the idea is to intimidate the Palestinian population by underscoring that the violence can always become more deadly and brutal. This guarantees that violence, both when it is and when it is not deployed, remains an ever-looming threat.
The message to the Israelis is a moral one. The subtext is that the Israeli military could indiscriminately unleash its vast arsenal of violence, but chooses not to, because its forces, unlike Hamas, respect human life.
This latter claim appears to have considerable resonance among Israelis, and, yet, it is based on a moral fallacy. The fact that one could be more brutal but chooses to use restraint does not in any way entail that one is moral. The fact that the Israeli military could have razed the entire Gaza Strip, but instead destroyed only 15% of the buildings does not make its actions moral. The fact that the Israeli military could have killed thousands of Palestinian children during this campaign, and, due to restraint, killed "only" 300, does not make Operation Cast Lead ethical.
Ultimately, the moral claims the Israeli government uses to support its actions during this war are empty. They actually reveal Israel 's unwillingness to confront the original source of the current violence, which is not Hamas, but rather the occupation of the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem . My student, R, and the other Israeli protesters seem to have understood this truism; in order to stop them from voicing it, Israel has stomped on their civil liberties by arresting them.
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9) Israelis Confer on Cease-Fire; U.N. School Is Hit, Killing 2
"...a three-week-old war that has killed at least 1,200 Palestinians, with more buried under rubble, and 13 Israelis"
By STEVEN ERLANGER
January 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/world/middleeast/18mideast.html?hp
JERUSALEM — Israeli tank fire killed two young brothers taking shelter at a United Nations school in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya on Saturday, Palestinian and United Nations officials said, even as the Israeli cabinet prepared to declare a unilateral cease-fire in Gaza.
The deaths brought a new round of sharp condemnation of Israel from officials of the United Nations, including aid officials who raised questions about whether the attack, and others like it, should be investigated as war crimes. The Israeli Army said that it was investigating the reports at the highest level but that initial inquiries indicated that troops were returning fire from near or within the school.
On Saturday evening, the Israeli cabinet met for what was expected to be a vote approving a cease-fire. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel was responding positively to a call by President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt earlier in the day for an immediate cease-fire, in a clearly orchestrated move by two countries that see the Hamas movement in Gaza as a threat.
A unilateral cease-fire could mean an effective end to a three-week-old war that has killed at least 1,200 Palestinians, with more buried under rubble, and 13 Israelis. But even then, the shape of any lasting peace was far from clear.
Israel has signaled that its troops would stay in Gaza until a formal truce was signed that met Israeli goals of stopping rocket fire from Gaza and sharply hindering the smuggling of arms, weapons, cash and fighters into Gaza through tunnels from Egypt. But the government says it will not sign any deal with Hamas, which is committed to Israel’s destruction and whose rule over Gaza the Israelis do not want to recognize.
Also, Israeli officials said that they reserved the right to attack again if Hamas kept firing rockets into Israel. Hamas, battered but hardly broken, is expected to reassert its political control over Gaza.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak indicated Israel’s readiness for a cease-fire, saying the country “was very close to achieving its goals and securing them through diplomatic agreements.”
The cabinet deliberations on the unilateral cease-fire came on the 22nd day of the war, after repeated calls by the United Nations Security Council and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for an immediate halt to the fighting and the deaths of civilians.
The Israeli military said that it struck hundreds of targets overnight, including rocket-launching sites, weapons caches and several dozen smuggling tunnels, and that its troops tightened the encirclement of Gaza City.
Hamas officials outside Gaza vowed to fight on, regardless of any Israeli cease-fire declaration. The group’s representatives were scheduled to meet Egyptian officials in Cairo who are trying to pull together a sustainable truce of at least a year that will end rocket fire into Israel, hinder Hamas resupply, and reopen all the crossings into encircled Gaza from both Israel and Egypt.
Particularly concerned about limiting smuggling, the United States and Israel signed a “memorandum of understanding” on Friday in Washington that calls for expanded cooperation to prevent Hamas from rearming through Egypt. The agreement, which is vague, promises increased American technical assistance and international monitors, presumably to be based in Egypt, to crack down on the smuggling. As important, the United States agreed to work with NATO partners to interdict arms smuggling into Gaza by land and sea from Syria and Iran, and in a letter, Britain, France and Germany also offered to help interdict the smuggling of arms to Hamas.
On Saturday, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France announced a summit meeting about Gaza for Sunday, of which Mr. Mubarak would be co-chairman. Mr. Sarkozy announced that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain would attend; Mr. Brown said later he was “considering” attending. Egypt has invited Italy, Spain, Turkey, Mr. Ban and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, whose Fatah party governs the West Bank. The meeting, to take place in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheik, is about bringing a halt to the fighting in a sustainable way and reconstruction aid for Gaza.
While Mr. Sarkozy initiated the process with Mr. Mubarak in the waning days of the Bush administration, it has been in the end a deal shaped by Egypt and Israel.
Mr. Mubarak’s foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said that his country would not be bound by the memorandum of understanding agreed to by the United States and Israel and would not accept foreign troops on its soil. But officials of both Israel and the United States say Egypt has been showing a new seriousness about stopping the smuggling.
The Arab and Muslim world again appeared to be split into two camps. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been openly critical of Hamas, pressing it to agree to a cease-fire. Qatar, meanwhile, which is close to Iran, held a meeting with Syria, Iran, Mauritania and Hamas’s exiled political leader, Khaled Meshal, as the Palestinian representative. Mr. Abbas, who is supported by the United States and Egypt, had refused to go to Qatar.
In Beit Lahiya, some 1,600 displaced Gazans have taken shelter at a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or Unrwa, which cares for Palestinian refugees from the 1948-49 war and their descendants.
John Ging, the Gaza director of the agency, said that two brothers, ages 5 and 7, were killed about 7 a.m. by Israeli fire at the school. Their mother, who was among 14 others wounded, had her legs blown off.
“These two little boys are as innocent, indisputably, as they are dead,” Mr. Ging said. “The question now being asked is: is this and the killing of all other innocent civilians in Gaza a war crime?”
Christopher Gunness, the refugee agency’s spokesman, said: “Where you have a direct hit on an Unrwa school where about 1,600 people had taken refuge, where the Israeli army knows the coordinates and knows who’s there, where this comes as the latest in a catalogue of direct and indirect attacks on Unrwa facilities, there have to be investigations to establish whether war crimes have been committed,” as well, he added “as violations of international humanitarian law.”
The strike was the fourth time Israel has hit an Unrwa school during the war on Hamas. On Jan. 6, Mr. Ging said, 43 people died when an Israeli shell hit the compound of a school in Jabaliya. Israel has disputed the death toll and said it was returning mortar fire from within the school compound.
The United Nations secretary general, Mr. Ban, again called for an immediate cease-fire. “Both sides must stop the fighting now,” he said in an address to the Lebanese Parliament on Saturday. “We cannot wait for all the details, the mechanisms, to be conclusively negotiated and agreed while civilians continue to be traumatized, injured or killed.”
Four Israeli soldiers, two of them officers, were seriously hurt by mortar fire in fighting on Saturday morning, the army said, suggesting that they were victims of friendly fire. And it said that Hamas had fired 12 rockets at Israel on Saturday, a sharp reduction from daily totals since the start of the war.
While the details are debated and the dead are counted, a critical long-term issue is whether the Gaza operation restores Israel’s deterrent. Israel wants Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and the Arab world to view it as a nation too strong and powerful to seriously threaten or attack. That motivation is one reason, Israeli officials say privately, for going into Gaza so hard, using such firepower, and fighting Hamas as an enemy army.
The answer won’t be known for many months, but the key to the Muslim world’s reaction is actually that of the Israeli public, said Yossi Klein Halevi, of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies in Jerusalem. “The Arabs take their cue from Israeli responses,” he said. “Deterrence is about how Israelis feel, whether they feel they’ve won or lost.”
Mr. Halevi cited both the 1973 war — which Egyptians celebrate and Israelis mourn, though it ended with a spectacular Israel counterattack — and the 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, apologized for the 2006 war on television, “but he quickly reversed himself to declare a wonderful victory when he saw the Israeli public declaring defeat,” Mr. Halevi said.
Even more important, perhaps, this Gazan war is a test case for any potential Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank. If Israelis feel that the West Bank will turn into another kind of chaotic, Hamas-run Gaza, they will be unwilling to withdraw — especially if they believe that once they withdrew, and if they were attacked from the West Bank, they would not be allowed to respond with force.
“Gaza is an important test of whether we can defend ourselves within the 1967 boundaries,” Mr. Halevi said, noting that Hamas had been attacking Israel proper, not settlements. “Will we be able to defend ourselves if we need to from the West Bank? Will the international community let us?”
The Israeli public has stayed united behind the war as a necessary battle, despite serious misgivings about the death toll of Palestinian civilians and international condemnation. Even Meretz, a party on the left of Israeli politics, supported the air war.
Hamas has modeled itself on Hezbollah, calling on Iranian support. Mr. Nasrallah once spoke of Israeli power as a spider web — impressive from afar, but easily brushed aside. This war against Hamas, Mr. Halevi said, “is the revenge of the spider.”
Yossi Klein Halevi
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10) Bailout Is a Windfall to Bankers, if Not to Borrowers
By MIKE MCINTIRE
January 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/business/18bank.html?hp
At the Palm Beach Ritz-Carlton last November, John C. Hope III, the chairman of Whitney National Bank in New Orleans, stood before a ballroom full of Wall Street analysts and explained how his bank intended to use its $300 million in federal bailout money.
“Make more loans?” Mr. Hope said. “We’re not going to change our business model or our credit policies to accommodate the needs of the public sector as they see it to have us make more loans.”
As the incoming Obama administration decides how to fix the economy, the troubles of the banking system have become particularly vexing.
Congress approved the $700 billion rescue plan with the idea that banks would help struggling borrowers and increase lending to stimulate the economy, and many lawmakers want to know how the first half of that money has been spent before approving the second half. But many banks that have received bailout money so far are reluctant to lend, worrying that if new loans go bad, they will be in worse shape if the economy deteriorates.
Indeed, as mounting losses at major banks like Citigroup and Bank of America in the last week have underscored, regulators are still searching for ways to stabilize the banking system. The Obama administration could be forced early on to come up with a systemic solution, getting bad loans off balance sheets as a way to encourage banks to begin lending, which most economists say is essential to get businesses and consumers spending again.
Individually, banks that received some of the first $350 billion from the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, have offered few public details about how they plan to spend the money, and they are not required to disclose what they do with it. But in conversations behind closed doors with investment analysts, some bankers have been candid about their intentions.
Most of the banks that received the money are far smaller than behemoths like Citigroup or Bank of America. A review of investor presentations and conference calls by executives of some two dozen banks around the country found that few cited lending as a priority. An overwhelming majority saw the bailout program as a no-strings-attached windfall that could be used to pay down debt, acquire other businesses or invest for the future.
Speaking at the FBR Capital Markets conference in New York in December, Walter M. Pressey, president of Boston Private Wealth Management, a healthy bank with a mostly affluent clientele, said there were no immediate plans to do much with the $154 million it received from the Treasury.
“With that capital in hand, not only do we feel comfortable that we can ride out the recession,” he said, “but we also feel that we’ll be in a position to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves once this recession is sorted out.”
The bankers’ comments, while representing only a random sampling of the more than 200 financial institutions that have received TARP money so far, underscore a growing gulf between public expectations for how the $700 billion should be used and the decisions being made by many of the institutions that have taken part. The program does not dictate what banks should do with the money.
The loose requirements in the original plan have contributed to confusion over what the Treasury intended when it abruptly shelved its first proposal — to buy up bad mortgages — in favor of making direct investments in individual banks in return for preferred shares of stock.
The Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., said in October that banks should “deploy, not hoard” the money to build confidence and increase lending. He added: “We expect all participating banks to continue to strengthen their efforts to help struggling homeowners who can afford their homes avoid foreclosure.”
But a Congressional oversight panel reported on Jan. 9 that it found no evidence the bailout program had been used to prevent foreclosures, raising questions about whether the Treasury has complied with the law’s requirement that it develop a “plan that seeks to maximize assistance for homeowners.”
The report concluded that the Treasury’s top priority seemed to be to “stabilize financial markets” by simply giving healthy banks more money and letting them decide how best to use it. The report also said it was not clear how giving billions to banks “advances both the goal of financial stability and the well-being of taxpayers, including homeowners threatened by foreclosure, people losing their jobs, and families unable to pay their credit cards.”
For the banks, fearful that the economic downturn could deepen and wary of risking additional losses, the question of what to do with the bailout money comes down to self-preservation.
Mark Fitzgibbon, research director at Sandler O’Neill & Partners, which sponsored the Palm Beach conference, said banks seemed to be allocating the bailout money for four general purposes: increased lending, absorbing losses, bolstering capital and “opportunistic acquisitions.” He said those approaches made sense from a business perspective, even though they might not conform to popular expectations that the money would be immediately lent to consumers.
“For the banking industry, this isn’t a sprint, this is a marathon,” Mr. Fitzgibbon said. “I think over time there will be pressure to lend that capital out and get a return for their shareholders. But they’re not going to rush out and lend all that money tomorrow. If they did, they could lose it.”
For City National Bank in Los Angeles, the Treasury money “really doesn’t change our perspective about doing things,” said Christopher J. Carey, the bank’s chief financial officer, addressing the BancAnalysts Association of Boston Conference in November. He said that his bank would like to use it for lending and acquisitions but that the decision would depend on the economy.
“Adding $400 million in capital gives us a chance to really have a totally fortressed balance sheet in case things get a lot worse than we think,” Mr. Carey said. “And if they don’t, we may end up just paying it back a little bit earlier.”
In addition to wanting more lending, members of Congress have said TARP should not be used to fuel mergers and acquisitions, although Treasury officials say the financial system would be strengthened if healthy banks absorbed weaker ones. To that extent, bailout money has been useful for improving capital ratios — the amount of money available to absorb losses — for banks that merge.
On Friday, Bank of America said it would receive $20 billion more from the Treasury to help it digest losses it took on by acquiring Merrill Lynch, a process begun in September.
At least seven banks that received TARP money have since bought other companies, including one that had been encouraged to do so by federal regulators. That one, PNC Financial Services, took $7.7 billion from the Treasury and promptly acquired the struggling National City Bank for $5.2 billion in stock and $384 million in cash.
Among the others, PlainsCapital Bank of Dallas announced in November, not long after the bailout program began, that it planned to merge with a healthy investment bank, First Southwest. PlainsCapital received $88 million from the Treasury on Dec. 19, and the all-stock merger was completed two weeks later. PlainsCapital’s chairman, Alan B. White, insisted in an interview that the two events were not connected.
He said the bank had not yet decided what to do with its bailout money, which he called “opportunity capital.” Increased lending would be a priority, said Mr. White, who did not rule out using it for other acquisitions, adding that when regulators invited PlainsCapital to apply for federal dollars, there were no conditions attached.
“They didn’t tell me I had to do anything particular with it,” he said.
None of the bankers who appeared before recent investor conferences offered specific details about their intentions, but recurring themes emerged in their presentations. Two of the most often cited priorities were hanging on to the money as insurance against a prolonged recession and using it for mergers.
At the Sandler O’Neill East Coast Financial Services Conference in Florida, bankers mingled with investment analysts at an ocean-front luxury hotel, where the agenda featured evening cocktails by the pool and a golf outing at a nearby country club.
During his presentation, John R. Buran, the chief executive of Flushing Financial in New York, said the government money was a way to up the “ante for acquisitions” of other companies.
“We can get $70 million in capital,” he said. “So, I would say the price of poker, so to speak, has gone up.”
For Mr. Hope, the Whitney National Bank chairman, “the main motivation for TARP” was not more loans, but rather to safeguard against the “possibility things could get a lot worse.” He said Whitney would continue making loans “that we would have made with or without TARP.”
“We see TARP as an insurance policy,” he said. “That when all this stuff is finally over, no matter how bad it gets, we’re going to be one of the remaining banks.”
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Saturday, January 17, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
BAUAW NEWSLETTER - FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, 2009
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Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
Sign the Statement | View list of Signers | Donate
http://www.iacenter.org/palestine/jewsinsolidarity/#signon
Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
Stop the U.S.-backed genocidal Israeli war on Gaza
* Nearly a thousand women, men and children killed by U.S.-made Israeli bombs
* Thousands more wounded
* 1.5 million under siege for the past 18 months, without food, water, medicine, fuel
* Collective punishment for resisting occupation; emergency aid blocked
* Massive violations of international law
* Apartheid wall
* Racist oppression
* Homes and land stolen
* Forced into refugee camps
* 60 years of occupation, from the river to the sea
We Say Enough!
We Are
Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
No to Israel! Yes To Self-Determination, Democracy & Freedom!
Stop U.S. Funding of the War on Palestine!
The whole world is horrified by the murderous Israeli assault against the suffering people of Gaza. From Seoul to Caracas, from Johannesburg to Amman to London, millions of people have poured into the streets to demand an end to this genocidal campaign, which is funded by the United States and carried out with U.S.-supplied weaponry.
There have also been protests in U.S. cities. While most of those marching are Arab-Americans, many African Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans and whites have joined in. Many Jewish people, outraged at Israel's war crimes and anguished that they are carried out in their name, are speaking out.
It's good that Jewish people of conscience are disassociating themselves from the Gaza aggression. But it's not enough. This atrocity is only the latest, and it's no aberration. It reflects the program of the Israeli settler state -- which is based on the theft of Palestine, the ouster and suppression of the Palestinian people, and the racist ideology of Zionism -- and of its primary sponsor, the Pentagon and U.S. business establishment.
It's not enough to oppose the bombing. It's not enough to demand an end to the 41-year occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. We stand in complete and unconditional support for the self-determination of the Palestinian people. This includes the right to return to Palestine, from the river to the sea, and the right to democratically determine the form and the future of the Palestinian state.
Nothing less will undo the historic crime of al Nakba -- the 1948 catastrophe of the establishment of the state of Israel based on the ouster of the Palestinian people from their homeland, oppression and inequality.
That crime betrayed the whole history of the Jewish people. From helping topple the czar in Russia and build the unions in New York, to resisting pogroms and fighting to the last breath in the Warsaw Ghetto, opposition to persecution, oppression and racism was central to the Jewish heritage.
We call on Jewish people around the world, including those inside Israel, to join us in reclaiming that heritage. Reject racism and genocide. Reject the Zionist state, the very concept of which is racist to the core. Take the hand of our Palestinian sisters and brothers. Defend their righteous struggle to restore their stolen land and build a democratic Palestine.
This is not an impossible quest. Remember how mighty the settler state in South Africa seemed, only a little over two decades ago? The racist regime there was buttressed by U.S. -- and Israeli -- support. But it was battered by the unstoppable political and military struggle against apartheid, which gained worldwide support. Apartheid fell, replaced by a new state based on legal equality.
A future of equality for all is possible in Palestine too. Until this future is won, the Palestinian struggle will go on. We stand with that struggle.
We Are
Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
No to Israel! Yes To Self-Determination, Democracy & Freedom!
Stop U.S. Funding of the War on Palestine!
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GAZA CHILDREN'S VIGIL AND MEMORIAL
Come to show your support and share your message to the children of Gaza who have been killed that we will never forget them, and that the children who are alive have our love and support!
Everyone is welcome, but we are extending a special invitation to children and their families, and those who have suffered from or lost loved ones due to state-sponsored or local police violence.
Saturday, January 17th @ 3PM
AT Union Square -
Powell & Geary in San Francisco (if you're taking BART get off on Powell St. exit).
PLEASE BRING:
Candles for children to hold (extra candles will be provided)
Old children's shoes (to represent the children who have been killed) to leave as part memorial.
Signs, banners and children's artwork about Palestine, messages and poems of peace, love and support for Gaza.
Wear all white shirts as a symbol of mourning and peace.
Sponsored by the Gaza Action Coalition: Al-Awda, Palestine Right of Return Coalition, American Friends Service Committee, American Muslims for Palestine, ANSWER Coalition, Arab American Union Members Council, Arab Resource & Organizing Center, Direct Action to Stop the War, East Side Arts Alliance, Free Palestine Alliance, General Union of Palestine Students, Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth, International Action Center, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, International League of Peoples Struggles, International Socialist Organization, Bayan USA, Just Cause Oakland, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Middle East Childrens Alliance, Palestinian Youth Network, Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, SF Women in Black, St. Peters Housing, U.S. Palestine Community Network-Bay Area Committee.
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Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
LET GAZA LIVE!
Fourth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference
Sunday February 8, 2009 at The University of California in San Diego (UCSD)
hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine
Save the Date! Mark Your Calendars! Plan to Attend!
The Palestine Right to Return Coalition's Al-Awda chapters in Los Angeles, Orange County, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego thank all who took part in the Mass Rally and March in Los Angeles yesterday January 10 as part of the Let Gaza Live National Emergency Day of Mass Action and Protest that took place around the country. Thousands took to the streets demanding an immediate end to the carnage that is being carried out by the 'Israeli' military against our people in the Gaza Strip, and to demand an end to the political, economic and military support it has received from the US administration.
As announced at the protests, please take note that the Fourth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference, LET GAZA LIVE!, will take place Sunday February 8, 2009 at The University of California in San Diego (UCSD). This conference will be hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine. All members and supporters of the Right to Return movement on the West Coast are urged to participate in this important and timely one day conference.
Save the Date, Mark Your Calendars, and Plan to Attend.
Further details will be posted over the next few days and as soon as they become available.
Until Return,
Al-Awda Chapters in Southern California
The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-918-9441
Fax: 760-918-9442
E-mail: info@al-awda.org
WWW: http://al-awda.org
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC) is the largest network of grassroots activists and students dedicated to Palestinian human rights. We are a not for profit tax-exempt educational and charitable 501(c)(3) organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States of America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations to PRRC are tax-deductible.
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March on the Pentagon! March 21, 2009
The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations is joining with other coalitions, organizations, and networks in a united MARCH 21 NATIONAL COALITION to organize the broadest mobilization of people across the United States to take part in a March on the Pentagon on the sixth year of the military invasion and occupation of the Iraq War: Saturday, March 21.
To endorse the March 21 March on the Pentagon, please click here.
http://natassembly.org/Continuation.html#March21
To send a contribution to support the National Assembly's work, please click here.
http://natassembly.org/donate.html
For more information, please visit the National Assembly's website at www.natassembly.org or write natassembly@aol.com or call 216-736-4704.
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MARCH 21 NATIONAL COALITION FOR A MARCH ON THE PENTAGON
ON THE SIXTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE IRAQ WAR
SATURDAY, MARCH 21, DC, SF, LA AND SEATTLE
To endorse the March 21 March on the Pentagon, click here. To sign up to be a Transportation Organizing Center, click here.
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=4580&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS
To sign up to be a Transportation Organizing Center, click here.
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=4680&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS
P.S. You can make a difference. Please continue to support the ANSWER Coalition's crucial anti-war work by making your end-of-the-year tax-deductible donation online using our secure server by clicking here, where you can also find information on how to donate by check.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
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The DAILY SHOW with Jon Stewart
Strip Maul
Israel gets their bombing in before the January 20th hope and change deadline.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=213380&title=strip-maul
Gallery: Gaza Demonstration Montreal
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Gallery+Gaza+Demonstration+Montreal/1141378/story.html
We will not go down (Song for Gaza)
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=dlfhoU66s4Y
MY LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRONICLE PROTESTING THE TOTALLY
INACCURATE REPORT OF THE JAN. 10 "LET GAZA LIVE" DEMONSTRATION--
FULL ARTICLE BELOW:
Peaceful S.F. protest of Israel's Gaza bombing
Deborah Gage, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, January 11, 2009
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/11/MNK6157880.DTL
Here's a link to some great photos of yesterdays protest:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/01/10/18561295.php
Dear Editor,
Deborah Gage's article reporting on the January 10 "Let Gaza Live" demonstration sighting "More than 1,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators and a few hundred pro-Israel demonstrators" was in the ballpark only on the number of pro-Israeli demonstrators; but was off by at least ten-to-one on the number of those demonstrating against Israel!
Even your own photos on your website can testify to this fact! There were at least seven to ten thousand people marching in protest of this most horrible and criminal assault upon a defenseless and imprisoned people.
As one of many Jewish woman and men at this demonstration-and there were many more pro--Palestinian Jewish people protesting Israel than the tiny group of pro-Israeli Zionists that stood on half-a-sidewalk directly outside of City Hall--clearly, the Israeli Zionists do NOT speak for us!
We will keep to the streets demanding END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL! NOT ONE MORE DOLLAR! NOT ONE MORE DIME! STOP THE HORROR! STOP THE CRIME! LONG LIVE PALESTINE!
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein
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Stop the Bombing and Blockade of Gaza!
End all U.S. Aid to Israel!
Bring the Troops Home Now from Iraq and Afghanistan!
Read the Statement Issued by the National Assembly to
End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations at:
natassembly.org
Join with the National Assembly and other coalitions, networks and organizations on March 21, 2009 for a national mass March on the Pentagon in D.C. (and actions in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities) to demand:
Stop the Wars Against Iraq and Afghanistan! -Bring the Troops Home Now!
End U.S. Support for the Occupation of Palestine!
No to U.S. Wars Against Iran and Pakistan!
Money for Jobs, Health Care, Housing, Pensions, and Education-Not for Wars and Corporate Bailouts!
For further information contact:
National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations
natassembly.org, natassembly@aol.com, 216-736-4704
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Labor Boycott Of Israel Backed By Bay Area Trade Unionists
To Stop Invasion/Occupation Of Gaza/Palestine
On Junuary 10, 2009 thousands of people in the bay area protested the US supported attack by Israel on the people of Gaza at a rally and march in San Francisco. Trade unionists including leaders of the Oakland Education Association and ILWU Local 10 and a leader of the California Peace and Freedom party condemned the attack and supported a labor boycott of Israel by the world trade union movement. Labor Video Project P.O. Box 720027 San Francisco, CA 94172 (415)282-1908 www.laborvideo.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEB2aY0ByQM&feature=
Labor Video Project
P.O. Box 720027
San Francisco, CA 94172
(415)282-1908
www.laborvideo.org
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Israelis Soldiers refuse to serve in Gaza
January 13, 2009
http://www.zcommunications.org/zvideo/2978
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Open Letter to Israeli Soldiers
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY
Friends,
As you may know, American Jews for a Just Peace has written an Open Letter to Israeli soldiers calling on them to refuse to take part in war crimes and atrocities in Gaza. We are gathering signatures from Jews all over the world, and hope to raise enough money to publish the Open Letter as an ad in Ha'aretz in the coming days. The views of "World Jewry" still carry some weight in Israel, and we owe it to both the people of Gaza and to the Israeli soldiers to try to raise our voices in opposition to the horror we are watching unfold day by day.
If you haven't already done so, I invite you to read and sign the Open Letter. If you can contribute even a small amount, it will help us toward the total advertisement cost. Organizational signers are invited to email info@ajjp.org to authorize organizational participation.
A link to the Open Letter is on the front page of AJJP's website:
www.ajjp.org
In these dark days, it is good to be able to do something -- anything. I hope you will join this effort.
Hannah Schwarzschild
for the Coordinating Committee
AMERICAN JEWS FOR A JUST PEACE
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U.S. resisters' solidarity with Israeli "shministim" refusers
Courage to Resist
Statement signed by over two dozen U.S. military war resisters. Reprinted by AlterNet, Democracy Now, The Progressive, Common Dreams, Indymedia, and Daily Kos.
We are U.S. military servicemembers and veterans who have refused or are currently refusing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We stand in solidarity with the Israeli Shministim (Hebrew for "12th graders") who are also resisting military service. About 100 Israeli high school students have signed an open letter declaring their refusal to serve in the Israeli army and their opposition to "Israeli occupation and oppression policy in the occupied territories and the territories of Israel." In Israel, military service is mandatory for all graduating high school seniors, and resisters face the possibility of years in prison.
Read more at:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
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1) Speech by Christine Gauvreau, representing the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, at the January 10 Let Gaza Live rally at the White House.
natassembly.org
2) U.N. Building in Gaza Strip Is Hit by Strike From Israel
By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and ISABEL KERSHNER
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16mideast.html?hp
3) Family and Lawyer Fear for Reporter Who Threw His Shoes at Bush
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16iraq.html?ref=world
4) Court Affirms Wiretapping Without Warrants
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/washington/16fisa.html?ref=us
5) U.S. Issues Scathing Report on Immigrant Who Died in Detention
By NINA BERNSTEIN
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/us/16detain.html?ref=us
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1) Speech by Christine Gauvreau, representing the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, at the January 10 Let Gaza Live rally at the White House.
natassembly.org
I am here today because if the U.S. antiwar movement does not embrace fully and passionately the cause of ending US backing for the murderous assault on Gaza, we will never succeed in ending ANY of the US military adventures in the Middle East. Solidarity with the victims of US backed aggression in Gaza, and solidarity with YOU, is the most important task facing the antiwar movement today.
To whom can we look to end the barbaric attacks on the refugee camp called Gaza?
Not the president and certainly not the Congress.
Yesterday the U.S. Congress voted to openly celebrate their support for the horrific and criminal massacres carried out in Gaza. Read the resolutions-- they CHEERED the murderous effectiveness of the army of their most valued proxy in the Middle East They CELEBRATED the carnage wrought by their military gifts to Israel--the F-16's, the helicopters, the munitions.
While the whole world mourned the loss of innocent life in GAZA, the US government instead theatrically APPLAUDED the mowing down of nearly 1000 starving, encircled, and utterly trapped civilians. And with Orwellian language, they designated the colonizer's methods as self-defense. They perversely defined a brutally occupied people as the aggressor and instigator of war.
Congress uses this double speak for the same reason they went along with the lie of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. In the end, it is all about the same thing. It is all about the willingness of the US government to use the bloodiest means to create a Middle East and Central Asia where Arab and Afghani self-determination, where national sovereignty, is a thing of the past. Where the United States has control over energy resources at any human cost.
That is why they cannot stand the proud and defiant people of Palestine. Their unwillingness to bend in the face of attack makes the Gazans a giant obstacle to US war aims in the greater Middle East. Their fight is our fight.
We say NO to US backed aggression against the people of Gaza.
The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations is so honored and grateful to be here today with the movement to end the siege of Gaza and to defend the right of Palestinians to self -determination. This movement to defend the people of Gaza from the US backed Israeli invasion is opening a new stage in US politics. YOU are opening a new stage in US politics. A stage where those from the Palestine solidarity movement and those who have been active to end the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan will come together as a powerful force to end the US-Israeli military adventure in the Middle East.
A force independent of the war -making political parties in Congress. A force that can grow exponentially due to our unity. A force that can attract millions because we remain visible in the streets. A force that will first be able to manifest itself on March 21 here in DC and bring us a much closer to ending US support for the occupation of Palestine. To ending the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. To getting money for jobs, pensions, housing, healthcare, not for wars, occupations, and corporate bailouts.
Let us pledge to take the next weeks, to use every day, to use every hour, to use every minute between now and March 21 to fight together to take the truth about Gaza, the truth about Iraq, the truth about Afghanistan to the millions of Americans not yet active in the struggle.
Let Gaza Live
Out Now
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2) U.N. Building in Gaza Strip Is Hit by Strike From Israel
By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and ISABEL KERSHNER
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16mideast.html?hp
GAZA - Israeli forces shelled areas deep inside Gaza City on Thursday, hitting the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and injuring at least three people among the hundreds taking shelter in the compound, according to United Nations officials and witnesses.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel expressed regret for the strike but said that Israeli forces were fired on by Hamas militants from just outside the United Nations compound and the militants then ran inside to take cover, according to Mr. Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev.
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had told him the strike on the United Nations compound was a "grave mistake." Mr. Ban, who was in Israel Thursday to press for a cease-fire, said he expressed "strong protest and outrage" to Israel. Relations between Israel and the United Nations offices in Palestinian territory, long strained, have worsened during the Israeli campaign.
On the 20th day of fighting, Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into Gaza City and intensified shelling in both outlying neighborhoods and central districts, sending thousands of panicked residents fleeing from their homes, witnesses said. Al Shurouq Tower, a high-rise media center, was hit by shells, witnesses said. At least two television cameramen were hospitalized.
In what appeared to be a breakthrough for the Israeli military, Israeli and Palestinian media reported that Israel had killed a senior Hamas official in the bombing of his home. Two days ago, Israeli officials said, despite heavy air and ground assaults, Israel had yet to cripple the military wing of Hamas or halt its rocket fire into Israel.
The slain official, Said Siam, was the interior minister in Hamas-run Gaza, and was in charge of security. Islamic Jihad radio said Mr. Siam's brother and son had also been killed. In addition, the strike killed four members of a family next door, Gaza hospital officials said.
The intensified Israeli campaign came as cease-fire talks in Egypt appeared to be moving forward. A senior Israeli defense official, Amos Gilad, returned from Cairo after a day of talks with Egyptian officials. He was due to report to the Israeli leadership later Thursday.
"We are trying to find a durable solution and hopefully that durable solution seems closer than ever before," Mr. Regev said.
Within two hours on Thursday morning, militants in Gaza launched 15 rockets and mortars against Israel, the Israeli military said, a marked increase in fire compared to Wednesday when there were 16 launches during the entire day. Later Thursday, the military reported that 25 rockets and mortars had been fired. One struck the Israeli city of Beersheba, directly hitting a car and wounding six people, the Israeli military said. Among them was a 7-year-old boy, whose injuries were serious.
The death toll among Palestinians rose to at least 1,076, according to Reuters, which quoted the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. At least 13 Israelis have been killed.
Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is charged with helping Palestinian refugees, said that the Israelis had been provided with the GPS coordinates of all United Nations facilities in Gaza. He said that in the strike on the United Nations compound two buildings had been set ablaze and that there were five fully laden fuel vehicles at the site.
He rejected the Israeli claim that militants had fired from in or near the compound as "entirely baseless."
"With every false allegation, the credibility of those accusing us is incrementally diminished," he said. He said that Israel had used three shells of white phosphorous at the compound, according to people at the site, citing the fact that fires caused by the shells had burned all day as evidence that the chemical was used. White phosphorous creates smoke on a battlefield and can burn like a kind of napalm. There was no immediate response from Israel.
The strike on the compound resembled an earlier incident in Israel's campaign against Hamas, when Israeli mortar shells landed outside a United Nations school compound in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, killing at least 40 Palestinians, according to United Nations and hospital officials.
In that attack, the Israeli military said it was responding to mortars fired by Hamas militants from a yard next to the school compound, and that one of the shells it fired back fell off the mark.
The attacks have worsened the decades-long tensions between Israel and the United Nations. Israel views some branches of the United Nations as hostile and unfair, particularly the Relief and Works Agency, with its focus on helping Palestinians.
Mr. Regev, Mr. Olmert's spokesman, played down the tensions, saying that Israel "fully supports the United Nations' humanitarian mission." But Yigal Palmor, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that a large number of the local workers for the United Nations refugee agency "one way or another are affiliated with Hamas," which presents problems at a time of confrontation.
The Israeli military gave only limited information about its latest ground operations in Gaza City on Thursday, but a spokesman said that "fierce fighting" was under way "relatively deep inside Gaza."
Overnight, the military said, Israeli planes struck around 70 targets, including a mosque in the southern town of Rafah that it said was used to stockpile rockets, and several squads of gunmen.
Palestinians arrived with injured relatives at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Thursday, some barefoot and in nightgowns. They told of intense Israeli shelling in several neighborhoods, including the Sabra and Tufah districts. The two television cameramen arrived for treatment after the tower in central Gaza housing the media offices was hit. They had been filming from a window balcony when they were injured, they said.
Residents of the Tel el-Hawa district in south-western Gaza City said Israeli shelling and shooting had gone on all night and that the local Quds Hospital was under fire.
Amid rising concern about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, the aid group CARE said that Israeli bombs were falling around its warehouses and distribution sites in Gaza, forcing it to cancel the dissemination of food and medical supplies.
The group said in a statement that it had been planning to give emergency medical supplies to hospitals and clinics, and get baby food and blankets to newborns in shelters.
Martha Myers, CARE's director for the West Bank and Gaza, said that on Wednesday bombs fell near a care warehouse and "our staff had to drop and run."
"This is not humanitarian access," she said in the CARE statement.
Taghreed el-Khodary reported from Gaza, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Reporting was contributed by Ethan Bronner and Sabrina Tavernise from Jerusalem, Souad Mekhennet from Frankfurt, Michael Slackman from Cairo, Alan Cowell from London, and Graham Bowley from New York.
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3) Family and Lawyer Fear for Reporter Who Threw His Shoes at Bush
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16iraq.html?ref=world
BAGHDAD - More than a month has passed since an Iraqi television reporter threw his shoes at President Bush during a Baghdad news conference held to highlight what Mr. Bush called a successful American military effort to pacify Iraq.
The journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, 29, who was immediately arrested, has been allowed only two visitors - and none since Dec. 21, according to those close to him. His family and his lawyer say that they do not know where he is being held and that they are gravely concerned about his well-being because they have not been allowed to speak with him by telephone.
On Thursday, Dhiyaa al-Saadi, Mr. Zaidi's lawyer, said he had recently seen medical records that were part of Mr. Zaidi's court file, which he said added credence to the journalist's claim that he had been beaten and tortured after his arrest by the security detail of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, on Dec. 14.
Mr. Saadi said two medical reports conducted by government physicians within a week of Mr. Zaidi's arrest described bruising that covered the reporter's face and body, but was especially severe on his legs and arms; a missing tooth; a gash on the bridge of his nose; and what appeared to be a burn mark on his ear.
Mr. Saadi said he had not been permitted to remove the records from the office of the judge investigating the case, so the existence of the documents could not be verified independently. But the account of Mr. Zaidi's wounds matches injuries described by one of Mr. Zaidi's brothers after his prison visit last month.
Uday al-Zaidi, 33, the brother, said Thursday that he feared that Mr. Zaidi, who faces up to seven years in prison for the criminal charge of aggression against a visiting head of state, might never emerge from government custody.
"I don't know his fate," said Mr. Zaidi. "I am sure they will kill him in prison."
But Dr. Fadhil Mohammed Jawad, the legal adviser for Mr. Maliki, said Thursday that Mr. Zaidi had not been tortured and would receive a fair trial.
"Judicially, Iraq is just and the law will handle this case with justice," Dr. Jawad said.
A trial date for Mr. Zaidi had been scheduled for Dec. 31, but was delayed at the request of his lawyer, who is seeking a reduced charge with a shorter prison term. A new date has not been set.
The shoe-hurling episode took place during a news conference with Mr. Bush and Mr. Maliki in Baghdad's heavily secured Green Zone. Mr. Zaidi rose from his seat, threw a shoe at Mr. Bush and shouted, "This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!"
Mr. Zaidi threw his second shoe at the president before security guards restrained him. Both shoes missed. As he was pulled from the room by the guards, Mr. Zaidi was seen being beaten.
In Iraq, throwing a shoe at someone is considered a grave insult. But Mr. Bush's unpopularity here made Mr. Zaidi an instant celebrity and folk hero, not only in Iraq but also elsewhere in the Arab world.
Mr. Maliki was acutely embarrassed, however, and several days later, he said Mr. Zaidi had been put up to the act by a man the prime minister described as a "head cutter" - apparently a reference to a member of the Sunni extremist group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, known for beheading people.
Mr. Zaidi's family, however, has insisted that the reporter has no ties to any political group and that he acted solely out of his opposition to the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Since his arrest, the reporter has been seen by only a few people, including one visit each by his lawyer and brother, both on Dec. 21.
Subsequent visit requests have been rejected or ignored by the government and the judiciary, the men said.
It remains unclear who is responsible for clearing visits to Mr. Zaidi. While Dr. Jawad, the prime minister's legal adviser, said such matters were handled by the investigating judge and the suspect's lawyer, a spokesman for the judge said the issue was one reserved "for the executive branch."
During a telephone interview, Abdul Sattar al-Biriqdar, the spokesman for the High Judicial Council, which administers Iraq's court system, said Dhiyaa al-Kinani, the investigating judge, had not been aware that Mr. Zaidi's lawyer and family members had repeatedly sought to visit Mr. Zaidi in prison.
At first, Mr. Biriqdar denied knowing Mr. Zaidi's whereabouts, but later he said Mr. Zaidi was at an Iraqi detention center in the Green Zone operated by the Baghdad Brigade, a military unit that answers to the prime minister's office.
Mr. Biriqdar said anyone who sought to see Mr. Zaidi would be permitted to do so.
But during a recent visit to the complex, an Iraqi Army guard told a reporter who requested a visit to leave immediately. The guard also said it was "dangerous" to seek to meet Mr. Zaidi.
The soldier, who did not identify himself, said he did not know whether Mr. Zaidi was being held there.
On Thursday, an e-mail message sent to Mr. Maliki requesting a visit with Mr. Zaidi received no reply.
Mr. Biriqdar, the judicial spokesman, said that Mr. Zaidi had not told the investigating judge about being tortured or beaten while in custody and that during a meeting with Mr. Zaidi last month the judge had seen no signs of physical abuse.
"The investigating judge said he had not noticed if he had been tortured or beaten," Mr. Biriqdar said. "Muntader did not say he was beaten and did not ask to be referred to a medical committee."
But a few days after that meeting, both Mr. Zaidi's lawyer and brother Uday said during their respective visits that it had been clear that Mr. Zaidi had been beaten.
Reporting was contributed by Riyadh Mohammed, Alissa J. Rubin, Atheer Kakan and Suadad al-Salhy.
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4) Court Affirms Wiretapping Without Warrants
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/washington/16fisa.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - In a rare public ruling, a secret federal appeals court has said telecommunications companies must cooperate with the government to intercept international phone calls and e-mail of American citizens suspected of being spies or terrorists.
The ruling came in a case involving an unidentified company's challenge to 2007 legislation that expanded the president's legal power to conduct wiretapping without warrants for intelligence purposes.
But the ruling, handed down in August 2008 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review and made public Thursday, did not directly address whether President Bush was within his constitutional powers in ordering domestic wiretapping without warrants, without first getting Congressional approval, after the terrorist attacks of 2001.
Several legal experts cautioned that the ruling had limited application, since it dealt narrowly with the carrying out of a law that had been superseded by new legislation. But the ruling is still the first by an appeals court that says the Fourth Amendment's requirement for warrants does not apply to the foreign collection of intelligence involving Americans. That finding could have broad implications for United States national security law.
The court ruled that eavesdropping on Americans believed to be agents of a foreign power "possesses characteristics that qualify it for such an exception."
Bruce M. Selya, the chief judge of the review court, wrote in the opinion that "our decision recognizes that where the government has instituted several layers of serviceable safeguards to protect individuals against unwarranted harms and to minimize incidental intrusions, its efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts."
The three-judge court, which hears rare appeals from the full Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, addressed provisions of the Protect America Act, passed by Congress in 2007 amid the controversy over Mr. Bush's program of wiretapping without warrants. It found that the administration had put in place sufficient privacy safeguards to meet the constitutional standards of the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches. Because of that, the company had to cooperate, the court said.
That finding bolstered the Bush administration's broader arguments on wiretapping without warrants, both critics and supporters said.
William C. Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University who has criticized the administration's legal position on eavesdropping, said that while the ruling did not address Mr. Bush's surveillance without warrants directly, "it does bolster his case" by recognizing that eavesdropping for national security purposes did not always require warrants.
Coming in the final days of the Bush administration, the ruling was hailed by the administration and conservatives as a victory for an aggressive approach to counterterrorism. The Justice Department said in a statement that it was "pleased with this important ruling."
"It provides a very good result; it reaffirms the president's right to conduct warrantless searches," said David Rivkin, a Washington lawyer who has served in Republican administrations.
Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said the ruling "reinforces the significant, bipartisan political consensus" in favor of the president's broad assertions of wiretapping powers.
But others were cautious about the significance of the ruling.
"I think this kind of maintains the status quo," said Scott Silliman, an expert on national security law at Duke University. "I don't think it is a surprise that the FISA court found that the legislation was constitutional. They are going to defer to Congress, especially since there was a lot of discussion when the law was passed about the ability of the government to compel providers."
The ruling is the latest legal chapter in a dispute dating back to the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, when Mr. Bush secretly ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the international communications of American citizens without the approval of Congress or the courts. After the agency's program was publicly disclosed in December 2005, critics said it violated a 1978 law. The White House initially opposed any new legislation to regulate surveillance, arguing that it would be an infringement of the president's powers.
But after the Democrats took control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections, the administration agreed to bring the N.S.A. program under the jurisdiction of the FISA court. In 2007, Congress passed the Protect America Act, which was replaced in 2008 by another surveillance law.
The case arose in 2007, when a telecommunications company refused to comply with the government's demands that it cooperate without warrants under the terms of the Protect America Act. The company was forced to comply, under threat of contempt, while it challenged the law in the FISA court, the opinion noted.
The company argued that the law violated the constitutional rights of its customers and that the act placed too much power and discretion in the hands of the executive branch. It also raised specific privacy problems, which the court ruling did not identify, that could occur under the surveillance directives it had received from the government.
In rejecting the company's complaint, the FISA appeals court found that the administration had so carefully carried out the Protect America Act that it was not in violation of the Fourth Amendment. It concluded that the procedures put in place under the law properly balanced the constitutional rights of American citizens and the national security interests of the government.
The company argued that "by placing discretion entirely in the hands of the executive branch without prior judicial involvement, the procedures cede to that branch overly broad power that invites abuse," the court wrote.
But, the court ruled, "this is little more than a lament about the risk that government officials will not operate in good faith.'
"That sort of risk exists even when a warrant is required," it said.
Scott Shane contributed reporting.
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5) U.S. Issues Scathing Report on Immigrant Who Died in Detention
By NINA BERNSTEIN
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/us/16detain.html?ref=us
Federal immigration officials investigating the death of a New York computer engineer from China who died in their custody last summer said Thursday that supervisors at a Rhode Island detention center had denied the ailing man appropriate medical treatment on multiple occasions and that employees had dragged him from his cell to a van as he screamed in pain.
As they disclosed their findings, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ordered an end to their contract with the center, the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., a locally owned jail where the engineer, Hiu Lui Ng, spent his final month after a year in immigration detention. They said they had asked that the United States attorney in Boston review the case for possible criminal prosecution.
The federal investigation began last summer, soon after The New York Times reported on the death of Mr. Ng, 34. His extensive cancer and fractured spine had gone undiagnosed, despite his pleas for help, until shortly before he died in custody on Aug. 6.
Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for the federal agency, said the investigation showed that supervisors at the Wyatt detention center had in effect prevented Mr. Ng from meeting with his lawyer by refusing him the use of a wheelchair when he was too ill and in too much pain to walk.
The 33-page investigation report also found that the guards and medical staff, acting on orders of the warden, violated the jail's policy on the use of force when Mr. Ng was dragged to a van for a trip to Hartford, where his lawyers say he was pressured to withdraw all his appeals and accept deportation.
The jail's overhead surveillance video cameras captured everything. But another, hand-held camcorder turned on and off 13 times at a signal from the captain in charge, according to the report, created another version of the episode, apparently in an effort to document that Mr. Ng was faking his illness and refusing to go to the hospital for a CT scan.
Investigators interviewed 158 people in the course of their inquiry, but the surveillance videotapes clearly told them most of what they needed to know. At one point, they wrote, the captain cursed Mr. Ng, calling him an idiot, and ordered him to "stop whining."
Mr. Ng kept saying that he could not walk, begged for a wheelchair, and "continued to scream," the report said, as he was pulled under his armpits from his bed, and to another part of the jail to be shackled.
John J. McConnell Jr., the lawyer representing Mr. Ng's family in a planned lawsuit against the jail and the federal immigration agency, called the report "damning" but added that the investigating agency shared the blame because Mr. Ng "should not have been detained in the first place."
"The people involved in that torturous treatment," he said, "should be ashamed of themselves."
Dante Bellini, a spokesman for Wyatt, called the results of the investigation "disappointing." Last month, citing its investigation, the immigration agency removed all of its detainees from Wyatt.
"We will continue to look at ways to reverse this," Mr. Bellini said. "We will continue to look at all our options and filling our beds. But we will steadfastly maintain that we had nothing to do with the detainee's death."
Last week, Wyatt announced that it was punishing seven employees in connection with the case, with penalties ranging from termination to reprimand. "We took stern and appropriate action," Mr. Bellini said.
Mr. Ng, who had no criminal record, overstayed a visa years ago and had been applying for a green card through his wife, a United States citizen, when he was taken into detention in July 2007 and shuttled through jails and detention centers in three New England states.
One of the most harrowing parts of the federal report is its detailed description of the videos made as Mr. Ng was forcibly taken from his cell to a van.
The tape from the hand-held camcorder begins with the captain's instructing Mr. Ng that "he needed to move on his own," telling him he would not be given a wheelchair and repeatedly ordering him to stand up.
"Mr. Ng was visibly crying and appeared to have difficulty standing," the report said, adding that the captain then appeared to signal the officer holding the camcorder to stop recording.
"Mr. Ng asked captain to believe him that he could not move his legs," the report went on. As he struggled to put on his shoes, apparently in pain, the captain urged him to hurry up. When Mr. Ng told a nurse that he wanted to go to the hospital to take the medical test to determine the cause of his pain and disability, but needed a wheelchair, she was dismissive: "She stated that he could go; he was just refusing to go."
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6) 2 Undercover Narcotics Officers Are Accused of Faking Charges Against 4 Men
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/nyregion/16narcotics.html?ref=nyregion
Two undercover narcotics officers have been charged with lying about a sting operation in Queens after one of the men they accused of selling drugs produced video evidence showing the officers had had no contact with him or three other men they arrested.
The two, Police Officer Henry Tavarez, 27, and Detective Stephen Anderson, 33, surrendered to the authorities on Thursday and were arraigned in Queens Supreme Court.
The charges include conspiracy, unlawful imprisonment and official misconduct, he said. If convicted, they face up to nine years in state prison.
Officer Tavarez and Detective Anderson, who were released on $15,000 and $25,000 bail respectively, declined to comment after the arraignment.
Bruce Wegner, Detective Anderson's lawyer, said: "There is more to this case that will come out. Do not rush to judgment."
The district attorney said all arrests made by the two officers were being reviewed. After four officers in the Brooklyn South narcotics bureau were arrested in late 2007 and early 2008 in a case that involved accusations they traded drugs for information, prosecutors in Brooklyn threw out more than 150 cases in which at least one of the officers played a significant role.
Detective Anderson and Officer Tavarez were part of a team on a "buy-and-bust" operation at Club Delicioso, at 43-24 91st Place in Elmhurst, on Jan. 4, 2008. The operation, which started at night and ended the next morning, resulted in six drug arrests.
According to the indictment, Detective Anderson told his supervisor and said in police paperwork that he bought a Ziploc bag of cocaine for $40 from two men: Gabriel Lira and Julian Martinez. Instead, Detective Anderson had bought three bags of cocaine for $60 from the two men, the statement said.
Officer Tavarez said he bought two bags of cocaine for $100 from four men: Jose Colon, 24; his brother Maximo Colon, 27; Raul Duchimasa; and Luis Rodriguez. But the indictment says Officer Tavarez did not buy cocaine from them, and instead used the cocaine from Detective Anderson as evidence for his own case.
Detective Anderson also later told Officer Tavarez to claim that he had forgotten the details of the arrest of the four men, said the Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown.
Five of the men were released without bail the day they were arrested; Maximo Colon was released three days later after posting $2,500 bail. Jose Colon went back to the club and made a copy of the security video showing that the officers did not have any contact with the Colons, Mr. Duchimasa and Mr. Rodriguez, Mr. Brown's statement said. The charges against the four were later dismissed.
The officers "are accused of knowingly engaging in criminal activity that could have resulted in lengthy prison terms for four innocent men," Mr. Brown said.
The other two, Mr. Lira and Mr. Martinez, pleaded guilty to drug sales charges and are awaiting sentencing, the district attorney's statement said.
Officer Tavarez is on modified assignment without his badge or gun while the Police Department does an internal investigation. His lawyer, Lawrence J. Fredella, said that he was merely "in training that night" and that Detective Anderson had led the operation.
Detective Anderson joined the Nassau County Police Department in May as a recruit but resigned late last year before graduating from the academy, said Detective Sgt. Anthony Repalone of the Nassau County police.
The Colon brothers have filed separate $5 million federal lawsuits, said Maximo Colon's lawyer, Christina A. Hall.
Maximo Colon said he was strip-searched in the precinct station house after the arrest and was held in a dark van for hours. When he asked why he had been arrested, he said the police told him, "Relax, you're going to get out of here soon."
Ms. Hall said, "When you haven't committed a crime and haven't even been told why you are being arrested, it's nightmarish."
Brad Wolk, a lawyer for Mr. Duchimasa, said "controls are needed" on buy-and-bust cases. "Juries want to believe these cops in these cases," he said.
Mick Meenan contributed reporting.
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Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
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Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
Stop the U.S.-backed genocidal Israeli war on Gaza
* Nearly a thousand women, men and children killed by U.S.-made Israeli bombs
* Thousands more wounded
* 1.5 million under siege for the past 18 months, without food, water, medicine, fuel
* Collective punishment for resisting occupation; emergency aid blocked
* Massive violations of international law
* Apartheid wall
* Racist oppression
* Homes and land stolen
* Forced into refugee camps
* 60 years of occupation, from the river to the sea
We Say Enough!
We Are
Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
No to Israel! Yes To Self-Determination, Democracy & Freedom!
Stop U.S. Funding of the War on Palestine!
The whole world is horrified by the murderous Israeli assault against the suffering people of Gaza. From Seoul to Caracas, from Johannesburg to Amman to London, millions of people have poured into the streets to demand an end to this genocidal campaign, which is funded by the United States and carried out with U.S.-supplied weaponry.
There have also been protests in U.S. cities. While most of those marching are Arab-Americans, many African Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans and whites have joined in. Many Jewish people, outraged at Israel's war crimes and anguished that they are carried out in their name, are speaking out.
It's good that Jewish people of conscience are disassociating themselves from the Gaza aggression. But it's not enough. This atrocity is only the latest, and it's no aberration. It reflects the program of the Israeli settler state -- which is based on the theft of Palestine, the ouster and suppression of the Palestinian people, and the racist ideology of Zionism -- and of its primary sponsor, the Pentagon and U.S. business establishment.
It's not enough to oppose the bombing. It's not enough to demand an end to the 41-year occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. We stand in complete and unconditional support for the self-determination of the Palestinian people. This includes the right to return to Palestine, from the river to the sea, and the right to democratically determine the form and the future of the Palestinian state.
Nothing less will undo the historic crime of al Nakba -- the 1948 catastrophe of the establishment of the state of Israel based on the ouster of the Palestinian people from their homeland, oppression and inequality.
That crime betrayed the whole history of the Jewish people. From helping topple the czar in Russia and build the unions in New York, to resisting pogroms and fighting to the last breath in the Warsaw Ghetto, opposition to persecution, oppression and racism was central to the Jewish heritage.
We call on Jewish people around the world, including those inside Israel, to join us in reclaiming that heritage. Reject racism and genocide. Reject the Zionist state, the very concept of which is racist to the core. Take the hand of our Palestinian sisters and brothers. Defend their righteous struggle to restore their stolen land and build a democratic Palestine.
This is not an impossible quest. Remember how mighty the settler state in South Africa seemed, only a little over two decades ago? The racist regime there was buttressed by U.S. -- and Israeli -- support. But it was battered by the unstoppable political and military struggle against apartheid, which gained worldwide support. Apartheid fell, replaced by a new state based on legal equality.
A future of equality for all is possible in Palestine too. Until this future is won, the Palestinian struggle will go on. We stand with that struggle.
We Are
Jews in Solidarity with Palestine
No to Israel! Yes To Self-Determination, Democracy & Freedom!
Stop U.S. Funding of the War on Palestine!
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GAZA CHILDREN'S VIGIL AND MEMORIAL
Come to show your support and share your message to the children of Gaza who have been killed that we will never forget them, and that the children who are alive have our love and support!
Everyone is welcome, but we are extending a special invitation to children and their families, and those who have suffered from or lost loved ones due to state-sponsored or local police violence.
Saturday, January 17th @ 3PM
AT Union Square -
Powell & Geary in San Francisco (if you're taking BART get off on Powell St. exit).
PLEASE BRING:
Candles for children to hold (extra candles will be provided)
Old children's shoes (to represent the children who have been killed) to leave as part memorial.
Signs, banners and children's artwork about Palestine, messages and poems of peace, love and support for Gaza.
Wear all white shirts as a symbol of mourning and peace.
Sponsored by the Gaza Action Coalition: Al-Awda, Palestine Right of Return Coalition, American Friends Service Committee, American Muslims for Palestine, ANSWER Coalition, Arab American Union Members Council, Arab Resource & Organizing Center, Direct Action to Stop the War, East Side Arts Alliance, Free Palestine Alliance, General Union of Palestine Students, Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth, International Action Center, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, International League of Peoples Struggles, International Socialist Organization, Bayan USA, Just Cause Oakland, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Middle East Childrens Alliance, Palestinian Youth Network, Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, SF Women in Black, St. Peters Housing, U.S. Palestine Community Network-Bay Area Committee.
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Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
LET GAZA LIVE!
Fourth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference
Sunday February 8, 2009 at The University of California in San Diego (UCSD)
hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine
Save the Date! Mark Your Calendars! Plan to Attend!
The Palestine Right to Return Coalition's Al-Awda chapters in Los Angeles, Orange County, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego thank all who took part in the Mass Rally and March in Los Angeles yesterday January 10 as part of the Let Gaza Live National Emergency Day of Mass Action and Protest that took place around the country. Thousands took to the streets demanding an immediate end to the carnage that is being carried out by the 'Israeli' military against our people in the Gaza Strip, and to demand an end to the political, economic and military support it has received from the US administration.
As announced at the protests, please take note that the Fourth Al-Awda West Coast Regional Conference, LET GAZA LIVE!, will take place Sunday February 8, 2009 at The University of California in San Diego (UCSD). This conference will be hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine. All members and supporters of the Right to Return movement on the West Coast are urged to participate in this important and timely one day conference.
Save the Date, Mark Your Calendars, and Plan to Attend.
Further details will be posted over the next few days and as soon as they become available.
Until Return,
Al-Awda Chapters in Southern California
The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-918-9441
Fax: 760-918-9442
E-mail: info@al-awda.org
WWW: http://al-awda.org
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC) is the largest network of grassroots activists and students dedicated to Palestinian human rights. We are a not for profit tax-exempt educational and charitable 501(c)(3) organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States of America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations to PRRC are tax-deductible.
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March on the Pentagon! March 21, 2009
The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations is joining with other coalitions, organizations, and networks in a united MARCH 21 NATIONAL COALITION to organize the broadest mobilization of people across the United States to take part in a March on the Pentagon on the sixth year of the military invasion and occupation of the Iraq War: Saturday, March 21.
To endorse the March 21 March on the Pentagon, please click here.
http://natassembly.org/Continuation.html#March21
To send a contribution to support the National Assembly's work, please click here.
http://natassembly.org/donate.html
For more information, please visit the National Assembly's website at www.natassembly.org or write natassembly@aol.com or call 216-736-4704.
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MARCH 21 NATIONAL COALITION FOR A MARCH ON THE PENTAGON
ON THE SIXTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE IRAQ WAR
SATURDAY, MARCH 21, DC, SF, LA AND SEATTLE
To endorse the March 21 March on the Pentagon, click here. To sign up to be a Transportation Organizing Center, click here.
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=4580&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS
To sign up to be a Transportation Organizing Center, click here.
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=4680&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS
P.S. You can make a difference. Please continue to support the ANSWER Coalition's crucial anti-war work by making your end-of-the-year tax-deductible donation online using our secure server by clicking here, where you can also find information on how to donate by check.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
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The DAILY SHOW with Jon Stewart
Strip Maul
Israel gets their bombing in before the January 20th hope and change deadline.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=213380&title=strip-maul
Gallery: Gaza Demonstration Montreal
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Gallery+Gaza+Demonstration+Montreal/1141378/story.html
We will not go down (Song for Gaza)
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=dlfhoU66s4Y
MY LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRONICLE PROTESTING THE TOTALLY
INACCURATE REPORT OF THE JAN. 10 "LET GAZA LIVE" DEMONSTRATION--
FULL ARTICLE BELOW:
Peaceful S.F. protest of Israel's Gaza bombing
Deborah Gage, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, January 11, 2009
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/11/MNK6157880.DTL
Here's a link to some great photos of yesterdays protest:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/01/10/18561295.php
Dear Editor,
Deborah Gage's article reporting on the January 10 "Let Gaza Live" demonstration sighting "More than 1,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators and a few hundred pro-Israel demonstrators" was in the ballpark only on the number of pro-Israeli demonstrators; but was off by at least ten-to-one on the number of those demonstrating against Israel!
Even your own photos on your website can testify to this fact! There were at least seven to ten thousand people marching in protest of this most horrible and criminal assault upon a defenseless and imprisoned people.
As one of many Jewish woman and men at this demonstration-and there were many more pro--Palestinian Jewish people protesting Israel than the tiny group of pro-Israeli Zionists that stood on half-a-sidewalk directly outside of City Hall--clearly, the Israeli Zionists do NOT speak for us!
We will keep to the streets demanding END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL! NOT ONE MORE DOLLAR! NOT ONE MORE DIME! STOP THE HORROR! STOP THE CRIME! LONG LIVE PALESTINE!
Sincerely,
Bonnie Weinstein
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Stop the Bombing and Blockade of Gaza!
End all U.S. Aid to Israel!
Bring the Troops Home Now from Iraq and Afghanistan!
Read the Statement Issued by the National Assembly to
End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations at:
natassembly.org
Join with the National Assembly and other coalitions, networks and organizations on March 21, 2009 for a national mass March on the Pentagon in D.C. (and actions in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities) to demand:
Stop the Wars Against Iraq and Afghanistan! -Bring the Troops Home Now!
End U.S. Support for the Occupation of Palestine!
No to U.S. Wars Against Iran and Pakistan!
Money for Jobs, Health Care, Housing, Pensions, and Education-Not for Wars and Corporate Bailouts!
For further information contact:
National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations
natassembly.org, natassembly@aol.com, 216-736-4704
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Labor Boycott Of Israel Backed By Bay Area Trade Unionists
To Stop Invasion/Occupation Of Gaza/Palestine
On Junuary 10, 2009 thousands of people in the bay area protested the US supported attack by Israel on the people of Gaza at a rally and march in San Francisco. Trade unionists including leaders of the Oakland Education Association and ILWU Local 10 and a leader of the California Peace and Freedom party condemned the attack and supported a labor boycott of Israel by the world trade union movement. Labor Video Project P.O. Box 720027 San Francisco, CA 94172 (415)282-1908 www.laborvideo.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEB2aY0ByQM&feature=
Labor Video Project
P.O. Box 720027
San Francisco, CA 94172
(415)282-1908
www.laborvideo.org
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Israelis Soldiers refuse to serve in Gaza
January 13, 2009
http://www.zcommunications.org/zvideo/2978
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Open Letter to Israeli Soldiers
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY
Friends,
As you may know, American Jews for a Just Peace has written an Open Letter to Israeli soldiers calling on them to refuse to take part in war crimes and atrocities in Gaza. We are gathering signatures from Jews all over the world, and hope to raise enough money to publish the Open Letter as an ad in Ha'aretz in the coming days. The views of "World Jewry" still carry some weight in Israel, and we owe it to both the people of Gaza and to the Israeli soldiers to try to raise our voices in opposition to the horror we are watching unfold day by day.
If you haven't already done so, I invite you to read and sign the Open Letter. If you can contribute even a small amount, it will help us toward the total advertisement cost. Organizational signers are invited to email info@ajjp.org to authorize organizational participation.
A link to the Open Letter is on the front page of AJJP's website:
www.ajjp.org
In these dark days, it is good to be able to do something -- anything. I hope you will join this effort.
Hannah Schwarzschild
for the Coordinating Committee
AMERICAN JEWS FOR A JUST PEACE
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U.S. resisters' solidarity with Israeli "shministim" refusers
Courage to Resist
Statement signed by over two dozen U.S. military war resisters. Reprinted by AlterNet, Democracy Now, The Progressive, Common Dreams, Indymedia, and Daily Kos.
We are U.S. military servicemembers and veterans who have refused or are currently refusing to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We stand in solidarity with the Israeli Shministim (Hebrew for "12th graders") who are also resisting military service. About 100 Israeli high school students have signed an open letter declaring their refusal to serve in the Israeli army and their opposition to "Israeli occupation and oppression policy in the occupied territories and the territories of Israel." In Israel, military service is mandatory for all graduating high school seniors, and resisters face the possibility of years in prison.
Read more at:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
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ARTICLES IN FULL:
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1) Speech by Christine Gauvreau, representing the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, at the January 10 Let Gaza Live rally at the White House.
natassembly.org
2) U.N. Building in Gaza Strip Is Hit by Strike From Israel
By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and ISABEL KERSHNER
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16mideast.html?hp
3) Family and Lawyer Fear for Reporter Who Threw His Shoes at Bush
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16iraq.html?ref=world
4) Court Affirms Wiretapping Without Warrants
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/washington/16fisa.html?ref=us
5) U.S. Issues Scathing Report on Immigrant Who Died in Detention
By NINA BERNSTEIN
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/us/16detain.html?ref=us
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1) Speech by Christine Gauvreau, representing the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, at the January 10 Let Gaza Live rally at the White House.
natassembly.org
I am here today because if the U.S. antiwar movement does not embrace fully and passionately the cause of ending US backing for the murderous assault on Gaza, we will never succeed in ending ANY of the US military adventures in the Middle East. Solidarity with the victims of US backed aggression in Gaza, and solidarity with YOU, is the most important task facing the antiwar movement today.
To whom can we look to end the barbaric attacks on the refugee camp called Gaza?
Not the president and certainly not the Congress.
Yesterday the U.S. Congress voted to openly celebrate their support for the horrific and criminal massacres carried out in Gaza. Read the resolutions-- they CHEERED the murderous effectiveness of the army of their most valued proxy in the Middle East They CELEBRATED the carnage wrought by their military gifts to Israel--the F-16's, the helicopters, the munitions.
While the whole world mourned the loss of innocent life in GAZA, the US government instead theatrically APPLAUDED the mowing down of nearly 1000 starving, encircled, and utterly trapped civilians. And with Orwellian language, they designated the colonizer's methods as self-defense. They perversely defined a brutally occupied people as the aggressor and instigator of war.
Congress uses this double speak for the same reason they went along with the lie of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. In the end, it is all about the same thing. It is all about the willingness of the US government to use the bloodiest means to create a Middle East and Central Asia where Arab and Afghani self-determination, where national sovereignty, is a thing of the past. Where the United States has control over energy resources at any human cost.
That is why they cannot stand the proud and defiant people of Palestine. Their unwillingness to bend in the face of attack makes the Gazans a giant obstacle to US war aims in the greater Middle East. Their fight is our fight.
We say NO to US backed aggression against the people of Gaza.
The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations is so honored and grateful to be here today with the movement to end the siege of Gaza and to defend the right of Palestinians to self -determination. This movement to defend the people of Gaza from the US backed Israeli invasion is opening a new stage in US politics. YOU are opening a new stage in US politics. A stage where those from the Palestine solidarity movement and those who have been active to end the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan will come together as a powerful force to end the US-Israeli military adventure in the Middle East.
A force independent of the war -making political parties in Congress. A force that can grow exponentially due to our unity. A force that can attract millions because we remain visible in the streets. A force that will first be able to manifest itself on March 21 here in DC and bring us a much closer to ending US support for the occupation of Palestine. To ending the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. To getting money for jobs, pensions, housing, healthcare, not for wars, occupations, and corporate bailouts.
Let us pledge to take the next weeks, to use every day, to use every hour, to use every minute between now and March 21 to fight together to take the truth about Gaza, the truth about Iraq, the truth about Afghanistan to the millions of Americans not yet active in the struggle.
Let Gaza Live
Out Now
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2) U.N. Building in Gaza Strip Is Hit by Strike From Israel
By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and ISABEL KERSHNER
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16mideast.html?hp
GAZA - Israeli forces shelled areas deep inside Gaza City on Thursday, hitting the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and injuring at least three people among the hundreds taking shelter in the compound, according to United Nations officials and witnesses.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel expressed regret for the strike but said that Israeli forces were fired on by Hamas militants from just outside the United Nations compound and the militants then ran inside to take cover, according to Mr. Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev.
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had told him the strike on the United Nations compound was a "grave mistake." Mr. Ban, who was in Israel Thursday to press for a cease-fire, said he expressed "strong protest and outrage" to Israel. Relations between Israel and the United Nations offices in Palestinian territory, long strained, have worsened during the Israeli campaign.
On the 20th day of fighting, Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into Gaza City and intensified shelling in both outlying neighborhoods and central districts, sending thousands of panicked residents fleeing from their homes, witnesses said. Al Shurouq Tower, a high-rise media center, was hit by shells, witnesses said. At least two television cameramen were hospitalized.
In what appeared to be a breakthrough for the Israeli military, Israeli and Palestinian media reported that Israel had killed a senior Hamas official in the bombing of his home. Two days ago, Israeli officials said, despite heavy air and ground assaults, Israel had yet to cripple the military wing of Hamas or halt its rocket fire into Israel.
The slain official, Said Siam, was the interior minister in Hamas-run Gaza, and was in charge of security. Islamic Jihad radio said Mr. Siam's brother and son had also been killed. In addition, the strike killed four members of a family next door, Gaza hospital officials said.
The intensified Israeli campaign came as cease-fire talks in Egypt appeared to be moving forward. A senior Israeli defense official, Amos Gilad, returned from Cairo after a day of talks with Egyptian officials. He was due to report to the Israeli leadership later Thursday.
"We are trying to find a durable solution and hopefully that durable solution seems closer than ever before," Mr. Regev said.
Within two hours on Thursday morning, militants in Gaza launched 15 rockets and mortars against Israel, the Israeli military said, a marked increase in fire compared to Wednesday when there were 16 launches during the entire day. Later Thursday, the military reported that 25 rockets and mortars had been fired. One struck the Israeli city of Beersheba, directly hitting a car and wounding six people, the Israeli military said. Among them was a 7-year-old boy, whose injuries were serious.
The death toll among Palestinians rose to at least 1,076, according to Reuters, which quoted the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. At least 13 Israelis have been killed.
Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is charged with helping Palestinian refugees, said that the Israelis had been provided with the GPS coordinates of all United Nations facilities in Gaza. He said that in the strike on the United Nations compound two buildings had been set ablaze and that there were five fully laden fuel vehicles at the site.
He rejected the Israeli claim that militants had fired from in or near the compound as "entirely baseless."
"With every false allegation, the credibility of those accusing us is incrementally diminished," he said. He said that Israel had used three shells of white phosphorous at the compound, according to people at the site, citing the fact that fires caused by the shells had burned all day as evidence that the chemical was used. White phosphorous creates smoke on a battlefield and can burn like a kind of napalm. There was no immediate response from Israel.
The strike on the compound resembled an earlier incident in Israel's campaign against Hamas, when Israeli mortar shells landed outside a United Nations school compound in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, killing at least 40 Palestinians, according to United Nations and hospital officials.
In that attack, the Israeli military said it was responding to mortars fired by Hamas militants from a yard next to the school compound, and that one of the shells it fired back fell off the mark.
The attacks have worsened the decades-long tensions between Israel and the United Nations. Israel views some branches of the United Nations as hostile and unfair, particularly the Relief and Works Agency, with its focus on helping Palestinians.
Mr. Regev, Mr. Olmert's spokesman, played down the tensions, saying that Israel "fully supports the United Nations' humanitarian mission." But Yigal Palmor, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that a large number of the local workers for the United Nations refugee agency "one way or another are affiliated with Hamas," which presents problems at a time of confrontation.
The Israeli military gave only limited information about its latest ground operations in Gaza City on Thursday, but a spokesman said that "fierce fighting" was under way "relatively deep inside Gaza."
Overnight, the military said, Israeli planes struck around 70 targets, including a mosque in the southern town of Rafah that it said was used to stockpile rockets, and several squads of gunmen.
Palestinians arrived with injured relatives at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Thursday, some barefoot and in nightgowns. They told of intense Israeli shelling in several neighborhoods, including the Sabra and Tufah districts. The two television cameramen arrived for treatment after the tower in central Gaza housing the media offices was hit. They had been filming from a window balcony when they were injured, they said.
Residents of the Tel el-Hawa district in south-western Gaza City said Israeli shelling and shooting had gone on all night and that the local Quds Hospital was under fire.
Amid rising concern about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, the aid group CARE said that Israeli bombs were falling around its warehouses and distribution sites in Gaza, forcing it to cancel the dissemination of food and medical supplies.
The group said in a statement that it had been planning to give emergency medical supplies to hospitals and clinics, and get baby food and blankets to newborns in shelters.
Martha Myers, CARE's director for the West Bank and Gaza, said that on Wednesday bombs fell near a care warehouse and "our staff had to drop and run."
"This is not humanitarian access," she said in the CARE statement.
Taghreed el-Khodary reported from Gaza, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Reporting was contributed by Ethan Bronner and Sabrina Tavernise from Jerusalem, Souad Mekhennet from Frankfurt, Michael Slackman from Cairo, Alan Cowell from London, and Graham Bowley from New York.
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3) Family and Lawyer Fear for Reporter Who Threw His Shoes at Bush
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/middleeast/16iraq.html?ref=world
BAGHDAD - More than a month has passed since an Iraqi television reporter threw his shoes at President Bush during a Baghdad news conference held to highlight what Mr. Bush called a successful American military effort to pacify Iraq.
The journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, 29, who was immediately arrested, has been allowed only two visitors - and none since Dec. 21, according to those close to him. His family and his lawyer say that they do not know where he is being held and that they are gravely concerned about his well-being because they have not been allowed to speak with him by telephone.
On Thursday, Dhiyaa al-Saadi, Mr. Zaidi's lawyer, said he had recently seen medical records that were part of Mr. Zaidi's court file, which he said added credence to the journalist's claim that he had been beaten and tortured after his arrest by the security detail of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, on Dec. 14.
Mr. Saadi said two medical reports conducted by government physicians within a week of Mr. Zaidi's arrest described bruising that covered the reporter's face and body, but was especially severe on his legs and arms; a missing tooth; a gash on the bridge of his nose; and what appeared to be a burn mark on his ear.
Mr. Saadi said he had not been permitted to remove the records from the office of the judge investigating the case, so the existence of the documents could not be verified independently. But the account of Mr. Zaidi's wounds matches injuries described by one of Mr. Zaidi's brothers after his prison visit last month.
Uday al-Zaidi, 33, the brother, said Thursday that he feared that Mr. Zaidi, who faces up to seven years in prison for the criminal charge of aggression against a visiting head of state, might never emerge from government custody.
"I don't know his fate," said Mr. Zaidi. "I am sure they will kill him in prison."
But Dr. Fadhil Mohammed Jawad, the legal adviser for Mr. Maliki, said Thursday that Mr. Zaidi had not been tortured and would receive a fair trial.
"Judicially, Iraq is just and the law will handle this case with justice," Dr. Jawad said.
A trial date for Mr. Zaidi had been scheduled for Dec. 31, but was delayed at the request of his lawyer, who is seeking a reduced charge with a shorter prison term. A new date has not been set.
The shoe-hurling episode took place during a news conference with Mr. Bush and Mr. Maliki in Baghdad's heavily secured Green Zone. Mr. Zaidi rose from his seat, threw a shoe at Mr. Bush and shouted, "This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!"
Mr. Zaidi threw his second shoe at the president before security guards restrained him. Both shoes missed. As he was pulled from the room by the guards, Mr. Zaidi was seen being beaten.
In Iraq, throwing a shoe at someone is considered a grave insult. But Mr. Bush's unpopularity here made Mr. Zaidi an instant celebrity and folk hero, not only in Iraq but also elsewhere in the Arab world.
Mr. Maliki was acutely embarrassed, however, and several days later, he said Mr. Zaidi had been put up to the act by a man the prime minister described as a "head cutter" - apparently a reference to a member of the Sunni extremist group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, known for beheading people.
Mr. Zaidi's family, however, has insisted that the reporter has no ties to any political group and that he acted solely out of his opposition to the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Since his arrest, the reporter has been seen by only a few people, including one visit each by his lawyer and brother, both on Dec. 21.
Subsequent visit requests have been rejected or ignored by the government and the judiciary, the men said.
It remains unclear who is responsible for clearing visits to Mr. Zaidi. While Dr. Jawad, the prime minister's legal adviser, said such matters were handled by the investigating judge and the suspect's lawyer, a spokesman for the judge said the issue was one reserved "for the executive branch."
During a telephone interview, Abdul Sattar al-Biriqdar, the spokesman for the High Judicial Council, which administers Iraq's court system, said Dhiyaa al-Kinani, the investigating judge, had not been aware that Mr. Zaidi's lawyer and family members had repeatedly sought to visit Mr. Zaidi in prison.
At first, Mr. Biriqdar denied knowing Mr. Zaidi's whereabouts, but later he said Mr. Zaidi was at an Iraqi detention center in the Green Zone operated by the Baghdad Brigade, a military unit that answers to the prime minister's office.
Mr. Biriqdar said anyone who sought to see Mr. Zaidi would be permitted to do so.
But during a recent visit to the complex, an Iraqi Army guard told a reporter who requested a visit to leave immediately. The guard also said it was "dangerous" to seek to meet Mr. Zaidi.
The soldier, who did not identify himself, said he did not know whether Mr. Zaidi was being held there.
On Thursday, an e-mail message sent to Mr. Maliki requesting a visit with Mr. Zaidi received no reply.
Mr. Biriqdar, the judicial spokesman, said that Mr. Zaidi had not told the investigating judge about being tortured or beaten while in custody and that during a meeting with Mr. Zaidi last month the judge had seen no signs of physical abuse.
"The investigating judge said he had not noticed if he had been tortured or beaten," Mr. Biriqdar said. "Muntader did not say he was beaten and did not ask to be referred to a medical committee."
But a few days after that meeting, both Mr. Zaidi's lawyer and brother Uday said during their respective visits that it had been clear that Mr. Zaidi had been beaten.
Reporting was contributed by Riyadh Mohammed, Alissa J. Rubin, Atheer Kakan and Suadad al-Salhy.
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4) Court Affirms Wiretapping Without Warrants
By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/washington/16fisa.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - In a rare public ruling, a secret federal appeals court has said telecommunications companies must cooperate with the government to intercept international phone calls and e-mail of American citizens suspected of being spies or terrorists.
The ruling came in a case involving an unidentified company's challenge to 2007 legislation that expanded the president's legal power to conduct wiretapping without warrants for intelligence purposes.
But the ruling, handed down in August 2008 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review and made public Thursday, did not directly address whether President Bush was within his constitutional powers in ordering domestic wiretapping without warrants, without first getting Congressional approval, after the terrorist attacks of 2001.
Several legal experts cautioned that the ruling had limited application, since it dealt narrowly with the carrying out of a law that had been superseded by new legislation. But the ruling is still the first by an appeals court that says the Fourth Amendment's requirement for warrants does not apply to the foreign collection of intelligence involving Americans. That finding could have broad implications for United States national security law.
The court ruled that eavesdropping on Americans believed to be agents of a foreign power "possesses characteristics that qualify it for such an exception."
Bruce M. Selya, the chief judge of the review court, wrote in the opinion that "our decision recognizes that where the government has instituted several layers of serviceable safeguards to protect individuals against unwarranted harms and to minimize incidental intrusions, its efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts."
The three-judge court, which hears rare appeals from the full Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, addressed provisions of the Protect America Act, passed by Congress in 2007 amid the controversy over Mr. Bush's program of wiretapping without warrants. It found that the administration had put in place sufficient privacy safeguards to meet the constitutional standards of the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches. Because of that, the company had to cooperate, the court said.
That finding bolstered the Bush administration's broader arguments on wiretapping without warrants, both critics and supporters said.
William C. Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University who has criticized the administration's legal position on eavesdropping, said that while the ruling did not address Mr. Bush's surveillance without warrants directly, "it does bolster his case" by recognizing that eavesdropping for national security purposes did not always require warrants.
Coming in the final days of the Bush administration, the ruling was hailed by the administration and conservatives as a victory for an aggressive approach to counterterrorism. The Justice Department said in a statement that it was "pleased with this important ruling."
"It provides a very good result; it reaffirms the president's right to conduct warrantless searches," said David Rivkin, a Washington lawyer who has served in Republican administrations.
Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said the ruling "reinforces the significant, bipartisan political consensus" in favor of the president's broad assertions of wiretapping powers.
But others were cautious about the significance of the ruling.
"I think this kind of maintains the status quo," said Scott Silliman, an expert on national security law at Duke University. "I don't think it is a surprise that the FISA court found that the legislation was constitutional. They are going to defer to Congress, especially since there was a lot of discussion when the law was passed about the ability of the government to compel providers."
The ruling is the latest legal chapter in a dispute dating back to the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, when Mr. Bush secretly ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the international communications of American citizens without the approval of Congress or the courts. After the agency's program was publicly disclosed in December 2005, critics said it violated a 1978 law. The White House initially opposed any new legislation to regulate surveillance, arguing that it would be an infringement of the president's powers.
But after the Democrats took control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections, the administration agreed to bring the N.S.A. program under the jurisdiction of the FISA court. In 2007, Congress passed the Protect America Act, which was replaced in 2008 by another surveillance law.
The case arose in 2007, when a telecommunications company refused to comply with the government's demands that it cooperate without warrants under the terms of the Protect America Act. The company was forced to comply, under threat of contempt, while it challenged the law in the FISA court, the opinion noted.
The company argued that the law violated the constitutional rights of its customers and that the act placed too much power and discretion in the hands of the executive branch. It also raised specific privacy problems, which the court ruling did not identify, that could occur under the surveillance directives it had received from the government.
In rejecting the company's complaint, the FISA appeals court found that the administration had so carefully carried out the Protect America Act that it was not in violation of the Fourth Amendment. It concluded that the procedures put in place under the law properly balanced the constitutional rights of American citizens and the national security interests of the government.
The company argued that "by placing discretion entirely in the hands of the executive branch without prior judicial involvement, the procedures cede to that branch overly broad power that invites abuse," the court wrote.
But, the court ruled, "this is little more than a lament about the risk that government officials will not operate in good faith.'
"That sort of risk exists even when a warrant is required," it said.
Scott Shane contributed reporting.
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5) U.S. Issues Scathing Report on Immigrant Who Died in Detention
By NINA BERNSTEIN
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/us/16detain.html?ref=us
Federal immigration officials investigating the death of a New York computer engineer from China who died in their custody last summer said Thursday that supervisors at a Rhode Island detention center had denied the ailing man appropriate medical treatment on multiple occasions and that employees had dragged him from his cell to a van as he screamed in pain.
As they disclosed their findings, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ordered an end to their contract with the center, the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., a locally owned jail where the engineer, Hiu Lui Ng, spent his final month after a year in immigration detention. They said they had asked that the United States attorney in Boston review the case for possible criminal prosecution.
The federal investigation began last summer, soon after The New York Times reported on the death of Mr. Ng, 34. His extensive cancer and fractured spine had gone undiagnosed, despite his pleas for help, until shortly before he died in custody on Aug. 6.
Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for the federal agency, said the investigation showed that supervisors at the Wyatt detention center had in effect prevented Mr. Ng from meeting with his lawyer by refusing him the use of a wheelchair when he was too ill and in too much pain to walk.
The 33-page investigation report also found that the guards and medical staff, acting on orders of the warden, violated the jail's policy on the use of force when Mr. Ng was dragged to a van for a trip to Hartford, where his lawyers say he was pressured to withdraw all his appeals and accept deportation.
The jail's overhead surveillance video cameras captured everything. But another, hand-held camcorder turned on and off 13 times at a signal from the captain in charge, according to the report, created another version of the episode, apparently in an effort to document that Mr. Ng was faking his illness and refusing to go to the hospital for a CT scan.
Investigators interviewed 158 people in the course of their inquiry, but the surveillance videotapes clearly told them most of what they needed to know. At one point, they wrote, the captain cursed Mr. Ng, calling him an idiot, and ordered him to "stop whining."
Mr. Ng kept saying that he could not walk, begged for a wheelchair, and "continued to scream," the report said, as he was pulled under his armpits from his bed, and to another part of the jail to be shackled.
John J. McConnell Jr., the lawyer representing Mr. Ng's family in a planned lawsuit against the jail and the federal immigration agency, called the report "damning" but added that the investigating agency shared the blame because Mr. Ng "should not have been detained in the first place."
"The people involved in that torturous treatment," he said, "should be ashamed of themselves."
Dante Bellini, a spokesman for Wyatt, called the results of the investigation "disappointing." Last month, citing its investigation, the immigration agency removed all of its detainees from Wyatt.
"We will continue to look at ways to reverse this," Mr. Bellini said. "We will continue to look at all our options and filling our beds. But we will steadfastly maintain that we had nothing to do with the detainee's death."
Last week, Wyatt announced that it was punishing seven employees in connection with the case, with penalties ranging from termination to reprimand. "We took stern and appropriate action," Mr. Bellini said.
Mr. Ng, who had no criminal record, overstayed a visa years ago and had been applying for a green card through his wife, a United States citizen, when he was taken into detention in July 2007 and shuttled through jails and detention centers in three New England states.
One of the most harrowing parts of the federal report is its detailed description of the videos made as Mr. Ng was forcibly taken from his cell to a van.
The tape from the hand-held camcorder begins with the captain's instructing Mr. Ng that "he needed to move on his own," telling him he would not be given a wheelchair and repeatedly ordering him to stand up.
"Mr. Ng was visibly crying and appeared to have difficulty standing," the report said, adding that the captain then appeared to signal the officer holding the camcorder to stop recording.
"Mr. Ng asked captain to believe him that he could not move his legs," the report went on. As he struggled to put on his shoes, apparently in pain, the captain urged him to hurry up. When Mr. Ng told a nurse that he wanted to go to the hospital to take the medical test to determine the cause of his pain and disability, but needed a wheelchair, she was dismissive: "She stated that he could go; he was just refusing to go."
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6) 2 Undercover Narcotics Officers Are Accused of Faking Charges Against 4 Men
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
January 16, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/nyregion/16narcotics.html?ref=nyregion
Two undercover narcotics officers have been charged with lying about a sting operation in Queens after one of the men they accused of selling drugs produced video evidence showing the officers had had no contact with him or three other men they arrested.
The two, Police Officer Henry Tavarez, 27, and Detective Stephen Anderson, 33, surrendered to the authorities on Thursday and were arraigned in Queens Supreme Court.
The charges include conspiracy, unlawful imprisonment and official misconduct, he said. If convicted, they face up to nine years in state prison.
Officer Tavarez and Detective Anderson, who were released on $15,000 and $25,000 bail respectively, declined to comment after the arraignment.
Bruce Wegner, Detective Anderson's lawyer, said: "There is more to this case that will come out. Do not rush to judgment."
The district attorney said all arrests made by the two officers were being reviewed. After four officers in the Brooklyn South narcotics bureau were arrested in late 2007 and early 2008 in a case that involved accusations they traded drugs for information, prosecutors in Brooklyn threw out more than 150 cases in which at least one of the officers played a significant role.
Detective Anderson and Officer Tavarez were part of a team on a "buy-and-bust" operation at Club Delicioso, at 43-24 91st Place in Elmhurst, on Jan. 4, 2008. The operation, which started at night and ended the next morning, resulted in six drug arrests.
According to the indictment, Detective Anderson told his supervisor and said in police paperwork that he bought a Ziploc bag of cocaine for $40 from two men: Gabriel Lira and Julian Martinez. Instead, Detective Anderson had bought three bags of cocaine for $60 from the two men, the statement said.
Officer Tavarez said he bought two bags of cocaine for $100 from four men: Jose Colon, 24; his brother Maximo Colon, 27; Raul Duchimasa; and Luis Rodriguez. But the indictment says Officer Tavarez did not buy cocaine from them, and instead used the cocaine from Detective Anderson as evidence for his own case.
Detective Anderson also later told Officer Tavarez to claim that he had forgotten the details of the arrest of the four men, said the Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown.
Five of the men were released without bail the day they were arrested; Maximo Colon was released three days later after posting $2,500 bail. Jose Colon went back to the club and made a copy of the security video showing that the officers did not have any contact with the Colons, Mr. Duchimasa and Mr. Rodriguez, Mr. Brown's statement said. The charges against the four were later dismissed.
The officers "are accused of knowingly engaging in criminal activity that could have resulted in lengthy prison terms for four innocent men," Mr. Brown said.
The other two, Mr. Lira and Mr. Martinez, pleaded guilty to drug sales charges and are awaiting sentencing, the district attorney's statement said.
Officer Tavarez is on modified assignment without his badge or gun while the Police Department does an internal investigation. His lawyer, Lawrence J. Fredella, said that he was merely "in training that night" and that Detective Anderson had led the operation.
Detective Anderson joined the Nassau County Police Department in May as a recruit but resigned late last year before graduating from the academy, said Detective Sgt. Anthony Repalone of the Nassau County police.
The Colon brothers have filed separate $5 million federal lawsuits, said Maximo Colon's lawyer, Christina A. Hall.
Maximo Colon said he was strip-searched in the precinct station house after the arrest and was held in a dark van for hours. When he asked why he had been arrested, he said the police told him, "Relax, you're going to get out of here soon."
Ms. Hall said, "When you haven't committed a crime and haven't even been told why you are being arrested, it's nightmarish."
Brad Wolk, a lawyer for Mr. Duchimasa, said "controls are needed" on buy-and-bust cases. "Juries want to believe these cops in these cases," he said.
Mick Meenan contributed reporting.
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