1. I thought there was a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas:
“Still, the Israeli military says that even though Hamas didn’t carry out the attack, it is still responsible for it because they guess they may have given consent to the group.
In its early retaliation, the Israeli government killed a nearby farmer and launched an air-strike which killed a Hamas member and wounded another civilian. They also closed off the border crossings, preventing humanitarian aid from reaching the strip’s 1.5 million residents, “until further notice.” Indications are this is not the end of Israel’s attacks, which are threatening to derail the ceasefire.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said today that the killings so far were “not the response” and that more attacks were yet to come. The Israeli military has also reported been “given the green light” to respond harshly in the Gaza Strip. Defense official Amos Gilad said the response would not be limited to closing off the border.“
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/01/27/border-closes-israel-promises-more-gaza-strikes/
2. What a surprise:
“Donations to an emergency fund for Gaza doubled overnight after three TV channels broadcast an appeal that the BBC and Sky News have refused to show.
Members of the public have now pledged over £1 million to help tackle the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) said today.“
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article5599384.ece
3. Good. Maybe fewer people will now join the Army:
“Army Secretary Pete Geren has ordered a stand-down of the Army’s entire recruiting force and a review of almost every aspect of the job is underway in the wake of a wide-ranging investigation of four suicides in the Houston Recruiting Battalion.
Poor command climate, failing personal relationships and long, stressful work days were factors in the suicides, the investigation found. The investigating officer noted a “threatening” environment in the battalion and that leaders may have tried to influence statements from witnesses.“
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/01/army_recruiting_suicides_012709/
4. Hard to tell if this is a good idea or not:
“Israel Boycott Movement Comes to U.S.
The movement to boycott Israeli academic institutions has largely been centered in Britain (where in 2007 the University and College Union dropped the call). In response to the conflict in Gaza, calls for academic boycotts have crossed the Atlantic, surfacing first in Ontario, and now in the United States.
The U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel, launched last week, enumerates five goals. These include: “Refraining from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions that do not vocally oppose Israeli state policies against Palestine,” “promoting divestment and disinvestment from Israel by international academic institutions,” and “supporting Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support.”
The group’s press release continues, “We believe that non-violent external pressure on Israel, in the form of an academic, cultural and economic boycott of Israel, can help bring an end to the ongoing massacres of civilians and an end [to] the occupation of Gaza and Palestine” — with “Palestine” referring to the West Bank land occupied by Israel since the 1967 war, explained David Lloyd, a professor of English at the University of Southern California who’s involved with the campaign. “We are actually literally following the call of the Palestinian civil society groups that call for a boycott, and what they ask for is a return to 1967 borders.”
As of Saturday afternoon, two days after the campaign’s press release went out, Lloyd reported that the campaign had received more than 70 endorsements by individuals, and two by organizations.
“Many universities in the United States have direct involvement with Israeli institutions, ranging from study abroad programs to collaborative research. And we believe that should be suspended until such time that Israel respects international and humanitarian law,” said Lloyd.
In the United States, opposition to academic boycotts is strong. A 2007 statement signed by nearly 300 university presidents sums up why: “In seeking to quarantine Israeli universities and scholars, this vote threatens every university committed to fostering scholarly and cultural exchanges that lead to enlightenment, empathy, and a much-needed international marketplace of ideas.”
The statement was issued in response to the boycott movement then afoot in Britain, and was written by Columbia University’s president, Lee Bollinger. “At my institution, our president, Lee Bollinger, has said publicly that if you boycott Israeli academics you boycott us at Columbia,” said Andrew R. Marks, president and founder of International Academic Friends of Israel and chair of Columbia’s physiology department. “He’s taken a stand against academic boycotts which I’m proud of, and I think that would be the norm among the better universities in the United States. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t affect our students and others who are impressionable and looking for a cause to pick up, that sort of thing, so it certainly concerns me.”
Beyond the argument in favor of exchange and dialogue, “You go to the question of whether or not this [an academic boycott] could possibly ever help the Palestinian people. And that’s quite doubtful, since the academics in Israel, as in many countries, tend to be pretty left-wing and actually are some of the most forceful voices in favor of peace and fair treatment of Palestinians,” Marks continued. “So I tend to think this whole movement, which originated in the U.K., was very much an anti-Israel movement and not really honestly designed to help the Palestinians. And I think it’s very unfortunate it’s spreading to the United States, but not surprising.”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12072
5. “Like Obama after Bush, president Jimmy Carter also faced the daunting task of picking up the pieces after a discredited Republican administration, with Middle East politics and an energy crisis topping the agenda. But Carter had it relatively easy compared to Obama. Bush followed in Reagan’s footsteps and effectively bankrupted America with his massive tax cuts to the rich and even more massive spending on the military and failed wars. Far more corrupt and deserving of impeachment than Nixon, his crimes have so far been untouched.
Both Carter and Obama were swept into the White House from nowhere, promising to restore American ideals, pursue alternative energy, support education, help the common man. More to the point, like Carter, Obama was chosen by the ruling economic elite as a pretty face to keep that common man happy despite the economic mess that his predecessors left behind. David Rockefeller met Carter in the mid-1970s and invited him to join the Trilateral Commission. He then went from obscurity to president almost overnight. Obama was discovered by Rockefeller’s protege Zbigniew Brzezinski, invited to join the Council for Foreign Relations, and experienced an equally miraculous climb to the top. His (and Hillary’s) meeting with the Bilderberg Group in June, during the height of the primaries, is well known.
But the approval of the backroom boys doesn’t guarantee success, as Carter famously found out. Sometimes the hand dealt is unplayable. The eminences grises can drop a loser on a dime, as Carter also famously found out. But that may be yet another blessing for someone with courage and integrity. Yet another Nobel Laureate, and one who Obama would do well to consult along with Stiglitz and Krugman, Carter is the only living ex-president with those traits, however flawed his presidency was.
The world fervently hopes that Obama has some of them as well. But his presidency will be made or broken on how he handles the economy. The question is whether he has enough room to manoeuvre, given his poor hand, his patrons and his impatient supporters. The odds, given Carter’s failed presidency, do not look good.“
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12059
6. If this is true, all I can say is ‘F**k’em all’:
“Last week, GOP Senators threatened to hold up Eric Holder’s confirmation as Attorney General unless he vowed, in advance, that he would not prosecute any Bush officials for having ordered or perpetrated the torture of detainees. Today, Holder’s nomination was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee by a vote of 17-2, and according to The Washington Times, Sen. Kit Bond is claiming that Holder “assured him privately that Mr. Obama’s Justice Department will not prosecute former Bush officials involved in the interrogations program.” This story depends upon the credibility of both The Washington Times and Sen. Bond, so who knows if it’s really true, but would anyone be surprised if it were true?
Several people in comments have highlighted the socioeconomic and racial inequities in our justice system, which are both numerous and substantial. But that’s a separate issue. It’s one thing for a wealthy defendant to have a higher chance of acquittal in a criminal trial because a private lawyer can devote more time and resources to the case than a public defender can, or for an African-American defendant to have a higher chance of conviction because of juror bias. But it’s another thing entirely for a small class of people — political leaders — to be granted immunity in advance from prosecution of any kind, even when they commit grave felonies in the course of their duties.
UPDATE II: Marcy Wheeler expresses some insightful skepticism about the Bond report. As Washington Times reporters go, the one who is reporting Bond’s comments (Eli Lake) is relatively reliable, at least as far as this sort of reporting is concerned, so it’s possible, as Marcy says, that Bond is distorting Holder’s comments (it’s also possible that Holder sent the clear signals to Bond that Holder knew Bond wanted to hear while maintaining plausible deniability that he made such a commitment, which would obviously be improper). In any event, something caused virtually all of the Committee Republicans to vote to confirm Holder today, and Holder should obviously be asked about this claim from Bond.
UPDATE III: Both Sen. Leahy and Sen. Whitehouse express serious doubts about the Bond/Washington Times report, noting (correctly) that it would be a highly improper act (to put it mildly) for a Senator to demand, and for a nominated Attorney General to agree, that no prosecutions will be pursued in a specific case in exchange for the Senator’s support for the nomination. That said, it’s hardly inconceivable that Holder said things to Bond which, by design or effect, implicitly conveyed to Bond the assurances he wanted to hear, or at least enabled Bond to be convinced that he got those assurances. Either way, it is Holder who should be asked very clearly whether he made the statements to Bond that Bond claims he made.”
