Al Jazeera: UN pressures Israel on peace policy

“Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, has urged Israel to ‘fundamentally change’ its policies towards settlements and commit to a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict.

Ban told a ministerial level meeting of the Security Council that Palestinians faced ‘unacceptable unilateral actions’ by Israel, such as settlement activity, violence, house demolitions and restriction of movement.

‘Action on the ground, together with a genuine readiness to negotiate on all core issues, including Jerusalem, borders and refugees, based on Israel’s existing commitments, will be the true tests of Israel’s commitment to the two-state solution,’ he said on Monday.

Ban also said Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel must end and that the Palestinian Authority must develop an effective security structure and state institutions.

In a statement issued by the council following the meeting, all 15 members said that ‘vigorous diplomatic action’ was needed to achieve peace and a two-state solution.

It also urged the Quartet of Middle East negotiators – the UN, the US, Russia and the European Union, to continue such efforts…”

Al Jazeera, 11 May, 2009
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/05/200951117413869218.html

Also, from Democracy Now!

“Israel Has Secret Plan to Thwart Division of Jerusalem

The Israeli government and settler organizations are secretly working to surround East Jerusalem with nine national parks, pathways and sites, drastically altering the geography of the city and to strengthen Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it, a move not recognized by the international community. The Guardian newspaper reports, under an eight-year plan, a series of nine national parks, trails and tourist sites based on apparent Jewish historical spots would be established, most under the control of settler groups working together with the Israeli government. The sites would also create a link to Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Both Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital. The Israeli organization Peace Now says the secret plan for East Jerusalem might prevent the ability to reach a two-state solution.

Obama Renews Sanctions Against Syria

In other news from the Middle East, President Obama has renewed economic and diplomatic sanctions against Syria. The sanctions were first put in place by President Bush four years ago…”

Democracy Now!, 11 May, 2009
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/11/headlines#1

See also the following  from The USC Daily Trojan:

Israeli anniversary

“’SC Students for Israel’s event, Israel Palooza, which celebrated Israel’s 61st anniversary of its independence was met with opposition Wednesday afternoon, as demonstrators from Students for Justice in Palestine gathered to protest…”

–Daily Trojan, 30 April, 2009
http://www.dailytrojan.com/news/israeli-anniversary-1.1740243

Also:

http://www.dailytrojan.com/news/boxed-in-1.1720099
http://www.dailytrojan.com/news/pro-palestinian-students-present-demands-to-usc-1.1596893
http://www.dailytrojan.com/news/student-groups-meet-to-discuss-u-s-policy-with-israel-1.1648453

And Finally:

USC students protest for Palestine

“LOS ANGELES–Students held a memorial on March 4 for Palestinians killed in Gaza and elsewhere, and delivered a letter to the president of the University of Southern California (USC), demanding academic freedom for Palestinians, scholarships for 10 Palestinian students and educational supplies to be delivered to universities in Gaza.

Coordinated by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the action included about a dozen students carrying 10 makeshift coffins and Palestinian flags through campus. One student played taps, while another banged a drum. Afterward, students petitioned passersby calling on the administration to agree to the request.

A group of Zionists showed up to counterprotest. One sign depicted a person wearing a kaffiyeh, the traditional Arab headscarf, covering their face and carrying a gun. The text over the image read, ‘There is a reason why terrorists wear masks’…”

–John Osmand, Socialist Worker, 13 March, 2009
http://socialistworker.org/2009/03/13/usc-protest-for-palestine

Daily Trojan Editorial: US Occupation of Iraq Illegal and Immoral

With mounting casualties among civilians and soldiers in Iraq, conservative pundits can be heard across the airwaves insisting that “we have to stay the course.” Aside from the obvious fact that these pundits will not be doing any of the fighting and dying themselves, it is worth noting that another vital factor is left completely out of their consideration: the wishes of the people of Iraq. Contrary to the propaganda emanating out of the Bush and Blair governments, the majority of Iraqis, according to reliable statistics, continue to support an end to the foreign occupation of their country.

As progressive commentator Mike Whitney notes, in spite of a recent upsurge in violence, a survey conducted by the University of Maryland’s Program on international policy attitudes “found that 71 percent of Iraqis want the U.S. troops to leave within a year.’ The poll also found that nearly four out of five Iraqis believe that the U.S. military is ‘provoking more conflict than it is preventing.’”

Even a recent Department of State report confirms these facts, conceding, “Majorities in all regions except Kurdish areas state that the Multi-National Force-Iraq should withdraw immediately, adding that the (Force’s) departure would make them feel safer and decrease violence.” In Baghdad, the site of rampant violence in the last several months, three-quarters of residents say that an end to the occupation would make them feel safer, while 65 percent favor an immediate withdrawal.

The attitudes of ordinary Iraqis are hardly the product of ingratitude toward their “liberators,” as some rightist commentators would surely have us believe. Instead they illustrate that the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq have not brought its people freedom and democracy, but rather massive bombardment, killing, torture, humiliation and a dire humanitarian crisis.

Popular opinion on the “home front” is itself increasingly unfriendly to the Bush administration’s militarist agenda. Support for the war continues to decrease in the United States in spite of massive propaganda campaigns and biased coverage in the corporate media, with only 20 percent of Americans saying in a recent poll that they are “still confident that U.S. policies in Iraq will be successful.” (continued)

Daily Trojan Article on the myth of a “new anti-Semitism”

Apologists for Israel have often tarred the state’s critics with the charge of “anti-Semitism.” A recent letter to the Daily Trojan, for example, accused Students for Justice in Palestine, an organization with which I am affiliated, of employing “anti-Semitic rhetoric” in our carefully documented analysis and condemnation of Israeli actions in Lebanon.

Related to these charges is the frequently recycled notion that there is a “new anti-Semitism” afoot in the Western world. In spite of the fact that such claims have largely been the product of distortions and outright fabrications, they have, in recent years, been repackaged and revived.

This revival, as dissident political scientist Norman Finkelstein observes in his landmark text “Beyond Chutzpah,” has in large part been an effort by Israel’s apologists to deflect mounting international pressure on the state to comply with international law and end its occupation of Palestine. (continued. . .)

Israel’s crimes in Lebanon, Gaza

Despite the truce between Israel and Hezbollah that came into effect on Aug. 14, the consequences of Israeli crimes in Lebanon continue to be felt.

U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland recently said that there are as many as 100,000 unexploded remnants of cluster bombs scattered throughout 359 separate sites in the country.

Egeland referred to the use of the munitions as “completely immoral,” especially given that 90 percent of them were dropped “in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a (ceasefire) resolution.” A UNICEF spokesperson said that 12 people have been killed by unexploded “bomblets” since the ceasefire, and experts predict it could take 10 years to clear Lebanon of all of these weapons…..

“Israeli actions in Lebanon clearly constitute crimes of war”

Recent Daily Trojan pieces have been so riddled with errors and distortions of fact that Students for Justice in Palestine at USC finds it necessary to refute their claims, which represent widespread misconceptions about current events in the Middle East.

Hezbollah is not a “terrorist organization that infiltrated throughout Lebanon beginning in 1982″ (“Don’t Fall for Hezbollah’s PR campaign,” Aug. 24), nor is it a “faction of terrorists bringing utter devastation” on Lebanon, as a more balanced piece published Monday insists (“U.S. media reports lost in the fog of war,” Aug. 28). Rather, it is a guerilla force that has been linked by commentators to certain terrorist actions in the past – these links remain a matter of debate – but has chiefly concentrated on resistance against legitimate military targets.

Hezbollah arose largely as a popular expression of resistance to the Israeli aggression against Lebanon in 1982, which resulted in thousands of Lebanese civilian casualties, with estimates as high as 20,000 deaths; these include the massacres at the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, carried out by Israeli proxies with Israeli complicity….