Vol 12, No.05 May 2012

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ARTICLES

OPENING THE OTHER EYE:CHARLES TAYLOR AND SELECTIVE

ACCOUNTABILITYBy Richard Falk

.WHY ARE PALESTINIANS PAYING FOR

GERMANY’S SINS?BY SUSAN ABULHAWA ..............................................P 8

.DIVIDE BETWEEN TECH-SAVVY COUNTRIES

WIDENS

BY PAUL TAYLOR ....................................................P 10.ANDERS BEHRING BREIVIK, ISLAM, AND ISRAEL

BY BRIT DEE ........................................................P 6

.WESTERN OIL FIRMS REMAIN AS US EXITS IRAQ

BY DAHR JAMAIL ..................................................P 4

.GOD OR GREED? A MUSLIM VIEW

BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR .........................................P 10

From all that we know, CharlesTaylor deserves to be held

criminally accountable for his role inthe atrocities committed in SierraLeone during the period 1998-2002.Taylor was then president of Liberia,and did his best to encourage violentuprisings against the governments inneighbouring countries so as tofinance his own bloody schemes andextend his regional influence. It wasin Sierra Leone that “blood diamonds”,later more judiciously called “conflictdiamonds” were to be found in suchabundance as to enter into the lucrativeworld trade, with many of thesediamonds reportedly finding their wayeventually onto the shelves of suchsignature jewelry stores as Cartier,Bulgari and Harry Winston, andthereby circumventing some ratherweak international initiatives designedto protect what was then consideredthe legitimate diamond trade.

It is fine that Charles Taylor wasconvicted of 11 counts of aiding and

abetting war crimes and crimes againsthumanity of the rebel militia thatcommitted atrocities of an unspeakablenature, and that he will be sentenced inearly May. And it may further impressliberal commentators that fair legalprocedures and diligent judicialoversight led to Taylor’s acquittal withrespect to the more serious charges of“command responsibility” or “jointcriminal enterprise”. Surely, thecircumstantial evidence sufficientlyimplicated Taylor in a knowingmicromanagement of the crimes that itwould have seemed reasonable to holdhim criminally responsible for the actsperformed, and not just for aiding andabetting in their commission. I sharethe view that it is desirable to lean overbackwards to establish a reputation offairness in dealing with accusationsunder international criminal law. It isbetter not to convict defendantsinvolving crimes of state when strongevidence is absent to uphold specificcharges beyond any reasonable doubt.In this respect, the Taylor conviction

seems restrained, professional and notvindictive or politically motivated.

But as Christine Cheng has shown ina perceptive article published online onAl Jazeera, there are some elementsof this conviction that feed thesuspicion that the West is up to its oldhypocritical tricks of seizing the moralhigh ground while pursuing its ownexploitative economic and geopoliticalgoals that obstruct the politicalindependence and sovereignty ofcountries that were once theircolonies. As Cheng points out, thefinancing of the Special Court for

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continued from page 1Sierra Leone was almost totally handledby the United States, United Kingdom,the Netherlands and Canada. Inaddition, there were pragmatic reasonsto make sure that Taylor was neverallowed to return to Liberia, where heretains a strong following. It wasfeared that if Taylor were back inLiberia he would likely again fomenttrouble in the Liberian sub-region, andthis would make it impossible to restorestability, and begin “legitimate” miningoperations, which is what the Westapparently wanted to have happen inSierra Leone.

A double standard on criminalityWhat is dramatically ironic about thewhole picture is that the United Statesis the number one advocate ofinternational criminal justice for others.President Obama has even taken theunprecedented step, on April 23, 2012,of establishing an Atrocity PreventionBoard under the authority of theNational Security Council, and headedby Samantha Power - a prominenthuman rights activist that has beenserving in his administration. In hisspeech of April 23 at the US HolocaustMemorial Museum, announcing theformation of the board, Obama said thatatrocity prevention and response wasa “core national interest of and coremoral responsibility” of the UnitedStates. It is hard to fault such aninitiative in light of the faltering US (andUN) response to recent allegations ofmass atrocities in Syria and Sudan, andagainst the background of refusing tobe more pro-active back in 1994, as agrotesque and preventable genocideunfolded in Rwanda. At the same time,there is an impression, the essence ofthe liberal mentality, of Uncle Samsurveying the world with a blinkeredvision, seeing all that is horrible whileoverlooking his own deeds and thoseof such friends as Israel or Bahrain.

Heeding the sound of one handclapping, it might be well to rememberthat the United States - more than any

country in the world - holds itself self-righteously aloof from accountabilityon the main ground that anyinternational judicial process might betainted by politicised motivations.Congress has even threatened that itwould use military force to rescue anyUS citizens that were somehow calledto account by the International CriminalCourt in The Hague, and has signedagreements with more than 100governments pledging them not tohand over US citizens to the ICC. Andyet it is international criminal lawyersand human rights NGOs from the USthat have been most loudly applaudingthe outcome in the Taylor case, withouteven a whimper of acknowledgementthat there may be some issues relatingto double standards. If internationalcriminal adjudication is so benevolentwhen prominent Africans areconvicted, why does the same not holdfor US officials? Given the structureof influence in the world, there existsmore reason for Africans to besuspicious of such procedures than forAmericans who fund such efforts, andwho are so influential behind thescenes.

If aiding and abetting is what theevidence demonstrates, then shouldthere not be at least discussion ofwhether international diamondmerchants and jewelry retailers makinghuge profits by selling these tainteddiamonds should be investigated, oreven prosecuted? There was avoluntary, self-regulating certificationprocedure established -the Kimberly

Process (2001) - named after the cityin South Africa where the meeting ofconcerned governments, corporateleaders and civil society representativestook place. This joint initiative wasespecially pushed by large diamondsellers, such as the notorious De Beerscartel of South Africa, that weredistressed by the downward effect onworld prices by the availability of blooddiamonds.

A British NGO, Global Witness, reportsthat almost none of the prominentdiamond retailers took any notice ofthis cooperative effort to restrict theflow of blood diamonds, and seeminglypurchased diamonds at the lowest pricewithout enquiring too much as to theirorigins, or complying with thecertification requirement established bythe Kimberly Process. The latterprocess was partly developed to avoida civil society backlash protesting thisindirect support of atrocities, as wellas to protect the market shares andcontrol of the established internationalcompanies that had long dominated thelucrative trade in diamonds. But isn’trevealing that Western corporations areasked to act in a morally responsiblemanner by way of a voluntaryundertaking, while political leaders ofsovereign states in Africa are subjectto the draconian rigour of internationalcriminal law?

Overlooking atrocitiesThese issues are absent from theWestern public discourse. Take theself-satisfied editorial appearing in theFinancial Times (April 27, 2012). Itstarts with words affirming the largermeaning of Taylor’s conviction: “Astrong message was sent to tyrants andwarlords around the world yesterday.International law may be slow, but eventhose in the higher ranks of power canbe held to account for atrocitiescommitted against the innocent.” Andthe editorial ends even moretriumphantly, and without noticing theelephant standing in the middle of the

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room, that leaders “... in states weakand strong - now know that there canbe no impunity for national leaderswhen it comes to human rights.” Suchlanguage needs to be decoded toconvey its real message as follows:“National leaders of non-Westerncountries should realise that if theiroperations henceforth stand interferewith geopolitical priorities, they mightwell be held criminally responsible.”

There are several observations thatfollow:

If non-Western leaders are supportiveof Western interests, their atrocitieswill be overlooked, but if there is adirect confrontation, then the liberalestablishment will be encouraged tostart “war crimes talk” - thusMilosevic, Saddam Hussein andGaddafi (killed before proceedingscould be initiated) were charged withcrimes, while the crimes of thosegoverning Bahrain, Saudi Arabia andIsrael are ignored.

The great majority of cases dealingwith international crimes have been, upto this point, associated with eventsand alleged criminality in sub-SaharanAfrica, confirming the extent to whichthis region has been devastated bybitter conflicts, many of which areattributable to the remnants ofcolonialism (divide and rule; the slavetrade; formation of arbitraryboundaries separating tribal and ethniccommunities; apartheid; the continuingquest for valuable mineral resourcesby international business interests etc).

The Western mind is trained not tonotice, much less acknowledge, eitherthe historical responsibility of thecolonial powers or the unwillingnessof the West to submit to the sameaccountability procedures that arebeing relied upon to impose criminalresponsibility on those who areperceived to be blocking Westerneconomic and political interests.

The United States is particularlyvulnerable from these perspectives.When we hear the names ofGuantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, theimmediate association is with US warcrimes. When US leaders openlyendorse reliance on interrogationtechniques that are generallycondemned as “torture”, we should becommenting harshly on the wide

chasm separating “law” from itsconsistent implementation. When asoldier, such as Bradley Manning, isreported to have exposed the atrocitiesof the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, heis held in humiliating prisoncircumstances and prosecuted forbreaching secrecy, with suggestionsthat his intent was “treasonous”, thatis, intended to help enemies. At least,if there was a measure of good faith inWashington, it should have beenpossible to move forward on parallelpaths: hold Manning nominallyresponsible for releasing classifiedmaterials, mitigated by his motives andabsence of private gain, but vigorouslyrepudiate and investigate the horriblecrimes being committed againstcivilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, aswell as the battlefield practices andtraining programs that give rise to suchatrocities.

Hypocritical punishersThe Western powers have gonesignificantly further in sculptinginternational law to their liking. Theyhave excluded “aggressive war” fromthe list of international crimes containedin the Rome Treaty which governs thescope of ICC jurisdiction. When thedefendants were the losers in World

War II, aggressive war was treated atNuremberg (and Tokyo) as thesupreme war crime - as it was declaredto encompass the others: war crimesand crimes against humanity. The UNCharter was drafted to reflect thisoutlook, by unconditionally prohibitingany recourse to force by a state exceptin self-defence - narrowly defined as aresponse to a prior armed attack. Butin the decades that followed, each ofthe countries that sat in judgement atNuremberg engaged in aggressive warand made non-defensive uses of force- and so the concept became toocontested by practice to be any longercodified as law. This reversal andregression exemplifies the Janus faceof geopolitics when it comes tocriminal accountability: when theapplication of international criminal lawserves the cause of the powerful, it willbe invoked, extended, celebrated, eveninstitutionalised, but only so long as itis not turned against the powerful. Oneface of Janus is that of internationaljustice and the rule of law, the other isone of a martial look that glorifies therule of power on behalf of the wargods.

Where does this line of reasoning end?Should we be hypocrites and punishthose whose crimes offend thegeopolitical gatekeepers? Or should weinsist that law, to be law, must beapplied consistently? At least thesequestions should be asked, inviting aspirit of humility to emerge, especiallyamong liberals in the West.

1 May, 2012

Richard Falk is Albert G MilbankProfessor Emeritus of International Lawat Princeton University and VisitingDistinguished Professor in Global andInternational Studies at the University ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara. He is currentlyserving his third year of a six-year termas a United Nations Special Rapporteuron Palestinian human rights. Falk is alsoa member of JUST’s InternationalAdvisory Panel (IAP)

Source: Al- Jazeera

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WESTERN OIL FIRMS REMAIN AS US EXITS IRAQBy Dahr Jamail

While the US military has formallyended its occupation of Iraq, some ofthe largest western oil companies,ExxonMobil, BP and Shell, remain.

On November 27, 38 months afterRoyal Dutch Shell announced itspursuit of a massive gas deal insouthern Iraq, the oil giant had itscontract signed for a $17bn flared gasdeal.

Three days later, the US-based energyfirm Emerson submitted a bid for acontract to operate at Iraq’s giantZubair oil field, which reportedly holdssome eight million barrels of oil.

Earlier this year, Emerson was awardeda contract to provide crude oil meteringsystems and other technology for anew oil terminal in Basra, currentlyunder construction in the Persian Gulf,and the company is installing controlsystems in the power stations in Hillaand Kerbala.

Iraq’s supergiant Rumaila oil field isalready being developed by BP, and theother supergiant reserve, Majnoon oilfield, is being developed by Royal DutchShell. Both fields are in southern Iraq.

According to the US EnergyInformation Administration (EIA),Iraq’s oil reserves of 112 billion barrelsranks second in the world, only behindSaudi Arabia. The EIA also estimatesthat up to 90 per cent of the countryremains unexplored, due to decades ofUS-led wars and economic sanctions.

“Prior to the 2003 invasion andoccupation of Iraq, US and otherwestern oil companies were all butcompletely shut out of Iraq’s oilmarket,” oil industry analyst AntoniaJuhasz told Al Jazeera. “But thanks tothe invasion and occupation, thecompanies are now back inside Iraqand producing oil there for the first time

since being forced out of the countryin 1973.”

Juhasz, author of the books TheTyranny of Oil and The Bush Agenda,said that while US and other westernoil companies have not yet receivedall they had hoped the US-led invasionof Iraq would bring them, “They’vecertainly done quite well forthemselves, landing productioncontracts for some of the world’slargest remaining oil fields under someof the world’s most lucrative terms.”

Dr Abdulhay Yahya Zalloum, aninternational oil consultant andeconomist who has spent nearly 50years in the oil business in the US,Europe, Asia and the Middle East,agrees that western oil companies have“obtained concessions in Iraq’s major[oil] fields”, despite “there being a lackof transparency and clarity of visionregarding the legal issues”.

Dr Zalloum added that he believeswestern oil companies havesuccessfully acquired the lions’ shareof Iraq’s oil, “but they gave a little pieceof the cake for China and some of theother countries and companies to keepthem silent”.

In a speech at Fort Bragg in the wakeof the US military withdrawal, USPresident Barack Obama said the USwas leaving behind “a sovereign, stableand self-reliant Iraq, with arepresentative government that waselected by its people”.

Of this prospect, Dr Zalloum wasblunt.

“The last thing the US cares about inthe Middle East is democracy. It isabout oil, full stop.”

A strong partnership?

A White House press release datedNovember 30 titled, “Joint Statementby the United States of America andthe Republic of Iraq HigherCoordinating Committee”, said thisabout “energy co-operation” betweenthe two countries:

“The United States is committed tosupporting the Republic of Iraq in itsefforts to develop the energy sector.Together, we are exploring ways tohelp boost Iraq’s oil production,including through better protection forcritical infrastructure.”

Iraq is one of the largest oil exportersto the US, and has plans to raise itsoverall crude oil exports to 3.3m barrelsper day (bpd) next year, compared withtheir target of 3m bpd this year,according to Assim Jihad, spokesmanfor Iraq’s ministry of oil.

Jihad told Al Jazeera that Iraq has agoal of raising its oil productioncapacity to 12m bpd by 2017, whichwould place it in the top echelon ofglobal producers.

According to Jihad, Iraq’s 2013production goal is 4.5m bpd, and in2014 it is 5m bpd. The 2017 goal isambitious, given that Iraq did not meetits 2011 goal, and many officials say 8mbpd capacity is more realistic for 2017.

Unexplored regions of Iraq could yieldan additional 100bn barrels, and Iraq’sproduction costs are among the lowestin the world.

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To date, only about 2,000 wells havebeen drilled in Iraq, compared withroughly one million wells in Texasalone.

Globally, current oil usage isapproximately 88m bpd. By 2030,global petroleum demand will grow by27m bpd, and many energy experts seeIraq as being a key player in meetingthis demand.

It is widely understood that Iraq willrequire at least $200bn in physical andhuman investments to bring itsproduction capacity up to 12m bpd,from its current production levels.

Juhasz explained that ExxonMobil, BPand Shell were among the oil companiesthat “played the most aggressive rolesin lobbying their governments toensure that the invasion would resultin an Iraq open to foreign oilcompanies”.

“They succeeded,” she added. “Theyare all back in. BP and CNPC [ChinaNational Petroleum Corporation]finalised the first new oil contractissued by Baghdad for the largest oilfield in the country, the 17 billion barrelsuper giant Rumaila field. ExxonMobil,with junior partner Royal Dutch Shell,won a bidding war against Russia’sLukoil (and junior partnerConocoPhillips) for the 8.7 billionbarrel West Qurna Phase 1 project.Italy’s Eni SpA, with California’sOccidental Petroleum and the KoreaGas Corp, was awarded Iraq’s Zubairoil field with estimated reserves of 4.4billion barrels. Shell was the lead

partner with Malaysia’s PetroliamNasional Bhd., or Petronas, winning acontract for the super-giant Majnoonfield, one of the largest in the world,with estimated reserves of up to 25billion.”

Zalloum says there is a two-foldinterest for the western oil companies.

“There is development of the existingfields, but also for the explored butnot-yet-produced fields,” he said. “Forthe old fields, there are two types ofdevelopment. One is to renovate theinfrastructure, since for most of thepast 25 years it has depreciated due tothe sanctions and turmoil. Also, someof these fields have different stratum,so once they use innovativetechniques like horizontal drilling, thereis a huge potential in the fields theyhave explored.”

But there are complicating factors. Asa spasm of violence wracked Baghdadin the wake of the US militarywithdrawal and political rifts widen,Iraq’s instability is evident.

“Iraq has lots of cheap-to-get oil, butit also has a multitude of problems -political, ethnic, tribal, religious etc -that have prevented them fromexploiting it as well or as quickly asthe Saudis,” says Tom Whipple, anenergy scholar who was a CIA analystfor 30 years. “Someday it may turnout that Iraq has more oil undergroundthan Saudi Arabia. The big question ishow stable it will be after the USleaves? So far it is not looking all thatgood.”

Jihad, Iraq’s ministry of oilspokesman, however, said attacksagainst Iraq’s oil pipelines have minimaleffect on production capabilities, andclaimed “sabotage will not affect ouroil production and exports because wecan fix these damages within days, oreven hours”.

Whipple, a fellow at the Post-CarbonInstitute, says Baghdad had driven a

hard bargain with western oilcompanies.

“The only reason they are participatingis because everybody else is and theyhope to get a foot in the door in casesome new government in Iraq changesits policies to let other outsiders makemore money. Remember it is not all thetraditional western oil companies thatare in there; the Chinese, Russians andSingapore all want a piece of the action.”

Wrong idea?

Spokesman Jihad told Al Jazeera thatthe reason many Iraqis think westernoil companies are operating in Iraq issimply to steal Iraq’s oil.

“These ideas were obtained during theregime of deposed dictator SaddamHussein, and these are the wrongideas,” he said. “The future will helpIraqis understand these companies havecome to work here to help Iraq sell itsoil to help the people, and they work toserve the country.”

Jihad admitted that his media officeworks “to help Iraqis understand thenature of the work of these companiesand their investing in Iraq”.

Despite the efforts of Jihad’s office toprove otherwise, Iraqis Al Jazeera spokewith disagree.

“Only a naïve child could believe theAmericans came here for somethingbesides our oil,” Ahmed Ali, anunemployed engineer, told Al Jazeera.“Nor can we believe their being herehas anything to do with helping the Iraqipeople.”

Basim al-Khalili, a restaurant owner inBaghdad’s Karada district, agrees.

“If Iraq had no oil, would America havesacrificed thousands of its soldiers andhundreds of billions of dollars to comehere?”

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Oil analyst Juhasz also agrees.

“The US and other western oilcompanies and their governments hadbeen lobbying for passage of a newnational law in Iraq, the Iraq Oil Law,which would move Iraq from anationalised to a largely privatised oilmarket using Production SharingAgreements (PSAs), a type of contractmodel used in just approximately 12per cent of the world’s oil market.”

She explained that this agreement hasbeen summarily rejected by mostcountries, including all of Iraq’sneighbours, “because it provides farmore benefits to the foreign corporationthan to the domestic government”.

But it has not been an easy road forthe western oil companies in Iraq.

“Major western companies, such asChevron and ConocoPhillips, that hadhoped to sign contracts were unableto do so. A third round [of contracts]took place in December 2010 and sawno major western oil companies(except Shell) win contracts. I believethat there was an Iraqi backlash againstthe awarding of contracts to the large

western major oil companies. Thus, inDecember 2010, fields went to Russianoil companies Lukoil and Gazprom,Norway’s Statoil, and the Angolancompany Sonangol, among others.”

Unlike under Iraq’s Oil Law, thesecontracts do not need to go throughparliament, according to the centralgovernment. This means the contractsare being signed without public discourse.

“The public is against privatisation,which is one reason why the law hasnot passed,” added Juhasz. “Thecontracts are enacting a form ofprivatisation without public discourseand essentially at the butt of a gun -these contracts have all been awardedduring a foreign military occupation withthe largest contracts going to companiesfrom the foreign occupiers’ countries.It seems that democracy and equity arethe two largest losers in this oil battle.”

Iraq’s oil future

Under the current circumstances, thepossibility of a withdrawal of westernoil companies from Iraq appears remote,and the Obama administration continuesto pressure Baghdad to pass the IraqOil Law.

Nevertheless, resistance to the westernpresence continues.

“The bottom line is that it seems clearthat the majority of Iraqis want theiroil and its operations to remain in Iraqihands,” said Juhasz. “Thus far, it hasrequired a massive foreign militaryinvasion and occupation to grant theforeign oil companies the access theyhave thus far garnered.”

While Iraq’s security remains asvolatile as ever, as does the politicallandscape - which can changedramatically at any moment - there isone thing we can always count on asbeing at the heart of these conflicts,and that is Iraq’s oil.

8 January, 2012

Dahr Jamail is an American journalistwho is best known as one of the fewunembedded journalists to reportextensively from Iraq during the 2003 Iraqinvasion. He spent eight months in Iraq,between 2003 to 2005, and presented hisstories on Dahr Jamail’s MidEastDispatches. Jamail writes for the InterPress Service news agency, among otheroutlets. Jamail is the recipient of the2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize forJournalism

Source: Al- Jazeera

By Brit Dee

ANDERS BEHRING BREIVIK, ISLAM, AND ISRAEL

The trial of Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Behring Breivik hastoday entered its second week, withmany interesting but chilling detailshaving been revealed about thebombing in Oslo and subsequentshootings on the island of Utøya.

Perhaps most interesting of all, Breivikhas provided a clear explanation ofexactly what he hoped to achievethrough his acts of terrorism.Immediately after the attack, somecommentators speculated that thetragedy would be exploited by thepolitical elite, to demonise moderate

nationalists - “patriots” who reject massimmigration and the erosion of nationalculture - and to stifle debates on suchissues.

This, it seems, is exactly what Breivikhoped for.

During the third day of his trial, TheGuardian reported how Breivik insistedthat his goal (in the short to mediumterm) was to make pariahs of Europe’snationalists – the very people withwhom you might expect him to feelkinship. ‘I thought I had to provoke awitchhunt of modern moderately

conservative nationalists,’ he said.Then he claimed that this curiousstrategy had already borne fruit, citingthe example of Norway’s primeminister, Jens Stoltenberg, who he saidhad given a speech since the attackssaying that critics of immigration werewrong. The effect of this ‘witchhunt’,said Breivik, would be to increase‘censorship’ of moderately nationalistviews, which would ‘increasepolarisation’. The effect of this, hesaid, would eventually lead to ‘moreradicalisation as more will lose hopeand lose faith in democracy’.

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continued from page 6Ultimately, he said, these new radicalswould join the war he has started toprotect the ‘indigenous people’ ofNorway and western Europe.

Whilst Jens Stoltenberg’s speech maygive the impression that Breivik’sstrategy is indeed going to plan, otherevidence suggests that nationalistparties and policies have not sufferedat all in the wake of the Norwegianterror attacks. Last week GeertWilder’s fervently anti-Islam FreedomParty, the third largest party in theNetherlands, brought down the Dutchcoalition government after withdrawingits support for EU-imposed budgetcuts. In France, Marine Le Pen’sequally strongly anti-Islam NationalFront won a record 18 percent of thevote in the first round of presidentialelections. Le Pen claims to be fightingthe “Islamisation” of France, a positionfor which there is evidentlyconsiderable support, particularly inthe aftermath of Mohamed Merah’s “AlQaeda” shootings in Toulouse lastmonth (the fact that Merah was likely anasset being handled by the Frenchauthorities of course being rarelymentioned).

Indeed, the far-right appears to be inthe ascendancy, and even courted bythe mainstream. French PresidentNicolas Sarkozy, knowing that he willhave to attract National Front votes ifhe stands any chance of re-election,said after the first round that NF voters“must be respected”, as their voteswere “a vote of suffering, a crisisvote”. Comments bluntly critical ofIslam, previously the preserve of thefar-right, have also been made byleading mainstream politicians in otherEuropean countries. Last week theleader of Angela Merkel’s ChristianDemocrats in parliament, VolkerKauder, described Islam as “not partof our tradition and identity inGermany and so does not belong inGermany”, though he was careful toadd “But Muslims do belong in

Germany. As state citizens, of course,they enjoy their full rights.”

Whilst Breivik’s purported plan to sparka demonisation of nationalists does notappear to be working, or even

necessary, his attacks are certainlyfeeding into the general tensioncurrently building between those ofdifferent political parties and faiths;society is indeed becoming polarised.

This may be the natural result of a failedexperiment in multiculturalism, theeffects of deliberate conspiraciesechoing those such as OperationGladio, or the “strategy of tension”, ora combination of the two.

No matter who or what is behind thecurrent ratcheting up of tension, apolitical, religious and racial tensioninextricably linked to the collapsingeconomies and deteriorating livingstandards of Europe, the ultimatebeneficiaries are clear - the shadowycriminal elite who profit from such“systemic destabilisation” and whoPeter Dale Scott characterises as the“overworld”.

It must be pointed out that Zionistsupporters of Israel are one of thebeneficiaries of the tensions currentlybeing played out in Europe. Indeed, thenew-found alliance between staunchlypro-Israeli Zionists and ultranationalanti-Islamists, is one of the mostintriguing aspects of today’s politicalscene.

The extreme right has traditionally beenseen, often with good cause, as anti-Semitic - and yet now we see many

examples of the anti-Islamic far-rightopenly embracing Zionism andZionists. Anders Breivik was himselfan avowed Zionist, his 1515-pagemanifesto containing multiplereferences to his firm belief that Israelis an ally which must be stronglydefended by nationalists at all costs.Breivik was also of course an avidfollower of such anti-Islamic, pro-Zionist writers as the American bloggerPamela Geller.

The Dutch politician Geert Wilders,mentioned earlier, is also a staunchsupporter of Israel, having reportedlylived in the country for two yearsduring his youth, and visited 40 timesin the last 25 years. His Freedom Partyallegedly receives financing fromsupporters of Israel in the US. TheEnglish Defence League, to whomsome have linked Breivik, openly statetheir support of Israel, sometimesappearing at demonstrations wavingthe Star of David flag. The EDL has aJewish Division, run by the ZionistRoberta Moore, who recently expressedher support for Breivik’s murders andclaimed that his teenage victims were“not innocent”. In France, Le Pen’sNational Front has also reportedly wonsupport recently, from a previouslyhostile Jewish community.

We are obviously living in dangeroustimes and, with the economycollapsing, widespread social tensionincreasing, peculiar alliances forming,and Muslims seemingly beingscapegoated in a role previouslyallocated to Jews, drawing parallelsbetween today’s political climate andthat of the 1930s, is unfortunatelyunavoidable.

25 April, 2012

Brit Dee runs Resistance Radio, anindependent online radio station whichbroadcasts news, views and analysis challengingthe lies of our corrupt political and financialleaders, and the controlled corporate media, athttp://www.resistradio.com.

Source: Resistance Radio

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No matter who you are, no matterwhat greatness you’ve achieved inyour life or what gifts you’ve givento the rest of humanity, if you criticizeIsrael, you must expect to becomepersona non grata.

You should expect an utter onslaughtof attacks. Otherwise rational anddecent people will, one by one,genuflect and sign onto the stupidclichés and tiresome accusations thatquestion your character, integrity andeven sanity. You will be called an anti-Semite, or a self-hating Jew if youhappen to be Jewish. The Holocaustwill be invoked. You’ll be remindedof Hitler and Himmler and Goebbelsand perhaps likened to Nazis, or caposif you’re Jewish. You’ll be accusedexplicitly or implicitly of secretlysupporting the genocide of Jews andhaving a deep-seated desire for it.Incredibly, this nonsense does notoccur among the paranoid fringe, butin mainstream culture.

It happened to moral authorities likeNobel laureates Desmond Tutu andJimmy Carter, both of whom werecalled anti-Semites, crazy old foolsand worse, for daring to criticizeIsrael’s criminal policies towardPalestinians — the natives of the HolyLand.It happened to renowned scholars likeJohn Mearsheimer and Steven Waltfor publishing a well-documented andsupported audit of Israel’smanipulation of US foreign policythrough their domestic proxy lobby.

Judge Richard Goldstone waschastised, shunned and punished byhis own community for reporting hisfindings which stated that Israel hadcommitted war crimes and crimesagainst humanity in Gaza. In response,

he then utterly discredited himself asa jurist by retracting his well-reasonedlegal conclusions based on irrefutableevidence, which was nonethelessupheld by all his colleagues and bythe international legal community.

Among many abuses, they called hima “capo” and a “self-hating Jew” andhe was told he would not be welcomeat his grandson’s bar mitzvah. Those

labels too have been hurled atintellectuals like Norman Finkelsteinand Noam Chomsky — the latteractually banned by Israel fromentering the West Bank to speak atBirzeit University. The list is too longfor one article, but it stretches the fullbreadth of international thinkers,artists, intellectuals, clergy, moralauthorities and political figures. Noone is immune from this insanity.

Günter Grass and obvious truths

But the world still has brave peoplewho are willing to take significant risksfor the rest of humanity. PulitzerPrize-winning author Alice Walker,renowned crime fiction writerHenning Mankel, 84-year-oldHolocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, andmany like them risked their lives tobreak the siege of Gaza when theyboarded the Freedom Flotilla, joiningan unarmed group of people carryinghumanitarian aid who were attacked,

and, in some cases, killed by Israeliforces.

Others, like Nobel laureate MaireadMaguire, likewise have risked theabuse and attacks that come withspeaking up for the rights ofPalestinians against Israel’sunchecked aggression.The latest case in point is GünterGrass, the German Nobel laureatewho dared to suggest glaringlyobvious truths: that Israel has a robustnuclear program and its hintedintention to attack Iran is a threat toworld stability.

Of course, the so-called “onlydemocracy in the Middle East” isbanning him from ever entering theHoly Land, which happens to be myhomeland. I’m barred from livingthere, too, but for different reasons.By the laws of the State of Israel, Iam not the right kind of human beingto inherit my family’s property andlive where all my ancestors havedwelled for millennia. But I digress.

Germany sits on sidelines

Günter Grass has entered forbiddenintellectual and political territory, andthe criticism against him has beenintense. The other side of Germany’ssilence when it comes to Israel is loudand sure chastising of Israel’s critics.Every article here in the mainstreamUS press mentions Germany’s“understandable” reluctance tocriticize Israel, as if it’s a foregoneand logical conclusion that it’sperfectly fine for Germany to sit onthe sidelines — eyes, ears and lipssealed — sending aid and weaponsto a country that has placed itselfabove the law, a country with one of

By Susan AbulhawaWHY ARE PALESTINIANS PAYING FOR GERMANY’S SINS?

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continued from page 8the worst human rights records in theworld, and one that is engaged insystematic ethnic cleansing of thenative population of the land itoccupies.

As a member of that nativepopulation, I do not accept that it is“understandable” for Germany tocontinue unreservedly support Israelno matter what. It is convenient, forsure. Because Germany is not the onepaying for its sins. We, thePalestinians, are.

Everything — home, heritage, life,resources, hope — has been robbedfrom us to atone for Germany’s sins.To this day, we languish in refugeecamps that are not fit for humanbeings so that every Jewish man andwoman can have dual citizenship, onein their own country and one in mine.

We are the ones who find ourselvesat the other end of the weapons thatGermany supplies to Israel. It isPalestine that is being wiped off themap. It is our society that is beingdestroyed. Of course, Germany’ssilence is easy and convenient, but“understandable” it is not.

We remember

Israel is not Judaism. It is a nuclearpower with the most advanced death

machines ever known to man, whichit unleashes frequently against aprincipally unarmed civilian populationthat dares to demand freedom. It is acountry that is currently in violationof hundreds of UN resolutions andnearly every tenet of international law.

It is a country that has beencondemned by every human rightsorganization that has everinvestigated the situation on theground there.

It is a country with multi-tiered legaland social infrastructure thatmeasures the worth of a human beingby his or her religion. It is the regionalbully that has refused acomprehensive peace proposal setforth by all Arab states. It has in thepast attacked Egypt, Lebanon, Syria,Jordan and Iraq, all on the pretext ofpre-emption. And now it wants toattack Iran under the same pretext,citing the tired “existential threat”mantra.

We are reminded of the JewishHolocaust. But there is no needbecause we remember it. We alsoremember the Armenians, the Serbs,and we remember Rwanda. Weremember the holocaust of theextermination of Native Americansand we remember the holocaust ofslavery — 200 years of kidnapping,buying and selling human beings asa commodity. And we rememberDeir Yassin, Sabra and Shatila, Qibyaand the many other atrocities Israelhas committed against Palestinians.

But no matter how great orunspeakable the crimes, victims arenot, and should not be, granted licenseto commit crimes against others withimpunity.None of us can fully predict theramifications of an Israeli attack onIran but we can all imagine theimmensity of loss, blood, upheavaland instability that will reverberatefar beyond the region. All so thatIsrael can maintain uncheckedmilitary dominance in the region.

I can only thank Günter Grass formaking a minimal gesture thatGermany should take measures notto remain complicit in the destructionof Arab or Persian life.

15 April, 2012

Susan Abulhawa is the author of theinternational bestselling novelMornings in Jenin.

Source: The Electronic Intifada

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A new digital divide is opening upbetween countries that make effectiveuse of information andcommunications technology, and thosethat do not, argue the authors of a newreport published Wednesday by Inseadand the World Economic Forum.

“Despite efforts over the past decadeto develop ICT infrastructure indeveloping economies, a new digitaldivide in terms of ICT impactspersists,” say the authors of the 11thannual Global Information TechnologyReport: Living in a HyperconnectedWorld, published by the Forum.

The report compares the availability anduse of technology in 142 countries andfocuses this year on what the authorsdescribe as “the transformationalimpacts of ICT on the economy andsociety”.

Sweden and then Singapore top theNetworked Readiness Index ranking inthe report which says that four Nordiccountries are the most successful inleveraging ICT in their competitivenessstrategies.

Among other countries in the top 10,the US ranks number eight and the UKnumber 10. However, ProfessorSoumitra Dutta, co-author of thereport, said the US ranking in particularreflected a cautionary note. He warned

that businesses in the US areincreasingly concerned about theeconomic effectiveness ofgovernment, and that “weaknesses inthe political and regulatory environmentare beginning to hinder its overallperformance”.

The report’s main conclusion,however, is that developing countries,including the BRIC nations (Brazil,Russia, India and China, which ranksnumber 51), lag far behind the moreadvanced economies of northernEurope and North America.

Despite improvements in many driversof competitiveness, the Brics still faceimportant challenges to more fullyadopt and leverage ICT. An insufficientskills base and institutional weaknesses,especially in the business environment,present a number of shortcomings thatstifle entrepreneurship and innovation.Nevertheless, China has pulled aheadof India (69th) in the rankings in recentyears and is outperforming many

countries in southern Europe and mostin Latin America including Brazil(65th).The bottom of the list is dominated bycountries in sub-Saharan Africa,reflecting what the report describes as“significant lags in connectivity due toinsufficient development of ICTinfrastructure, which remains toocostly, and … poor skill levels that donot allow for an efficient use of theavailable technology”.

But even in those countries where ICTinfrastructure has been improved, ICT-driven impacts on competitiveness andwellbeing trail behind, resulting in anew digital divide, the report suggests.“Although many would consider thatthe phrase ‘digital divide’ is passé,GITR data show that it remains astubborn reality; in spite of thespectacular global spread of mobiletelephony, poor countries, especiallyin Africa, still suffer from lack ofinfrastructure and connectivity,” saidBruno Lanin, executive director ofInsead’s eLab.

5 April 2012

Paul Taylor is the FinancialTimes’ New York-based Business Technology and TelecomsEditor. He is responsible for The ConnectedBusiness section of the FT and is a regularwriter for both the newspaper and FT.com.

Source: The Financial Times

By Paul TaylorDIVIDE BETWEEN TECH-SAVVY COUNTRIES WIDENS

GOD OR GREED? A MUSLIM VIEWBy Chandra Muzaffar

Greed is condemned in all religions.Even in secular philosophies, greed isregarded as a vice.

In the Qur’an, the embodiment ofgreed is Qarun (28:76-82; 29: 39) whowas preoccupied with theaccumulation of wealth and riches, andcared little for his fellow human beings

or for God. Greed is a vice in Islambecause a) it is an act of starkselfishness; b) it distorts and pervertsone’s character. It makes one vain andarrogant; c) it makes one overlymaterialistic ; d) it leads to the spreadof corruption in society ; d) it is theantithesis of sharing and giving; and e)it undermines a person’s love for God

and subverts values such as justice,fairness and compassion.

The repudiation of greed does not meanthat one should renounce the life of thisworld. Money is not an evil in itself.Islam allows for the ownership ofproperty. It prescribes rules for

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inheritance. Right through historyMuslim societies have encouragedprivate enterprise and investment andrecognised the legitimacy of reasonableprofits.

But in the life of this world, there arelimits that one should observe. Theconcept and practice of limits is afundamental principle in Islam. Do nottransgress the limits is an oft-repeatedadvice in the Qur’an. It is linked to yetanother principle, the principle ofrestraint. Restraint helps to check andcurb greed. Restraint is the real meaningof the fast in the month of Ramadan.Limits and restraint in turn lead tobalance. For it is only when everyoneexercises restraint that there would besome equilibrium in society. Anequilibrium that guarantees each andevery person his rightful place helpsto establish the framework for justice.

When justice is central to society, greedwill not find a foothold. There are atleast five injunctions and practices inIslam which underscore thesignificance of justice - prohibition ofinterest (riba); the wealth tax (zakat);the division of inheritance (faraid); thebequeathal of personal wealth for thepublic good (waqf); and charity(sedaqah). Underlying these injunctionsand practices is a commitment to theequitable distribution of wealth and thereduction of social disparities.

It is significant that in the past thiscommitment did not in any waydiminish the important role performedby the market in Muslim civilisation.Huge markets flourished in some of thegreat centres of trade of antiquity, fromFez to Melaka. But these were marketsthat were embedded in society, marketsthat by and large abided by the largermoral norms of Islam, including itsprohibition on riba and on debttransaction.

This is why from the perspective ofIslamic values and principles, what

mars and mires the global economyand global finance today would bemorally reprehensible. The everwidening wealth gap between the richand the poor at the global level andwithin nation-states, the maximisationof profits as a credo, thetransformation of money into acommodity for profit and theoverwhelming power of speculativecapital in financial transactions wouldcontradict all that Islam stands for.Most of all, it is the institutionalisationand the legitimisation of greed as neverbefore in human history through acapitalist culture of acquisition,accumulation and conspicuousconsumption that Islam would regardas the ultimate betrayal of God’steachings.

How does one get out of the greed trap?Perhaps one should begin with basics.Money should cease to be acommodity of profit. It should be amedium of exchange, nothing more;nothing less. Its intrinsic value shouldbe determined once again by the goldstandard. This will curb speculationand restore stability to the monetarysystem. It will also eliminate debttransaction. In such a system, therewill be no need for interest or riba.Private commercial banking will yieldeventually to public banks withmechanisms that ensure justice andfairness. The Profit-and-Loss Sharing(Mudharabah) principle - and not themaximisation of profits - will guidethese banks in their lending andinvestment policies.

Of course, reforms in the financialsector will have to be accompanied byfar-reaching changes in the economyas a whole. The public good ratherthan private gain will be the leitmotifof the economy. Land, other naturalresources, the supply of water andenergy, highways, other forms ofinfrastructure, health care andeducation will all be part and parcel ofthe commons. Cooperatives will playa major role in the production,distribution and consumption of goods

and services. Private businessenterprises will be strongly regulatedby ethical principles.

To sustain a transformed economywithin an ethical framework, ourunderlying consciousness should alsoundergo a mammoth change. Justice,fairness, compassion, love, sharing,giving, restraint and balance willbecome central to the life of theindividual and the community. Forthese universal, inclusive values toperpetuate themselves fromgeneration to generation there has tobe a psychological, emotional andintellectual anchor. That anchor hasto be a profound consciousness ofGod. It is God Consciousness that laysout the meaning and purpose of life,that determines the role andresponsibility of the human being asvicegerent on earth, that affirms ourcollective commitment to all that isgood and beautiful in this transientexistence - and therefore repudiatesgreed in all its manifestations.

Islam and Christianity concur on thisfundamental belief: that the humanbeing cannot serve both God andgreed at the same time. If we chooseGod then we should declare war onthose structures and attitudes thatallow greed to breed in contemporarycivilisation. As Muslims and Christianswe should write, speak, organise andmobilise against greed. In thismonumental struggle we should workwith people of other faiths and thosewho may not belong to a particularfaith community. The war againstgreed is putting into action God’seternal message: Believe in God anddo good.

26 September, 2012

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is President ofInternational Movement for a Just World(JUST).

The above is a summary of a presentationgiven at the Muslim-Christian Dialogue onGreed organised by the Lutheran WorldFederation and hosted by the SabahTheological Seminary on 26th of September2011 in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.

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