Little War Criminals Get Punished, Big Ones Don’t

By Paul Craig Roberts

National Public Radio has been spending much news time on Darfur in Western Sudan where a great deal of human suffering and death are occurring. The military conflict has been brought on in part by climate change, according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Drought is forcing nomads in search of water into areas occupied by other claimants. No doubt the conflict is tribal and racial as well. The entire catastrophe is overseen by a government with few resources other than bullets.

Now an International Criminal Court prosecutor wants to bring charges against Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

I have no sympathy for people who make others suffer. Nevertheless, I wonder at the International Criminal Court’s pick from the assortment of war criminals? Why al-Bashir?

Is it because Sudan is a powerless state, and the International Criminal Court hasn’t the courage to name George W. Bush and Tony Blair as war criminals?Bush and Blair’s crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan dwarf, at least in the number of deaths and displaced persons, the terrible situation in Darfur. The highest estimate of Darfur casualties is 400,000, one-third the number of Iraqis who have died as a result of Bush’s invasion. Moreover, the conflict in the Sudan is an internal one, whereas Bush illegally invaded two foreign countries, war crimes under the Nuremberg Standard. Bush’s war crimes were enabled by the political leaders of the UK, Spain, Canada, and Australia. The leaders of every member of the “coalition of the willing to commit war crimes” are candidates for the dock.

But of course the Great Moral West does not commit war crimes. War crimes are charges fobbed off on people demonized by the Western media, such as the Serbian Milosovic and the Sudanese al-Bashir.

Every week the Israeli government evicts Palestinians from their homes, steals their land, and kills Palestinian women and children. These crimes against humanity have been going on for decades. Except for a few Israeli human rights organizations, no one complains about it. Palestinians are defined as “terrorists,” and “terrorists” can be treated inhumanely without complaint.

Iraqis and Afghans suffer the same fate. Iraqis who resist US occupation of their country are “terrorists.” Taliban is a demonized name. Every Afghan killed--even those attending wedding parties--is claimed to be Taliban by the US military. Iraqis and Afghans can be murdered at will by American and NATO troops without anyone raising human rights issues.

The International Criminal Court is a bureaucracy. It has a budget, and it needs to do something to justify its budget. Lacking teeth and courage, it goes after the petty war criminals and leaves the big ones alone.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m for holding all governments accountable for their criminal actions. It is the hypocrisy to which I object. The West gives itself and Israel a pass while damning everyone else. Even human rights groups fall into the trap. Rights activists don’t see the buffoonery in their complaint that President Bush, who has violated more human rights than any person alive, is letting China off the hook for human rights abuses by attending the Olympics hosted by China.

President Bush claims that the enormous destruction and death he has brought to Iraq and Afghanistan are necessary in order for Americans to be safe. If we are accepting excuses this feeble, Milosovic passed muster with his excuse that as the head of state he was obliged to try to preserve the state’s territorial integrity. Is al-Bashir supposed to accept secession in the Sudan, something that Lincoln would not accept from the Confederacy? How long would al-Bashir last if he partitioned Sudan?

Last October the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had a photo on its front page above the fold of an elderly man with mikes shoved in his face. Paul Henss, 85 years old, is being deported from the US, where he has lived for 53 years, because Eli Rosenbaum, director the the US State Department’s Nazi-hunting bureaucracy, declared him a war criminal for training guard dogs used at German concentration camps. Henss was 22 years old when World War II ended.

A kid who trained guard dogs is being deported as a war criminal, but the head of state who launched two wars of naked aggression, resulting in the deaths of more than 1.2 million people, and who has the entire world on edge awaiting his third war of aggression, this time against Iran, is received respectfully by foreign governments. Corporations and trade associations will pay him $100,000 per speech when he leaves office. He will make millions of dollars more from memoirs written by a ghostwriter.

Does no one see the paradox of deporting Henss while leaving the war criminal in the White House?

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Jews are central players in U.K. financing scandals

by dinah spritzer
jta

A campaign financing scandal in which two of the principal players are Jewish is dealing a heavy blow to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s already weakened administration.

The involvement of two Jews at the center of the very public scandal is also making many British Jews uncomfortable, but Jewish community leaders say it has not caused any alarming anti-Jewish media coverage or anti-Semitic fallout.

“You can’t escape from the fact that the main dramatis personae in this saga are Jews,” said Antony Lerman, the executive director of the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research. “Not only are they Jewish, they are committed Jews.”

But Lerman said “the media’s coverage on this issue has been fair.”

As might be expected, those under scrutiny have links with an Israeli advocacy organization — fueling the cadre of anti-Israeli conspiracy theorists.

The crisis began at the end of November, when the British media reported that real estate magnate David Abrahams anonymously donated 670,000 British pounds, or $1.37 million, to Brown’s center-left Labor Party over the past four years.

Anonymous donations above 5,000 pounds, or around $10,000, are illegal in Britain following the enactment of a law in 2000 — spearheaded by the Labor Party — that was intended to make political influence peddling more transparent.

Politicians described Abrahams in the British press as a “hanger-on” who, unable to win elections for higher office, sought influence through his money.

The Abrahams donations, made through four intermediaries, implicated chief Labor Party fundraiser Jon Mendelsohn, 40, who also is the director of the Labor Friends of Israel. The group of 44 legislators supports Israel and Middle East peace.

Mendelsohn and Abrahams reportedly met through the Labor Friends of Israel.

Mendelsohn said he was unaware of the donations until September and admitted he tried to handle the matter quietly, without informing the country’s electoral commission. Abrahams claims Mendelsohn called his intermediary method “a good idea” and knew of his donations as far back as April.

Abrahams, who owns six real estate firms in Newcastle, is being investigated by the police for his role in the affair.

This is not the first political scandal for Abrahams. In 1991 he had to quit his Parliament campaign when the Sunday Sun newspaper reported that he was paying a woman to act as his wife.

The woman who says she was paid to play Abrahams’ wife told the Daily Telegraph that Abrahams has a 7-foot pink statue of Elvis Presley and enormous piles of cash lying around his Newcastle home.

With such titillating details, “Donorgate,” as the donations drama was been dubbed, has received extensive front-page and television coverage in Britain.

Brown is being accused by the opposing Tories and Liberal Democrats of running a party awash in sleaze.

The Labor Party secretary has resigned and numerous others are expected to be ousted, including a number of Parliament members who did not declare the source of their donations.

It is the scale of the scandal that has diffused the Jewish factor, said Rabbi Andrew Goldstein of the Northwood and Pinner Liberal Synagogue in a London suburb.

“The focus is on Brown being incompetent rather than on Jewish plots,” he said. “The press is not focusing on the Jewish connection. I have not seen any anti-Israel or anti-Semitism in the coverage.”

This contrasts with the affair of Lord Levy, the chief fundraiser for Tony Blair, the former prime minister and now a Middle East envoy.

Levy was investigated by the police this year and last over accusations that wealthy supporters provided Labor with secret loans in return for positions in the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament.

“The media never failed to mention Levy was a prominent Jew,” said Jewish Londoner Richard Millet.

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Bush and Blair Comedy (rap)

Watch this video. This is for an entertainment purposes only.

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Blair trying to bribe PA with economic promises

From Khalid Amayreh in occupied Hebron

Left to right: Hussein al Araj (Hebron's governor), Toney Blair, Khalid al Oseili (Hebron's mayor)

Tony Blair, the Quartet envoy to Palestine-Israel, has been holding meetings with Palestinian officials in the West Bank , ostensibly to discuss ways and means to revive the moribund Palestinian economy, decimated by an increasingly Nazi-like Israeli repression. The former British Prime Minister on Wednesday, 10 October, met with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and reportedly discussed with him creating “economic incentives” that would be conducive to creating the right environment for advancing peace between the Palestinians and Israel . In Hebron , Blair met with the Governor of Hebron Hussein al Araj and town’s mayor Khalid al Oseili, both appointed by Abbas. Hebron is considered a Hamas stronghold. The two local officials briefed Blair on the political and economic situation in Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank, where hundreds of extremist Jewish settlers, backed by the Israeli army, routinely attack Arabs and vandalize their property. “We told Mr. Blair that economic revival is very difficult under the current political and security situation,” Oseili told reporters after the meeting. “In order to have normal economic activities, you’ve got to have freedom of movement and a free flow of goods and services. And given the draconian Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement within the West Bank, it is extremely difficult to conduct normal economic activities.” Asked if he sensed or detected any modicum of honesty in the tone of Blair’s words, Oseili evaded the question, saying “I am an optimistic person.” Asked further if he would give Blair the benefit of the doubt, the Hebron mayor said “my job is to lay out the bare facts to whomever is willing to listen.” Earlier, some Hebron businessmen and entrepreneurs accused Blair of seeking “to bribe the Palestinians into giving up the right of return in exchange of economic aide.” “This man is deceitful and duplicitous and can’t be trusted. Besides, he should have understood a long time ago, while he was Britain’s Prime Minister, that the problem in Palestine is this Nazi Jewish occupation which prevents normal economic activities,” said Abu Ahmed Qasrawi. “How can we have normal economic activities in the West Bank when we are not allowed to travel on our own roads, when Israeli military roadblocks, manned by young, trigger-happy, Gestapo-like soldiers kill every semblance of normal life, economic and otherwise.?” In Ramallah, Blair reportedly told Abbas that a prospective political settlement of the conflict with Israel wouldn’t survive and be durable without economic prosperity. According to PA officials, Abbas welcomed Blair’s interest in uplifting living conditions of Palestinians. However, Abbas told him that the basic problem in Palestine was the Israeli occupation which precludes normal economic activities. In Hebron , Blair avoided reporters and refused to answer questions. Most Palestinian journalists and cameramen boycotted Blair’s visit to Hebron after PA crack police verbally assaulted reporters, threatening to smash their cameras. Eventually, a few foreign journalists, including this reporter, managed to enter Hebron City Hall, but were not allowed to ask questions. One Palestinian journalist said he would have asked Blair how he thought future Arab and Muslim generations would view him in light of his key role in engineering the Anglo-American invasion and destruction of Iraq , which has so far caused the death of nearly a million Iraqis. Predictably, Blair is deeply despised in the occupied Palestinian territories as well as through the Arab-Muslim world for his close association with George Bush’s “war on terror,” which is widely viewed by Muslims as a western crusade against their own religion. Blair is also hated for supporting Israel’s genocidal campaigns in Lebanon and Gaza which killed and maimed thousands of civilians and caused widespread damage to civilian infrastructure.

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Uri Avneri: A warning to Tony Blair

LAST WEEK, James Wolfensohn gave a long interview to Haaretz. He poured out his heart and summed up, with amazing openness, his months as special envoy of the US, Russia, the EU and the UN (the "Quartet") in this country - the same job entrusted now to Tony Blair. The interview could have been entitled "A Warning to Tony". 

Among other revelations, he disclosed that he was practically fired by the clique of Neo-cons, whose ideological leader is Paul Wolfowitz. 

What Wolfensohn and Wolfowitz have in common is that both are Jews and have the same name: Son of Wolf, one in the German version and the other in the Russian one. Also, both are past chiefs of the World Bank. 

But that's where the similarity ends. These two sons of the wolf are opposites in almost all respects. Wolfensohn is an attractive person, who radiates personal charm. Wolfowitz arouses almost automatic opposition. This was made clear when they served, successively, at the World Bank: Wolfensohn was very popular, Wolfowitz was hated. The term of the first was renewed, a rare accolade, the second was got rid of at the earliest opportunity, ostensibly because of a corruption affair: he had arranged an astronomical salary for his girl-friend. 

Wolfensohn could be played by Peter Ustinov.  He is a modern Renaissance man: successful businessman, generous philanthropist, former Olympic sportsman (fencing) and Air Force officer (Australia). In middle age he took up the cello (under the influence of Jacqueline du Pre). The role of Wolfowitz demands no more finesse than that of the average gunman in a western. 

But beyond personal traits, there is a profound ideological chasm between them. To me, they personify the two opposite extremes of contemporary Jewish reality. Wolfensohn belongs to the humanist, universal, optimistic, world-embracing trend in Judaism, a man of peace and compromise, an heir to the wisdom of generations. Wolfowitz, at the other end, belongs to the fanatical Judaism that has grown up in the State of Israel and the communities connected with it, a man of overbearing arrogance, hatred and intoxication of power. He is a radical nationalist, even if it is not quite clear whether it is American or Israeli nationalism, or if he even distinguishes between the two. 

Wolfowitz is a standard-bearer of the neo-cons, most of them Jews, who pushed the US into the Iraqi morass, promote wars all over the Middle East, advise the Israeli Prime Minister not to give up anything and are ready to fight to the last Israeli soldier. 

To avoid misunderstanding: I don't know either of the two personally. I have never seen Wolfowitz in person, and heard Wolfensohn only once, at a Jerusalem meeting of the Israeli Council for Foreign Relations. I admit that I liked him on sight.

WOLFENSOHN ARRIVED in this country some months before the "separation plan" of Ariel Sharon. He says now that the separation would have succeeded "if the withdrawal had been accompanied by the second part of the separation, which, according to my understanding, would have created an independent entity that would become a Palestinian state." He believes (mistakenly, I think) that this was the intent of Sharon, whom, unlike his successor as Prime Minister, he respects. 

Wolfensohn envisioned a blooming Gaza Strip, flourishing economically, open in all directions, a model to the West Bank and a basis for the new state. To this purpose he raised eight billion dollars. Unlike other idealists, he invested several millions of his own money in the greenhouses left behind by the settlers, hoping to turn them into the basis of the Palestinian economy. 

He stood at Condoleezza Rice's side during the signing ceremony for the document that was to prepare the way to a brilliant future: the agreement for the opening of the border crossings. The crossings between the Strip and Israel were to be again wide open, Israel undertook to fulfill at long last the obligation it took upon itself in the Oslo agreement (and has violated ever since): to open the vital passage between Gaza and the West Bank. On the border between the Strip and Egypt, a European unit was already taking control. 

And then the whole edifice collapsed. The passage between the Strip and the West Bank remained hermetically sealed. The other border crossings were closed more and more frequently. The products of the greenhouses (together with Wolfensohn's investment) went down the drain. The frail economy of the Strip disintegrated altogether, most of the 1.4 million inhabitants descended into misery, with 50% and more unemployment. The inevitable result was the ascent of Hamas. 

Wolfensohn's complaint stresses the immense importance of the border crossings. Their closure - ostensibly for security reasons - spelled death to the Gaza economy, and, by extension, to the hope for peaceful relations between Israel and the Palestinians. Before the Hamas victory, Wolfensohn saw with his own eyes the awful corruption that governed the crossings. Relations between Israelis and Palestinians there were openly based on bribery. The Palestinian products could not cross without payment being made to the people in control on both sides.  

Wolfensohn lays at least some of the responsibility for the ascent of Hamas on the Palestinian Authority - meaning Fatah - who were infected by the cancer of corruption. The victory of Hamas in the democratic elections both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip did not surprise him at all.

WHAT CAUSED this idealistic person to resign? 

He puts the main blame on one person, who belongs to the clique of Wolfowiz: Elliott Abrams. Like Wolfowitz, Abrams is a Jew, a neo-con, a radical Zionist beloved by the Israeli Right. He was appointed by President Bush as deputy advisor for national security, responsible for the Middle East. With this appointment, Wolfensohn says, "all the elements of the agreement achieved by Condoleezza Rice were destroyed". The passages were closed, Hamas took over.  

Wolfensohn accuses Abrams openly of undermining him, in order to get him out. True, the Quartet is not under the authority of Abrams, but a person in this position cannot function without solid American support. Abrams pushed him out in cooperation with Ehud Olmert and Dov Weisglass, Sharon's confidant, whose plans were menaced by Wolfensohn's activity. It was Weisglass, it will be remembered, who promised to "put the Palestinian issue in formaldehyde." 

In the eyes of Wolfensohn, both sides are to blame for the current situation, but he clearly blames Israel more, since it is the stronger and more active party. No doubt, Israel is very important for him. He had a lot of sympathy for it (In World War I, his father was a soldier in the Jewish battalions which were set up by the British army and sent to Palestine.) He gave the interview to the Israeli paper in order to voice a severe warning: time is not working for us. The demographic clock is ticking. Today, Israel is surrounded by some 350 million Arabs. In another 15 years, it will be surrounded by 700 million. "I don't see any argument that supports the idea the Israel's situation will get better."  

As an expert on the global economy, with a world-wide perspective, Wolfensohn could also point out that the importance of the US in the world economy is gradually declining, with new giants like China and India rising.

We, the Israelis, like to think that we are the center of the world. Wolfensohn, a person with a world-wide outreach, sticks a pin into this egocentric balloon. Already now, he says, only the West considers the Israeli-Palestinian issue so important. Most of the world is indifferent. "I have visited more than 140 countries: you are not such a big deal there."  

Even this limited interest will also evaporate. Wolfensohn rubs salt into the wound: "A moment will come when the Israelis and the Palestinians will be compelled to understand that they are a secondary performance … The Israelis and the Palestinians must get rid of the idea that they are a Broadway performance. They are only a play in the Village. Off-off-off-off-off Broadway." Knowing that this is the worst one can tell an Israeli, he adds: "I hope that I am not getting into trouble by saying this, but, what the hell, that's what I believe, and I am already 73 years old." 

I do believe him - and I, what the hell, am already 83.

THE METAPHOR from the world of theater looks to me even more apt that Wolfensohn himself imagines. 

What is happening now to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is mostly theater, and not the best in town.

The actors drink from empty glasses, recite texts that nobody believes, put on false smiles and embrace heartily while loathing each other.

The best scene so far was the Gaza "separation". Contrary to Wolfensohn's belief, it was merely a performance, melodrama at its best, directed by Sharon and the chiefs of the settlers, the army and the police. Many tears, many embraces, many sham battles. This week the performance was again in the media, with a huge propaganda machine trying to show how immense was the pain, how the poor evacuees have remained without villas, how many more billions will still be needed. The intended conclusion: it is impossible to dismantle the settlements in the West Bank.  

The new actor on the stage, Tony Blair, is exuding charm and joviality, embracing and kissing. We, the audience, know that his lot will be exactly like that of his predecessor. Like him, he is the "special envoy of the Quartet". His terms of reference are exactly the same as those of Wolfensohn before him: much of nothing. He is supposed to help the Palestinians to build "democratic institutions", after the US and Israel have systematically destroyed the democratic institutions that were set up after the last Palestinian elections. 

He has embraced Olmert, kissed Tzipi Livni, smiled at Ehud Barak, and we know that all three of them will do their utmost to disrupt his mission before he reaches a position that would enable him to realize his real dream: to conduct peace negotiations, as he successfully did in Northern Ireland.  

All that is happening now is theater. Olmert pretends that he really wants to "save Abu Mazen", while doing the opposite. At Bush's request, he allowed the transfer of a thousand rifles, with a lot of fanfare, from Jordan to Abbas, so he can fight Hamas - understanding full well that to an ordinary Palestinian this will look like collaboration with the occupier against the resistance. He enlarges the settlements, keeps the "illegal outposts" and closes his eyes while the army is helping the settlers to put up more outposts. That is a foolproof recipe for a Hamas takeover in the West Bank, too.  

Everybody knows that there is only one way to strengthen Abu Mazen: immediately to start rapid and practical negotiations for the establishment of the State of Palestine in all the occupied territories, with its capital in East Jerusalem. Not more discussions about abstract ideas, as proposed by Olmert, not another plan (No. 1001), not a "peace process" that will lead to "new political horizons", and certainly not another hollow fantasy of that grand master of sanctimonious hypocrisy, President Shimon Peres.

THE NEXT scene of the play, for which all the actors are now learning their lines, is the "international meeting" this autumn, according to the screenplay by President Bush. Condoleezza will chair, and it is doubtful whether Tony, the new actor, will be allowed to take part. The playwrights are still deliberating.  

If all the world is a stage, as Shakespeare wrote, and all the men and women merely players who have their exits and their entrances, that is true even more for Israel and Palestine. Sharon exited and Olmert entered, Wolfensohn exited and Blair entered, and everything is, as Sakespeare wrote in another play, "words, words, words." 

Wolfensohn can view the next parts of the play with philosophical detachment. We, who are involved, cannot afford that, because our comedy is really a tragedy.

 

 

 

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