Peaceful Protest in Al-Walaja

Al-Walaja, population 2,000 is located just south of Jerusalem and west of Bethlehem. After the 1967 Six Day War, half the town was annexed to Israel and included the Jerusalem municipal area. The citizens though did not receive Israeli citizenship or residency, thus they are considered illegal within their own homes.

The Wall has come to Al-Walaja and when completed it will completely isolate the residents from everyone, including Jerusalem, Bethlehem and their land. Israel has confiscated half of the land planning to utilize it to build Har Gilo and Gilo settlements. Their fruit orchards have been cut down, their homes demolished and the areas to south and west have been closed off. When the wall is complete it will separate 3,200 Dunams (1 dunam = 1000 square metres) of which 3,000 are olive groves, the only recreational forest, a monastery and winery from the town.

The citizens of Al-Walaja, international activists and other human rights organizations have been demonstrating peacefully against this outrage. In one day alone, they stopped the bulldozers from proceeding leading to several arrests. In the end, the IDF successfully managed to drag the protesters out of the way and allowing the construction to proceed.

When is it legal to arrest citizens protecting their land from the construction of an illegal wall on an illegally occupied land? Where are the citizens of Al-Walaja, whose homes have been demolished to go? This barrier wall, allegedly constructed to ensure Israel's security, will cut off these people from the entire world. Who really needs security, the all powerful Israeli armed to the teeth or the citizens of Al-Walaja whose only crime is to peacefully protest the contraction of an illegal wall?

INDULGING ISRAEL?

The demand by AIPAC "to take immediate steps to defuse the tension with the Jewish State" regarding the Obama Administration's recent statements in light of Israel's announcement of construction of 1600 settlement homes is over the top.  Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, stated the announcement was insulting as it was made during the Vice-Presidential visit to Israel. AIPAC also advised the Administration it "should make a conscious effort to move away from public demands and unilateral deadlines directed at Israel". Further, they "urge the Administration to work closely and privately with our partner Israel, in a manner befitting strategic allies, to address any issues between the two governments".

I find AIPAC's statements insulting to the American public and the International community. Since military aid in the amount of almost 3 billion dollars per year (7 million per day) is given to Israel from the taxpayer’s purse, the Administration should definitely heed public demands. AIPAC’s request to disregard to the public voice is undemocratic. Should the Obama, like the Bush Administration be governed by a well healed lobby group?

It certainly takes chutzpah to plan construction of another 1600 illegal homes in an illegally occupied land. The timing of Israel’s announcement is a minor infraction and deserves the US response it received. This only demonstrates the Israeli government’s complete distain for their rich Uncle Sam, along with their contempt and disregard for International Law, the United Nations, and the global community.

The enormity of Israel’s malfeasance, aside from the criminality of the existence of settlement homes themselves, is the contravention of Israel’s own moratorium on additional construction of settlement homes for ten months. This leads one to believe that Israel had no intention of honouring their guarantee and deliberately misrepresented their intentions. How can one trust Israel’s stated proclamation for a peace solution?

The AIPAC lobby is the overindulging parents of this petulant child. Rather than admonishing the United States for this well deserved rebuke, they should be reminding Israel of the risk of souring the relationship with their benefactor.

ARE WE ALL BIGOTS?

Recently I was having a difficult time falling asleep and decided to see what was on You Tube. To my delight, I found an old debate between Alan Deshowitz and Norman Finkelstein on Democracy Now! which was taped right after Deshowitz's book "A Case For Israel" was first released. It appears that Democracy Now! had asked Finkelstein to come on the air to debate the veracity of the Deshowitz's claims made in his book.

In the introduction,  one of the first words out of Mr. Finkelstein's mouth were "...and only one conclusion one could reach having read the book,  and this is a scholarly judgement, not an adhominum attack, Mr. Deshowitz has concocted a fraud". I knew Deshowitz was in trouble within the first few minutes when Mr. Finkelstein was asked for evidence of plagarism and he responded with exacting precision "I started to read your book,  Mr. Dershowitz and came to Chapter One, footnote 10, footnote 11...."  To make a long story short, Deshowitz didn't follow any rule of debate, interjected when Finkelstein was making his case, wouldn't respond to any of Finkelstein's points, was invasive, etc. It was almost embarassing to watch Mr. Dershowitz flail around like a fish on a hook. By the second half of the debate, it had turned into the Dershowitz show with Norman Finkelstein just sitting there with a small smile of complete contempt on his face. Dershowitz's antics, avoidance, back-pedaling and complete disrespect for the rules of debate had given me a headache and I decided to email him my complete disgust with his performance and to let him know what I thought of his "work of scholarship".

This is how it went:

1.  Email from me to him:
-----Original Message-----
From: mmmcknigh836@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 23:33:53
To: xxxx.harvard.edu>;
Subject: Inquiry or Comment

I have watched you in several debates over the Israel Palestine Conflict. It was actually painful to watch. You are disrespectful of the other party's time, do not answer any question directly and actually appear to be the stereotype of the manipulating lawyer. You challenge anyone to find any any distortion of proven fact, yet when are proven wrong, you claim typographical errors. You also obviously do not realize that if the error helps or hinders your cause has no effect on the what the challenge was. If it was not a true fact or a misquotation, you are still wrong. What makes it worse, it that you actually refer to this as scholarship. Your work reflects the same amount of serious scholarship as the tabloids have. You refer to Chomsky planet, I think you are way out in space by yourself on this one. It is almost like watching Bush when he is trying to make a speech. Painful, painful, painful!

I certainly did not expect any response and once I had emailed it off, I received a standard message basically telling me that Mr. Dershowitz is thankful for any comments, but cannot reply himself...blah, blah, blah, his assistants handle his email. To my amazement:   

2.  Email from him to me:

from xxxx@law.harvard.edu reply-to xxxxx@law.harvard.edu to mmmcknigh836@gmail.com date Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 7:52 AM subject Re: Inquiry or Comment mailed-by law.harvard.edu

Your bigotry is showing
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Now, I had to certainly respond back as I do not understand what in my comments made him call me a bigot.  I didn't refer to the Israel Palestine conflict nor did I express who I felt was right or who I felt was in the wrong.  I basically just told him was:

1. he was a poor debater
2. he was a poor sport
3. his book was not a work of scholarship 

3.  My reply to him (unanswered as yet)

to xxxx@law.harvard.edu

bcc: xxxx@xxxx.xx

Mr.Dershowitz:

The logic of your response to my comments evades me. I must say though that I do appreciate your response and certainly did not expect one.

How does my voiced opinion of your scholarship (or non scholarship) and my assessment of your lack of decorum and debating skills in any way characterize me as a bigot?  A statement of my perception of your painful performance did not in anyway support or favour the position of either side.  It simply was a statement reflecting my evaluation of your performance.

So is it fair for me to say, that in your opinion, anyone who found your performance on Democracy Now lacking in credibility or serious scholarship is a bigot?

The ironic part is that Mr. Deshowitz, "defender of the constitution", "Harvard Professor", "lawyer to celebrity criminals" and "friend to both Mr.Clinton and the State of Israel" actually has time to answer me at 7:52 a.m. via email to respond to my criticism of his book and debating skills.  Even funnier, I googled him with regards some inane statement he had made and found myself on this website "We Hold The Truths - Strait Gate Ministries" also referring to Mr. Dershowitz's response to them via (every superhero's # 1 tool) his blackberry.  On their website, they write:

"A question we now ask is, why did Alan Dershowitz answer We Hold These Truths on his BlackBerry?  What nerve did we strike?" (http://whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=2862)"

If you have some time and need a good laugh, watch it on You Tube (video feature up top). I already respected Norman Finkelstein before watching this, but my estimation of him certainly went way up, as he was cool and collected listening to this ridiculous, little man.