Mark LeVine

Israel has been strangling the Palestinian economy since the occupation began.

The remarks were not made in anger or haste, as were the now infamous, flippant and ill-conceived comments that cost White House reporter Helen Thomas her job, if not her legacy. Instead, they were made quite deliberately, with an air of thoughtfulness, while leaning over a lectern, as if lecturing to a class.

Thomas was forced into retirement for declaring that Jews "should get the hell out of Palestine," but New York Senator Chuck Schumer, one of the most powerful politicians in the US, has avoided any criticism or even major press coverage for remarks he made only days later that supported the continued "economic strangulation" of Gaza; in part, because, he essentially argues, the inhabitants of the benighted Strip are not Jewish.

Schumer made his remarks during a brief talk to the Orthodox Union, a well-known politically conservative Jewish educational, outreach and social service organisation.

The talk covered several foreign policy issues, including Iran and Israel/Palestine. When the topic turned to the Israeli attack on the Gaza aid flotilla Schumer began by explaining that the "Palestinian people still don't believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution". But that is not all, he continued: "They don't believe in the Torah, in David."

Because of this, and because they chose to elect Hamas, Schumer went on to argue, Israel is right - and the US should support its desire - "to strangle them economically until they see that's not the way to go".

Indeed, whether deliberately or because he does not understand the nature of Israeli policies vis-a-vis Gaza, Schumer did not actually use the word "blockade;" instead describing Israeli actions as a "boycott".

Only when Palestinians see the light, "when there's some moderation and cooperation, can [they] have an economic advancement".

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Stephen Lendman

Updating Lynne Stewart's "Love Struggle"

Human rights attorney Stewart spent her career observing the American Bar Association's Model Rules, saying all lawyers must:

"devote professional time and resources and use civil influence to ensure equal access to our system of justice for all those who because of economic or social barriers cannot afford or secure adequate legal counsel."

Also to practice law ethically, morally and responsibly to assure everyone gets due process and judicial fairness, what the poor, underprivileged, society's unwanted rarely ever are afforded unless lucky enough to have an advocate like her. What failed her after being bogusly indicted, prosecuted, convicted, and jailed, awaiting final sentencing in July, perhaps later for reasons of health. More on that below.

Stewart's defense committee will send them to Judge Koeltl, at issue being not to lengthen her 28 month sentence, the Justice Department wanting 30 years, despite her innocence on all charges and lifetime of dedicated service, well known to prosecutors and the judiciary, besides her legion of supporters, this writer proudly among them.

On June 16, posted on lynnestewart.org, the web site maintained for her, husband Ralph Poynter noted the "the deep contradictions of the system," calling it "an obscenity and an affront to fundamental fairness," and a threat to all lawyers who defend unpopular clients too vigorously, ones prosecutors target to convict, even those clearly innocent.

"Lynne Stewart deserves justice....equal justice under law," said Poynter, what everyone deserves but too few get in America's unjust system, sparing criminal insiders, not easy poor, underprivileged targets, putting a lie to the rule of law and a government of, by and for the people, what it never was and isn't today under a bipartisan criminal class, headed by a president protecting privilege from beneficial social change.

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Flora Nicoletta

"We swear by Allah the Great... We swear by Allah the Great... We swear by Allah the Great / We commit ourselves to be faithful to our religion, to our home and to our holy places / We pledge to maintain our right to return to all our cities and villages, sparing no efforts to achieve this aim, and letting no one relinquish, renounce or negotiate it / We do pledge to Allah, our People and our Nation to do that through our life." Pledge of Return, the High Committee for the Commemoration of the 62nd Anniversary of the Nakba.

In Et-Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza City there is a cemetery with a number of graves. Here are buried Arab fighters who fall during the 1948 Zionist conquest of historic Palestine, called by the Palestinian the Nakba. Following the 1967 war, when the Israeli forces also captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip they entirely covered all the graves with casts cement... and they remain so till the present day.

The word Nakba and the word Awda are the first two words of the Palestinian dictionary. Nakba and Return are Siamese words.

Nakba means catastrophe, disaster. Every 15 May the Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, that is the eradication from historic Palestine of most of its original inhabitants because "Palestine was given by God to the chosen people." But as said once Mustafa En-Natche, a former mayor of Hebron, nobody has never seen the receipt. Awda means return, return to their former houses, lands, shops, factories, mosques, churches, in brief to their normal lives which were shattered in 1948.

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Robert Creamer

[On several occasions here I have explained the economics of corporations externalizing costs to increase their profit at our expense. While we’re waiting for the next BP attempt to plug the well to fail, Robert Creamer has written an excellent article that illustrates what I have been saying and applies it to this GOP/corporate crime against nature and humanity. Politics Plus]

The frustration and anxiety of Americans about the horrific oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico grows by the day. Those whose livelihood is tied to the Gulf — or who live in the wetlands of Louisiana, and communities along the coast — are justifiable demanding the deployment of war-time levels of personnel and equipment to stop the dark, deadly oil that is invading from the sea.

In times of national crisis, Americans look to the President to lead — and to deliver. That’s why President Obama was absolutely correct to make it crystal clear that he is personally responsible to deal with the oil spill crisis — and has told his Administration to spare no effort to stop the leak, oversee the cleanup, and assure that BP completely compensates the massive number of victims.

Increasingly sharp criticism has been leveled at the President because BP has so far been unable to stop the leak. The problem, of course, is that most of the critics have few suggestions about what the Administration might do that it isn’t doing.

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Justin Raimondo

Who else but Joe Lieberman would introduce a bill to give the President the power to shut down the Internet with the flick of a switch? I’m afraid of the answer to that question, and you should be, too. However, it’s hardly surprising America’s premier authoritarian warmonger – author of a bill that would strip American citizenship from anyone even vaguely suspected of “terrorism” – would come up with a scheme like this.

If the “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act” passes – and isn’t that a name that embraces practically every collectivist bromide extant? – the Department of Homeland Security would establish a “cyber-terrorism” sub-bureaucracy, the Office of Cyberspace Policy (OCP), and the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communication (NCCC), with the former lording it over the Internet – a Cyber-Czar – and the latter unleashed to spy on and otherwise guard the “cybersecurity” Senators Lieberman and his two co-sponsors aver is imminently threatened.

This bill is the culmination of years of yelping about the likelihood of a “cyber-9/11,” a devastating attack on the national infrastructure via the Internet. If such an event is so likely, then why hasn’t it happened already? Because the likelihood of it ever happening is nearly nil.

In short, this is a completely phony and for all intents and purposes nonexistent “threat” that has been invented by those most likely to profit – financially and politically – from this kind of hype: the “cybersecurity” industry, which has been thriving (mostly off of government contracts, naturally) since 9/11, and neoconservative authoritarians of a Liebermanesque frame of mind. In their 2003 opus, An End to Evil, neocons Richard Perle and David Frum argue that what’s needed is a “domestic intelligence agency” to spy on Americans, and the Internet plays a major role in their scenario: Perle and Frum advocate establishing an Orwellian government database and comprehensive electronic surveillance system that not only keeps constant track of the whereabouts of everyone in the country, but also stores a dossier, complete with their religious and political affiliations – surely a job for the OCP/NCCC. After all, if we’re going to track the “cyber-terrorists,” we have to know who and where they are. Lieberman’s Cyber-Czar, and his minions, would put flesh on the bones of this nightmare, and make the neocon dream of a police state an emerging reality.

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