Stephen Lendman

Israel is an equal opportunity abuser, treating women, old men, invalids, and children like young adults because they're Palestinians, not Jews, so they're fair game, vilified as national security threats or terrorists for wanting freedom, equality, justice and peace.

Numerous previous articles discussed it, several specifically on children, accessed through the following links, here, here, here, here and here.

Defence for Children International (DCI) Palestine

"is a national section of the international non-government child rights organisation and movement (dedicated to) promoting and protecting the rights of Palestinian children,"

according to international law principles.

Each year, hundreds, under 18, are arrested, detained, interrogated, tortured, and prosecuted, around 6,500 since 2000 alone.

In June 2009, DCI/Palestine's report [.pdf] titled, "Palestinian Child Prisoners," documented their systematic, institutionalized torture and abuse, including testimonies providing chilling evidence, including from Mahmoud speaking for others saying:

"I went from having a normal life at home to handcuffs, deprivation of sleep, shouting, threats, rounds of interrogation, serious accusations," beatings and other abuse. As a result, "life (is now) dark, filled with fear and pessimism - tough days that words cannot describe."

On January 6, DCI/Palestine issued an "urgent appeal (for the) children of Silwan," an Arab village adjacent to Jerusalem's Old City, one of 28 such communities incorporated into the city.

Evidence of serious forms of abuse were documented. In 2010, sharp increases in child arrests occurred. According to Israeli police data, 1,267 criminal files were opened between November 2009 and October 2010, accusing children of throwing stones, based solely on unconfirmed suspicions.

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Stephen Lendman

In July 2003, a USAF Institute for National Security Studies report [.pdf] titled, "Egypt as a Failing State: Implications for US National Security" suggested

"Mubarak's traditionally autocratic and oppressive short-term fixes" weren't working. As a result, "the possibility of unrest is real; with the correct confluence of domestic, regional, and international events, Egypt can quickly be added to the list of failed states....This paper (thus) contends that (the appearance of) democracy is a security imperative for the post-9/11 world."

In its July/August The Failed States Index 2010, ForeignPolicy (FP) ranked nations under five categories: critical, in danger, borderline, stable and most stable. Ranked 49th among 177 countries evaluated, FP called Egypt a failed state "in danger." It scored lowest in three "delegitimization" categories because of:

● endemic corruption, including ruling elite profiteering;
● human rights violations; and
● an accumulation of "grievances," including poverty and unemployment among others.

Not least of its woes is an aging, ill, despotic ruler. Washington perhaps wants the appearance of a kinder, gentler replacement, the pretense of change continuing old policies. If so, it won't be the first time as a previous article explained, accessed through this link.

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Neve Gordon
Redress

Neve Gordon highlights the growing persecution of liberal academics in Israel as Israeli fascists, supported by American Christian Zionists and other neo-conservatives, join forces to root out academic freedom and freedom of expression at Israel’s universities.

On 31 May, I joined some 50 students and faculty members who gathered outside Ben-Gurion University of the Negev to demonstrate against the Israeli military assault on the flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. In response, the next day a few hundred students marched towards the social sciences building, Israeli flags in hand. Amid nationalist songs and pro-government chants, there were also shouts demanding my resignation from the university faculty.

One student even proceeded to create a Facebook group whose sole goal is to have me sacked. So far over 2,100 people (many of them non-students) have joined. In addition to death wishes and declarations that I should be exiled, the site includes a call on students to spy on me during class. "We believe," ends a message written to the group, "that if we conduct serious and profound work, we can, with the help of each and every one of you, gather enough material to influence ... Neve Gordon's status at the university, and maybe even bring about his dismissal."

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Paul Craig Roberts
Vdare

[*] Enumerated rights are those right that are written one by one in the Constitution and Amendments. Implied rights are "created" by the supreme court by "reading between the lines". These rights are inferred from the enumerated rights, laws and common sense. (Yahoo Answers)

While people in Tunisia and Egypt have taken to the streets in attempts to gain their liberty, Americans are losing their liberty with minimal protest.

Even the American Civil Liberties Union seems unfocused. At a time when we are being surrounded by a police state and the federal judiciary is being taken over by the Federalist Society and unitary executive theory that places the president above the law, we need a heightened appreciation of civil liberty and the Constitution on the part of the American people. The American people need to come together and to take a united stand against the police state and unaccountable executive branch power.

During my many years of writing in defense of law as a shield of the people instead of a weapon in the hands of the state, I have identified two important reasons that Americans are losing the protection of the legal principles that made them free.

One reason is that a significant portion of the population, especially among those who think of themselves as conservative, there is indifference and even hostility to civil liberties. The other reason is that Benthamite thinking has made inroads into the Blackstonian conception of law that is the basis of the Constitution. Jeremy Bentham argued for pre-emptive arrest before a crime is committed, for torture in order to obtain confession, and for subverting the attorney-client privilege. Bentham’s views, fiercely hostile to those of our Founding Fathers, are now represented on the federal bench (federal appeals court judge Jay S. Bybee, for example) and in prestigious law schools (John Yoo, UC Berkeley, for example).

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