Edward Said Gets His Mural After Long Struggle

Edward Said Gets His Mural After Long Struggle

New America Media, News Report, Suzanne Manneh, Posted: Nov 07, 2007

Editor's Note: Edward Said, one of the founding figures of postcolonial theory, has been honored with a mural at San Francisco State University. But while the late Palestinian-American professor is an intellectual giant, putting him on the wall was no easy task. NAM contributor Suzanne Manneh attended the mural dedication.

SAN FRANCISCO – After a two and a half year battle with campus administration, San Francisco State University became the first school to showcase a Palestinian cultural mural honoring Dr. Edward Said. But General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS), the group that spearheaded the mural, says achieving it was no easy task.

"Let's be real – a lot of Arabs did not believe that we could achieve this mural," Nasser Halteh, General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) member told the crowd at the Nov. 2 mural inauguration. "It was believed that the political environment was too great and discriminatory. It's true," he added, smiling, "but culture defeated the politics, and today we are celebrating. So on behalf of GUPS, we welcome you to this victory."

Former GUPS president Charlie El-Qare explained that the campus administration "did not want a Palestinian mural to have a permanent space." In the later planning phases, El-Qare said that campus president Robert Corrigan put a moratorium on all murals because of objections to a key and Handala, a Palestinian political cartoon. These two symbols were omitted in order to finally obtain approval.

"The president said that those two symbols did not represent pride in one's own culture or heritage," said Loubna Qutami, GUPS member and sociology student. But Qutami said Palestinians "don't see the symbols as controversial. (It’s a) desire to return to homeland. It's our international legal right under (U.N.) Resolution H194. H194 was going to be written on the key."

"Just because the symbols are not physically in the mural does not mean that we are giving up on right of return," she added.

But the mural honoring Edward Said tries to be more a message of reconciliation. Dr. Said was a Christian Palestinian. A Jewish artist and a Muslim artist put the mural together.

Muralists Fayeq Oweis and Susan Greene explained the mural's symbols: "We see Edward Said in the center, wearing the Palestinian headdress on his shoulders, with his dual identity," Oweis said. "This is the identity of all of us as Arab Americans. We are represented with this identity through Edward Said."

Edward Said was a Palestinian-American literary theorist, author, and Palestinian activist. He was a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. He is regarded as a founding figure in postcolonial theory, author of seminal works like “Orientalism.” He died in 2003 from myelogenous leukemia.

Oweis described another important symbol in the mural: "The word peace is written in Arabic calligraphy in the shape of doves over Jerusalem, the city of peace,” he said, “and hopefully Jerusalem will witness a peaceful solution to the conflict and it will live in peace.”

"When I look at that mural, I think to myself, How can a culture and a people have such a strong identity after having withstood so much oppression for so long?" said GUPS member Loubna Qutami.

"I am very proud and happy to see third-generation Palestinian students in exile still carrying Palestine in their hearts and going on," said Dr. Sonia Nimr, professor of history from the University of Bier Ziet in the West Bank. "Palestine is still very much alive. I am very proud of you because I can see that this memorial is not only a tribute to Edward Said; it is a tribute to Palestinian people."

Ramsey El-Qare, another GUPS member and student reflected on the mural's significance. "The mural represents a community that has been unrepresented for a long time. We finally get some representation, some positive light."

Fayeq Oweis expressed the hope that while Palestine is under siege, the mural is a reason to celebrate in spite of the current situation.

"Art is a vehicle that easily comes across to different types of people – much better than politics, for example," he said. "Through art, we're hoping that we are representing the Palestinian issue, especially at this time when Palestine is under occupation and the people are suffering in refugee camps. To celebrate a contribution of a Palestinian artist is a victory for us."

Source

"The Fiddle and the Drum" A Continuing Song of Protest

"The Fiddle and the Drum"
And so once again
My dear Johnny my dear friend
And so once again you are fightin' us all
And when I ask you why
You raise your sticks and cry, and I fall
Oh, my friend
How did you come
To trade the fiddle for the drum
You say I have turned
Like the enemies you've earned
But I can remember
All the good things you are
And so I ask you please
Can I help you find the peace and the star
Oh, my friend
What time is this
To trade the handshake for the fist

And so once again
Oh, America my friend
And so once again
You are fighting us all
And when we ask you why
You raise your sticks and cry and we fall
Oh, my friend
How did you come
To trade the fiddle for the drum

You say we have turned
Like the enemies you've earned
But we can remember
All the good things you are
And so we ask you please
Can we help you find the peace and the star
Oh my friend
We have all come
To fear the beating of your drum

Written in 1969-a continuing song against America's "drum"


(fair use copyright policy- Joni's self portrait)

On November 7th, 1943, singer, songwriter, poet, painter, Joni Mitchell was born.
Joni Mitchell's website

Happiest of birthdays to Joni, who speaks to the soul of this child who grew up on her message.

"The Circle Game" (with comments from those who knew Joni when she began her career)

Resolution 333: Impeach Cheney-Goes to the Judiciary Committee WITHOUT Discussion

WHERE THE HECK IS THE NEWS!!!!

Today Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced HR 333 (full text) IMPEACH CHENEY

In a nutshell:

Kucinich read the three charges then Rep. Jose Serrano who was chairing the hearing said a time would be allotted within the next two days to discuss the bill

Then Danny Hoyer (majority leader) introduced a call to table the resolution-take it OFF the table.

Remember, Pelosi said impeachment was off the table.

As the votes started being tabulated it went well beyond the 15 minutes allotted.

At first, the votes to table it were far ahead.

Then something strange started happening.

According to someone being interviewed on CSPAN, the Republican leadership called in for the Republicans to CHANGE their votes on tabling it to vote NOT to table it.

Why?

Because according to this person being interviewed the Republicans want to "embarass" the Democrats because they feel this resolution is so far out of the mainstream.

The vote NOT to table the resolution was twice as many R's voting not to table it as D's.

So the vote was NOT tabled.

Then Hoyer appeared again and asked for a vote to send the resolution to the judiciary committee.

A voice vote was ordered and then an electronic vote was ordered.

The Dems were able to overcome the Rep's so now the bill is going to the judiciary committee because according to Hoyer, the bill is so "serious it merits serious discussion".

This bill could linger OR die in the judiciary committee which is evidently what the Dems want.

My conjecture is that the Dems want to shut Kucinich up, they do NOT want to rock the boat, they don't want Kucinich to have ANY chance of advancing his agenda because they have a VESTED interest in their own political rear ends. ALSO, I feel the Rep's HOPE to split the Democratic party because they HOPE Kucinich runs as an independent and splits the Dem' vote.
To them, this is about winning in 08, NOT because they don't think the resolution has merit, but for the SOLE REASON of splitting the Democrats.

But what if Kucinich were to get the nomination?

The Reps think he is easy pickins, EASY pickins compared, but better yet, just let him cipher off votes from Hillary who is bound to get the nomination unless a MIRACLE happens.

This same person being interviewed stated that Kucinich did this to advance his own presidential bid since he is so far behind.

Well folks, what do I have to say to that accusation?

WE NEED A PRESIDENT WHO IS WILLING TO TELL THE TRUTH.

WE NEED A PRESIDENT WHO IS WILLING TO TAKE ON THE FREAKING MESS THIS REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION WITH THE COMPLIANCE OF THE DEMOCRATS HAS MADE.

FOR EVERY DEMOCRAT THAT VOTED AGAINST THIS RESOLUTION I SAY GO TO HELL.
YOU ARE NOT WORTH SHIT. YOU WERE ELECTED TO TAKE ON THIS CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION AND IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DO THAT YOU ARE EVERY BIT AS EVIL AS THIS ADMINISTRATION!!!!!!!!!!!

NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD VOTES FOR IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT BUSH AND VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY

Tuesday, November 5, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Marjorie Cohn, NLG President, Marjorie@tjsl.edu;
Heidi Boghosian, NLG Executive Director, director@nlg.org
James Marc Leas, NLG member who drafted the resolution,

November 5, Washington, D.C. The National Lawyers Guild voted unanimously and enthusiastically for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney at its national convention in Washington, DC. The resolution lists more than a dozen high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush and Cheney administration and "calls upon the U.S. House of Representatives to immediately initiate impeachment proceedings, to investigate the charges, and if the investigation supports the charges, to vote to impeach George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney as provided in the Constitution of the United States of America."

The resolution provides for an NLG Impeachment Committee open to all members that will help organize and coordinate events at the local, state, and national level to build public participation in the campaign to initiate impeachment investigation, impeachment, and removal of Bush and Cheney from office without further delay.

The resolution calls on all other state and national bar associations, state and local government bodies, community organizations, labor unions, and all other citizen associations to adopt similar resolutions and to use all their resources to build the campaign demanding that Congress initiate impeachment investigation, impeach, and remove Bush and Cheney from office.

The full text of the resolution can be found at http://nlg.org/convention/2007%20Resolutions/Impeachment%20resolution.pdf

National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn said, "The war of aggression, the secret prisons, the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the use of evidence obtained by torture, and the surveillance of citizens without warrants, all initiated and carried out under the tenure of Bush and Cheney, are illegal under the U.S. Constitution and international law."

Founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association, which did not admit people of color, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.
___________________________________________________________________________________________

UPDATE: Finally there's something being said, but note, AGAIN it is stated that the Republicans prevented the bill from being tabled in order to "embarrass the Democrats" because this resolution is so far LEFT and out there.

The only embarrassment for the Democrats comes from trying to TABLE this bill. Every single one that voted to table it needs to be held accountable. EVERY ONE OF THEM.

Cheney Impeachment Resolution Sent to House Committee

The House voted today to send a resolution considering the impeachment of Vice President Cheney to the Judiciary Committee, a move that embarrassed Democratic leaders who were forced into the parliamentary tactic to avoid a floor debate on impeachment.

Led by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the long-shot anti-war candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, scores of Democrats were joined by scores of Republicans in initially supporting a Kucinich resolution that would have prompted a full debate on impeaching Cheney.

Democratic leaders long ago rejected any consideration of impeaching Cheney and President Bush as an irresponsible move supported only by the far left, so they tried today to table Kucinich's impeachment resolution. After initially having more than enough votes to kill the resolution - the "yea" tally to table impeachment topped out at 291 - Republicans decided they had a chance to politically shame Democrats into a full debate on the sensitive issue. Republicans gleefully said they wanted the debate to show the public how many Democrats would actually support impeaching Cheney, which they consider a move supported only by a fringe element of anti-war activists.

More than 120 members, predominantly Republicans, then switched their votes in favor of holding a one-hour debate on the issue, with a final vote of 251-162 supporting a debate on impeachment. Rather than allow a debate fraught with political risk, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) moved to send the Kucinich resolution to the Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), has publicly speculated about impeaching the president or vice president but has declined taking any action since taking the gavel in January.

Defusing any chance of an actual impeachment debate today, the House then voted 218-194 to send the motion to Conyers's committee, with Democrats overwhelmingly supporting the move.

Today's resolution from Kucinich (D-Ohio) was essentially the same as the legislation he introduced earlier this year, which included three articles of impeachment against Cheney based largely on allegations that he manipulated intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. The last article accuses Cheney of threatening "aggression" against Iran "absent any real threat."

"In all of this, Vice President Richard B. Cheney has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as Vice President, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and the manifest injury of the people of the United States," Kucinich said on the floor today, reading his resolution. "Wherefore Richard B. Cheney, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office."

Kucinich, who had 22 co-sponsors for his articles of impeachment measure, predominantly members of the left leaning Out of Iraq Caucus, has been angry that Democratic leaders would not allow impeachment to be considered. He took to the floor today to offer his impeachment articles as a privileged resolution, which under the chamber rules can be offered by any member and must be considered within two days of its offering.

Source (where you can also leave a comment)

Further Collective Punishment of the Palestinian People

(With help from my dear brother blogger, Desert Peace)

When the people of France were starving and there was no bread available, Marie Antoinette's solution was 'Let them eat cake!'

It cost her her head in the end.... but some people did not learn a lesson from that period in history as it is being repeated in Gaza... this time by 'do-gooders' with wafers instead of cake.

Although ANERA certainly means well, and their efforts are definitely needed, the point is that these Gazan preschoolers are now relying on FORTIFIED WAFERS for food. There is something WRONG with this picture people. These children are not relying on wafers because of a natural disaster which has befallen their homeland, they are the victims of the COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT of the Palestinian people. This is a MAN MADE disaster, made in Israhell. This is the DELIBERATE starving of a people, a WAR CRIME.

Me'thinks it would be wiser to open the border and stop the sanctions against the people of Palestine.... let Olmert and Abbas eat those wafers!

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/RMOI-78P3Y8?OpenDocument

Despite border closings, ANERA continues to supply the neediest in Gaza

Gaza at this time is almost completely cut off from critical supplies coming through its borders. Reports are that conditions are worsening everyday. As the situation grows more challenging, ANERA's long-time support in the region continues.

As of October 29, ANERA's Gaza Strip Director, Salah Sakka, reported that 1.7 million fortified wafers, enough to distribute to our beneficiary preschool children until the end of January 2008, are in Gaza. We also have delivered, at the end of October, 76,000 cartons of fortified milk - a five-day supply. Additionally, ANERA has delivered over $2 million worth of donated medical supplies into Gaza in October.

Though it is excellent news that we have succeeded in making these deliveries, we still face obstacles. Our partner in providing milk shipments has indicated that although they have met all the conditions for bringing the next shipment into Gaza, it has been delayed at the border.

With the situation getting worse, the cost of these political obstacles in humanitarian as well as financial terms is impossible to calculate. It is all the more imperative that we, in solidarity with Salah and all Gazan families, continue to chip away at this border bureaucracy.

One thing that doesn't get held up by border bureaucracy is direct relief through monetary aid. ANERA responds inside of Gaza's borders, for instance, by installing sanitary landfills, dealing with sewage spills and the lack of potable water, removing piles of rotting garbage, and controlling rats in densely populated areas.

As always, we are approaching this crisis from every angle, determined to take positive steps wherever we can.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Now let's look at still more proof of the collective punishment of the Palestinian people and further war crimes.

There is simply NO EXCUSE for this, NONE whatsoever. And remember, ALL of these actions are what is taking place PRIOR to the so-called "peace talks" at Annapolis.

I urge EVERYONE reading here to contact their senators and representatives to inform them of what is happening.

Call the White House:

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Let them all bite on a wet wash cloth while undergoing surgery

http://www.gasworld.com/news.php?a=2163

Medical gas veto in Gaza disrupts health service

[ 05 Nov 2007, Rob Cockerill, gasworld.com ]

The temporary veto halted all but crucial operations in Gaza hospitals
www.abc.net.au

gasworld Conference

'The new industrial gas frontier'
11 & 12 December 2007, Dubai

The suspension on imports of nitrous oxide, the medical gas used for anaesthetics and as a 50% component in Entonox, to Gaza Strip hospitals has forced its administrations to close down surgery departments and halt a number of operations.

Israel had temporarily barred the import of nitrous oxide as part of its siege and closure of commercial crossings preventing crucial medical supplies from reaching hospitals, halting all operations except those deemed absolutely vital, and causing chaos throughout Gaza’s health service.

Following the recent resumption of the importation of nitrous oxide gas, medical crews worked additional hours around the clock to perform surgeries delayed by the shortage. But the Israel siege and lack of vital medicinal supplies has had an incredibly negative effect on cardiac patients and cardiology departments in Gaza Strip hospitals have begun to accept only those patients who suffer worst from the medicine shortage and lack of appropriate equipment.

Bassem Naim, health minister in the dismissed government, had commented, “There is a possibility of a health disaster occurring here anew, with patients dying because our hospitals are unable to conduct surgeries. There is a need for international intervention to prevent this catastrophe from happening.”

A few months ago I posted an article about the UMMA Clinic here in LA which does such outstanding work and is a shining example to the community. I just received an email from the Community Relations Coordinator for the UMMA Clinic advising me of this recent article in the LA Times. Thank you Mr. Rosen so much for forwarding this to me and blessings are sent your way in continuing your much needed and respected services.

Health trumps faith differences at Muslim clinic

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The UMMA facility promotes interreligious cooperation to provide medical and other services to low-income residents in South L.A.

By Rebecca Trounson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 3, 2007

It grew out of the 1992 riots, a vision by a small group of Muslim medical students to bring charitable, high-quality healthcare to the needy residents of South Los Angeles.

Eleven years later, the UMMA clinic on Florence Avenue has served nearly 20,000 patients, the great majority of them non-Muslim. It has become a mainstay of its largely low-income neighborhood, sponsoring blood drives, literacy promotions and even tax return workshops, along with its medical services.

And in an era when Middle Eastern conflicts and terrorist attacks have often brought uncomfortable attention to America's Muslim communities, the clinic has become a source of considerable pride for Muslims in Southern California and nationwide.

"We believe this is really Islam at its best," said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, an umbrella group for the region's mosques. "We are very proud of those who started UMMA and those who are continuing the work there."

Its cheerful waiting area decorated with translated Koranic texts and colorful children's drawings, the clinic has become a national model. Muslim groups in at least half a dozen cities, including San Bernardino, have sought guidance from UMMA's founders in starting their own such efforts.

UMMA was started by about half a dozen medical and public health students at UCLA, many of whom had been active in the university's Muslim Student Assn. That organization also has started programs to tutor youths at juvenile detention centers and inner-city schools.

Even before the riots left large sections of South Los Angeles devastated, the students had talked among themselves and with professors about starting a clinic, or at least a mobile healthcare unit that would circulate through low-income areas of the city to offer blood pressure exams and other services.

But after the riots, "we saw that there was such a huge need in South L.A.," said Rushdi Abdul Cader, a clinic co-founder who was then just beginning his training as an emergency room physician. "It also was such a time of intolerance, with the city literally on fire.

"We wanted to do something to help, and also to start something that would promote better relations between people."

The founders, who also included Abdul Cader's wife, Nisha, now a pediatrician, were motivated by their Islamic faith, and by what they described as Prophet Muhammad's call to try to correct whatever one finds wrong in the world.

"If you see something that isn't right, there is an obligation in Islam to try to fix it with your own hands, first of all," said Yasser Aman, who started at the clinic as a volunteer while studying at UCLA and is now its president and chief executive. "That's the highest good."

The students, most of them American-born and of Middle Eastern or Southeast Asian heritage, launched their efforts by making cold calls to medical supply companies. Within a year, they had collected more than $150,000 worth of donated equipment and supplies, including EKG machines, computers and examination tables.

"We were storing all this stuff in our parents' garages," said Rushdi Abdul Cader, who now works as an emergency care physician in San Luis Obispo but remains on the clinic's advisory board.

Impressed with the students' savvy and commitment, former Los Angeles City Councilwoman Rita Walters encouraged them to consider a standing clinic instead of a mobile medical unit. Walters helped them obtain a $700,000 grant from federal housing authorities, which they used to renovate an abandoned auto repair shop at 711 W. Florence Ave. into a spotless facility, with a dispensary, lab, waiting area and six exam rooms.

The clinic opened its doors in September 1996 with an initial, two-year operating grant of $680,000 from the city that the fledgling, largely volunteer staff managed to stretch over the next four years. Since then, it has been funded by a combination of donations, grants and state and county reimbursements for indigent care.

Its name, UMMA, comes from the initials of the organization that runs it, the University Muslim Medical Assn. But the name also comes from the Arabic word "ummah," which means community.

From its earliest days, the clinic has been a model of interfaith cooperation, according to those involved. For instance, the man several of the founders described as their faculty mentor during their UCLA years, former UCLA professor Dr. Richard Usatine, jokes that he was the "Jewish advisor to their Muslim organization."

"I was thrilled to be asked because of my beliefs in the importance of people getting along in the world, and of collaboration as a way to increase understanding," said Usatine, now a professor of family medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. "It was a real gem of an opportunity for me to be asked . . . to be valued and to be asked."

A majority of the clinic's board remains Muslim, but most of its staff members are non-Muslim, drawn from the community the clinic serves. Medical Director Dr. Steven Murphy is Roman Catholic.

Of the patients UMMA serves, about 98% are non-Muslim; about 70% are Latino and about 25% are African American, with the rest being Caucasian and Asian.

In the clinic's early days, its founders said they were occasionally turned down in their efforts to raise money from the Muslim community, which was more inclined to support mosques and other institutions providing care directly to Muslims.

That is no longer the case. In 2000, when the clinic was briefly threatened with closure as its initial funding was running out, Southern California Muslims stepped up to keep it open, raising more than $300,000 in a single night, Aman said. They did the same in 2006, raising more than $384,000 at a celebration marking the facility's 10th anniversary.

Now, as the clinic matures and many of its founders step back from active involvement, it faces a new challenge, Aman said: How to maintain its Muslim identity even as it expands and seeks federal funding as part of its recent designation as a federally qualified health center.

The federal designation, achieved in 2006, comes with its own requirements, including the inclusion of patients on the clinic's board. But Aman said the board hopes that a majority of its members, if possible, will continue to be drawn from the Muslim community.

Said Murphy, the clinic's medical director: "It's a place to give and receive blessings, regardless of faith."

Source

To view videos about the UMMA Clinic, link HERE

THE TERROR-PUBLICANS BECOME TOTALLY LAUGHABLE! ~OLBERMANN

The Poetry of Dr. Hanan Ashwari: "Women and Things"

Tonight I had the honor of hearing Dr. Hanan Ashwari speak. A poem she wrote was read by Nizar Wattad of the Philistines before she came on stage She spoke tonight of the power of truth, and the power of women,
Palestinian women.

Women and Things

Hanan Mikha'd'Ashwari

Women make things grow:
Sometimes like the crocus,
surprised by rain, emerging fully
grown from the belly of earth;
Others like the palm tree with
it's promise postponed
rising in a slow
deliberate
spiral to the sky.

Women make things light
afloat
like the breathless
flight of soap bubbles
shimmering in the eyes of a lone
child in a forbidden schoolyard;
And heavy
with the scent of
an overripe fruit
exploding at the
knowledge of summer hardened
soil on days of siege.

Women make things smooth
to the touch
like the kneading of
leavened bread at the dawn of hunger;
And coarse
like the brush of a
homespun coat on
careworn shoulders and bare
arms barely touching on the night of deportation.

Women make things cold
sharp and hard
like a legal argument thrust
before the threat of search and detention;
Or warm
and gentile like
justice in a poem,
like the suggestion of
the image of freedom
as a warm bath and
a long soak, in an undemolished home.

Women make things
And as we, in separate
worlds, braid
our daughter's hair
in the morning, you and
I, each
humming to herself, suddenly
stops
and hears the
tune of the other.

Sunday Offering #33: Journeys of Love and Friendship

Blessings to all..............................

Rice To Face Subpoena in AIPAC Spy Case

Rice to Face Subpoena in Espionage Case

Judge Approves Subpoenas for Rice, Other Officials in Israeli Spy Case

WASHINGTON Nov 2, 2007 (AP)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior intelligence will be subpoenaed to discuss their discussions with pro-Israel lobbyists, a federal judge ruled Friday in an espionage case.

Lawyers for two former American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists facing espionage charges have subpoenaed Rice, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams and several others to testify at their trial next year. Prosecutors had challenged the subpoenas in federal court.

READ FURTHER>>>>>>>>

FBI Seizes Computer From AIPAC Offices

AIPAC and Espionage: Guilty as Hell

AIPAC trial judge authorizes defense to subpoena Rice, Hadley

By Shmuel Rosner

The United States judge presiding over the trial of two former staffers of a pro-Israel lobby who are accused of giving Israel classified information approved Friday subpoenas for top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley.

Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, former senior staffers at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), are accused of conspiring with a former Pentagon analyst to communicate national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it, including foreign government officials, policy analysts and the media.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis in Alexandria, Virginia has approved 16 of the 20 subpoenas of current and former officials requested by the defense.

Rosen and Weissman had asked to subpoena the officials, with whom they held meetings, saying "the testimony of these persons will negate the government's contention that the information defendants obtained and disclosed was NDI [National Defense Information] by showing that this information was neither closely held by the U.S. government, nor were the disclosures of this information damaging to the U.S."

The defendants argue that the U.S. government's use of AIPAC as a "back channel" to advance U.S. foreign policy goals calls into question whether they could have been expected to know that they were committing a crime by passing on the information.

The government opposed 16 of the requests, including those to call Rice and Hadley to testify.

The judge overruled most of the objections, saying the "defendants are entitled to show that, to them, there was simply no difference between the meetings for which they are not charged and those for which they are charged ... and that they believed that the meetings charged in the indictment were simply further examples of the government's use of AIPAC as a diplomatic back channel."

Rosen's attorney Abbe Lowell issued a statement on both defendants' behalf praising the ruling, saying it would help the defense prove that his client's behavior was both "lawful" and "completely consistent" with the practices of AIPAC.

The trial has been scheduled to begin in January.

Among the other subpoenas approved were for White House deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams, former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz and former undersecretary of defense Douglas Feith.

A former Pentagon analyst, Lawrence Franklin, has pleaded guilty in the espionage case to disclosing information to Rosen and Weissman from early 2002 through June 2004. Ellis also approved a subpoena for Franklin.

Asked about the Rice subpoena, U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said, "We are not going to comment on an ongoing legal matter. I would refer you to the Department of Justice."

A Justice Department spokesman had no comment.

SOURCE

Interview (listen) with Michael Shehadeh of the LA8

(source of picture from): Defend the Los Angeles Eight!

U.S. government tries to deport Palestinian activists

By Muna Coobtee

Yesterday it was announced publicly that the government had dropped all charges against Michel Shehadeh and Khader Hamide of the LA8. Yesterday's post with the press release and the judge's statement throwing out the charges can be found HERE.

When reading of this victory, one must note that these two men had to go through more than TWENTY YEARS of harassment by the US government

This morning on "Uprising" on KPFK, Michael Shehadeh was interviewed. I strongly urge you to listen to this interview HERE.