Netanyahu: A second Chance.....

But at what? Destruction or peace? Sorry, it is hard for me to trust anyone who would throw his lot in with the religiously insane of the U.S.A.

The new Israeli government led by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu has raised many conflicting feelings among those concerned about the fate of the Arab-Israeli peace process. Will Netanyahu scuttle the little progress that was made under his predecessor Olmert, or will he engage the Palestinians anew? Questions about whether he will resume negotiations with Syria, how he will tackles Iran's nuclear threat, and if he will get along with President Obama remain unanswered. Yet given the right political environment created by the Obama administration and supported by the leading Arab states and the Palestinians, Netanyahu has the potential to advance the peace negotiations significantly, and may end up surprising everyone in the process.

On the positive side, those who know him well suggest that Netanyahu has matured considerably since he was first prime minister (1996-1999). He is well aware that he may never be given another opportunity as prime minister and that he now stands before an historic crossroad. Netanyahu understands the requirements for peace from being at the negotiating table many times before. He appreciates the Israeli public sentiments and is certainly not oblivious to what the Obama administration expects from any Israeli prime minister at this juncture in a region laden with multiple crises. Moreover, the eyes of the international community are fixed on him and he is only too aware of the burden he has just assumed and the limited time he has to demonstrate sound policies. Netanyahu has said he wants peace with security for his country. He argues for strengthening the Palestinian economy and engaging in the peace process, while not excluding making progress on the Syrian front. Iran still poses the largest security threat to Israel, and Netanyahu insists that it must be neutralized.

There is nothing from his tough campaign rhetoric that precludes the establishment of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace. While the appointment of the right-wing Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister may have signaled to many a shift away from any peacemaking efforts, it is likely that Netanyahu will use Lieberman strategically for his tough rhetoric to satisfy the more hawkish Israeli constituency. When it comes down to the bargaining table though, once Netanyahu feels he has an honest shot at peace with security he will not let Lieberman get in his way. Persuading Labor to join his coalition government and Ehud Barak as his Defense Minister also shifts the balance of power toward moderation. His coalition may well signal that the future peace process will be anchored in tight security arrangements, and that he and Barak can offer the toughness and leverage needed to secure such a peace. Netanyahu and Barak are capable of negotiating simultaneously with both Syria and the Palestinians. Though the peace negotiations with the Palestinians will be painstaking and take much longer to conclude, a steady progress can still be made aggressively while pursuing the Syrian track.

Alternatively, left to his own ideological convictions and without American pressure, Netanyahu can easily retreat back to his old ways. Palestinian disunity and internal struggle within the Arab states will make finding a partner for peace extremely difficult. He will likely expand the settlements, respond harshly to Hamas' violent provocations, and focus exclusively on Iranian threats while relegating the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to the back burner. He might even ignore Syria's overtures for peace, especially because Damascus is not in a position to regain the Golan by force. It is possible Netanyahu will only attempt to pay lip service to the Obama's political agenda in the Middle East, and will cooperate only on matters of national security.

These are the two sides to Netanyahu, though they are not necessarily contradictory. He can lean either direction depending on the level, intensity and consistency of the American involvement not only in trying to mediate an Israeli-Palestinian peace but engaging all other regional players in conflict resolution. To enlist Netanyahu as a partner for peace, President Obama must be specific and clear about what must and can be done to advance the peace process while addressing Israel's main national security concerns, starting with Iran.

The Obama administration needs to heavily cooperate with Israel over Iran's nuclear program, and must demonstrate greater sensitivity to Israel's concerns over this existential threat. Whereas a diplomatic course with Tehran must be fully explored by the US, it must commence immediately so that any possible resolution to the nuclear impasse can be found within 2009, a timeframe that is considered safe before Israel contemplates taking matters into its own hands.

While President Obama must support Netanyahu's plan to build a strong economic base for the Palestinians, he must at the same time insist that a political progress is also being made especially in the West Bank. In that connection, George Mitchell and the Obama administration must be clear with Netanyahu that all illegal outposts are dismantled and a temporary freeze on all settlement activity is enforced. These actions have almost no security implications for Israel, but they create conditions that must exist for the Palestinians and Arab states to take the negotiations seriously.

As Mr. Obama recently embraced the Arab Peace Initiative when he met with the Saudi King Abdullah in London, he must now lean heavily on the leading Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria as well (now that Washington and Damascus are talking) to exert whatever pressure necessary on Hamas to moderate and join the political process. They must resolve now to rein in Hamas and establish a Palestinian unity government with the Palestinian Authority that can speak in one voice. Moreover, the Obama administration must take every measure necessary to prevent future smuggling of weapons to Gaza. Otherwise, as long as Hamas has weapons and continues to violently resist Israel's existence, it will provide Netanyahu with a valid excuse to freeze the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

President Obama must also openly call on Netanyahu to put the Israeli-Syrian negotiations on the fast track and be prepared to become directly involved in the process. By engaging Syria, the Obama administration can re-contextualize the peace process and give it the comprehensiveness that has been lacking. Peace between Israel and Syria is within reach and could have broad regional security implications serving both the United States' as well as Israel's national security interests. Moreover, without Israeli-Syrian rapprochement, the task of dealing with Iran will be simply insurmountable.

To be sure, Netanyahu knows that this is his second and likely final chance to advance the Arab-Israeli peace process, but he is not prepared to undermine Israel's legitimate national security concerns for the sake of claiming the peace. As long as President Obama discerns those genuine national security issues and addresses them effectively with Netanyahu, he may find the new Israeli Prime Minister a willing partner for sustainable peace.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

A Million Doors For Peace

This I can say with no doubt: Until the antiwar-movement becomes a full time PEACE movement, it will still take years to end an unpopular war, prosecuted on lies and fear-mongering, just as it did with Vietnam and, now, in Iraq.



The forces against whom we are pitted are enormously wealthy and powerful. They are the very same forces who have controlled our Democratic Republic, with increasingly authoritarian, fascist tactics for over 4 decades.


Until the forces for peace are continuously operational in those activities which bring about social and economic justice, real energy reform and the withdrawal of public support for the American-led Corporate Empire, the cost of which has nearly, if not in fact, destroyed this nation, future anti-war movements will be equally as ineffective as this one has been for the last 7 years.


Being devoutly for something is far less exhausting and demoralizing over the years than being devoutly against something in an emergency, when one's voice can hardly be heard over the screaming and yelling of the deceived and, therefore, fearful and irrational.

posted by Katrina vanden Heuvel on 09/10/2008

At The Nation

At this moment, when the mainstream media has largely abandoned coverage of the Iraq War and the majority antiwar opinion, the presidential campaign is underwhelming in offering any vision of peace, and the antiwar movement clearly needs to redouble its efforts, an exciting mobilization is re-energizing the peace movement--the Million Doors for Peace campaign.

On Saturday, September 20, 25,000 volunteers across the country will contact one million people in their neighborhoods and ask them to sign a petition urging the next Congress to bring US troops home from Iraq within one year. (The timetable is based on a new report from the Center of American Progress--coauthored by Dr. Lawrence Korb, former Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration – that suggests "an orderly and safe withdrawal is best achieved over an 8 to 10 month period.") This campaign is different from previous antiwar efforts because volunteers will be talking to their own communities instead of gathering in one place--such as the National Mall--for a traditional protest.

Spearheaded by USAction and TrueMajority, the Million Doors campaign has evolved into the broadest antiwar coalition to date. Karen Dolan, Director of Cities for Peace--one of the original cosponsoring organizations--said, "I've been at the center of the new peace movement since 2002 and I haven't seen anything like this before. Its exciting to me [because] Cities for Peace is involved with so many of these groups and I have often witnessed something like the divide between the more radical activists and more centrist groups - and I mean the terms 'radical' and 'centrist' in the most affectionate way, as two strategic sides of the same progressive coin! The unification of all of us bodes well for new energy and more creative, and hopefully effective, antiwar work nationally."

Other organizations participating in the campaign include: Catholics United, CodePink, MoveOn, Pax Christi USA, Peace Action, Progressive Accountability, Progressive Democrats of America, United for Peace and Justice, Voters for Peace, United Methodist Church-General Board of Church and Society, Organic Consumers Union, Democracy for America and Win Without War. Combined, the coalition boasts a membership in the millions and hundreds of state and local affiliates.

"We're shooting for at least 25,000 people to sign up and participate," said Leslie Cagan, National Coordinator of United for Peace and Justice. "This is a cooperative effort of all of the major antiwar groups in the country, and that's one reason we're so optimistic. It represents another level of the cooperation and collaboration within the antiwar movement."

Volunteers will be sent a list of 40 neighbors to contact and receive training materials, literature, and a petition from participating organizations and through the Million Doors website. The neighbors who volunteers will contact are all either newly registered or lapsed voters - a key strategy to broadening the movement.

"By targeting newly registered voters, and lapsed voters, we think that combination will allow us to talk to people who have not necessarily been engaged in the antiwar movement before," Cagan said. "They may agree with us, but they haven't yet taken a stand or taken any action.... We do believe that the vast majority of this country opposes the war. But it's also true that the organized antiwar movement has not yet been able to successfully tap into that constituency. September 20 will both energize people who are already part of the antiwar movement, and also reach beyond those folks to the next layer of antiwar activists."

All of the organizers feel that September 20 is critical to shining a light back on Iraq. Tom Swan, USAction's Iraq 2008 campaign coordinator and former campaign manager for Ned Lamont, said: "A lot of the Washington punditry is trying to ignore the fact that we're still at war, spending $12 billion a month, resources that could be put to use here at home. And while it's a slower pace, the number of our troops in Iraq who die continues to grow on a weekly basis.... There has been an entire vacuum on the war, and particularly the cost of the war, and the drain that it is on our economy.... We're going to go out and talk with [neighbors] about the war, its cost, and why we expect our leaders to end it now. By having these tens of thousands of people going out door to door on one day we're going to help put this issue back within the public debate.... About [how this] war was a bad idea, continuing it is a bad idea, and we need to end it now."

Beyond September 20, this mobilization has the potential to greatly strengthen the antiwar movement moving forward--and that's critical even if there is a Democratic president and Congress.

"No matter who wins in November, we... will need to continue to put the pressure on to bring the Troops Home from Iraq, and to stop new wars from starting or escalating," said CODEPINK co-founder Jodie Evans.

"We know full well that whoever is elected come November 4th the work of the antiwar movement is far from over," Cagan said. "And what our efforts on September 20 will do is help us expand the organized base of the antiwar movement... We will be able to then go back to people and get them involved in next steps, with local groups, or become part of a national effort."

"September 20 is very creative and it does several things," Dolan said. "[It] involves new voters; demonstrates a peace mandate for a new president and new congress; has the by-product of identifying antiwar voters; creates a new and dynamic list for the entire peace movement to engage after the action on September 20th and invite to join us in ending the war and in future grassroots activist campaigns."

Even if Barack Obama should win, Swan pointed out, "We think that when it comes to the war Obama is only going to be as good as progressives push him to be." (Swan mentioned my recent recounting of how FDR told progressives who sought his support on legislation, "You've convinced me. Now go out and make me do it." And they did. History repeats itself now - only through a strong, organized antiwar movement will any president be able to move aggressively to end the war and prevent future wars as well.)

You can sign up and get your friends to do the same up until the day before the mobilization. Do it now - start knocking on doors and help put an end to this insane, disastrous war.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Grandmothers Get Federal Prison Sentence

This is outrageous!

Write you elected officials, now!


By Bill Quigley t r u t h o u t Report
Thursday 01 February 2007

Cathy Webster, a grandmother living in Chico, California, organized "A Thousand Grandmothers for Peace" to protest in November 2006 against the torture-training School of the Americas (SOA) (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation or WHINSEC) at Fort Benning, Georgia.

SOA-WHINSEC has been the subject of international criticism since it was disclosed that torture manuals were used in training Latin American military personnel. Amnesty International USA called for the closing of the school, an investigation into the human rights atrocities committed by its graduates, and reparations and an apology to its victims.

This week a federal judge in Columbus, Georgia, sentenced Ms. Webster to two months in federal prison for stepping through a hole in the fence onto the grounds of Fort Benning to carry her protest to the doors of SOA-WHINSEC.

Two other Grandmothers for Peace were also sentenced to federal prison for the nonviolent protest - Julienne Oldfield of Syracuse NY and Val Fillenwarth of Indianapolis IN. The three grandmothers were among sixteen human rights activists, ages 17 to 71, who were on trial in federal court in Georgia this week. Fifteen were given federal prison sentences of one to six months.

Alongside the grandmothers were five inspiring college students: Melissa Helman of Ashland, Wisconsin; Martina Leforce and Nathan Slater from Berea, Kentucky; Graymon Ward of Raleigh, North Carolina; and Whitney Ray of Grinnel, Iowa. All had been arrested and prosecuted for trespass. Four were sentenced to prison.

Ms. Webster told the judge, "You will notice that increasingly it is the elders who are speaking out and acting boldly and authoritatively to bring understanding of what justice, kindness, generosity and compassion mean in a world weary of the endless conquest and dominance mind-set of nations."

Ms. Webster estimated that over 1,000 grandmothers participated in the November protest organized by School of Americas Watch which was attended by nearly 20,000 people. The annual protest commemorates the thousands who have died at the hands of the graduates of the SOA-WHINSEC, which used and taught from publicly disclosed torture manuals in its training of Latin American military personnel.

The grandmothers and the rest of the 16 protestors will join more than 250 other activists who have spent a collective 92 years in prison and dozens of years on federal probation for prior nonviolent civil disobedience at the gates to Fort Benning and SOA-WHINSEC.

For more on the human rights activists going to federal prison and more on the campaign to close SOA-WHINSEC, see http://.www.soaw.org.
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Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and a professor of law at Loyola University New Orleans. Bill was part of the legal collective representing these human rights protestors in federal court in Georgia. His email is Quigley@loyno.edu.

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.