Nonviolent Resistance Acts

Time for Solidarity With Iran

Dan Pearson — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:36:37 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Analysis of the current political events in Iran.

Excerpt

by Bitta Mostofi and Bill Quigley

June 25, 2009

In Isfahan, Iran, an 80-year-old woman stood defiantly in her doorway. Twenty baton-wielding Basij men arrived on motorcycles and threatened to enter her house in pursuit of a group of young demonstrators. Instead of running with fear or turning her back on the demonstrators, this woman looked the pursuers straight in the eye and said, “You will not get past me.”

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by Bitta Mostofi and Bill Quigley

June 25, 2009

Stories of extraordinary bravery and nonviolent defiance to aggression and injustice have slowly but consistently found their way over the Alborz Mountains and across rivers and oceans. They have found their way into the hearts and minds of people across the globe who have been captivated for the past week by this most unlikely of uprisings.

Iranians in Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan and Tabriz have flooded the streets demanding their voices be heard. We see and are inspired by their movement. We have also witnessed the reality of violent suppression and carry a heavy sorrow for the tragically lost lives.

Yet, unfortunately, in the US, the loudest voices framing the discussion about Iran come from right-wing conservatives, who historically have repeated attempts to demonize and dominate Iran. The voices of solidarity from progressives and social justice activists who support the right of self-determination for Iran have not been raised as forcefully, if at all.

It is right to support President Obama’s position to let the Iranian people determine their own future, if that support is part of a larger and louder campaign for justice. This support does not minimize the need for international solidarity.

The Iranian regime must be held responsible for the severe violations of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The ICCPR upholds the right of all people to self-determination, to freedom of expression, to receive and impart information, to freedom of assembly and to vote in elections which guarantee the free expression of the will of the voters. The Iranian regime has continually violated these rights since the election and must be held accountable.

The leadership of Iran, and by this we mean the people on the streets, have lived the last week consistent with the principles of nonviolent resistance in response to a coup.

Where are the voices of social justice and human rights activists in the US? Where are our civil rights leaders and the leaders of nonviolent resistance? As the Iranians have stood side by side, and continue to do so, many on the left have come up with excuse after excuse as to why they remain silent.

Social justice activists must stand with Iranian activists now in order to prevent an ideological and dangerous intervention. Social justice activists must insist that the international community call for an immediate cessation against all human rights violations in Iran. Our commitment to freedom and self-determination cannot wane. Otherwise, we may have to ask ourselves when we look back on these weeks, what did our silence say?

Whether you believe the election was a fraud is beside the point. What is happening today is a popular movement that deserves the solidarity of all people of good will. The state apparatus in Iran continues to withhold information and refuses to carry any burden of proof. They intend to prevail by smothering the resistance.

What is needed now by all supporters of the rule of law, social justice and human rights in the United States is strong support for the Obama administration’s current position. Otherwise, a dangerous void is created in the conversation about Iran in which the same people who sang “Bomb, bomb Iran” are positioning themselves to be seen as the liberators of the very people they threatened to attack. We can support the administration’s position at present while urging the international community to condemn the violence used against civilians in Iran.

Over the past few years, many groups and organizations have led campaigns against US intervention and war on Iran. Yet, the people who led, donated to and supported much of this work have been too quiet in the last week, allowing conservatives to beat the drums of invasion louder than ever.

A woman at a prayer service for a fallen child said to one of the few remaining journalists in Iran, “I’m scared that all the blood shed for this cause may be wasted.”

The movement for rule of law in Iran deserves our solidarity. To those that continue to fight for their rights in the face of the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity, “We stand with you!”

Those of us that live over the mountains and across the oceans from Iran cannot show the bravery of the 80-year-old woman in Isfahan, refusing to allow the Basij to beat innocent protesters. But, like the brave Iranian woman, we can scream from the top of our lungs to those who are trying to usurp this movement for conservative causes, “You are not getting past us!”

Bitta Mostofi is an Iranian-American immigration and civil rights attorney who can be reached at . Bill Quigley is the Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and can be reached at quigley77@gmail.com.

The Iranian Uprising is Home Grown, and Must Stay That Way

Jeff Leys — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:51:17 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Analysis of the current political events in Iran.

Excerpt

by Stephen Zunes
CommonDreams - original source
June 19, 2009
Additonal Analysis by Stephen Zunes

The growing nonviolent insurrection in Iran against the efforts by the ruling clerics to return the ultra-conservative and increasingly autocratic incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinjead to power is growing. Whatever the outcome, it represents an exciting and massive outpouring of Iranian civil society for a more open and pluralistic society.

Ironically, defenders of Ahmadinejad’s repression are trying to blame everyone from the U.S. government, to nonviolent theorist Gene Sharp, to various small NGOs engaged in educational efforts on strategic nonviolent action as somehow being responsible for the popular uprising in Iran. It appears to be based upon the rather bizarre assumption that millions of Iranians would somehow be willing to pour out onto the streets in the face of violent repression by state security forces only because they have been directed to do so by people from an imperialist power which overthrew their last democratic government and subsequently propped up the tyrannical regime they installed in its place for the next quarter century.

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by Stephen Zunes
CommonDreams - original source
June 19, 2009
Additonal Analysis by Stephen Zunes

Even putting aside the bizarre spectacle of self-proclaimed “leftists” coming to the defense of a right-wing fundamentalist autocratic like Ahmadinejad, this claim ignores several key factors:

1) Neo-conservatives and other American hawks were hoping for a victory by the hard-line incumbent to justify their opposition to President Barack Obama’s tentative steps at rapprochement with the Islamic Republic.

2) Opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and the vast majority of his supporters are strongly nationalist, anti-American, anti-imperialist, and would neither desire nor accept U.S. support.

3) There has been a longstanding Iranian tradition of such largely nonviolent civil insurrections against imperialist powers and autocratic rulers and no outside power is needed to convince the Iranian people to rebel.

The Neo-Cons Supported Ahmadinejad

The only people happier than the Iranian elites over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s apparently stolen election win Friday, were the neoconservatives and other hawks eager to block any efforts by the Obama administration to moderate U.S. policy toward the Islamic republic.

Since he was elected president in 2005, Ahmadinejad has filled a certain niche in the American psyche formerly filled by the likes of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi as the Middle Eastern leader we most love to hate. It gives us a sense of righteous superiority to compare ourselves favorably to these seemingly irrational and fanatical foreign despots.

Better yet, if these despots can be inflated into far greater threats than they actually are, these supposed threats can be used to justify the enormous financial and human costs of maintaining American armed forces in that volatile region to protect ourselves and our allies, and even to make war against far-off nations in “self-defense.”

The neocons have not been subtle about their desire for Ahmadinejad to continue playing this important role. For example, right-wing pundit Daniel Pipes, at a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation just before the election, said that he would vote for Ahmadinejad if he could, because he prefers “an enemy who is forthright, blatant, obvious.”

Last week, just two days before the Iranian election, Congressional Republicans — in an apparent effort to provoke a nationalist reaction which would enhance the chances of Iranian hard liners – tried to push through a floor vote to strengthen U.S. sanctions against Iran.

It is interesting how some of the very foreign policy hawks who just last week were dismissing Mir Hossein Mousavi’s expected victory as irrelevant since, in their view, there was essentially no meaningful difference between him and Ahmadinejad, are now among the most self-righteous in denouncing the apparent fraud and the most outspoken in their pseudo-outrage at the results.

Their worst-case scenario for these American hawks would be a nonviolent insurrection that would topple Ahmadinejad and allied hard-line clerics and the development of a more pluralistic and representative Islamic Republic in Iran. . Neither the neocons nor Iran’s reactionary leadership want to see that oil-rich regional power under a popular and legitimate government. Indeed, the neocons and Iranian hard-liners need each other.

The Nationalist Nature of the Opposition

Mousavi – despite his disagreements with Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the years — has been very much part of the establishment. Indeed, Mousavi would not have even been allowed to run for president otherwise, since the Council of Guardians routinely forbids anyone who is seen to not sufficiently support the country’s theocratic system to participate.

Yet, Mousavi attracted a large and enthusiastic following during the course of the campaign which may have led the ruling clerics to fear that the momentum of his incipient victory could result not just in limited reforms, like those attempted under former president Mohammed Khatami, but revolutionary change. The size and intensity of Mousavi’s final campaign rally, in which he referred to Ahmadinejad as a “dictator” — which, by extension, implied an indictment of the system as a whole — may have tilted the clerics into believing they could not take the risk of allowing the anticipated results to be verified. Despite his candidacy displaying a personality and style closer to Michael Dukakis than Barack Obama, Mousavi came to represent the change so many Iranians, especially young people, desperately desired and appeared determined to make happen.

Even among Iranians dedicated to the principles of the Islamic Republic, many now see their country essentially as a police state, recognizing that Ahmadinejad and the ruling clerics are little more than corrupt self-interested politicians who have manipulated their people’s religious faith for the sake of their own power.

However strong their opposition to the current regime, the democratic and reformist opposition simply does not trust the United States, which overthrew Iran’s last democratic government in 1953, armed and trained the Shah’s brutal security apparatus, backed Saddam Hussein in his bloody war against their country, imposed strict economic sanctions on their country, and has hypocritically obsessed about their civilian nuclear program while supporting such neighboring states as Israel, Pakistan and India despite their developing nuclear arsenals.

While Congress in recent years has approved millions of dollars in funding to support various Iranian opposition groups to promote “regime change,” most of these groups are led by exiles who have virtually no following within Iran or any experience with the kinds of grassroots mobilization necessary to build a popular movement that could threaten the regime’s survival. By contrast, most of the credible opposition within Iran has renounced this U.S. initiative and has asserted that it has simply made it easier for the regime to claim that all pro-democracy groups and activists are paid agents of the United States.

Feeling pressure from Iranian democrats and major Iranian-American groups regarding such counter-productive efforts, Obama and the Democrats have since ended this controversial program. Ironically, Republicans are now attacking the administration for having somehow abandoned Iran’s pro-democracy struggle while Ahmadinejad and his supporters are citing the now-discarded effort as proof of U.S. complicity in the current uprising.

Generations of Struggle

Most Iranians – who have traditionally been very proud of their political, social and cultural history – would find it rather bizarre to learn that some Western bloggers, ignorant of that very history, are insisting that the recent protests are a result not of their own anger at an apparent stolen election and continued autocratic rule, but simply because some Americans have told them to.

In reality, uprisings like the one witnessed in recent days have occurred with some regularity in Iran since the late 1800s. Indeed, the idea of Americans having to teach Iranians about massive nonviolent resistance is like Americans teaching Iranians to cook fesenjan.

In 1890, unpopular concessions on tobacco and other products to the British led leading Shia clerics to call for nationalist protests and a nationwide tobacco strike, which succeeded in forcing the Shah to cancel the concession in early 1892.

In 1905, in opposition to widespread corruption by the Qajar dynasty and allied regional nobles and a series of other concessions to Russian and other foreign interests, an uprising initially led by merchants and clergy ensued which would continue for the next six years. In what became known as the Constitutional Revolution, many thousands of Iranians engaged in peaceful protests, boycotts and mass sit-ins, along with occasional riots and scattered armed engagements. The result was significant political and social reforms, including the establishment of an elected parliament to share power with the Shah and anti-corruption measures.

A CIA-sponsored coup in 1953 ousted the elected nationalist prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh and his nationalist supporters and returned the exiled Shah to power as an absolute monarch. Through mass arms transfers from the United States, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi built one of the most powerful armed forces ever seen in the Middle East. His American-trained secret police, the SAVAK, had been thought to have successfully terrorized the population into submission during the next two decades through widespread killings, torture and mass detentions. By the mid-1970s, most of the leftist, liberal, nationalist, and other secular opposition leadership had been successfully repressed through murder, imprisonment or exile, and most of their organizations banned. It was impossible to suppress the Islamist opposition as thoroughly, however, so it was out of mosques and among the mullahs that much of the organized leadership of the movement against the Shah’s dictatorship emerged.

Open resistance began in 1977, when exiled opposition leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for strikes, boycotts, tax refusal and other forms of noncooperation with the Shahs regime. Such activism was met with brutal repression by the government. The pace of the resistance accelerated as massacres of civilians were answered by larger demonstrations following the Islamic 40-day mourning period. In the months that followed, Iranians employed many of the methods that would be used in the unarmed insurrections that toppled dictatorships in the Philippines, Latin America, Eastern Europe and elsewhere in subsequent years: mass demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, contestation of public space, and the establishment of parallel institutions.

Despite the bloody image of the revolution and the authoritarianism and militarism of the Islamic Republic that followed, there was a clear commitment to keeping the actual insurrection largely nonviolent. Protestors were told by the leadership of the resistance to try to win over the troops rather than attack them; indeed, thousands of troops deserted, some in the middle of confrontations with crowds. Clandestinely smuggled audio cassette tapes of Ayatollah Khomeini speaking about the revolution played a key role in the movement’s mass mobilization, and led Abolhassan Sadegh, an official with the Ministry of National Guidance, to note that “tape cassettes are stronger than fighter planes.” Ayatollah Khomeini’s speeches, circulated through such covert methods, emphasized the power of unarmed resistance and noncooperation. In one speech, he said, “The clenched fists of freedom fighters can crush the tanks and guns of the oppressors.” There were few of the violent activities normally associated with armed revolutions such as shooting soldiers, setting fires to government buildings or looting. Such incidents that did occur were unorganized and spontaneous and did not appear to have the support of the leadership of the movement.

In October and November of 1978, a series of strikes by civil servants and workers in government industries crippled the country. The crisis deepened when oil workers struck at the end of October and demanded the release of political prisoners, costing the government $60 million a day. An ensuing general strike on November 6 paralyzed the country. Even as some workers returned to their jobs, disruption of fuel oil supplies and freight transit, combined with shortages of raw materials resulting from a customs strike, largely kept economic life in the country at a standstill.

Despite providing rhetorical support for an improvement in the human rights situation in Iran, the Carter administration continued military and economic support for the Shah’s increasingly repressive regime, even providing fuel for the armed forces and other security services facing shortages due to the strikes.

Under enormous pressure, the oil workers returned to work but continued to stage slowdowns. Later in November, the Shah’s nightly speeches were interrupted when workers cut off the electricity at precisely the time of his scheduled addresses. Massive protests filled the streets in major cities in December as oil workers walked out again and an ongoing general strike closed the refineries and the central bank. Despite thousands of unarmed protesters being killed by the Shah’s forces, the protesters’ numbers increased, with as many as nine million Iranians taking to the streets in of cities across the country in largely nonviolent protests. The Shah fled on January 16, 1979, and Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile two weeks later. He appointed Mehdi Bazargan prime minister, thus establishing a parallel government to challenge the Shah’s appointed prime minister Shapur Bahktiar. With the loyalty of the vast majority clearly with the new Islamic government, Bahktiar resigned February 11.

One element that contributed to people’s willingness to mobilize under harsh repression was the value of martyrdom in Shia Islam. The movement’s emphasis was to “save Islam by our blood.” Indeed, there are interesting parallels between the legacy of martyrdom inspired by early Shia leader Imam Hossein with the Gandhian tradition of self-sacrifice. As demonstrated by their subsequent rule, the Iranian revolution’s leadership – unlike Mohandas Gandhi – clearly did not support nonviolence as a principle, but recognized its utilitarian advantages against the well-armed security apparatus of the Shah’s regime.

While the revolution had the support of a broad cross-section of society (including Islamists, secularists, nationalists, laborers, and ethnic minorities), Khomeini and other leading Shia clerics strengthened by a pre-existing network of social service and other parallel institutions consolidated their hold and established an Islamic theocracy. The regime shifted far to the right by the spring of 1981, purging moderate Islamists including the elected president Abolhassan Bani-Sadr and imposing a totalitarian system.

A New Revolution?

Now, a new generation of Iranians is rising up in the tradition of previous generations using largely nonviolent tactics to challenge their oppression. Those out on the streets in Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz, and other cities are not just middle class intellectuals but also represent a broad cross-section of the poor and working class and include both the majority Persians as well as other ethnicities.

It is not clear whether the opposition can successfully organize a “people power” revolution of the kind which have succeeded in ousting autocrats who attempted to steal elections in such countries as the Philippines in 1986, Serbia in 2000, or Ukraine in 2005 or whether – as in Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Mexico – the regime will remain in power.

In any case, it is clearly a home-grown indigenous struggle. Any effort by the United States (which has allowed one —and possible two—stolen elections to stand in recent years) to intervene will only hurt the pro-democracy movement. Given the history of U.S. interventionism in Iran, Obama’s cautious approach will do more to help those in the current popular struggle than anything more explicit, despite Republican demands to the contrary.

The future of Iran belongs in the hands of the Iranians and the best thing the United States can do to support a more open and pluralistic society in that country is to stay the hell out of the way.

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Stephen Zunes is Middle East editor for Foreign Policy In Focus. He is a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003.)

Peace Activists Arrested After Protesting US Drones in Nevada

Dan Pearson — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:50:53 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Democracy Now! coverage plus interview with Fr. Louis Vitale

Excerpt

April 14, 2009

Democracy Now!

Peace Activists Arrested After Protesting US Drones in Nevada

Body

April 14, 2009

Democracy Now!

Peace Activists Arrested After Protesting US Drones in Nevada

US drone bombings have reportedly killed 687 Pakistani civilians since 2006. During that time, US Predator drones carried out sixty strikes inside Pakistan, but hit just ten of their actual targets. Last week, a group of peace activists last week staged the first major act of civil disobedience against the drone attacks in the United States. Fourteen people were arrested outside the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, where Air Force personnel pilot the unmanned drones used in Pakistan. We speak with longtime California peace activist Father Louis Vitale, who was among those arrested, and with Jeff Paterson of Courage to Resist.

We turn now to a new focus of some in the anti-war movement here in the United States. According to the Pakistani newspaper the News, U.S. drone bombings have killed 687 Pakistani civilians since 2006. During that time US Predator drones carried out sixty strikes inside Pakistan, but hit just ten of their actual targets. The most recent attack came last Wednesday, just hours after Pakistani officials rejected a US proposal to conduct joint operations in tribal regions near the Pakistani border with Afghanistan. According to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Pakistani officials have also asked the US to hand over control of the drone missions in response to growing public outrage. Their request came as Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced he would seek a more than 100 percent increase in funding for the drones.

Well last week a group of peace activists staged the first major act of civil disobedience against the drone attacks in the United States. On Thursday, fourteen people were arrested outside the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, where the Air Force pilots the unmanned drones used in Pakistan. The activists were arrested after holding a ten-day vigil dubbed “Ground the Drones.”

I’m joined now a by-long time California peace activist who was among those detained. Father Louis Vitale has been active in social justice movements for over four decades. During that time he has racked up hundreds of arrests and over a year in jail time for his involvement in a number of local and international causes. Last year he ended a five-month prison term for staging an anti-torture protest at a military intelligence training center at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona. For twelve years he was pastor of the St. Boniface Catholic Church in San Francisco. He is a co-founder of “Pah-Chay Bay-Nay”, a group committed to non-violent action for social justice.

Father Louie joins me here in San Francisco.

Father Louis Vitale, legendary Bay Area social justice activist, active for more than four decades. Has racked up hundreds of arrests and more than a year in jail time for his involvement in a number of local and international causes. For twelve years he was pastor of the St. Boniface Catholic Church in San Francisco.

Jeff Paterson, program director of Courage to Resist, an organization that supports troops who refuse to fight.

Project

Ground the Drones…Lest We Reap the Whirlwind

Photos from Ground the Drones Action at Creech Airforce Base

Gerald — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:00:13 -0500

Short Information Teaser

View the Gallery for more photos of the Creech action.

Excerpt

Outside Creech Air Force Base April 5

View more pictures from Creech AFB

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Outside Creech Air Force Base April 5

View more pictures from Creech AFB

Ground the Drones Video Links

Gerald — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:38:45 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Videographers Claudia Salamanca and Kate Chandler document the action at Creech Air force Base.

Excerpt

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Resisting the Afghanistan - Pakistan War

Dan Pearson — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 09:52:19 -0500

Short Information Teaser

From “Ground the Drones…Lest We Reap the Whirlwind” a ten-day vigil outside of Creech Airforce base in Nevada

Excerpt

April 10, 2009

Creech AFB — Fourteen peace and social justice activists were arrested on April 9 at Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada. The arrests occurred during a 10 day vigil at the gates to Creech–which is home to members of the Air Force who “pilot” the Predator and Reaper drones used in the Afghanistan - Pakistan war.

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April 10, 2009

Participants in the Sacred Peace Walk (organized by Nevada Desert Experience) arrived at Creech in the late afternoon, after walking 14 miles that day en route to the Nevada Test Site. With the vigil’s numbers strengthened by the walkers, participants gathered together to reflect upon the lessons to be learned from the examples of the White Rose student movement in Nazi Germany and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s work to oust Hitler from power through a coup attempt.

The White Rose distributed fliers calling upon the German people to actively resist their country’s continuation of the war and to work for the downfall of Hitler. For this act, many were executed. Bonhoeffer returned to Germany from the safety of the United States in order to participate in the work to overthrow Hitler. In explaining his decision to return to Germany, rather than riding out the war in the U.S., Bonhoeffer said that the choice before the German people was clear–to work for a German victory in the war and thereby destroy civilization or to work for Germany’s defeat such that civilization might survive. He wrote that he could not make this choice from the safety of the U.S. but, rather, must return to Germany to act upon his convictions despite the risks.

As the reflections upon the White Rose and Dietrich Bonhoeffer drew to a conclusion, the Ground the Drones campaign vigil began to move towards the main gate of Creech Air Force Base. Remarkably enough, the gates were left open and fourteen people entered the base.

Air Force security personnel immediately ordered the fourteen to stop and to leave the base. The fourteen sat down to defuse any tension in the air yet firmly informed the Air Force that they intended to remain. They were seeking an audience with the men and women who work and serve at Creech so that a conversation might take place regarding the on-going use of the Predator and Reaper drones in the Afghanistan - Pakistan war. Needless to say, their request for such a conversation did not carry the day.

The Nevada State Highway Patrol was called to the scene, as well as the Las Vegas Metro Police. The Creech 14 were offered a deal in which, if they agreed to walk off the base, they would be issued a citation and released on the spot. All fourteen declined to walk off the base. Subsequently, the state and local law enforcement agencies arrested the fourteen on the charge of trespass. The 14 were transported to the Clark County Detention Facility to be booked, processed and, hopefully, released on a personal recognizance bond with a date to return for court proceedings. As of this writing though, it is not certain whether in fact all fourteen will be released on their own recognizance or whether, instead, they will be held on cash bail.

This act of nonviolent resistance points the way forward to build opposition to the expansion of the U.S. war in Central Asia. Earlier this week, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that he will seek additional funding in the Department of Defense budget to build and sustain an additional 50 Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles. This will be a 62 percent increase in the military’s capability to utilize drones in on-going warfare. Secretary Gates comments follow up on President Obama’s earlier decisions: 1) to continue attacks along the Afghanistan - Pakistan border (including attacks into Pakistan itself); and 2) to increase troop levels first by 17,000 followed by another 4,000 troops. As well, President Obama is seeking over $80 billion in additional supplemental funds for this fiscal year alone (which ends on September 30) to fight the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Those arrested at Creech Air Force Base came from all parts of the country, north to south, east to west, and included: John Dear, S.J. (New Mexico); Kathy Kelly (Chicago - Voices for Creative Nonviolence); Louie Vitale, O.F.M. (Oakland); Renee Espeland (Des Moines Catholic Worker); Steve Kelly, S.J. (California - Pacific Life Community); Judy Homanich (Binghamton, NY); Jerry Zawada, O.F.M. (Arizona); Mariah Klusmire (New Mexico); Dennis DuVall (Arizona); Elizabeth Pappalardo (Illinois); Brian Terrell (Strangers & Guests Catholic Worker Farm, Maloy, Iowa); Eve Tetaz (Washington, D.C.); Brad Lyttle (Illinois); and Sister Megan Rice, S.H.C.J. (Nevada Desert Experience).

To learn more about the Predator and Reaper, please visit the website of the Nevada Desert Experience or email Voices for Creative Nonviolence at .

Jeff Leys is Co-Coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. He can be reach via email,

VCNV Author

Jeff Leys

Project

Ground the Drones…Lest We Reap the Whirlwind

Protesting priest's path leads repeatedly to jail

Dan Pearson — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:18:18 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Father Louis Vitale has engaged in civil disobedience for nearly four decades in pursuit of peace and justice. 'He is following in the footsteps of St. Francis,' a bishop says.

Excerpt

By Richard C. Paddock

Los Angeles Times

April 8, 2009

Reporting from Santa Barbara — Father Louis Vitale has lost track of how many times he has been arrested. More than 200, he figures, maybe 300. The gaunt Franciscan friar figures he’s spent a year and a half behind bars. At 76, he is ready to go to jail again.

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By Richard C. Paddock

Los Angeles Times

April 8, 2009

Last month, he appeared before a federal magistrate in Santa Barbara.

Dressed in the traditional brown robe and the knotted rope belt that signifies vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, Vitale explains in his gravelly voice that he had a higher purpose when he trespassed two years ago at Vandenberg Air Force Base: calling attention to the perils of nuclear war and persuading military personnel to embrace nonviolence.

“The biggest threat to the world is our nuclear arsenal,” he tells Magistrate Judge Rita Coyne Federman.

More than two dozen family members and friends, including actor Martin Sheen, are in the courtroom to show support for the friar and his three co-defendants.

Vitale tells Federman, who had found him guilty in December, that sending him to jail would only make him more determined to break the law again to protest injustice.

“I am committed to doing anything I can,” he says.

The judge, rejecting the prosecution’s call for five months in jail, concludes that more time behind bars would not change the priest’s ways. She orders him to pay a $500 fine.

Sheen, sitting in the second row, expresses surprise. “The government needs the dough,” he cracks.

Outside court, Vitale admonishes friends and family members not to pay it. He would rather go to jail.

For nearly four decades, Vitale has made civil disobedience a way of life.

A former Air Force navigator with a PhD in sociology from UCLA, he believes his mission is to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and St. Francis, who comforted the poor and preached nonviolence. “I call it the evangelization of peace,” he says.

His example inspired so many people to put themselves on the line during the anti-nuke protests of the 1980s that he was dubbed the Pied Piper of the Nevada Test Site. More recently, he has helped focus attention on the training of Latin American security forces at Ft. Benning, Ga., and the instruction of U.S. military interrogators at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz.

“He’s one of my heroes,” said Sheen, a longtime friend who has been arrested with Vitale in Nevada. “He is one of the great peacemakers.”

Vitale, who lives at St. Elizabeth’s Friary in Oakland, is one of a small number of religious figures around the nation who seek to go to jail for their beliefs. “By taking on the suffering of others, we change the world,” he says. “We are willing to put our bodies where they are and suffer the consequences, be what they may.”

He is tall and slender, bearded and bald with a fringe of close-cropped gray hair, a prominent nose and large ears. Friendly and self-effacing, Vitale often cracks jokes that soften his radical message.

“I like to be liked and I try not to offend people,” he says.

At protests or the courthouse, he typically wears his monk’s habit. But he also projects an air of informality, carrying a cellphone in his breast pocket and wearing black Crocs.

As a speaker, the fast-talking friar displays a passion for his cause, albeit with a tendency to ramble. His ability to inspire appears to stem more from his upbeat nature and his example.

Vitale often cites the inspiration of St. Francis, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

He gets up in the middle of the night to pray and fasts on Fridays, which contributes to his lean physique. The friar also goes on lengthy fasts as a political statement; his longest was 46 days to protest the Persian Gulf War.

“He looks more like Gandhi every day,” Sheen says.

As he travels around speaking to audiences, Vitale often uses chapters of his life story to illustrate his message.

Born in San Gabriel, he could have gone into the family fish-processing business and lived a life of affluence. After graduating from what is now Loyola Marymount University in 1954, he enlisted in the Air Force. He took pride in being a “flyboy,” bought a Jaguar Roadster and enjoyed the party life.

Vitale often recounts how his squadron was ordered to shoot down a presumed enemy aircraft approaching the U.S. He says the crew was told not to risk inspecting the plane before firing but flew alongside anyway. Two women waved at them through a window. It was a commercial airliner.

That planted the seeds of his disillusionment.

When his three-year stint ended, the self-described playboy found himself drawn to the church. He gave up his girlfriend and gave away his Roadster. He chose the Franciscans, he said, because they had a sense of humor.

“It was the idea of doing good, whether it was as a crusader or a hero,” he says.

Vitale took his vows in 1960 when he was 28. When he emerged from the isolation of his theological studies, he found much had changed.

“When I came out of the seminary in ‘64, Martin Luther King was in the streets, Cesar Chavez was in the fields, Berkeley students were doing free speech marches and the anti-Vietnam War movement was in full bloom,” he says. “I got involved in all that.”

He met King, attended Mass with Robert F. Kennedy and fasted with Chavez.

“Father Louie was with us at every major crisis we had,” said United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta. “He lives the purpose of what he believes, the idea of peace and nonviolence. He has a quiet strength, and he’s fearless.”

Vitale’s first arrest came in 1971, when he helped organize a sit-in by welfare mothers that blocked traffic on the Las Vegas Strip to protest major cuts in aid by Nevada.

The priest had gotten to know Nevada Gov. Mike O’Callaghan, who called him his “Franciscan conscience.” When the police reported to O’Callaghan that the friar had been detained, Vitale says the governor replied, “You better keep him in. He’ll be very disappointed if you let him go.”

In the 1980s, Vitale helped draw thousands for mass arrests at the Nevada Test Site. He was arrested so often — including eight times in one day — that he became friendly with the justice of the peace, who nevertheless sentenced him to several months in jail.

Vitale has heard grumbling about his arrests from some Catholic officials but says he has always had the support of his superiors.

“He is a very holy man and a very good priest,” said Bishop John Wester, who served as auxiliary bishop in San Francisco and has known Vitale for years. “He is following in the footsteps of St. Francis. Strategically, I am not sure that getting arrested is the best way. But I admire the fact that he follows his heart.”

Vitale has hardly been an outsider in the church. He was elected in 1979 to head the Franciscan Order in the Western states, a post he held for nine years. In 1992, he became pastor of St. Boniface Church in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, where he remained for 13 years. Neither job prompted him to curtail his protests.

As pastor, he raised $12 million and renovated the 100-year-old church. After it was beautifully restored, he opened its doors to the homeless so they could sleep in the pews during the day.

The idea of allowing drunk, smelly or snoring people to stretch out in the pews offended some churchgoers, who found it disrespectful. But that didn’t stop Vitale.

The church remains open to homeless sleepers.

Today, walking with Vitale in the Tenderloin is like touring with a celebrity. As he heads down Golden Gate Avenue from St. Boniface to a dining hall run by the Franciscans, homeless men and women call out, “Father Louie.”

A man in a scruffy camouflage jacket stops him and shakes his hand. A middle-aged woman, a little unsteady on her feet even though it’s barely noon, gives Vitale a big hug. Slightly embarrassed by the attention, he chats with each of them briefly and asks after their health.

In November, Vitale returned to Arizona to protest the training of military interrogators at Ft. Huachuca. After a similar protest in 2006, he received his harshest sentence for trespassing, five months in jail. Home of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center, the fort trains personnel from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps in intelligence techniques. Vitale contends that military interrogators have been taught torture methods, an allegation the Army denies.

About 200 protesters are gathered in a nearby park. Vitale, taking the microphone, delivers a stream-of-consciousness rap ranging from his time in the Air Force to his meeting former Abu Ghraib prisoners in Jordan.

He theorizes that St. Francis suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after he joined a military expedition and was taken prisoner. “He came out and rebelled against any kind of war,” the friar says. Vitale closes by invoking Cesar Chavez and leading a chant of “Si, se puede.”

Afterward, several people come up to have their picture taken with the friar.

“He’s a rock star,” says Chelsea Collonge, 24, a Catholic Worker activist and friend who was arrested with him at the Nevada Test Site. “He’s so good at affirming people. He loves what he does. He loves people.”

The group marches more than a mile to the fort’s entrance, where barricades block the way. Vitale, determined to get arrested, surveys the dozens of police near the entrance and calculates how to enter the fort.

“When you see that people are being tortured, what’s a few months in jail?” he asks.

He walks through the line of police, crosses the street and slips through two strips of yellow police tape. Across the road, the protesters watch and cheer.

“Sir, you’re going to be arrested,” a soldier with a bullhorn warns repeatedly.

But that’s exactly what he wants. He walks a few more steps into the custody of two burly military policemen, who handcuff him and put him in a van.

The protest has no visible effect on the military’s activities at the fort, but Vitale says results are not the point. “Effectiveness is not what we’re after,” he says. “We are doing what’s right before God. That’s what we are called to do, and what happens happens.”

Vitale has already begun his next protest, fasting and holding vigils at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. Pilots there remotely fly Predator drones, which target terrorists but sometimes also hit civilians.

He hopes to be arrested to commemorate the arrest of Jesus on Holy Thursday. If all goes well for the friar, he will be in custody by this afternoon.

Project

Ground the Drones…Lest We Reap the Whirlwind

Voices in the Wilderness Delegate Dennis Apel's Sentencing Statement from Vandeberg Witness Trial

Gerald — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:38:27 -0500

Short Information Teaser

The Vandeberg Witness is an Ongoing Nonviolent Campaign In Resistance to Missile Testing, Space-based Weapons, and the U.S. War Machine

Excerpt

March 12, 2009

My deep conviction is that love supersedes the law, and while I don’t claim to be an expert at when love requires one to break the law, if opposing what we’ve visited on Iraq in the past 19 years is not it, I don’t know what is. I am neither an anarchist nor one who disagrees with the need for accountability to laws. But laws that perpetuate injustice or protect those who would cause untold suffering are so counter to the law of love, that to allow them to remain unchallenged requires that we relinquish love itself which is ultimately our only hope for justice and peace. And I’m not ready yet to give up hope.

Body

March 12, 2009

Defendants Dennis Apel, Jeff Dietrich, Fr. Louie Vitale, OFM, represented by Kate Chatfield, and Fr. Steve Kelly, SJ, in pro per, stood before Magistrate Rita Coyne-Federman for sentencing for their nonviolent witness on May 19, 2007. The the probation department issued the following sentence recommendation to the court: Dennis Apel-30 day home confinement plus 30 days probation - no fine. Jeff Dietrich-4 months incarceration plus $1000 fine plus $35 court costs. Fr. Louie Vitale-5 months incarceration plus $1000 fine plus $35 court costs. Fr. Steve Kelly-6 months incarceration plus $1000 fine plus $35 court costs.

However, after hearing statements from defense attorney Kate Chatfield, the military JAG (judge-advocate general) and all defendants, Magistrate Rita Coyne-Federman stated that the charges did not warrant jail time. She imposed the following sentences: Dennis Apel-$2500 fine plus $35 court costs. Jeff Dietrich-$1000 fine plus $35 court costs. Fr. Louie Vitale-$500 fine plus $35 court costs. Fr. Steve Kelly-$1000 fine plus $35 court costs. All defendants stated their refusal to pay the fines and court costs. The court did not respond. All defendants have until May 12, 2009 to submit payment. No further court appearance was scheduled.

SEE DENNIS APEL’S STATEMENT BELOW:

In May of 1998 I went to Iraq to take medicines to Children’s hospitals. To go was an act of civil disobedience, breaking the sanctions against that country and risking the possibility of up to a one million dollar fine and 12 years in prison. But the United Nations was reporting that 5,000 children a month were dying because of lack of medicines banned by the sanctions. So I ignored the law and I went.

When a group of eight of us arrived at the first children’s hospital in Baghdad, the lobby of the hospital was so full of women with their children waiting to be seen that we had to squeeze our way between them to get to the room where we were to be briefed on the conditions of the hospital. One of the women in our group collapsed from the shear hopelessness of that initial scene.

When we were led to the emergency room, I was shocked to see rows of beds lining the walls of a huge room with two or three sick or dying children on each bed. While mothers attended their children, I took pictures as fast as I could, hoping to capture the scene. On one particular bed sat a young mother cross-legged with an infant in her lap. She looked at me weeping and shouted something in Arabic. At my request, the doctor who accompanied me translated, “She says you come here, you take pictures and you go home…but nothing changes.”

When I returned to the United States I related this and so many more stories to anyone who would listen. I talked to Church groups and colleges. I spoke on radio and television programs. I was interviewed by the local paper and I sent mailings out to everyone I knew. A group of us met with Lois Capps, our elected representative, and with bishops and church leaders. But, in the end, the woman was right….nothing changed.

I have stood in the “designated protest area “ at Vandenberg Air Force Base now well over 100 times in the past 12 years. I go almost religiously once a month with a small group of peace-loving and justice-seeking folks to voice our objection to the mission of that Base and its complicity in the terrorizing of humanity by testing delivery systems for nuclear weapons. Twice in those twelve years, I have been arrested and convicted of trespassing for crossing the green line. The first time was in 2003 five days before our government added the obscenity of “shock and awe” to the sin of 11 years of brutal sanctions in Iraq. The second was now almost two years ago when I and three others refused to step back on the “safe” side of the green line without our brothers and sisters in the military who are knowingly or not, or willingly or not, part of the enforcement arm of the policies that, among untold other stories of suffering and death, put that young and desperate mother and her dying infant on that bed in a Baghdad hospital.

The green line at Vandenberg is used for only one purpose. The visitor center, the parking lot, the public bus stop are all on the other side of the green line and the area is open to anyone who doesn’t overtly disagree with the mission of the Base or our government’s policies. Be quiet and you can be on the other side of the green line. The green line serves to mark the point beyond which certain truths are no longer allowed.

You can’t see it, but there is a green line in our courtrooms as well. It’s called “in limine” and it also marks the point beyond which certain truths cannot be spoken. In my case the prosecutor can, and makes it a point to, state without objections my motivations for what I do. “He’s just looking for attention,” she will say. “He wanted to get arrested and he did,” she will say. But if I try to explain my motivations the prosecutor is quick to jump in, “Objection your honor…relevance.” My motivations are clearly only hers to define.

And the limits of allowing for a defense of necessity or breach of International Law or the Nuremberg Principles are so tightly defined that literally not one case of civil disobedience in the United States in opposition to everything from illegal war, to torture, to kidnapping and extraordinary rendition has been allowed such a defense.

We are, all of us, knowingly or not, or willingly or not, caught up in a system that affords greater authority and a louder voice to laws that blockade the truth than to the voice of those suffering and dying. There are those who would have responded to the challenge of a grieving mother in a Baghdad hospital by saying, “I’ll vote for someone else in the next election,” and would have felt satisfied, but I am not one of them. Because, if it were me holding my dying son or daughter, I would have been equally desperate and felt at least as much disdain for the powerlessness of the person documenting my suffering with a camera.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak a little truth before sentencing, but I look forward to the day when “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” are included in the process before consideration of the verdict. In the meantime, a mother’s voice was heard one more time in this courtroom and I’m thankful for that, and to the court for your time and attention.

Seven Arrested in Senator Harkin's Des Moines Office Over Gaza

Gerald — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:54:34 -0600

Short Information Teaser

Four Catholic Workers and three others were arrested in Sen. Tom Harkin's office

Excerpt

February 25, 2009

Harkin Occupation: Left to right: Ed Bloomer, Rev. Chet Guinn, Frank Cordaro, Renee Espeland, Brian Terrell, Elton Davis, and Sherry Hutchinson. (Photo: Michael Gillespie)Four Catholic Workers and three others were arrested this evening when fifteen peace activists occupied Sen. Tom Harkin’s office in Des Moines calling the senator to “repent” his voting record concerning the war between Israel and Palestine. Requests of Harkin included a thorough investigation of the war crimes in the region as well as asking Harkin to recant his previous and unqualified pro-Israel voting record. A copy of their statement is attached.

Body

February 25, 2009

The group paralelled Harkin’s historic expose of Tiger Cages (inhumane prisoner detainment cells) used by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War with the Gaza Crisis. Harkin’s passion led to banning the use of the cages. The resulting public admiration at that time was the catalyst for his career as an elected official. The group called for Harkin to show the same conscious and courage on behalf of the people in Palestine stating that “All of Gaza is a tiger cage.”

Harkin’s opposition to international or domestic war tactics has diminished in subsequent years, and his support of Israel has been unwavering. Second only to Dick Durbin, Harkin has accepted more in campaign contributions for pro-Israel PACs than any other senator.

Harkin staff delivered a new statement regarding the Gaza Crisis the Senator had issued the day before in anticipation of the group’s visit. When the statement failed to meet any of their requests, peace activists remained in Harkin’s office from 1:30 to 6:00 p.m. reading aloud written accounts of death and suffering in the recent attacks in the Gaza Strip. Seven members of the group refused to leave at the 6:00 p.m. closing time and were arrested. They are Des Moines Catholic Workers Frank Cordaro, 58, Renee Espeland, 47, and Ed Bloomer, 61, as well as long-time Des Moines peace activist Sherry Hutchison, 90, Elton Davis, 47, Rev. Chet Guinn, 80, also from Des Moines, and Brian Terrell, 52, from Strangers and Guest Catholic Worker House in Maloy, Iowa. All seven were cited and released.

PDF of Harkin Occupation Flyer

Flicker Slide Show of Action

Gaza: 10 Arrested at Senator Durbin's office in Chicago

Jeff Leys — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:26:46 -0600

Short Information Teaser

Ten protestors face federal charges after sitting in at the office of Senator Dick Durbin

Excerpt

January 16, 2009

10 social justice advocates were arrested today in the Chicago office of Senator Dick Durbin in response to the Gaza crisis.

Activists demand that Senator Durbin issues a public statement decrying US support for Israeli attacks on Gaza

They sought a public statement from Senator Durbin that would call upon Israel to:

1) end its military offensive against Gaza;
2) withdraw all of its military forces from Gaza; and,
3) open the border crossings with Gaza to allow for the free and unfettered flow of humanitarian supplies into Gaza.

Body

January 16, 2009

10 social justice advocates were arrested today in the Chicago office of Senator Dick Durbin in response to the Gaza crisis.

Activists demand that Senator Durbin issues a public statement decrying US support for Israeli attacks on Gaza

They sought a public statement from Senator Durbin that would call upon Israel to:

Four participants met briefly with two staff members from the Senator’s office. At the conclusion of the meeting, they informed the Senator’s staff that they would not leave the office until the Senator issued the public statement. The 10 were directed to leave the office after the meeting ended. Subsequently, ten individuals were arrested on federal charges for “failure to comply with a lawful directive to leave the office.” All have since been released.

Participants in the action came from: Voices for Creative Nonviolence; 8th Day Center for Justice; Francis of Assisi House Catholic Worker; Palestine Solidarity Group Chicago; Fight Back News; Christian Peacemaker Teams Chicago; and Strangers & Guests Catholic Worker Farm.

They delivered the following letter to Senator Durbin at the time of the action:

Dear Senator Durbin,

On 31 December 2008 you stated:

“I understand and support Israel’s defense of its borders from rocket attacks by Hamas.”

By that day, at least 315 Palestinians, including 41 children and nine women, had been killed and more than 900 injured by Israel’s air strikes on the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip that failed to differentiate between military and civilian objects. (Statistics: Al Mezan Center for Human Rights)

Israel continues to bombard the 1.5 million stateless Palestinians in Gaza — half of whom are children and refugees and because of Israel’s closure of the borders, have nowhere to flee — using US-supplied and -manufactured weaponry from the ground, sea and air.

War crimes against civilians

Israel has in all likelihood committed war crimes in its ongoing military operations in the Gaza Strip. One example of many, on 6 January 2009, 43 Palestinians who had fled Israeli shelling in other areas and were taking shelter in the United Nations-administered Fakhoura school in the Jabaliya refugee camp were killed after two Israeli tank shells exploded outside the school. The United Nations agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) had given Israeli authorities the Global Positioning System coordinates of all of its installations in Gaza and categorically denied Israeli claims, later retracted, that Palestinian armed fighters had fired on Israeli troops from inside the school.

Israel’s military operations on the Gaza Strip indicate a reckless disregard for human life and a failure to distinguish civilian from military objects. For example, as the human rights organization Al-Haq reported, Israel’s 27 December 2008 “aerial bombardment of the civil police compound in Gaza City … killed 65 out of 70 police officers who were involved in a training course.” According to Al-Haq, “[T]he Civil Police is comprised of civilian police officers whose primary task, similar to any civilian police force, is the maintenance of civic order within the Gaza Strip. They serve no military function and are therefore not combatants.” The same principle applies to representatives of the political wing of the Hamas party “who play no part in commanding or controlling the military wing of Hamas and who do not take direct part in hostilities are civilians and not a legitimate military target,” including Nizar Rayyan, who was killed along with 15 members of his family (including 11 children) when his home in the Jabaliya refugee camp was hit in an Israeli air strike. (Al-Haq Brief: Legal Aspects of Israel’s Attacks on the Gaza Strip during “Operation Cast Lead,” 7 January 2009)

Israel’s claims of self-defense

Israel claims to be carrying out its massive military campaign on the Gaza Strip to protect its population from rockets fired by Hamas towards Israel from the Gaza Strip. While Israel is obligated to protect its civilian population, any response it takes “must respect the fundamental international humanitarian law principles of military necessity, proportionality and distinction” between military and civilian objects. “The conduct of hostilities during ‘Operation Cast Lead’ can under no circumstances be considered in accordance with these principles,” according to Al-Haq.

Furthermore, a military response must only be taken as a matter of last resort and force is only lawful if peaceful attempts failed. On this principle, Israel has failed as well. During the six-month ceasefire between resistance groups in the Gaza Strip and Israel, which was brokered by Egypt in June of 2008, Hamas refrained from firing rockets from the Gaza Strip and prevented other groups from doing so as well. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ own documents illustrate that during the period of the ceasefire, the number of rocket and mortars fired from Gaza were reduced by 97 percent (see “The Hamas terror war against Israel,” Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1 January 2009). However, Israel did not fulfill its obligations to ease the embargo that it has imposed on the Gaza Strip, collectively punishing the civilian population, in contravention of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel also breached the ceasefire on 4 November 2008 when it extra-judicially executed six Hamas members. Hamas’ behavior during the ceasefire gives much indication that had Israel upheld its obligations under the ceasefire, civilians in the south of Israel could have been spared rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. By tightening instead of easing its measures of illegal collective punishment on the civilian population of the Gaza Strip — through the closure of the borders which has resulted in shortages of necessary commodities such as wheat flour, cooking gas and medicines, and by resuming its illegal extrajudicial execution operations — Israel has not only shown reckless disregard towards Palestinian civilian life, which as the Occupying Power of the Gaza Strip it is obligated to protect, but has failed to protect the lives of its own civilians as well.

The United States’ obligations to protect civilians

International human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have decried Israel’s ongoing attacks on the civilian population and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and along with Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, call on the international community including state parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, including the US, to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law and ensure the protection of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

The United States has a special role in Israel’s war crimes in the Gaza Strip as it provides arms and monetary grants to the Israeli army, despite Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and other Arab territories since 1967 — the belligerent nature of which must be noted, as the ongoing massacres in the Gaza Strip are only the latest chapter of Israel’s violent repression of Palestinians struggling for their right to national self-determination. According to an 8 January 2009 report by Inter Press Service, “The administration of President George W. Bush alone has provided for 21 billion dollars in US security assistance [to Israel] over the last eight years, including 19 billion dollars in direct military aid as freebies,” fueling Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

Particularly troubling are reports by Palestinian medics in Gaza of severe and unusual burns in the victims of Israeli strikes, consistent with the chemical weapon, white phosphorous, possibly supplied by the United States. These reports are affirmed by Human Rights Watch, whose observers have witnessed “multiple air-bursts of artillery-fired white phosphorous over what appeared to be the Gaza City/Jabaliya area” on 9 and 10 January. According to Human Rights Watch, the use of white phosphorous is permissible when used as an “obscurant,” but Israel’s use of white phosphorous “in densely populated areas of Gaza violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life.” (Human Rights Watch, 10 January 2009) It should also be noted that Israel has banned the entry of human rights observers and international journalists (except for a few of the latter who were allowed to be embedded with an Israeli combat unit), which has frustrated the work of international human rights organizations and United Nations bodies and reporters wishing to investigate and document human rights violations in the Gaza Strip.

Demands of Senator Durbin:

1. Examination of military aid to Israel

The news agency Reuters reported on 9 January 2008 that “In September, the US Congress approved the sale of 1,000 bunker-buster missiles to Israel … The Jerusalem Post, citing defense officials, reported last week that a first shipment of the missiles had arrived in early December” and were used by Israel in its operations in the Gaza Strip.

Furthermore, on 14 January 2009, Amnesty International called for the embargo on arms to all parties engaged in the hostilities in Gaza, especially calling for the embargo of a ship which left the US on 20 December 2008 carrying a large consignment of high explosives and other munitions and which is destined to Ashdod port in southern Israel. According to Amnesty, “Tenders for two other arms shipments totaling 325 containers of US munitions were approved by the Pentagon on 31 December, four days after the start of Israel’s current attacks on targets in Gaza. … Tender documents show that these shipments contain white phosphorous, known for its potential to cause severe burns and an indiscriminate weapon when used as an airburst in densely-populated civilian areas as now alleged in Gaza.” Amnesty added, “In addition to locally produced arms, Israeli forces are carrying out unlawful attacks using foreign weaponry and other military equipment supplied mainly by the USA but also from other countries … .”

We demand Senator Durbin to immediately issue a Senate bill that calls for an examination of Israel’s compliance with the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (AECA), considering that the vast majority of those killed in Israel’s offensive on the Gaza Strip are non-combatant civilians, more than a quarter of them women and children, and civilian objects such as schools, mosques and houses are being targeted, according to statistics made available by Al Mezan on 11 January 2009. The shipment of these arms to Israel must be suspended so long as Israel continues to target the civilian population in the Gaza Strip and commit severe breaches of international humanitarian law including war crimes there. The US must also investigate Israel’s use of white phosphorous bombs as anti-personnel munitions, and whether these bombs were supplied by, manufactured or licensed in the US.

2. Protection of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza

In the interest of protecting the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, the United States, through all measures at its disposal, must hold Israel accountable to international law, especially through the US’s role at the United Nations Security Council. The failure of the United Nations Security Council to call for an immediate ceasefire as soon as Israel’s air strikes began is deplorable. Israel willfully killed hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza while political considerations prevented the United Nations Security Council from urgently taking action to protect civilian life. No doubt, the United States’ historical role as Israel’s lawyer at the United Nations had a role in the two-week delay before Resolution 1860 was passed, calling for a full withdrawal of Israel forces from Gaza and a ceasefire. Shamefully, the United States abstained from the vote. By not calling for a halt to the violence, and by arming Israel, United States officials are aiding and abetting war crimes and liable to prosecution. We call upon the US to demand that Israel immediately withdraw from the Gaza Strip and end its bombardment of the occupied territory, and urge Senator Durbin to initiate a binding vote to that effect.

3. End the siege of collective punishment on Gaza and recognize democratically elected Palestinian representatives

Furthermore, as a party of the International Quartet for Middle East Peace, the United States has colluded with Israel’s nearly two-year-long siege of collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza. We call for an immediate lifting of the siege of Gaza and an end of the boycott of and the beginning of negotiations with the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people living under Israeli occupation. The borders to Gaza must be immediately and unconditionally opened so that Palestinians in Gaza may be able to acquire commodities necessary for their right to health and a dignified life. Israel’s siege has brought economic life to a standstill, and has resulted in the deaths of patients suffering treatable diseases. Because of the Israeli-imposed border closure that has manufactured a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, on 18 December 2008, UNRWA was forced to cease its food aid distribution to 750,000 registered refugees there. The military siege of Gaza has only exacerbated the widespread lack of access to adequate food.

4. Unconditional support of Israel must be reconsidered

According to a Rasmussen poll of American public opinion towards Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, the findings of which were released on 31 December, only 31 percent of respondents who identified as Democrats agreed with Israel’s decision to take military action against Gaza — the majority of Democratic respondents said that Israel should have tried to find a diplomatic solution first. There is a deep rift between the popular opinion of Democrats in the US and the Democratic leadership, which continues to act in lockstep with Israel. More than 1,000 murdered Palestinians in the Gaza Strip indicate that it is high time for the Democratic leadership to take a principled position and uphold Palestinian rights.