It is not every day that the voices for justice triumph over the actions of the rich and powerful, especially when it comes to the Israel-Palestine debate. That’s why it is so important to acknowledge and celebrate the settlement just negotiated by CODEPINK activist Rae Abileah and her lawyers after suing American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) volunteer lobbyist Stanley Shulster.

It all started on May 24, 2011, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington, DC speaking before a joint session of Congress. Abileah, a 29-year-old Jewish woman who has traveled to the West Bank, Israel and Gaza, was in the audience. She became more and more appalled as she listened to Netanyahu’s speech and watched our congresspeople giving him a stream of standing ovations. “I couldn't watch this hero's welcome for a man who supports the continued building of illegal settlements, won't lift the siege of Gaza, and refuses to negotiate with the Palestinian unity government,” said Abileah. 

So Abileah did what most people would never have the courage to do. She got up and shouted: "No More Occupation! Stop Israeli War Crimes! Equal Rights for Palestinians!" And she unfurled a banner that read: “Occupying Land is Indefensible!”

She was immediately grabbed, violently pulled toward the floor, and gagged—not by the Capitol Police but by a member of the audience, Stanley Shulster, a retired attorney from Ashland, Oregon, who had traveled to Washington DC to attend the yearly conference of the Israel lobby group AIPAC.  An online bio for Shulster revealed that he was an unpaid lobbyist, a volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces, and a Navy veteran.  In his bio Shulster bragged that he “grabbed the woman who heckled ...

A couple of weeks ago, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an article of mine — some thoughts and suggestions for the Israeli social justice movement from the perspective of someone involved in Occupy Wall Street and connected to Israel and Palestine from afar. I received a lot of feedback from that letter, and it prompted constructive responses like Udi Pladott’sHaaretz op-ed. In that light, I want to sharpen the discussion that my earlier article began.

To be clear from the beginning: I think the occupation of the Palestinian territories and the reality facing oppressed groups inside Israel cannot be separated from issues of economic or social justice in Israel more broadly, and that those issues must be central to the movement for social justice in Israel. But actually, my individual stance is not the important part.

What’s important for Israelis to know is that so much of the feedback from my first article was about the need to place the struggle against the occupation and for Palestinian self-determination at the heart of the Israeli social justice movement. The feedback was a reflection of the fact that people engaged in struggles around the world hold the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be vital in the context of global ...

Critics of genetically modified foods have won a victory in California by securing enough signatures to place a referendum on the November ballot that could force food manufacturers to label food products containing genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Numerous items are already sold in grocery stores containing genetically modified corn and soy, but companies do not currently have to inform consumers. We speak to David Bronner, president of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, about GMOs, fair trade, the U.S. war on hemp, and the company’s support of Palestinian olive oil producers.

Transcript:

AMY GOODMAN: Critics of genetically modified foods have won a victory in California by securing enough signatures to place a referendum on next November’s ballot that would force food manufacturers to label products containing GMOs. Nearly one million people signed petitions, nearly double the amount needed. If California voters pass the referendum, it could affect industry labeling practices across the country. Numerous items are already sold in grocery stores containing genetically modified corn and soy, but companies do not currently have to inform consumers.

We’re joined here in studio by a leading supporter of the "Right to Know" effort, David Bronner. He’s president of ...

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is one of the most powerful lobby organizations in the country. On March 4-6, AIPAC will be holding its annual policy conference in Washington DC. The speakers include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Republican candidate Newt Gingrich and a host of other powerful politicians.

AIPAC has tremendous clout but its influence has been disastrous for U.S. foreign policy and U.S. democracy. Here are ten reasons why AIPAC is so dangerous.

1. AIPAC is lobbying Congress to promote a military confrontation with Iran. AIPAC – like the Israeli government – is demanding that the U.S. attack Iran militarily to prevent Iran from having the technological capacity to produce nuclear weapons, even though U.S. officials say Iran isn’t trying to build a weapon (and even though Israel has hundreds of undeclared nuclear weapons). AIPAC has successfully lobbied the U.S. government to adopt crippling economic sanctions on Iran, including trying to cut off Iran’s oil exports, despite the fact that these sanctions raise the price of gas and threaten the U.S. economy.

2. AIPAC promotes Israeli policies that are in direct opposition to international law. These include the establishment of colonies (settlements) in the Occupied West Bank and the confiscation of Palestinian land in its construction of the 26-foot high concrete “separation barrier” running through the West Bank. The support of these illegal practices makes to impossible to achieve a solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict.

3. AIPAC’s call for unconditional ...

In the years of conscious, self-inflicted decline at home, “losses” continued to mount elsewhere.  In the past decade, for the first time in 500 years, South America has taken successful steps to free itself from western domination, another serious loss. The region has moved towards integration, and has begun to address some of the terrible internal problems of societies ruled by mostly Europeanized elites, tiny islands of extreme wealth in a sea of misery.  They have also rid themselves of all U.S. military bases and of IMF controls.  A newly formed organization, CELAC, includes all countries of the hemisphere apart from the U.S. and Canada.  If it actually functions, that would be another step in American decline, in this case in what has always been regarded as “the backyard.”

Even more serious would be the loss of the MENA countries -- Middle East/North Africa -- which have been regarded by planners since the 1940s as “a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history.” Control of MENA energy reserves would yield “substantial control of the world,” in the words of the influential Roosevelt advisor A.A. Berle.

To be sure, if the projections of a century of U.S. energy independence based on North American energy  resources turn out to be realistic, the significance of controlling MENA would decline somewhat, though probably not by much: the main concern has always been control more ...

An ad on my Facebook page from barackobama.com reads, "Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich say they would start foreign aid to Israel at zero. Reject their extreme plan now!"

This struck me as odd for two reasons:

First, it is disingenuous and misleading. The actual position taken by these Republican presidential candidates is that all foreign aid should initially start at zero as means of reducing the deficit, to be immediately followed by the resumption of aid on a case-by-case basis. As they themselves have acknowledged, they would immediately resume aid to Israel and perhaps even increase it. Ironically, U.S. "aid for Israel" goes almost exclusively to U.S. arms manufacturers, with which the Republican candidates have a close relationship.

Secondly, millions of Americans—particularly younger voters who are the primary users of Facebook—support zeroing out aid to Israel on human rights grounds. The Obama campaign, therefore, is effectively labeling those of us who oppose the use of our tax dollars to arm the right-wing Netanyahu government, which has repeatedly used U.S. weapons against civilians, as "extreme." Presumably, they feel the same way about those of us who support a cutoff of aid to other governments that violate international humanitarian law as well.

 In 2009, Amnesty International, citing war crimes committed by both Israeli forces and the armed wing of Hamas earlier that year, called on nations to suspend arms shipments to both. The Obama administration categorically rejected the proposal. The administration has also rejected calls by human rights groups to condition military aid and arms transfers to other countries that use U.S. weapons against civilians, including Colombia, Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, ...

The exchange of prisoners between enemies is often a prelude to political reconciliation. Unfortunately, the recent exchange between Israel and Hamas, in which the Islamist organization gained the lion’s share of more than 1,000 prisoners in exchange for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, does not augur well for the chances of an Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Contrary to appearances, the deal is not a reflection of both sides’ interest in beginning a political rapprochement that might lead to the end of the Gaza siege and other confidence-building measures. This exchange reveals quite the opposite – that both parties are committed to their core values of resistance and confrontation.

For Israel, recovering Shalit was its way to uphold an ethos of unity in times of war, and to fulfill the army’s promise to its conscripts (and their families) that no soldier, dead or alive, would ever be left behind. The message was that Israel must remain mobilized and alert in a hostile environment, and that its survival depends on the cohesion of ...

The administration of President Barack Obama announced Monday that it would immediately cut U.S. funding for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, just hours after UNESCO's governing board voted overwhelmingly to grant Palestine full membership.

State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, who noted that Washington had been scheduled to pay 60 million dollars in dues to UNESCO next week, said the cut was required under legislation that bans U.S. contributions to the U.N. or any of its specialised agencies that grants Palestine membership as a state.

"Today's vote by the member states of UNESCO to admit Palestine as a member is regrettable, premature and undermines our shared goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East," she said, insisting that Washington still supports Palestinian statehood but only if it is "realised through direct negotiations" with Israel.

Those negotiations have been held up for more than a year as a result of Israel's refusal to freeze its settlement expansion in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza, as demanded by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Nuland also stressed Washington's strong support for the Paris-based agency, noting that it "serves a wide range of our national interests on education, science, culture and communications issues" and that the U.S. "will maintain its membership in and commitment to UNESCO".

But Washington could lose its vote in the agency if it fails to pay dues for two years, she noted. She also expressed concern that Monday's vote could herald a "cascade" of ...

While a growing number of influential voices here and in the region insist that the nearly 20-year, U.S.-sponsored “peace process” has reached its terminal phase, the administration of President Barack Obama remains committed to reviving direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

“…[M]oving forward, we want to see progress on the peace talks,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner has emphasized repeatedly over the last two weeks, which have seen Washington’s special envoy David Hale shuttling between Jerusalem and Ramallah.

“We want to see the two parties, the Palestinians and the Israelis, get back into direct negotiations. And that’s where are our focus remains,” he said.

But there is little reason at this point to believe that Washington’s efforts will bear fruit.

That conclusion was reinforced here Wednesday night by none other than one of the process’s strongest Palestinian advocates. In a speech at the annual gala of the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad indicated no great eagerness on the part of his regime to resume talks with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Our own assessment is that the conditions are not ripe at this juncture for a meaningful resumption of talks,” Fayyad told the upper-crust crowd.

That has been the standard line of the Palestinians who broke off talks 13 months ago when Netanyahu rejected a U.S. offer of substantially more military aid, as well as a host of mostly security-related guarantees, if his government agreed to extend a partial moratorium on building or expanding settlements on Palestinian territory in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

That line has, if anything, grown firmer, particularly in the wake of last month’s formal application to the U.N. Security Council by PA ...