Hypocrisy Over The Al Jazeera Deal

Al Jazeera America, Test Case For An Open Society

Neil Macdonald writes:

The network, owned and operated by the Emirate of Qatar, no longer has anything to prove about the quality of its journalism. It has won all sorts of prestigious awards and broken all sorts of stories.

It is now in 80 million homes worldwide, and is known in our business as the outfit that's always in places nobody else covers.

Late last year, for example, as the rest of the English-language media were concentrating on the crisis in Egypt, AJE's Nazanine Moshiri was travelling with the M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, broadcasting live several times a day.

That sort of thing has made the network a must-watch for agencies like the U.S. State Department, especially as Western networks and newspapers scale back, closing their foreign bureaus wholesale.

But Americans with enough savvy to seek out AJE must do so on the internet. Because after more than six years of operation, the network remains effectively locked out of the American cable TV market.

Last week, after the announcement that AJE had bought Al Gore's Current TV (for something like $500 million), and with it access to as many as 40 million American homes, Time Warner immediately announced it was dropping Current from its cable roster.

The move was reminiscent of the Comcast decision not to carry AJE here when the network first launched in 2006.

It's been a pattern. The country that, in the name of free speech, allows flag-burning, Ku Klux Klan marches and protests at military funerals by religious zealots hoisting "God hates fags" placards decided years ago that AJE represents the kind of speech it simply cannot tolerate.

"It's insane that a country as important and as vibrant and diverse as the United States would have such a banana republic approach to news and information," says Tony Burman, the former CBC editor in chief who spent years as AJE's managing director, trying to win cable TV carriage in the U.S. market.

"The fear-mongering has been surreal."

Jon Stewart pointed out on the Daily Show:

"somehow they've overlooked boss Rupert Murdoch's twenty-percent stake in Rotana, an Arab station co-owned by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and Rupert Murdoch profiting from the airing of that type of anti-American propaganda? Say it ain't so. "

State Surveillance Around The World

States around the world are demanding private data in ever-greater volumes—and getting it. They are recognizing the treasure troves of personal information created by modern communications technologies of all sorts, and pursuing ever easier, quicker, and more comprehensive access to our data. They are obtaining detailed logs of our entire lives online, and they are doing so under weaker legal standards than ever before. Several laws and proposals now afford many states warrantless snooping powers and nearly limitless data collection capabilities. These practices remain shrouded in secrecy, despite some private companies’ attempts to shine a light on the alarming measures states are taking around the world to obtain information about users.

To challenge the sweeping invasions into individuals’ personal lives, we’re calling on governments to ensure their surveillance policies and practices are consistent with international human rights standards. We’re also demanding that governments and companies become more transparent about their use of the Internet in state surveillance. 

Signs of Growing International Surveillance in 2012

• A new law in Brazil allows police and public prosecutors to demand user registration data from ISPs directly, via a simple request, with no court order, in criminal investigations involving money laundering. And, a new bill seeks to allow the Federal Police to demand registration data of Internet users in cases of crimes without the need of a court order nor judicial oversight.

• Colombia adopted a new decree that compels ISPs to create backdoors that would make it easier for law enforcement to spy on Colombians. The law also forces ISPs and telecom providers to continuously collect and store for five years the location and subscriber information of millions of ordinary Colombian users.

• Leaked documents revealed that the Mexican government shelled out $355 million to expand Mexican domestic surveillance equipment over the past year.

• The Canadian government put proposed online surveillance legislation temporarily "on pause" following sustained public outrage generated by the bill. The bill introduces new police powers that would allow authorities easy access to Canadians’ online activities, including the power to force ISPs to hand over private customer data without a warrant.

• The EU’s overarching data retention directive has become a dangerous model for other countries, despite the fact that several European Courts have declared several national data retention laws unconstitutional.

• Romania went ahead with adopting a new data retention mandate law without any real evidence or debate over the right to privacy, despite the 2009 Constitutional Court ruling declaring the previous data retention law unconstitutional.

• The German government is proposing a new law that would allow law enforcement and intelligence agencies to extensively identify Internet users, without any court order or reasonable suspicion of a crime. This year, more details were found on German State Trojan Program to spy on and monitor Skype, Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook and other online communications.

• The UK government is considering a bill that would extend the police’s access to individuals' email and social media traffic data. The UK ISPs will be compelled to gather the data and allow the UK police and security services to scrutinize it.

• A Dutch proposal seeks to allow the police to break into foreign computers and search and delete data. If the location of a particular computer cannot be determined, the Dutch police would be able to break into it without ever contacting foreign authorities. AnotherDutch proposal seeks to allow the police to force a suspect to decrypt information that is under investigation in a case of terrorism or sexual abuse of children.

• In Russia, several new legal frameworks or proposed bills enable increased state surveillance of the Internet.

• Australian law enforcement and intelligence agencies have continued to advance the false idea of the need for data retention mandates, mandatory backdoors for cloud computing services and the creation of a new crime for refusing to aid law enforcement in the decryption of communications.

• A controversy arose in Lebanon over revelations that the country's Internal Security Forces (ISF) demanded the content of all SMS text messages sent between September 13 and November 10 of this year, as well as usernames and passwords for services like Blackberry Messenger and Facebook.

• The Rwandan Parliament is discussing a bill that will grant sanctions the police, army and intelligence services the power to listen to and read private communications in order to protect "public security", the keyword often invoked to justify unnecessary human rights violations.

• Pakistan adopted a Fair Trial Bill authorizing the state to intercept private communications to thwart acts of terrorism. No legal safeguards have been built in to prevent abuse of power and the word "terrorism" has been poorly defined (a word that's often invoked to justify unnecessary human rights violations).

• RIM announced that they had provided the Indian Government with a solution to intercept messages and emails exchanged via BlackBerry handsets. The encrypted communications will now be available to Indian intelligence agencies.

• The Indian government approved the purchase of technological equipment to kickstart the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID)—a project that seeks to link databases for ready access by intelligence agencies. The project is expected to facilitate "robust information sharing" by security and law enforcement agencies to combat terror threats.

Moving Forward

EFF's international team and a coalition of civil society organizations around the world have drafted a set of principles that can be used by civil society, governments and industry to evaluate whether state surveillance laws and practices are consistent with human rights. In 2013, we will continue demanding that states adopt stronger legal protections if they want to track our cell phones, or see what web sites we’ve visited, or rummage through our Hotmail, or read our private messages on Facebook, or otherwise invade our electronic privacy. EFF will keep working collaboratively with advocates, lawyers, journalists, bloggers and security experts on the ground to fight overbroad surveillance laws. Our work will involve existing legislative initiatives, international fora, and other regional venues where we can have a meaningful impact on establishing stronger legal protections against government access to people’s electronic communications and data.

Via: "The Electronic Frontier Foundation"

Sharing Knowledge and Culture Is The Natural State

Just as some misguided people react with hostility to the fact that the copyright monopoly is not a birthright, they can react with hostility and demand a response to how sharing is “justified”. This, too, is misguided.

One example could be seen in the Reddit thread about The Pirate Bay being the world’s most efficient public library. For a while, the top comment was “whatever helps you justify it” (as in, “invent whatever excuse you like to try justifying the sharing of culture”). This is a misguided expression based on the false premise that sharing knowledge and culture needs to be justified.

It is completely the other way around.

Humankind and civilization have advanced due to and because of people sharing knowledge and culture, and humankind has never advanced when culture and knowledge have been locked up and contained. Sharing knowledge, information, and culture is also a good deed on an individual-to-individual basis. Whenever the ability to share and partake in knowledge and culture has been prevented, such as the burning of the library at Alexandria, it has always been regarded as a disaster for humanity in the history books.

And yet, some people believe that sharing – whether over The Pirate Bay, direct handover, or whatever other mechanism – needs to be justified.

It is true that the copyright monopoly has come at odds with the natural behavior of sharing and the right to share. But to enforce this monopoly, much more vital ideas in society – such as the postal secret – must be sacrificed, not to mention our cultural heritage. That is neither just nor reasonable, so that is what needs justification. It’s not just the copyright monopoly law itself that needs to be justified, but also individual compliance with the unjust monopoly law, on a case-by-case basis.

When somebody angrily asks you how you can share this and that knowledge “without permission”, state it as it is, that they are misguided, and ask how they could possibly justifyrequiring permission to share knowledge and culture. That goes counter to all of humanity’s history. Also, make sure to make a point that sharing never requires any kind of justification. (The current copyright monopoly laws are not enough of a justification, obviously, as they are unjust and completely out of touch with people’s actual and natural behavior.)

Sharing knowledge and culture is the natural state.

Therefore, any restrictions on sharing require very careful and strict justification.

Via: "Falkvinge"

Online Freedom: Who Should Control What?

Delegates from 193 countries are meeting in Dubai to discuss the future of the internet. They will be negotiating a new International Telecommunications Treaty - which has not been updated since 1988.

The main debate at the conference is over internet freedom. The US and Europe want less internet regulation, while countries like Russia and China are accused of wanting more.

But the possibly bigger question of who controls the internet is also in play. The US in particular is criticised for dominating the way the internet is run.

Since 1947 a UN body called the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has been in charge of international technical standards.

Delegates from 193 countries have regulated everything from radio frequencies to satellite orbits. Their mission is to make sure networks and technologies easily interconnect. But according to internet giant Google, the ITU could be about to take steps to reduce the free flow of information on the web.

"There is a mood to change the governance structure of the internet from one that is multi-stakeholder system to one that is inter-governmental. And I think the fear is that the internet repression and censorship that is already going and the throttling of the speed of communication and widespread surveillance in certain countries will be legitimised if they change the system." - Richard Rogers, University of Amsterdam

It says if proposals being heard at the ITU conference in Dubai are accepted, there will be an increase in censorship and national regulation.

But other countries censor content on the internet as well.

Known as the 'Great Firewall of China', the People's Republic has perhaps the world's most impressive example of online control. In addition to banning social networking sites, China also has tens of thousands of monitors who snoop and often hack into people's emails.

Following protests in 2009, the Iranian government intensified its efforts to censor the web. It has rounded up and jailed bloggers and internet dissidents. The country also often shuts down access to the internet when it expects anti-government protests.

In Belarus, the government has also noticed the opposition's use of the internet. Websites are sometimes blacked out, opposition voices are monitored and the government even uses websites like Twitter to intimidate journalists and activists.

And last month, the United Arab Emirates showed where it stands on internet censorship. It issued a decree making it a crime to insult or criticise the country's leaders online.

We ask should limits be placed on the web? And if so, how and by whom? What does it all mean for freedom of speech online and is it being threatened with over-regulation?

Western Media Dictatorship

By Dr. Elias Akleh,

The Western wars against the Middle Eastern countries, especially the Islamic Republic of Iran, had been escalated, lately, to an unprecedented higher level. Besides being economical, political, intelligence and technological, the war had been escalated to include telecommunication.

On Monday, October 15th, a total of 19 Iranian satellite TV channels and radio stations broadcasting to Europe were cut off of its Hot Bird Frequencies. Among these channels are Press TV, Al-Alam, Jam-e-Jam 1 and 2, Sahar 1 and 2, Islamic Republic of Iran News Network, Quran TV, and the Arabic-language al-Kawthar.

Although the Iranian satellite companies have signed broadcasting contracts that are valid until 2021, and have not breached or violated these contracts in any way, the European satellite provider Eutelsat SA had ordered its media services company, Arqiva, to terminate the broadcast of the Iranian satellite channels.

Karen Badalov, the area manager of Eutelsat SA, claimed that they had terminated the contracts upon an order from the European Commission as part of Europe’s latest unilateral sanctions against Iran. In a separate statement emailed to Press TV, one of the banned channels, by the head of Public Relations Department of Arqiva, Gary Follows, stated that the decision was made by the EU Council and repeated requests by France’s broadcasting authority. Such order from EU came three days after the EU had controversially won the Noble Peace Award.

Yet these claims were contradicted by Maja Kociyancic, the EU Foreign Policy Chief Spokesperson, who denied giving such an order explaining that late sanctions against Iran are directed against finance, trade, energy, and transport and do not include telecommunications.

Such deniability from both parties comes to exonerate themselves from any guilt.

Gordon Duff, senior editor of Veterans Today, stated on Press TV that a strong background check on the source of the decision revealed that the decision came from Eutelsat; an Israeli-owned company that runs about 25% of the news programs in the world. The decision, he claimed, came down from a Michelle De Rozen, an Israeli citizen, who controls Eutelsat. Duff stated that Eutelsat in particular is a Mossad propaganda operation.

This telecommunication war is a part and parcel of a policy adopted by the pro-Zionist American administration and its EU poodle to cover theirs and the Israeli war crimes and flagrant violations of human rights in the Middle Eastern and in South East Asian regions.

It started in December 2004 when the US and EU banned the Lebanese pro-Hezbollah Al-Manar TV from broadcasting into the US and Europe after being designated as a supporter of terror and spreading hatred as stated by Richard Boucher, then, State Department Spokesman. In September 2012 the pro-Syrian government TV channels were banned from Arabsat and Nilesat. Now it is Iran’s turn, where not one or two but 19 satellite channels are banned. This seems to have become a dangerous interlude to other future such attacks on free speech. Recently there are attacks against Russian satellite TV channels especially those that are broadcasting alternative views of the Syrian crises contradicting the Western narratives.

The Western countries conceitedly designate themselves as the defenders and promoters of democracy and free speech to the point of waging devastating wars to guarantee it. While the EU raises the flag of democracy and free speech and claims to be a democratic organization it is completely violating the basic tenets of freedom of speech and the basic rights of its own citizens to receive news and to be exposed to alternative views.

It seems that this guaranteed freedom of speech is exclusive to Americans, Europeans and Israelis, who continuously attack Islam, insult its prophet, and burn its holy book imitating Nazi’s books burning. I wonder if Richard Boucher would ban such hate spreading activities! Would he condemn or praise the American judges who stated that the American First Amendment Right to Free Speech gives the pro-Israeli hate group calling itself American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) to sponsor the hate anti-Islamic ads in four Washington area Metro stations, yet labeling anyone who dares to condemn the Israeli terrorist attacks against Palestinians as hating anti-Semite.

Banning the Iranian satellite channels is a grave breach of Article 10 of the European Convention of the Human Rights stating that: “… it is the peoples’ basic right to receive news and information”.

The ban also violates Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stating that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.

Besides being an infringement on the rights of citizens to receive information, the decision to ban Iranian satellite channels, causing Utelsat to lose handsome revenue and suffer some legal ramification, is not a good business decision. This indicates that the decision was a purely political decision and had to come from higher sources. The main reason behind this political decision is the fear of the Western governments to lose control over their own citizens when their lies are exposed, and their inability to enter into a meaningful media dialogue to discredit Iranian news analyses broadcasts.

Iranian news channels stayed focused on the Middle Eastern core issue of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the heart of the Arab World, and the core Islamic issue of the Israeli threat to occupy, to alter, and possibly to destroy the second Islamic holiest place; Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Iranian channels have dedicated news analytical programs and documentaries exposing the terrorist realities of Zionist Israel, its genocidal policies towards Palestinians especially against Gaza Strip, such as the latest piracy crime of Israeli navy ships against the humanitarian Estelle ship bound to Gaza, and its Mossad’s political assassinations of Arab political figures to cause tension and to incite sectarian conflict, such as Mossad’s latest assassination of the Lebanese Security Chief, Wissam al-Hassan. They also expose the illegality of the Western unconditional financial and political support to all Israeli terrorist attacks in contradiction and violation of their own local laws and the international laws.

Iranian news channels have the courage to tackle European and American issues that no European or American news media want even to mention at all. They have dealt with the realities of US and EU involvement in the wars in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Palestine, in Syria, in Lebanon, and their support to terror organizations operating in these countries and especially in terrorist attacks against Iran. They have discussed the illegality of the American drone attacks against civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

Knowing other nations on the human level leads to understanding, empathy, cooperation, and peace, something Western political heads of states are afraid of because they could no longer control their own citizens through lies about, and fear from the unknown others. Banning Iranian broadcast is a form of media dictatorship intended to suppress their humanity and to promulgate fear and hostility towards them.

Via: "The People's Choice"

Hate-Speech Hypocrites

How Can We Ban Hate Speech Against Jews While Defending Mockery Of Muslims?

By William Saletan,

Jews have too much influence over U.S. foreign policy. Gay men are too promiscuous. Muslims commit too much terrorism. Blacks commit too much crime.

Each of those claims is poorly stated. Each, in its clumsy way, addresses a real problem or concern. And each violates laws against hate speech. In much of what we call the free world, for writing that paragraph, I could be jailed.

Libertarians, cultural conservatives, and racists have complained about these laws for years. But now the problem has turned global. Islamic governments, angered by an anti-Muslim video that provoked protests and riots in their countries, are demanding to know why insulting the Prophet Mohammed is free speech but vilifying Jews and denying the Holocaust isn’t. And we don’t have a good answer.

If we’re going to preach freedom of expression around the world, we have to practice it. We have to scrap our hate-speech laws.

Muslim leaders want us to extend these laws. At the meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, they lobbied for tighter censorship. Egypt’s president said freedom of expression shouldn’t include speech that is “used to incite hatred” or “directed towards one specific religion.” Pakistan’s president urged the “international community” to “criminalize” acts that “endanger world security by misusing freedom of expression.” Yemen’s president called for “international legislation” to suppress speech that “blasphemes the beliefs of nations and defames their figures.” The Arab League’s secretary-general proposed a binding “international legal framework” to “criminalize psychological and spiritual harm” caused by expressions that “insult the beliefs, culture and civilization of others."

This debate between East and West, between respect and pluralism, isn’t a crisis. It’s a stage of global progress. The Arab spring has freed hundreds of millions of Muslims from the political retardation of dictatorship. They’re taking responsibility for governing themselves and their relations with other countries. They’re debating one another and challenging us. And they should, because we’re hypocrites.

From Pakistan to Iran to Saudi Arabia to Egypt to Nigeria to the United Kingdom, Muslimsscoff at our rhetoric about free speech. They point to European laws against questioning the Holocaust. Monday on CNN, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad needled British interviewer Piers Morgan: 

“Why in Europe has it been forbidden for anyone to conduct any research about this event? Why are researchers in prison? … Do you believe in the freedom of thought and ideas, or no?” On Tuesday, Pakistan’s U.N. ambassador, speaking for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, told the U.N. Human Rights Council:

We are all aware of the fact that laws exist in Europe and other countries which impose curbs, for instance, on anti-Semitic speech, Holocaust denial, or racial slurs. We need to acknowledge, once and for all, that Islamophobia in particular and discrimination on the basis of religion and belief are contemporary forms of racism and must be dealt with as such. Not to do so would be a clear example of double standards. Islamophobia has to be treated in law and practice equal to the treatment given to anti-Semitism.

He’s right. Laws throughout Europe forbid any expression that “minimizes,” “trivializes,” “belittles,” “plays down,” “contests,” or “puts in doubt” Nazi crimes. Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic extend this prohibition to communist atrocities. These laws carry jail sentences of up to five years. Germany adds two years for anyone who “disparages the memory of a deceased person.”

Hate speech laws go further. Germany punishes anyone found guilty of “insulting” or “defaming segments of the population.” The Netherlands bans anything that “verbally or in writing or image, deliberately offends a group of people because of their race, their religion or beliefs, their hetero- or homosexual orientation or their physical, psychological or mental handicap.” It’s illegal to “insult” such a group in France, to “defame” them in Portugal, to “degrade” them in Denmark, or to “expresses contempt” for them in Sweden. In Switzerland, it’s illegal to “demean” them even with a “gesture.” Canada punishes anyone who “willfully promotes hatred.” The United Kingdom outlaws “insulting words or behavior” that arouse “racial hatred.” Romania forbids the possession of xenophobic “symbols.”

What have these laws produced? Look at the convictions upheld or accepted by the European Court of Human Rights. Four Swedes who distributed leaflets that called homosexuality “deviant” and “morally destructive” and blamed it for AIDS. An Englishman who displayed in his window a 9/11 poster proclaiming, “Islam out of Britain.” A Turk whopublished two letters from readers angry at the government’s treatment of Kurds. A Frenchman who wrote an article disputing the plausibility of poison gas technology at a Nazi concentration camp.

Look at the defendants rescued by the court. A Dane “convicted of aiding and abetting the dissemination of racist remarks” for making a documentary in which three people “made abusive and derogatory remarks about immigrants and ethnic groups.” A man “convicted of openly inciting the population to hatred” in Turkey by “criticizing secular and democratic principles and openly calling for the introduction of Sharia law.” Another Turkish resident “convicted of disseminating propaganda” after he “criticized the United States’ intervention in Iraq and the solitary confinement of the leader of a terrorist organization.” Two Frenchmen who wrote a newspaper article that “portrayed Marshal Pétain in a favorable light, drawing a veil over his policy of collaboration with the Nazi regime.”

Beyond the court’s docket, you’ll find more prosecutions of dissent. A Swedish pastor convicted of violating hate-speech laws by preaching against homosexuality. A Serbconvicted of discrimination for saying, “We are against every gathering where homosexuals are demonstrating in the streets of Belgrade and want to show something, which is a disease, like it is normal.” An Australian columnist convicted of violating the Racial Discrimination Act by suggesting that “there are fair-skinned people in Australia with essentially European ancestry … who, motivated by career opportunities available to Aboriginal people or by political activism, have chosen to falsely identify as Aboriginal.”

My favorite case involves a Frenchman who sought free-speech protection under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights:

Denis Leroy is a cartoonist. One of his drawings representing the attack on the World Trade Centre was published in a Basque weekly newspaper … with a caption which read: “We have all dreamt of it ... Hamas did it”. Having been sentenced to payment of a fine for “condoning terrorism”, Mr Leroy argued that his freedom of expression had been infringed.

The Court considered that, through his work, the applicant had glorified the violent destruction of American imperialism, expressed moral support for the perpetrators of the attacks of 11 September, commented approvingly on the violence perpetrated against thousands of civilians and diminished the dignity of the victims. Despite the newspaper’s limited circulation, the Court observed that the drawing’s publication had provoked a certain public reaction, capable of stirring up violence and of having a demonstrable impact on public order in the Basque Country. The Court held that there had been no violation of Article 10.

How can you justify prosecuting cases like these while defending cartoonists and video makers who ridicule Mohammed? You can’t. Either you censor both, or you censor neither. Given the choice, I’ll stand with Obama. “Efforts to restrict speech,” he warned the U. N., “can quickly become a tool to silence critics and oppress minorities.”

That principle, borne out by the wretched record of hate-speech prosecutions, is worth defending. But first, we have to live up to it.

Via: "Slate"

New California Resolution: Criticism Of Israel Is Anti-Semitism

Tom Carter reports in "WSWS",

Last month, the California State Assembly passed a resolution urging state educational institutions to more aggressively crack down on criticism of the State of Israel on campuses, which the resolution defines as “anti-Semitism.” The anti-democratic resolution is the latest step in the broader campaign to stifle and suppress dissent on California's increasingly volatile campuses.

The California State Assembly is the lower house of the state legislature, consisting of 80 members. The resolution—H.R. 35: “Relative to anti-Semitism”—was passed by a vote of 66 to 80, including a majority of both Republicans and Democrats in the Assembly.

The resolution was drafted by Republican Linda Halderman and passed without public discussion. The vote on the resolution came when most students were between semesters and away from their campuses.

The resolution (available here) uses the classic trick employed by defenders of Israel’s Zionist regime: lumping together any criticism of the Israeli state’s policies or of the US government’s support for them with racist attacks on Jews.

On the one hand, the resolution denounces “swastikas and other anti-Semitic graffiti in residential halls, public areas on campus, and Hillel houses,” and denounces those who accuse “the Jewish people, or Israel, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.”

On the other hand, the bulk of the resolution is dedicated to defining criticism of the state of Israel as “anti-Semitism.” It lists the following as examples of “anti-Semitism”:

• “language or behavior [that] demonizes and delegitimizes Israel;”

• “speakers, films, and exhibits” that indicate that “Israel is guilty of heinous crimes against humanity such as ethnic cleansing and genocide;”

• describing Israel as a “racist” or “apartheid” state;

• “student-and faculty-sponsored boycott, divestment, and sanction campaigns against Israel;”

• “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination;”

• “applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation;” and

• “actions of student groups that encourage support for terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.”

This list makes clear that the accusations of anti-Semitism are a red herring, employed to attack students’ democratic rights and stifle dissent. The resolution recalls the smear campaign against German author Günter Grass and his poem “What Must Be Said” earlier this year.

Defending the poem, the World Socialist Web Site explained: “Anti-Semitism is the term used to describe racist hatred aimed at the oppression and persecution of Jews—and in the case of the Third Reich, the extermination of Jews. Grass’s criticisms of the war policy of the Netanyahu government are not directed against Jews, nor against Jews in Israel. His overwhelming concern is the well-being of both the Jewish population in Israel and the Iranian people. This is in stark contrast to the Israeli government.

“The Israeli regime does not represent the interests of the Jewish population, but rather a tiny rich and corrupt clique that has always worked closely with American imperialism.” (See Defend Günter Grass!)

The aggressive narrowness of the resolution's definition of acceptable political discussion, combined with its broad definition of anti-Semitism, prompted the University of California to distance itself from the resolution, though without rejecting or denouncing it. “We think it's problematic because of First Amendment concerns,” UC spokesman Steve Montiel told the San Francisco Chronicle last week.

The resolution does clearly implicate the First Amendment, which protects not only criticism of the state of Israel, but generally protects anti-Semitic hate speech as well.

Moreover, it must also be said that the State of Israel is, as a matter of fact, guilty of crimes against humanity.

To cite only a more recent example, the 574-page UN Goldstone Report published in 2010 found that the State of Israel had deliberately targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza during the 2008-2009 “Operation Cast Lead.” The invasion of Gaza saw 1,400 Palestinians killed compared with 13 Israelis killed. More than 21,000 buildings, factories, and apartments were damaged or destroyed.

Under California H.R. 35, it appears that the Goldstone report is now to be considered “anti-Semitic.”

The resolution also contains a denunciation of “suppression and disruption of free speech that presents Israel's point of view.” This appears to be a reference to the “Irvine 11” incident last year, in which 11 students shouted down Israeli ambassador Michael Oren during his speech at the University of California at Irvine.

The 11 students shouted, “Michael Oren, you’re a war criminal,” and “You, sir, are an accomplice to genocide.” These students were later arrested, charged, and convicted of the crimes of “conspiracy” and violating Oren’s rights. (See University of California students convicted for protesting Israeli ambassador’s speech.)

The resolution goes on to state that the “Assembly recognizes recent actions by officials of public post secondary educational institutions in California [e.g., the prosecutions of the Irvine 11] and calls upon those institutions to increase their efforts to swiftly and unequivocally condemn acts of anti-Semitism on their campuses and to utilize existing resources . . . to help guide campus discussion about, and promote, as appropriate, educational programs for combating anti-Semitism on their campuses.”

On California's campuses, as on campuses and workplaces internationally, explosive class antagonisms are increasingly apparent. Massive tuition hikes year after year coupled with job losses and skyrocketing youth unemployment present an entire generation of young people with an increasingly impossible situation.

State authorities in California, which is controlled by the Democratic Party, have watched the large campus protests that took place across state campuses over the past two years with hostility, consternation, and fear.

Over the past year, at the behest of Democratic Party officials, demonstrating students across the state have been attacked by paramilitary police squads armed with batons, tear gas, and flash grenades, with hundreds of students arrested and jailed. The world's attention was captured when students peacefully protesting tuition hikes at UC Davis were pepper sprayed by police in cold blood.

In the face of increasing tensions and protests, state authorities are moving to clamp down on the campuses, intervening to “guide campus discussion” and criminalize criticism of both domestic and foreign policy. Under the guise of criticizing “anti-Semitism” the state government signaling that the persecution of student protesters will be tolerated or welcomed.

The resolution concludes that “strong leadership from the top remains an important priority so that no administrator, faculty, or student group can be in any doubt that anti-Semitic activity will not be tolerated in the classroom or on campus, and that no public resources will be allowed to be used for anti-Semitic or any intolerant agitation.”

10 Ways To Support The Occupy Movement

By Michael Kieschnick 
President, CREDO Mobile 
October 21, 2011 
Courtesy Of "The Huffington Post"

Occupy Wall Street has put the attention of the country, in fact of the whole world, on the deep wrongness of the current American economy and democracy. Both are broken and rigged by design to produce extraordinary incomes and security only for an elite few.

I am an enthusiastic admirer of Occupy Wall Street and its organic siblings in hundreds of cities and towns across the United States.

My Facebook news feed has been filled with more astonishingly creative handwritten signs and home brewed video in the last month than at any time since the months preceding our ill-fated invasion of Iraq.

This cannot last. That said, I have no sure prediction as to what will bring the American plutocracy to heel.

We know that change will not come from our judicial system or Congress. Each made the current conditions possible. The Supreme Court, after all, unleashed unlimited corporate spending on elections, turning over a hundred years of precedent. And Congress has repeatedly passed on the opportunity to restore income tax rates on billionaires to Clinton, let alone Reagan levels, or to close the hedge fund tax loophole that has enriched a handful beyond our comprehension.

Change might come at the hands of the rest of the world. Tired of our military presence in nearly 200 other countries. Tired of how our regulators looked the other way as American financial institutions nearly borrowed, manipulated, and deceived their way into a world financial crisis that destroyed family wealth built up over decades. Tired of how our political system could not rein in Wall Street in the aftermath of the crisis. The U.S. has become a peculiar form of rogue nation.

Or change might come as a result of sheer fear among the plutocrats, now that the occupiers know where they live and have the audacity to visit the gates of their homes.

My favorite historian, the late Howard Zinn, studied social change sufficiently to caution that change rarely happens as a result of a plan, or on a schedule, or because it is convenient. Sometimes, a regime appears invulnerable right before the cracks appear, and the wall comes down.

There is no substitute for keeping the pressure on so that when the cracks appear, there are enough people - a movement - to open the crack wider and make possible what previously seemed unthinkable.

Which is why I so admire Occupy Wall Street and the truly grassroots movement it has spawned. 

CREDO is not of or from Occupy Wall Street. But we support it. Our actions are of a very different sort. We have a policy agenda. Our members write, call, visit, and rally to make change happen on literally hundreds of public and corporate policies that have the ability to make life better or worse. Our members have written, called, faxes, emailed, rallied, registered and every other way of doing the work of showing up over thirty million times. If you want to participate in this kind of progressive advocacy, check out the footnotes at the end of this piece. But without a doubt, thirty million moments of activism have not been enough because the bad guys keep winning and the 99% are losing the fight.

Which is why we need the space and the challenging conversation forced on a reluctant mass media by Occupy Wall Street. Rather amazingly, the media is now finally reporting on unemployment and jobs rather than solely focusing on the false inside-the-beltway crisis of a Federal deficit.

Our goal is to be supportive of this new space. We have respectfully engaged our members in pushing back on police misconduct. We have marched and promoted marches. We have delivered food. 

But we most emphatically do not know better than the growing number of participants in Occupy Wall Street what demands should emerge or what tactics the burgeoning movement should take. We stand with the vibrant participants of Occupy Wall Street now and in the months to come. As the weather turns cold and the 1% move from ignoring the movement, to ridiculing the movement, to undermining it and eventually seeking to crush it, CREDO will be there.

In the meantime, here are a few ways that I and the staff at CREDO staff have worked to support Occupy Wall Street. There are many more. We urge you to consider taking these and similar steps.

1. Get information about what's really going on from truly independent media like Democracy Now.
2. Show up -- if there is a local Occupation visit personally. Form you own opinion about the people you meet.
3. Ask local occupiers if there are ways you can offer support -- from delivering food and blankets to participating in the General Assemblies or related marches and actions.
4. Sign our petition on police misconduct against Occupy Wall Street here.
5. If you have extra money, consider supporting lawyers defending various Occupy efforts at the National Lawyer's Guild here.
6. See if the New Bottom Line coalition of unions, congregations and community groups is active in your area in confronting banks over foreclosures and evictions, and join in. Check them out here.
7. Check out local member-owned credit unions to move your money into your local economy.
8. If you are politically active, ask politicians you know to return any contributions from banks or Wall Street.
9. Put up "We are the 99 percent" posters in your community. Make your own or download one from http://www.occupytogether.org/downloadable-posters/ orhttp://owsposters.tumblr.com/
10. If you are a parent or an educator, turn this into a teachable moment. Find resources here.