BDS Victory! Veolia Withdraws from California Water Contract Bidding Following Outcry Against its Abuses of Palestinian Rights

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Written by Davis Committee for Palestinian Rights Davis Committee for Palestinian Rights

Published: 11 January 2013 11 January 2013

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 11, 2013

Contact: Mikos Fabersunne, Davis Committee for Palestinian Rights

Veolia Withdraws from California Water Contract Bidding Following Outcry
Against its Abuses of Palestinian Rights

Posted: http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=3432

Davis, California – The Davis Committee of Palestinian Rights (DCPR) is happy to report that Veolia Water North America has withdrawn as a prospective bidder on a $325 million dollar project that would provide treated water from the Sacramento River to residents of Woodland and Davis in Yolo County, California.  The announcement came at the December 20, 2012 meeting of the Woodland-Davis Clean Water Agency (Water Agency), a joint powers authority between the University of California - Davis and the cities of Woodland and Davis. Veolia’s withdrawal followed efforts by citizens of Yolo County to prevent Veolia’s bidding due to the company’s involvement in the violation of Palestinian human rights.

Read more: BDS Victory! Veolia Withdraws from California Water Contract Bidding Following Outcry Against its...

Petition: Hold Israel Accountable for Killing Palestinians with U.S. Weapons

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Written by US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

Published: 09 January 2013 09 January 2013

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http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/641/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=12069

From November 14-21, Israel killed at least 182 Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip, including 47 children, according to the World Health Organization. In addition, 6 Israelis were killed by Palestinian rockets.

Israel's attacks against the Gaza Strip were committed with U.S. weapons given to Israel as military aid by the U.S. taxpayer. These weapons were misused by Israel in violation of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act to commit grave human rights abuses of Palestinians.

For example, Israel used a U.S.-supplied F-16 fighter jet to kill 4-year-old Mahmoud Sadallah, who died of shrapnel wounds from missiles fired from this aircraft.

Mohammed Omer wrote in The Nation that Mahmoud “was playing on the stoop of his home, well away from the main street” when he was killed.

“With emergency services strained, in a panic the young boy’s mother scooped him up and ran through the smoke-enshrouded streets, dodging dust and flames, screaming hysterically for help as blood poured out of Mahmoud’s head.”

Now the Obama administration is proposing to deliver 6,900 Joint Direct Attack Munitions tail kitsand more than 10,000 bombs--weapons valued at $647 million--to replenish Israel's arsenal for its F-16 fighter jets.

Our taxes should not be funding Israel’s human rights abuses of Palestinians in violation of U.S. law. Sign this petition to the State Department to investigate Israel’s violations of the Arms Export Control Act, hold it accountable for killing Palestinians like Mahmoud in our name, and prevent the delivery of more weapons to Israel.


Dear Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,

Last month, Israel killed at least 182 Palestinians, including 47 children, in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip with U.S. weapons paid for by U.S. taxpayers in violation of U.S. law.

Rather than replenishing Israel's arsenal of Joint Direct Attack Munitions and bombs for its U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets, the State Department instead must investigate Israel's violations of the Arms Export Control Act and hold Israel accountable for killing Palestinians in our name by ending U.S. military aid to Israel.

US drone attacks 'counter-productive', former Obama security adviser claims

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Written by Nick Hopkins Nick Hopkins

Published: 07 January 2013 07 January 2013

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US reliance on drones to target terrorists undermines rule of law, is ineffective and has strategic drawbacks, argues Michael Boyle

The aftermath of a US drone strike in Yemen in September. The US claimed the attack killed six Islamist militants but the Yemeni government said the target was missed and 13 civilians were killed. Photograph: Reuters

The United States' use of drones is counter-productive, less effective than the White House claims, and is "encouraging a new arms race that will empower current and future rivals and lay the foundations for an international system that is increasingly violent", according to a study by one of President Obama's former security advisers.
Michael Boyle, who was on Obama's counter-terrorism group in the run-up to his election in 2008, said the US administration's growing reliance on drone technology was having "adverse strategic effects that have not been properly weighed against the tactical gains associated with killing terrorists".

Civilian casualties were likely to be far higher than had been acknowledged, he said.

In an article for the Chatham House journal International Affairs, Boyle said the conventional wisdom over the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) needed to be challenged.

He said there was an urgent need for greater transparency because most Americans remained "unaware of the scale of the drone programme ... and the destruction it has caused in their name".

US use of drones has soared during Obama's time in office, with the White House authorising attacks in at least four countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. It is estimated that the CIA and the US military have undertaken more than 300 drone strikes and killed about 2,500 people.

Administration officials have argued their use is lawful, though the Pentagon's most senior lawyer, Jeh Johnson, recently admitted that the US was heading for a "tipping point", beyond which it should no longer pursue terrorists by military means because the organisation that Congress authorised the military to pursue in 2001 had in effect been destroyed.

In his study, Boyle said Obama pledged to end the "war on terror" and to restore respect for the rule of law in US counter-terrorism policies.

"Instead, he has been just as ruthless and indifferent to the rule of law as his predecessor ... while President Bush issued a call to arms to defend 'civilisation' against the threat of terrorism, President Obama has waged his war on terror in the shadows, using drone strikes, special operations and sophisticated surveillance to fight a brutal covert war against al-Qaida and other Islamist networks."

Boyle, who teaches at La Salle University, Philadelphia, said the government claim that drones were an effective tool that minimised civilian casualties was "based on a highly selective and partial reading of the evidence".

He argues one of the reasons why the US has been "so successful in spinning the number of civilian casualties" is that it has reportedly adopted a controversial method for counting them: all military-age men in a strike zone are classed as militants unless clear evidence emerges to the contrary.

"The result of the 'guilt by association' approach has been a gradual loosening of the standards by which the US selects targets for drone strikes," his study says.
"The consequences can be seen in the targeting of mosques or funeral processions that kill non-combatants and tear at the social fabric of the regions where they occur. No one really knows the number of deaths caused by drones in these distant, sometimes ungoverned, lands."

Boyle questions the claim that drone strikes have been effective in killing so-called high-value targets, saying records suggested lower-ranked foot soldiers were the ones who had been hit in greatest numbers.

And he also said the strikes had a debilitating effect on local populations and their governments.

"Despite the fact that drone strikes are often employed against local enemies of the governments in Pakistan and Yemen, they serve as powerful signals of the regimes' helplessness and subservience to the United States and undermine the claim that these governments can be credible competitors for the loyalties of the population," he writes.

"The vast increase in the number of deaths of low-ranking operatives has deepened political resistance to the US programme in Pakistan, Yemen and other countries."
Last week, a judge in New York rejected an attempt by the New York Times to force the US government to disclose more information about its targeted killing of people that it believes have ties to terrorism, including American citizens.

Colleen McMahon, a district judge in Manhattan, said the Obama administration did not violate the law by refusing the newspaper's request for the legal justifications for targeted killings.

She said the government was not obliged to turn over materials the Times had sought under the federal Freedom of Information Act, even though it had such materials in its possession.

Jewish Foundations Support Islamophobia at Home, Settler Triumphalism Abroad

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Written by Richard Silverstein Richard Silverstein

Published: 06 January 2013 06 January 2013

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[Note: The Israel Project listed below has a board of advisers that includes Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, a staunch zionist]

Most Jewish foundations support the equivalent of Bubbeh’s chicken soup: Israel, synagogues, youth groups, Jewish education, Jewish studies programs, etc.  But over the past ten years or so, as the ideological battle within Israel has intensified with a rightward nationalist drift, a number of foundations have led a drive toward the increasing politicization of Jewish philanthropy.  Three of the most radical in their funding objectives are located in the west: the Koret Foundation in San Francisco, which is based on the fortune amassed by a successful Jewish clothing manufacturer, with a reported $473-million in assets and $19-million in grants in its latest IRS filing.  The Fairbrook Foundation, based on the $1-billion technology fortune of Aubrey and Joyce Chernick, is based in Los Angeles and had $50-million in assets and $5-million in grants in its last available 2010 IRS filing. The Irving Moskowitz Foundation, which had assets of $48-million and grants $5-million, supports the radical settler vision of its namesake, whose fortune was made buying and selling hospitals and in running a Southern California bingo-parlor.


[Photo: Irving Moskowitz surrounded by settlers and security as they ethnically cleanse East Jerusalem Palestinian home (Awad Awad/AFP)]

These foundations are major funders of the most extreme of Jewish groups and individuals including David Horowitz, Pam Geller, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, The Israel Project, MEMRI, and many others.  The agenda of these funders is decidedly Islamophobic and contributes enormously to the current hostile atmosphere toward Muslims in the U.S. and Israel.  They funded Geller’s “Ground Zero Mosque” jihad, her NY subway ads. They helped Daniel Pipes create and fund his lawfare campaign called The Legal Project, which provided free legal representation to leading Dutch Islamophobe politician, Geert Wilders; and for MEK official, Hassan Daioeslam, in defense of his libel suit with the National Iranian American Council.

The main problem with Jewish Islamophobia is that it turns the Israeli-Arab conflict into a religious holy war when it’s really a battle over political power.  Injecting religion as these radical ideologues do, makes resolving differences almost impossible.  Finally, in smearing the religion of most of those living in the Middle East, it almost guarantees that no Muslim will be able to tolerate a Jewish presence there as well.

Similarly, these radical philanthropists fund the most extreme of the settler movement.  Those who not just espouse violence and hate against Palestinians, but engage in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.

Because so much of the activism of the radical Jewish right is shrouded in obscurity, I like to debunk this periodically by showing you the money: who has it, where it’s going, and what it’s doing.

* The following is a list, by Foundation, of some of the most radical of these groups and how much they’ve received. I last bloggedabout the Fairbrook Foundation’s 2008 IRS 990. The following is from the 2010 report:

Read more: Jewish Foundations Support Islamophobia at Home, Settler Triumphalism Abroad