Last October, Reuters published news about a secret U.S. government panel which “nominated” militants for murder or capture, including U.S. citizens like Anwar al-Awlaki. The story peered into the opaque process by which a government bureaucracy decides to take a human life. And it was disturbing:
…Targeting recommendations are drawn up by a committee of mid-level National Security Council and agency officials. Their recommendations are then sent to the panel of NSC “principals,” meaning Cabinet secretaries and intelligence unit chiefs, for approval. The panel of principals could have different memberships when considering different operational issues, they said.
The names suggested are then brought before the president, who may veto them.
What’s astonishing about all this is that the names of those on the panel are unknown, how they decide someone should die is unknown, and what evidence is used to determine on a death sentence is unknown. Everything about this process is deliberately opaque. And there is no written record of the panel’s deliberations in order to further insulate participants, especially the president himself. This fact alone reminds me of some of the more nefarious plots in recent history including Pol Pot’s genocide, Hitler’s Final Solution and Ben Gurion’s plans for the Nakba. All wisely left little or no written evidence of their plans that could be used later by authorities or history to judge them. Not that targeted killings rise to the level of genocide in terms of crimes against humanity, but they are grievious breaches of international law nonetheless.
The hypocrisy of Hillary Clinton swearing on a stack of Bibles that the U.S. had nothing to do with the last Iranian scientist assassination is laughable considering that our own behavior isn’t that dissimilar. In a conversation with a journalist a few days ago who’d had discussions with CIA officers who justified the U.S. killing of al-Awlaki, the agent asked the reporter whether it would be justified to kill someone during World War II who fought right at Hitler’s side.
He was attempting to liken the Yemeni-American cleric to such a figure, when the evidence offered so far doesn’t justify it. Is the CIA saying that Osama bin Laden was Hitler and al-Awlaki was his commander-in-chief? Since when, on both counts? I have no doubt that both were enemies of the U.S. who deserved to be tried and punished for their crimes. But as Mehdi Hassan argues so persuasively in this commentary on the subject, “targeted killing is just the death penalty without due process.”
Barack Obama doesn’t get to be judge, jury and executioner under the U.S. Constitution. In fact, he’s violating the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits taking a citizen’s life without due process. A secret National Council panel is NOT due process. It’s just death by bureaucratic fiat. It is no different from Israel’s targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants and Iranian scientists.
The Nazis left ample written record of their intentions regarding the Holocaust, as well as its execution. That’s another thing they were really good at – record keeping. Though I have to say I’m more than a little disturbed by your conflation of Nazis and the Khmer Rouge with David Ben Gurion.
No, except for the Wansee Conference minutes, there are almost no written records about the Final Solution. The only evidence we have is train schedules to Auschwitz & the death camps.
You don’t think the rape, pillaging, murder & forced expulsion of 1 million Israeli Palestinians should be compared with other similar acts in recent history. I probably could’ve included the India-Pakistan upheaval of 1948. But in that case both countries expelled minority inhabitants, not one as in Israel’s case.
Richard.
You don’t back off your conflation of the Nazis and Pol Pot and Ben Gurion nor do you offer us the proof that Ben Gurion had a plans for the Nakba.
Instead, you come out with an over-the-top comment:
“don’t think the rape, pillaging, murder & forced expulsion of 1 million Israeli Palestinians should be compared with other similar acts in recent history”.
Not even the Palestinians claim that 1 million were expelled.
What number of these 1 million were raped? What number were murdered?
Over 6000 Jews were killed during Israel’s War of Independence. How did they die? How many of these six thousand were murdered by the Arabs?
No mention of the 500,000 Sephardic and Iraqi Jews forced out of their homes and expelled by they Arabs. Why?
PZ
Are you serious telling me in Hasbara training school they never told you about Plan Dalet? That’s where the Nakba was laid out, though Ben Gurion, as I said was careful not to leave much in writing. All good bureaucrats planning evil try to leave no evidence behind.
You’re a liar about what Palestinians claim. You don’t even know what you’re talking about. In fact, Wikipedia itself quotes a figure around 750,000 expelled but notes there are higher estimates. And Palestinians certainly do & have claimed that number, even in this blog’s comment threads. 10,000 Jews were expelled during the 48 War to nearly 1 million Israeli Palestinians. That’s quite a ratio don’t you think?
As for sources on how many killed & raped you might read Benny Morris historical texts on 48. That’s a start.
As for the alleged Arab expulsion of Jews, I’ve challenged hasbarists like you before to provide any proof not of Jews leaving Arab countries or of them facing anti-Semtisim, but of them being forced from their homes or forcibly expelled as Palestinians were in the Nakba. And don’t find me propaganda sites. I want solid historical sources & evidence.
I know Benny Morris.
“Most of Palestine’s 700,000 “refugees” fled their homes because of the flail of war.”–Benny Morris
“There was no Zionist “plan” or blanket policy of evicting the Arab population, or of “ethnic cleansing”. Plan Dalet (Plan D), of March 10th, 1948, was the master plan of the Haganah – the Jewish military force that became the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) – to counter the expected pan-Arab assault on the emergent Jewish state. That’s what it explicitly states and that’s what it was”.–Benny Morris
“The demonisation of Israel is largely based on lies – much as the demonisation of the Jews during the past 2,000 years has been based on lies. And there is a connection between the two.”– Benny Morris
Benny Morris & the other New Historians were among the first to point out that many of the Israeli Palestinians were driven forcibly from their homes. Morris’ earlier research is completley at odds with his recent research which has been infected with his rightward political drift. The quotation you offer is no doubt from his most recent book. In his earlier research, which is actually based on extensive first hand research, he contradicted the sentiment you quoted.
Again, you’re quoting Benny Morris from his recent book, not his earlier ones. Here’s the Wikipedia article, which contradicts yr perspective:
I’m sure since you’re so capable of digging up recent Morris you can also dig up the quotes from his earlier work which directly contradict his more recent propaganda in the guise of history. Can’t you?
Nice. Keep up the good work. These types will stop at nothing to protect their impression of a caring, persecuted Israeli state only defending herself from the aggressors. It is, has been and will continue to be the Israeli Zionists who create havoc in Palistine and beyond. Heck, there are enough of them in the US ‘shadow government’ right now to start another Israeli country in America!
It is very typical Zionist stuff to argue tit for tat, “even steven”, as when Palestinians were expelled, well Jews were also expelled from Arab states, tit for tat. Likewise with the fierce missile attacks on Israel and the damage caused, if not to people, to their pets. This, as compared to Cast Lead!
Leaving aside the historical accuracies and contexts of these things, the evident incommensurate nature of the comparison never once stops these arguments. Why? Surely, thse people see the difference between 10,000 and one million. These arguments aim to present the conflict as two-sided with each “side” doing bad stuff and each “side” consisting of differing “opinions.” It is an effort to introduce parity in the discussion.
There is no parity between justice and injustice. There is no parity between a modern army (funded by Americans) and a multitude of rock throwers.
The proud Zionist has to face the indisputable fact that his people have stolen other people’s land, homes and property in an incommensurate battle. He can take pride in this if he chooses, but almost every righteous person would be ashamed of the association. I know I am.
“A tone of satisfaction with the exodus does indeed pervade the report; but from it emerges a very definite impression that the depopulation of the villages and towns was an unexpected outcome of the operations the purpose of which was wholly or primarily the conquest of military positions and strategic sites in the course of a life a death struggle. Jewish military operations indeed accounted for 70 percent of the Arab exodus; but the depopulation of the villages in most cases was incidental, if favorably regarded, side effect of the operations, not their aim. The reports estimate of the population of villages depopulated by calculated, direct Jewish expulsion orders is…around 5%…a small portion of the exodus[my ellipsis added]. Benny Morris, ‘1948 and Afterwards’
“Plan D was not a political blueprint for the expulsion of Palestine’s Arabs” (“The Birth…”, pp. 62 ) and “The Birth..Revisited”, p. 165.)
“‘The Plan was neither understood or used by the senior field officers as a blanket plan for the expulsion of ‘the Arabs’.”–(“The Birth..Revisited”, p. 165.)
“Plan D aside, there is no trace of any decision-making by the Yishuv’s or Haganah’s supreme bodies before April [1948] in favor of a blanket national policy of expelling ‘the Arabs’.”
(The Birth..Revisited, p. 166.)
Once again, you’re quoting fr Morris’ since his “conversion” to rabid anti-Palestinian, Nakba-justifying persona. What’s more you’ve avoided a myriad of other serious scholars who rebut Morris’ more recent denials of Nakba. Let’s not pretend that MOrris is the only serious scholar on this subject who confirms that a deliberate policy of expulsion was orchestrated by Ben Gurion and Rabin. You’ve also conveniently omitted Rabin’s autobiography in which he told Peretz Kidron that the Haganah, under his direction, did carry out a deliberate policy of expulsion under direction of Ben Gurion.
We’re done with this debate. Don’t publish another comment in this thread. The overwhelming consensus of historians of the 48 War is that Plan Dalet represented a plan for expulsion. You may be a Nakba denier if you wish, but I view such denial as little better than Holocaust denial.
The only evidence of a furhrer order for the Final Solution are comments made by Himmler to industry leaders and some military types late in the war. There is almost nothing in writing. The “records” you mention only allow one to surmise what was in play, and these records are variously interpreted.
It is good that you are disturbed by the inclusion of Ben Gurion. I have had to learn to think anew about these things, to undo sympathies deeply embedded in me by Zionist lies and distortions. Be distrubed — it’s a start. More people should be disturbed and that’s certainly something I try to do.
For Proud Zionist:
I am familiar with the history of the Nakba, the revisionist take on it and subsequent affirmations by Morris. All that aside, the policy of letting commanders on the ground decide the fate of villages, so often emphasized by Morris, is clearly a policy of hiding and obscuring the explusions, creating multiple sources of apprehension among Palestinian Arabs, multiple stories of what happened. It is all the more poignant because the writings are so thin, so obviously absent.
One can outgrow their fondest hopes and wishes. I bought all these complex stories for a very long time until the truth of the matter almost smacked me over the head. The Nakba wasn’t a complex unintentional result of complex military activities — it was a deliberate policy carried forward by the Zionists. Nothing else makes any sense historically. Maybe it’s time for you to give up these tired half-baked explanations, as well.
“Last October, Reuters published news about a secret U.S. government panel which “nominated” militants for murder or capture”. Almost, well, in practice, EXACTLY, “death panels.”
In order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, and ensure domestic tranquility – I would first submit to the panel all individuals who are convicted of any felony act and/or threat(s) of violence, armed theft/robbery, rape, child molestation, kidnapping, illegal distribution of a controlled substance, sedition, treason, fraud, conspiracy, and any act that would subvert the general welfare of the American public and our U.S. Government.
This should of course be made retroactive.
And who, then, will run Washington D.C.?
The op-ed in the Dutch quality paper Trouw that I have translated here is off topic but has a certain news value because of Netanyahu’s visit today, Thursday, to the Netherlands. It is also of more than usual interest because its author, Professor Dries van Agt, is a former Prime Minister of the Netherlands. During his time as Prime Minister, Van Agt showed a certain sympathy for Israel but a 1990-visit to the University of Bethlehem on the West Bank was a revelation for him. He has been active for the Palestinian cause ever since.
Unfortunately his is to a certain extent still a voice crying in the wilderness, certainly as far as his own party is concerned, the Christian Democratic Union, that is presently in a minority coalition government that depends on the support of Wilders’ rabidly pro-Israel PVV. The policy towards Israel is mainly in the hands of the rightwing-liberal Minister of Foreign Affairs, Uri Rosenthal. Van Agt sent a copy of this op-ed by letter to Rosenthal.
Haul Netanyahu solidly over the coals when he visits us.
Make a point of asking the Israeli Prime Minister questions during his visit to the Netherlands. About the sabotage of the peace process, about the blockade of Gaza and the violations of human rights. That is instructive for him and others.
© afp
Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu is visiting our country on Thursday. The prospect of his visit causes quite a stir among those who are fighting for international law. When Netanyahu’s visit was announced earlier to take place in November some argued that this visitor should be declared to be an unwanted alien and sent home. For it is under his responsibility that numerous violations of international law have been committed, against the Charter of the United Nations, and against binding resolutions of the Security Council. But also against a whole range of international treaties to which the state Israel has committed itself. For instance the Convention of Geneva regarding the protection of civilians during a time of war. And quite a few others such as the treaty regarding the rights of children and that against torture.
So many are of the opinion that we should not admit this visitor and most certainly not with a red carpet and Champaign. It has also been suggested that his arrest on Dutch territory is an option, though this is impossible because of Netanyahu’s diplomatic inviolability.
We opt for a different treatment. Government and parliament should use the impending encounter with Mr.Netanyahu to haul him solidly over the coals. They should, among other things, ask the Israeli premier this question: how can you urge the resumption of peace negotiations with the Palestinians about a two state solution (that you have claimed to support) when you continue fully and even in accelerated tempo with the building and expansion of settlements in territories that have now been occupied for forty years, East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
You want to negotiate about a cake that you continue to greedily consume yourself.
There are other urgent questions for premier Netyanyahu. The European Union, and Holland too, has repeatedly exhorted the state of Israel to make an end to the strangling blockade of Gaza. The Israeli premier has each time again been heedless of these urgent requests that were shaken off like water of a duck’s back.
How can this arrogant rejection be reconciled with the steady efforts of Israel, and also of the Dutch government, to raise the relations between Israel and the European Union even further? The relations between Israel and the Netherlands are already deepened and broadened at breakneck speed, without doubt also during the impending visit of premier Netanyahu, without the government putting conditions regarding Israel’s behavior on human rights and its position on the peace process.
I would like to make some suggestions that, when acted upon, could make the visit by the Israeli premier more valuable. Our country calls itself not only the nursery but also, with a pride that is no longer justified, the guardian and focus of international law. It would therefore be good to give premier Netanyahu some extra days of hospitality to provide him with the opportunity to pay his respects to the International Court of Justice in the Hague and to explain there why Israel couldn’t care less about the 2004 judgment of that Court regarding the Wall, also called the ‘security fence’.
And perhaps Mr.Netanyahu could, when at it, also visit the International Criminal Court. There he can explain why the State of Israel, in contradistinction to all member states of the European Union, refuses to accept the jurisdiction of that Court. And why so many Israelis, who in all probability have committed war crimes such as the deliberate killing of Palestinian civilians, are still freely walking around. Many of these cases have been documented by Israeli human rights organizations.
If he stays even longer in Holland the Israeli premier might also be able to give a lecture to an authoritative audience of people involved in disarmament and weapons control. Then it might be discussed why Israel, that has already had since decades a considerable arsenal of nuclear weaponry at its disposal, refuses to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The Institute Clingendael of the Dutch Society for International Affairs could offer him a platform for this. Then the question can also be asked why Israel is beating the war drum against Iran, though it does not allow itself any international inspection of its atomic arsenal and other weapons of mass destruction in its possession.
So let us welcome Mr.Netanyahu and provide him with the opportunity to deal with other people than just the denizens of the governmental quarters. His visit can then deliver instructive experiences, both for himself and others.
Thanks for the translation. I may publish it as a blog post in its own right if you don’t mind.
That would be good.
Yes, that would be good!
Israel has disregarded international law and UN resolutions time and again and has earned the status of pariah state. Why then should any state respect the diplomatic immunity of Netanyahu who otherwise disregards all sanctions and all courts? Israel should not be entitled to enjoy immunity until it becomes a law abiding member of the community.