Obama's first television interview in office

Obama said, among other things:

"[Peace between Israel & Palestine is] going to be difficult, it's going to take time. I don't want to prejudge many of these issues, and I want to make sure that expectations are not raised so that we think that this is going to be resolved in a few months. But if we start the steady progress on these issues, I'm absolutely confident that the United States -- working in tandem with the European Union, with Russia, with all the Arab states in the region -- I'm absolutely certain that we can make significant progress.going to be difficult, it's going to take time. I don't want to prejudge many of these issues, and I want to make sure that expectations are not raised so that we think that this is going to be resolved in a few months. But if we start the steady progress on these issues, I'm absolutely confident that the United States -- working in tandem with the European Union, with Russia, with all the Arab states in the region -- I'm absolutely certain that we can make significant progress."

He also said,

"Now, Israel is a strong ally of the United States. They will not stop being a strong ally of the United States. And I will continue to believe that Israel's security is paramount. But I also believe that there are Israelis who recognize that it is important to achieve peace. They will be willing to make sacrifices if the time is appropriate and if there is serious partnership on the other side."

[...]

"I think it is possible for us to see a Palestinian state -- I'm not going to put a time frame on it -- that is contiguous, that allows freedom of movement for its people, that allows for trade with other countries, that allows the creation of businesses and commerce so that people have a better life."

New name, same game for immigration enforcement?

By Michelle Chen

from Racewire

Activists looking to the Obama administration to repudiate Bush’s most draconian immigration policies may find little to cheer about so far under Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. A new policy directive from her office seems geared toward refining the status quo: an enforcement-heavy approach focused on securing borders rather than dealing with the social impacts of migration.

Though the plans are still emerging (a full departmental assessment of various immigration programs is due out later this month), Napolitano’s initial outline emphasizes immigration as a crime and law enforcement issue: programs to enlist local police in immigration crackdowns, efforts to facilitate the deportation of immigrants convicted of crimes, and targeted round-ups of “fugitive” immigrants.

The directive also calls for an assessment of immigrant detention facilities and the effectiveness of the heavily criticized “E-verify” system for work authorization.

Though these moves signal an effort to make immigration law enforcement more efficient and effective, Tom Barry at the Transborder Project of the Americas Policy Program cautions that the aim seems to be crystallize, not decisively break from, the harsh initiatives promoted by predecessor Michael Chertoff. Despite apparent resolve to evaluate and challenge the previous programs and practices, he writes:

"the new directive will certainly disappoint those hoping for a rejection of Chertoff’s law-and-order regimen for immigration by Napolitano and the Obama administration. Instead of rejecting the enforcement-only approach as inhumane, Napolitano seems intent on rationalizing and finessing the crackdown launched by her predecessor, while making improvements around the edges....

"No questions or concerns about the multitude of issues and problems that resulted from the security-driven campaign to fortify the border and round up suspect immigrants – the value of the border wall, the central role of private prisons in immigrant detention, the wisdom of U.S. drug policy with respect to border drug-related violence, the decreased attention to political asylum and refugee policy, the consequences of workplace raids, etc.

"A professional bureaucrat and politician, Napolitano is busy organizing, systematizing, and improving the crackdown that Chertoff so zealously spearheaded."

Perhaps one should expect as much from a law-enforcement focused bureaucracy. But that's all the more reason to keep the pressure up for a wholesale restructuring of federal immigration policy via legislation.

Xenophobic attacks

I meant to post this a while ago... These attacks are horrifying but not isolated - the United States has a history of official and unofficial violence on immigrant groups. Again, my question is, what are we so afraid of? Is this just a function of nations and borders and therefore, capitalism? Or is there something deeper that makes us humans want to exclude and hurt each other and look at each other as threats...

From the NYT

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — When Suffolk County prosecutors charged seven teenagers in the deadly assault on Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, in Patchogue, on Long Island, last November, one of the more disturbing accusations was that they engaged in a regular and violent pastime: hunting for Hispanics to attack.

On Wednesday, the prosecutors painted a newly detailed picture of what they said was a yearlong rampage by some of the teenagers, announcing new indictments that accuse the seven defendants in the fatal attack of assaulting or attempting to assault a total of eight other Latino men.

Prosecutors believe that many more teenagers — they are not sure how many — were involved in attacks on Hispanics in and around Patchogue, and are still at large. Investigators believe that there is a separate group of teenagers who roam Patchogue on bicycles attacking Latinos, according to a law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

“There is a lot of work still to be done,” District Attorney Thomas J. Spota said, “to ensure the safety of all the people who choose to call Suffolk County home.”

Five of the defendants — Christopher Overton, Anthony Hartford, Jose Pacheco, Jordan Dasch and Nicholas Hausch — pleaded not guilty in Suffolk County Criminal Court. The other two, Kevin Shea and Jeffrey Conroy, are expected to plead not guilty at arraignments next week. Not all of the defendants are charged in each case.

Jose Perez, a lawyer for LatinoJustice P.R.L.D.E.F., an advocacy group, said the new cases were “the tip of the iceberg” in a pattern of violence against Hispanics, and show that a more aggressive police response to earlier attacks could have prevented Mr. Lucero’s death.

After Mr. Lucero died, many other immigrants came forward to describe attacks. Some had never been reported; others were reported to police at the time, but no one was arrested, in part because language barriers made communication difficult, Mr. Spota said.

Investigators who were searching for new suspects showed more than 20 victims photographs of more than 20 of the defendants’ friends and acquaintances, but none were identified as assailants by any of the victims, the law enforcement official said.

In one of the new indictments, Mr. Pacheco and Mr. Conroy, who is accused of fatally stabbing Mr. Lucero on Nov. 8, were charged with beating Carlos Orellana on July 14, 2008.

Mr. Orellana was one of 11 Latino men who gave detailed accounts of 13 similar attacks to The New York Times for an article published this month. The cases reported in the article are now under investigation, a law enforcement official said.

On June 24, 2008, prosecutors said, a group of teenagers attacked Robert Zumba, kicked him and restrained his arms while Mr. Conroy lunged at him with a knife, cutting him.

Another man, Jose Hernandez, was attacked three times in a week in December 2007 by members of the group, prosecutors said. In one incident, they said, Mr. Conroy held a pipe in one hand and smacked it against his other palm, saying “We’re going to kill you.”

Lawyers for the defendants questioned how the victims could have identified their clients after so long, and suggested that prosecutors were pinning every possible assault on them.

Mr. Spota said prosecutors had considered the possibility that victims only thought they recognized the defendants because they had seen them in media coverage, and were careful to seek corroborating evidence.

The law enforcement official said that photo lineups were used to identify the suspects. In one case, Mr. Hartford, Mr. Hausch and Mr. Dasch are charged with attacking a man prosecutors identified as Petronila Fuentes Diaz on the night that Mr. Lucero was killed. A baseball cap that Mr. Diaz reported missing was found in Mr. Dasch’s car, the official said.

One of the challenges, the official said, was getting teenagers who may have known of the regular attacks to come forward. A few cooperated “reluctantly” with the investigation, recounting how some of the defendants bragged of certain attacks, the official said, but “they were resentful that their friends had been caught.”

Torture at Angola Prison

Torture at Angola Prison:

President Obama promises to close Guantanamo, but a court proceeding in Louisiana exposes brutality closer to home

By Jordan Flaherty

The torture of prisoners in US custody is not only found in military prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. If President Obama is serious about ending US support for torture, he can start here in Louisiana.

The Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola is already notorious for a range of offenses, including keeping former Black Panthers Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, in solitary for over 36 years. Now a death penalty trial in St. Francisville, Louisiana has exposed widespread and systemic abuse at the prison. Even in the context of eight years of the Bush administration, the behavior documented at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola stands out both for its brutality and for the significant evidence that it was condoned and encouraged from the very top of the chain of command.

In a remarkable hearing that explored torture practices at Angola, twenty-five inmates testified last summer to facing overwhelming violence in the aftermath of an escape attempt at the prison nearly a decade ago. These twenty-five inmates - who were not involved in the escape attempt - testified to being kicked, punched, beaten with batons and with fists, stepped on, left naked in a freezing cell, and threatened that they would be killed. They were threatened by guards that they would be sexually assaulted with batons. They were forced to urinate and defecate on themselves. They were bloodied, had teeth knocked out, were beaten until they lost control of bodily functions, and beaten until they signed statements or confessions presented to them by prison officials. One inmate had a broken jaw, and another was placed in solitary confinement for eight years.

While prison officials deny the policy of abuse, the range of prisoners who gave statements, in addition to medical records and other evidence introduced at the trial, present a powerful argument that abuse is a standard policy at the prison. Several of the prisoners received $7,000 when the state agreed to settle, without admitting liability, two civil rights lawsuits filed by 13 inmates. The inmates will have to spend that money behind bars –more than 90% of Angola's prisoners are expected to die behind its walls.

Systemic Violence

During the attempted escape at Angola, in which one guard was killed and two were taken hostage, a team of officers - including Angola warden Burl Cain - rushed in and began shooting, killing one inmate, Joel Durham, and wounding another, David Mathis.

The prison has no official guidelines for what should happen during escape attempts or other crises, a policy that seems designed to encourage the violent treatment documented in this case. Richard Stalder, at that time the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, was also at the prison at the time. Yet despite – or because of - the presence of the prison warden and head of corrections for the state, guards were given free hand to engage in violent retribution. Cain later told a reporter after the shooting that Angola's policy was not to negotiate, saying, ''That's a message all the inmates know. They just forgot it. And now they know it again.''

Five prisoners – including Mathis - were charged with murder, and currently are on trial, facing the death penalty – partially based on testimony from other inmates that was obtained through beatings and torture. Mathis is represented by civil rights attorneys Jim Boren (who also represented one of the Jena Six youths) and Rachel Connor, with assistance from Nola Investigates, an investigative firm in New Orleans that specializes in defense for capital cases.

The St. Francisville hearing was requested by Mathis' defense counsel to demonstrate that, in the climate of violence and abuse, inmates were forced to sign statements through torture, and therefore those statements should be inadmissible. 20th Judicial District Judge George H. Ware Jr. ruled that the documented torture and abuse was not relevant. However, the behavior documented in the hearing not only raises strong doubts about the cases against the Angola Five, but it also shows that violence against inmates has become standard procedure at the prison.

The hearing shows a pattern of systemic abuse so open and regular, it defies the traditional excuse of bad apples. Inmate Doyle Billiot testified to being threatened with death by the guards, "What's not to be afraid of? Got all these security guards coming around you everyday looking at you sideways, crazy and stuff. Don't know what's on their mind, especially when they threaten to kill you." Another inmate, Robert Carley testified that a false confession was beaten out of him. ""I was afraid," he said. "I felt that if I didn't go in there and tell them something, I would die."

Inmate Kenneth "Geronimo" Edwards testified that the guards "beat us half to death." He also testified that guards threatened to sexually assault him with a baton, saying, "that's a big black…say you want it." Later, Edwards says, the guards, "put me in my cell. They took all my clothes. Took my jumpsuit. Took all the sheets, everything out the cell, and put me in the cell buck-naked…It was cold in the cell. They opened the windows and turned the blowers on." At least a dozen other inmates also testified to receiving the same beatings, assault, threats of sexual violence, and "freezing treatment."

Some guards at the prison treated the abuse as a game. Inmate Brian Johns testified at the hearing that, "one of the guards was hitting us all in the head. Said he liked the sound of the drums – the drumming sound that – from hitting us in the head with the stick."

Solitary Confinement

Two of Angola's most famous residents, political prisoners Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, have become the primary example of another form of abuse common at Angola – the use of solitary confinement as punishment for political views. The two have now each spent more than 36 years in solitary, despite the fact that a judge recently overturned Woodfox's conviction (prison authorities continue to hold Woodfox and have announced plans to retry him). Woodfox and Wallace – who together with former prisoner King Wilkerson are known as the Angola Three - have filed a civil suit against Angola, arguing that their confinement has violated both their 8th amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment and 4th amendment right to due process.

Recent statements by Angola warden Burl Cain makes clear that Woodfox and Wallace are being punished for their political views. At a recent deposition, attorneys for Woodfox asked Cain, "Lets just for the sake of argument assume, if you can, that he is not guilty of the murder of Brent Miller." Cain responded, "Okay. I would still keep him in (solitary)…I still know that he is still trying to practice Black Pantherism, and I still would not want him walking around my prison because he would organize the young new inmates. I would have me all kind of problems, more than I could stand, and I would have the blacks chasing after them...He has to stay in a cell while he's at Angola."

In addition to Cain's comments, Louisiana Attorney General James "Buddy" Caldwell has said the case against the Angola Three is personal to him. Statements like this indicate that this vigilante attitude not only pervades New Orleans' criminal justice system, but that the problem comes from the very top.

The problem is not limited to Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola – similar stories can be found in prisons across the US. But from the abandonment of prisoners in Orleans Parish Prison during Katrina to the case of the Jena Six, Louisiana's criminal justice system, which has the highest incarceration rate in the world, often seems to be functioning under plantation-style justice. Most recently, journalist A.C. Thompson, in an investigation of post-Katrina killings, found evidence that the New Orleans police department supported vigilante attacks against Black residents of New Orleans after Katrina.

Torture and abuse is illegal under both US law – including the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment - and international treaties that the US is signatory to, from the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ratified in 1992). Despite the laws and treaties, US prison guards have rarely been held accountable to these standards.

Once we say that abuse or torture is ok against prisoners, the next step is for it to be used in the wider population. A recent petition for administrative remedies filed by Herman Wallace states, "If Guantanamo Bay has been a national embarrassment and symbol of the U.S. government's relation to charges, trials and torture, then what is being done to the Angola 3… is what we are to expect if we fail to act quickly…The government tries out it's torture techniques on prisoners in the U.S. – just far enough to see how society will react. It doesn't take long before they unleash their techniques on society as a whole." If we don't stand up against this abuse now, it will only spread.

Despite the hearings, civil suits, and other documentation, the guards who performed the acts documented in the hearing on torture at Angola remain unpunished, and the system that designed it remains in place. In fact, many of the guards have been promoted, and remain in supervisory capacity over the same inmates they were documented to have beaten mercilessly. Warden Burl Cain still oversees Angola. Meanwhile, the trial of the Angola Five is moving forward, and those with the power to change the pattern of abuse at Angola remain silent.

Jordan Flaherty is a journalist based in New Orleans, and an editor of Left Turn Magazine. He was the first writer to bring the story of the Jena Six to a national audience and his reporting on post-Katrina New Orleans has been published and broadcast in outlets including Die Zeit (in Germany), Clarin (in Argentina), Al-Jazeera, TeleSur, and Democracy Now. He can be reached at neworleans@leftturn.org.Research assistance for this article by Emily Ratner.

Resources:
The Angola Three - http://www.angola3.org
Safe Streets Strong Communities - http://www.safestreetsnola.org
Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children - http://www.fflic.org
Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana - http://www.jjpl.org
NOLA Investigates - http://www.nolainvestigates.com
Left Turn Magazine - http://www.leftturn.org
Letter From Angola State Prison, by Nathaniel Anderson, #130547 - http://www.leftturn.org/node/1155

Immigration update

Immigration issues are still on the forefront of politics and news, some updates below:

Democratic Representative Kirsten Gillibrand, who will be taking Senator Hillary Clinton's seat, has come under fire for her restrictive stance on immigration issues. Gillibrand, who was appointed by Gov Paterson, has consistently opposed former Governor Spitzer's proposal to allow undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses. She has also supported English-only initiatives and opposed any amnesty measures for undocumented immigrants. She also opposes many gun control measures. Her appointment was viewed by many as a slap in the face to immigrant New Yorkers, and many Democrats have expressed disappointment and upset over her appointment, even threatening to run against her next year. Full NYT article here

One week ago, Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) organized over a thousand immigrant rights supporters to march and rally in Washington, DC on Obama’s first day in office. Marchers gathered at L’Enfant Plaza and proceeded to ICE headquarters where faith leaders from across the country called for an end to raids that are destroying immigrant communities and fComment Moderationor “just and humane immigration reform.”

Members of the Restaurant Opportunities Center New York accompanied by Judson Memorial’s Jeff Mansfield, traveled to DC for the march. For a film clip of the rally look here

For more information, please visit these organizations:
FIRM: www.anewdayforimmigration.org
ROC-NY: www.rocny.org

from the BBC

Gaza doctor's loss grips Israelis

By Lucy Ash BBC World Service

I first met Dr Izeldeen Abuelaish eight years ago when I made a radio documentary about his extraordinary life and work.

A Palestinian obstetrician who specialises in treating infertility, he lives in Jabaliya in the Gaza Strip, but used to work part-time in Israel helping Jewish women to have babies.

He also had a clinic in Gaza, taught medical school students there and arranged for seriously ill Palestinian patients to be treated in Israel.

He put up with the tedious and sometimes humiliating border checks with dignity and patience.

He stayed calm when one of his own Palestinian medical students told him she was "very, very angry" that he was helping Israelis to have children.

"What if these babies grow up to become soldiers who kill our people?" asked the young woman.

Despite all the suspicion, the hatred and the barriers Dr Abuelaish continued his work.

In 2001, Dr Gad Potashnik was in charge of the IVF clinic at the Soroka University Hospital in Beersheba.

He described Dr Abuelaish as a "magical, secret bridge between Israelis and Palestinians".

But that "magical, secret bridge" is now close to breaking point.

I have stayed in touch with Dr Abuelaish over the years.

Since we met he has had a number of jobs and research posts abroad.

In September 2008 he was about to start working for the European Union in Africa but had to return home after his wife, Nadia, fell ill with leukaemia.

Israeli patients

She died soon after his return, leaving him a widower with eight children aged three to 20.

In the middle of the recent conflict, I interviewed Dr Abuelaish for the BBC World Service's Outlook programme.

He told me all the glass had been blown out of the windows of his house, he could hear firing and explosions all around and he was desperately worried for the safety of his children.

Then on Friday afternoon, just a day before the ceasefire was announced, his worst nightmare came true.

"My daughters were just sitting quietly talking in their bedroom at home," Dr Izeldeen Abuelaish told me on the phone between sobs.

"I had just left the room, carrying my youngest son on my shoulders. Then a shell came through the wall.

"I rushed back to find their dead bodies - or rather parts of their bodies - strewn all over the room. One was still sitting in a chair but she had no legs.

"Tell me why did they have to die? Who gave the order to fire on my house?"

In a voice cracked with emotion, he added: "You know me, Lucy. You have been to my house, my hospital; you have seen my Israeli patients.

"I have tried so hard to bring people on both sides together and just look what I get in return."

The victims were Bisan, aged 20, Mayar, 15, Aya aged 13 and the physician's 17-year-old niece Nur Abuelaish.

"My eldest daughter was five months away from finishing her degree in business and financial management. She was looking forward to the future and I was so proud of her."

I remember talking to Dr Abuelaish in his house as his children scurried around him asking questions and singing songs.

Bisan was a cheeky, bright-eyed girl, keen to show off her English and read aloud from her school text book.

Audience response

During the recent military campaign, Dr Abuelaish, who speaks fluent Hebrew, had been acting as an unofficial correspondent for a Tel Aviv-based TV station, giving daily updates by phone.

He was determined to let Israelis know as much as possible about the suffering of Palestinian civilians under Israel's bombardment.

Minutes after the shell hit his house, Dr Abuelaish phoned the station's presenter, Shlomi Eldar, to describe what had happened.

The Israeli journalist looked awkward and visibly distressed as the doctor's disembodied voice is broadcast crying: "My daughters, they killed them, Oh Lord. God, God, God."

Mr Eldar mobilised his contacts in the Israel military to open the border and fly the injured girls by helicopter to the Tel Hashomer Medical Centre, the largest hospital in Israel.

He said thousands of viewers had called the station following the harrowing interview with Dr Abuelaish.

"I think this broadcast will change public opinion in Israel," said Mr Eldar speaking by phone from Tel Aviv.

"It feels to me as if some of our audience is seeing and hearing about the high price ordinary Palestinians are paying in this conflict for the first time".

Dr Abuelaish's 17-year-old daughter Shadha is recovering there from an operation which may save her right eye, injured in the blast.

Her 12-year-old cousin Daida is in a critical condition from shrapnel wounds.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli military said the incident is now under investigation.

"For the time being, all that I can tell you is that our troops fired on the house because they had come under attack from somewhere in the vicinity of the house. Possibly a sniper but I can't confirm that," the spokeswoman said.

Speaking from the hospital, Dr Abuelaish denied that any militants had been hiding in or firing from his house.

"Violence is never the right way. My daughters and I were armed with nothing but love and hope."

Israel's reputation in Europe

Found this originally on MRZine. I found it especially interesting since I grew up learning about how Europe was very anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.. this is definitely a conversation sparker.

Gaza in Europe
by Jacques Hersh

Freedom of expression is once again on the agenda in Denmark. The country received world attention when the rightist newspaper Jyllands-Posten published provocative cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad a few years ago. The cartoons caused widespread protests in the Muslim world, whereas discussions in Denmark and other Western countries revolved around freedom of the press.

This time, a new cartoon controversy was set off by the liberal daily Politiken. The paper's cartoonist Per Marquard Otzen published a cartoon that depicts Israeli soldiers' behavior in the attack on the Gaza Ghetto by drawing upon a 1943 photograph of Nazi persecution of Jewish women and children in the Warsaw Ghetto.

In an open letter of protest to the editors of the paper, Finn Schwartz, a leader of the Jewish community, asked: "Does Politiken really think, as the cartoon implies, that the relation between Israel and Hamas is comparable to that between Hitler's Germany and European Jews?" The letter expressed pain and anger at the message of the cartoon: "For the Jewish community, especially for the Jews who survived the Holocaust, it is inconceivable to make such comparisons between the Israeli army's conduct and the Nazis' attempt at the final solution [Endlosung] of the Jewish people."

In his reply, Politiken editor-in-chief Toger Seidenfaden says that such a comparison is indeed inappropriate in his opinion and would never appear in an editorial of the paper. But he also makes it clear that he doesn't believe the cartoon to be so crude that it should not have been published at all. Nor does he regard a debatable and disproportionate historical comparison as equivalent to anti-Semitism. Furthermore, he points out the fact that most major newspapers in the world have in fact published similar comparisons.

It should be recalled that there has always been a strong pro-Israel public opinion in Denmark since the proclamation of the Jewish state. However, the war on Gaza has created a shift, which can be also observed within the political class. At a relatively large Copenhagen demonstration against Israel's war on January 13, all parties of the opposition (from the center left to the extreme left) had their leading members speak to the 6,000-7,000 people assembled at City Hall Square and in front of the Danish Parliament.

A similar evolution is visible elsewhere on the continent. There has been much unease in Europe about the scope of Israel's military response and the resulting civilian casualties. Event though the "politically correct" position is still that Israel, like any other country, has the right to defend itself, questions about proportions and consequences for civilians are giving rise to debates on the Israeli policy toward the occupied territories, which are in turn creating a new awareness of the Israel-Palestine problem. The mantle of Jewish victimhood, which has long served to cover Israel's occupation in Palestine and its attacks on its Arab neighbors, is in the process of being frayed by Israel's own warfare on a defenseless population.

Israel has lost carte blanche, and that is a positive development. On the other hand, there is also a negative development: there have been attacks on individual Jews and Jewish symbols in most European countries, raising fears of new anti-Semitism. The promise of Zionism that the creation of a Jewish state would bring safety and security to world Jewry has proven to be an illusion. The tragic irony of modern Jewish history is that anti-Semitism may become reinvigorated, or more accurately a new variety of it may grow, as a reaction against the Zionist project. An increasing number of Jews, especially in the diaspora, are aware of this danger. One of the questions raised by Israel's latest war is what form Jewish responses to Zionism, as well as to shifting public opinions about Israel, will take.